Curtis, you write "The capacity for significant collective ironic action is very rare in human history—so rare that I am at a loss to think of another example. It must have happened."
I've always been sceptical of the idea that the Bronze Age oecumene was destroyed by iron. Perhaps it died of irony. This is almost, but not quite, the so-called general systems theory of the Late Bronze Age Collapse. That theory proposes that Bronze Age societies became too complex for their participants to sustain. I find that chauvinistic towards the past. But as you clearly know, the old meaning of εἰρωνεία is no more or less than "acting retarded". If irony is taken in that sense, then collective ironic action is a convincing explanation. Pretty powerful historical force. Careful with that axe, Eugene!
Post-irony is doing well for itself in 2021. Does this bode well for those rooting for the kind of change outlined thus far in GM? Obviously too early to tell, but my gut tells me it's better than where we were prior to the introduction of the red pill. And we have complexity in spades these days. Ready your popcorn.
As the foremost moldbug scholar on my block I am shocked to find there are hidden articles at https://www.unqualified-reservations.org. what else is hidden in those archives... or is there a computer way to download them
Revisiting the throwback spaghetti meme had me rolling!
Just throwing up a flag here to get a feel of the breadth of our audience: anyone else here a fan of both 4Chan and GM? Equal rights for low brow as well as high! An odd crossover of platforms maybe, but here we are. (Unless it is indeed only me.)
I poast on /v/ sometimes, and I have once spent an entire long weekend reading every single essay on Unqualified Reservations. The thing about 4chan is that it can be surprisingly highbrow at times; remember when someone posted a new math proof on there?
>Obviously, a mob is a wild, reasonless animal. Philosophy cannot predict it, any more than philosophy can predict a wolverine.
Something Moldbug didn't touch on is that Reddit is very patriotic about video games. The short selling of a video game store's stock is seen as an attack on gaming, and those farts in suits are clearly out of touch with the populace. Prediction: video games are only going to get more important.
It's a bit like when Americans started buying Lego because some Muslims were boycotting it: not textbook-rational economic behaviour, but not wild and reasonless either.
Otherwise, a great post and return to form; bravo!
Actually these guys at hedgefunds don’t wear suits - they wear khakis and the like. If they actually wore three-piece Savile Row bespoke suits, I might be on their side. Oh well..
Its amazing how big story this is considering at some level how complicated it is - I was listening to one of my NBA podcasts, I've been listening to these guys for years - they only ever talk NBA and the occasional story from their private lives - never politics, never anything outside the NBA - they talked about GME for 20 minutes...I would say the Silicon valley folks have the best handle on what actually happened - Chamath's explanation is the easiest for a stockmarket idiot like myself to follow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWEPSKkkdKQ - his run for Governor against Grusome will be interesting to watch, if only in a dispassionate, nihilist non-voting sort of way...
> Here is a collective action which is effective, yet nihilistic
How the fuckity fuck is it nihilistic?! Are you so nihilistic that you don't think the word nihilism has any meaning? You need to write a detailed post on what nihilism means to you and link to that page every time you use the word. You either have some obscure definition in your mind, or maybe you're co-opting the word as some vague idea as "against the system by any means necessary" because it's fashionable?
I can appreciate this sentiment, but I do not think it is possible.
Careful burns would have required will and preparation and it did not exist. We must then take any burns we can get; and embrace the arsonists for they are our new and ONLY Champions.
The other side understood that, and bought them.
We got on with our bourgeois lives and awoke in Eastern Europe-I mean the old one. That is what care and avoiding precipices got us, if we continue we’ll be genocided - quietly, for we were meek.
So No, in a word. We passed on preparation and organization so now we take what we can as we can. Burning is the price of survival.
I suppose it can be seen as nihilistic in its overall theme: regardless of outcome the entire episode displays clearly to us that every facet of the current 'system' (both political and economic) is "fake and gay" - a giant house of cards completely devoid of meaning (and growing more fragile by the day).
Futures markets would be the obvious mechanism for separating the "real" market of stocks from predictions. Shorting would only be allowed on the futures market (where it could be done to arbitrary level without borrowing as long as margin was sufficient -- i.e. how the futures markets work right now). Cash v phys settle is an interesting question. To avoid feedback into the "real" market, I assume the preference would be for cash settle.
To be clear, I don't actually agree with the article.
GME is a tiny blip. One of a few on an otherwise long history of efficient price discovery and very useful hedging tools. The cost-benefit trade-off is imo very clearly in favor of shorting.
Also thinking about the settlement question a bit more: an auction might prove to be a good solution. The problem with cash settle is that it can drift from the underlying asset because there's no way to physically force the equivalence. The problem with physical settle is that you start running into shortages. An auction solves both problems.
When I read speculative prose about the economy, I always wish that there was a really good piece of interactive software to model the economy, investment and speculation and all, which would decisively demonstrate who is right and who is wrong. Especially when the author is making analogies to programming languages.
I mean, we definitely have the computing power to model 7 billion people or less. Is anyone working on this type of project?
if I've understood you correctly: See the markets/exchanges themselves. See also, technical analysis. (helpful but often utterly wrong) If it were so easy, there would be no speculation of markets, just knowing the future. Turns out there's no magic 8 ball for those answers.
Tl;dr all in on silver
Actual physical silver or the $SLV and $PSLV ETFs or both?
Both. Give your local coin shop a visit today as place an order on Apmex, jmbullion, etc.
All power to the soyjaks comrades
I was planning on holding some anyway. Manage to squeeze just enough out of the local dealer to cover my budget exactly.
Quackocracy: "DoJ announces thousands of /r/wallstreetbets posters arrested and charged with outsider trading."
Damn, that 2005 poast... the logical/argumentative style is Moldbuggian but the writing style most definitely is not. Deep fucking lore.
Remember, it's not about the money. *It's about sending a message*.
Tell Melvin don’t worry, we’re only burning their half.
Yarvin writes faster than I can read. I need to step up my autiste powers.
I literally said the same this morning
Curtis, you write "The capacity for significant collective ironic action is very rare in human history—so rare that I am at a loss to think of another example. It must have happened."
I've always been sceptical of the idea that the Bronze Age oecumene was destroyed by iron. Perhaps it died of irony. This is almost, but not quite, the so-called general systems theory of the Late Bronze Age Collapse. That theory proposes that Bronze Age societies became too complex for their participants to sustain. I find that chauvinistic towards the past. But as you clearly know, the old meaning of εἰρωνεία is no more or less than "acting retarded". If irony is taken in that sense, then collective ironic action is a convincing explanation. Pretty powerful historical force. Careful with that axe, Eugene!
Post-irony is doing well for itself in 2021. Does this bode well for those rooting for the kind of change outlined thus far in GM? Obviously too early to tell, but my gut tells me it's better than where we were prior to the introduction of the red pill. And we have complexity in spades these days. Ready your popcorn.
As the foremost moldbug scholar on my block I am shocked to find there are hidden articles at https://www.unqualified-reservations.org. what else is hidden in those archives... or is there a computer way to download them
ok I learned who to use wget
Elaborate
this article https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/archive/john_law_safehaven.html I downloaded all the /archive/ folder only this and part 2 were in there.
Revisiting the throwback spaghetti meme had me rolling!
Just throwing up a flag here to get a feel of the breadth of our audience: anyone else here a fan of both 4Chan and GM? Equal rights for low brow as well as high! An odd crossover of platforms maybe, but here we are. (Unless it is indeed only me.)
Here from 9gag
I can confirm it is only you.
With an avatar like that? I don't believe you.
Every day until you like it.
I poast on /v/ sometimes, and I have once spent an entire long weekend reading every single essay on Unqualified Reservations. The thing about 4chan is that it can be surprisingly highbrow at times; remember when someone posted a new math proof on there?
Equal rights and equal lefts.
Everyone
I just like the mint
>Obviously, a mob is a wild, reasonless animal. Philosophy cannot predict it, any more than philosophy can predict a wolverine.
Something Moldbug didn't touch on is that Reddit is very patriotic about video games. The short selling of a video game store's stock is seen as an attack on gaming, and those farts in suits are clearly out of touch with the populace. Prediction: video games are only going to get more important.
It's a bit like when Americans started buying Lego because some Muslims were boycotting it: not textbook-rational economic behaviour, but not wild and reasonless either.
Otherwise, a great post and return to form; bravo!
Actually these guys at hedgefunds don’t wear suits - they wear khakis and the like. If they actually wore three-piece Savile Row bespoke suits, I might be on their side. Oh well..
Its amazing how big story this is considering at some level how complicated it is - I was listening to one of my NBA podcasts, I've been listening to these guys for years - they only ever talk NBA and the occasional story from their private lives - never politics, never anything outside the NBA - they talked about GME for 20 minutes...I would say the Silicon valley folks have the best handle on what actually happened - Chamath's explanation is the easiest for a stockmarket idiot like myself to follow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWEPSKkkdKQ - his run for Governor against Grusome will be interesting to watch, if only in a dispassionate, nihilist non-voting sort of way...
At this point I just want to see The Fed lowball the public for their GME in stock market credit. It’s not an impossible outcome.
> Here is a collective action which is effective, yet nihilistic
How the fuckity fuck is it nihilistic?! Are you so nihilistic that you don't think the word nihilism has any meaning? You need to write a detailed post on what nihilism means to you and link to that page every time you use the word. You either have some obscure definition in your mind, or maybe you're co-opting the word as some vague idea as "against the system by any means necessary" because it's fashionable?
He doesn’t have non obscure definitions, have you read UR?
I've only read a few UR posts but glad to read one on the details of his nihilism.
Well he’s hard to pin down and has evolved, but his post a few days ago seems to clarify.
Frankly when I think nihilism I could read Nietzsche or Brett Stevens; or I can look at Nazi germany, Or D’aesh.
It seems to go pagan in real life, just my take.
And.... yes... Real Nihilism?
Why its never been tried!
Why would you expect a nihilist to do what you ask of him?
Isn't there a self-interest in using clear definitions? This isn't just political Dadaism, is it?
No.
Just burn it all.
Life is good and we live on the precipice of an angry nature. Careful burns only, please.
I can appreciate this sentiment, but I do not think it is possible.
Careful burns would have required will and preparation and it did not exist. We must then take any burns we can get; and embrace the arsonists for they are our new and ONLY Champions.
The other side understood that, and bought them.
We got on with our bourgeois lives and awoke in Eastern Europe-I mean the old one. That is what care and avoiding precipices got us, if we continue we’ll be genocided - quietly, for we were meek.
So No, in a word. We passed on preparation and organization so now we take what we can as we can. Burning is the price of survival.
I suppose it can be seen as nihilistic in its overall theme: regardless of outcome the entire episode displays clearly to us that every facet of the current 'system' (both political and economic) is "fake and gay" - a giant house of cards completely devoid of meaning (and growing more fragile by the day).
We have at least one prominent WSBster posting a screed about revenge and implied ethics.
One of the dangers of nihilism (like any deontology, btw) is the blindness of fitting everything into too-narrow of a worldview.
Futures markets would be the obvious mechanism for separating the "real" market of stocks from predictions. Shorting would only be allowed on the futures market (where it could be done to arbitrary level without borrowing as long as margin was sufficient -- i.e. how the futures markets work right now). Cash v phys settle is an interesting question. To avoid feedback into the "real" market, I assume the preference would be for cash settle.
To be clear, I don't actually agree with the article.
GME is a tiny blip. One of a few on an otherwise long history of efficient price discovery and very useful hedging tools. The cost-benefit trade-off is imo very clearly in favor of shorting.
Also thinking about the settlement question a bit more: an auction might prove to be a good solution. The problem with cash settle is that it can drift from the underlying asset because there's no way to physically force the equivalence. The problem with physical settle is that you start running into shortages. An auction solves both problems.
Oh: and a settlement auction is pretty close to Yarvin's preferred strategy of the fed grabbing all assets and auctioning them back to the market.
When I read speculative prose about the economy, I always wish that there was a really good piece of interactive software to model the economy, investment and speculation and all, which would decisively demonstrate who is right and who is wrong. Especially when the author is making analogies to programming languages.
I mean, we definitely have the computing power to model 7 billion people or less. Is anyone working on this type of project?
"I mean, we definitely have the computing power to model 7 billion people or less"
This is hilariously wrong.
Have you ever seen "Synecdoche New York"? Your idea reminds me of that movie. Maybe solve the JFK thing first, for practice.
if I've understood you correctly: See the markets/exchanges themselves. See also, technical analysis. (helpful but often utterly wrong) If it were so easy, there would be no speculation of markets, just knowing the future. Turns out there's no magic 8 ball for those answers.
Any policy that rewards people for stuffing currency in mattresses is bad. Deflation is bad.