[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Why Useless Knowledge Can Be So Useful

Our lizard friend the Gila monster probably has no idea that a chemical in its spit inspired one of the most important medical advancements of the 21st century.  But this story is really about something bigger. Something deeper, beneath the surface. About why we do science in the first place. And about what kind of questions are the best ones for scientists to ask.

The Cogito is the first knowledge, that we must exist to be thinking about our own existence .
Science determines what are necessarily true for us to exist now.
Engineering determines what are necessarily true or fulfilled for future versions of us to exist in the future.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

How to grow deeply happy | Jonny Thomson

?If we're to be happy at all, it has to be found outside of this notion of pleasure. We have to step beyond hedonia. But the problem is that we risk going too far.?

Humans have been chasing happiness for thousands of years. But we can't seem to agree on the exact definition of happiness and it's often presented as simply a smiling face on social media. Jonny Thomson, author and our very own staff writer here at Big Think, argues that happiness is less of a smiling face, rather, happiness is a smiling soul.

Thomson runs the social media account ?Mini Philosophy,? where he distills complex philosophical ideas into bite-sized lessons. So, what can philosophy teach us about happiness? By examining different schools of philosophical thought, we can learn a lot about different ways to create happiness.

From Buddhism, Daoism, and ancient Greece to the philosophers of today, Thomson leads us through 2,500 years of happiness philosophy and carves out 3 simple methods that you can use to usher greater happiness into your life.

Timestamps:
00:00: What is the end point?
01:46: The philosophies of happiness
02:31: 3 pillars of happiness
03:00: Happiness ≠ pleasure
04:40: Moderation
05:53: Virtue
08:08: Applying the 3 pillars

About Jonny Thomson:

Jonny Thomson taught philosophy in Oxford for more than a decade before turning to writing full-time. He?s a columnist at Big Think and is the award-winning, bestselling author of three books that have been translated into 22 languages.

Jonny is also the founder of Mini Philosophy, a social network of over half a million curious, intelligent minds. He's known all over the world for making philosophy accessible, relatable, and fun.

Pain and pleasure are primitive shorthand evaluation methods for determining if we are in bad or good situations. Suffering and happiness are more closely related to expectation of pain and pleasure, which requires the capacity of thinking about causality. They can provide more effective methods of decision making for a bit longer term results. Even longer term results would require rational thinking and accurate model of physical reality.
In the end, we are forced to face the ground truth: whether or not we are aware of our own consciousness. This is the very first knowledge that any conscious entity can ever have. But without those aforementioned short hands, we are less likely to live long enough to even contemplate about our own existence.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I sold my last company for $1 billion. I know how to make money.

Even I don't consider myself a good investor. Investing is a whole different thing. It's gambling. It is understanding where things are going to go in a wildly complicated market, not having any control over it, but being able to bet on what's going to work out.

It's crazy, but it is literally a casino.

Now, once you understand that when people come to you and they say, "Hey, you should invest in your 401K."

What they're saying is, "Put your gambling money in the 401K, we will gamble it for you in the most sensible sort of way."

Your Money Is Being Manipulated

The money supply is being manipulated to your disadvantage unless you are hyper educated in finance.

That's why the poor get poorer, and the rich get richer.

Inflation is theft. The government steals from you, so that they can do things that they know you'll vote against.

They inflate the money supply, which leaves the same number of dollars in your bank account, but gives them some of the buying power (that should be yours).
The right way to think about 2% or 3% inflation is the government saying, "Look we're going to steal 2-3% of your money without having to ask you for it, without having to make it an official tax. We are going to take it from you. Because we do that, saving money doesn't serve you because your money will be worth less tomorrow than it is today."

So you have to go gamble, which we're lovingly going to call "invest". You're going to have to go gamble that money to try to make a return that is greater than the amount that we steal from you.

[alancalverd]

Governments don't cause inflation - the lack of competition does that.

It is arguable that inflation is anyway inherent in capitalism. Investors demand profit, so you have to sell goods for more than it costs to make them. Take the simplest one-product economy, where you dig stuff out of the ground and sell it. The minimum sale price is the wages of the diggers. Now add a profit, and the sale price of the product necessarily exceeds the wages of the workers, so you have to print more money to allow people to buy what they have made!

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Governments don't cause inflation - the lack of competition does that.

The term originates from the Latin inflare (to blow into or inflate). Conceptually, inflation refers to the general trend of prices, not changes in any specific price. For example, if people choose to buy more cucumbers than tomatoes, cucumbers consequently become more expensive and tomatoes less expensive. These changes are not related to inflation; they reflect a shift in tastes. Inflation is related to the value of currency itself. When currency was linked with gold, if new gold deposits were found, the price of gold and the value of currency would fall, and consequently, prices of all other goods would become higher.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation#Terminology

The lack of competition is only one of potential cause, which usually leads to decrease in supply of resources. Government's decision is another one.
The currency acts like a measurement standard for measuring the value of resources, which is affected by supply and demand. In a simplest case where supply and demand of the real resources remains constant, but the amount of currency is increased, then we get inflation of that particular currency. On the other hand, if the amount of currency is decreased, then we get deflation.

[alancalverd]

For example, if people choose to buy more cucumbers than tomatoes, cucumbers consequently become more expensive and tomatoes less expensive.

If people choose to buy more transistors than vacuum tubes, your entire economic model is destroyed.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

For example, if people choose to buy more cucumbers than tomatoes, cucumbers consequently become more expensive and tomatoes less expensive.

If people choose to buy more transistors than vacuum tubes, your entire economic model is destroyed.

The example above doesn't say that cucumbers become more expensive than tomatoes. It says that cucumbers become more expensive than before, while tomatoes become less expensive than before. Increase in demand prompts increasing the production capacity, which reduces cost through economy of scale.

People's preferences depend on their reasonings. Apart from curiosity, they are affected by functionality and economic costs of the resources.
In the end their preferences will affect their fitness and survival in competitive environment.

[alancalverd]

It says that cucumbers become more expensive than before, while tomatoes become less expensive than before.

Which is exactly the opposite of what happened to transistors and vacuum tubes. Or houses and cars.

Come to think of it, even the  cucumber/tomato model is wrong. The method of production of both fruits is very similar, and is overall limited by the area of greenhouse available, so if demand for cucumbers increases, you just grow more cucumbers and fewer tomatoes, and the price of tomatoes increases!

That's the beauty of economics - there are no wrong answers to the exam questions.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Which is exactly the opposite of what happened to transistors and vacuum tubes. Or houses and cars.

Production costs, operating costs and practicality play significant impacts on the final prices.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

That's the beauty of economics - there are no wrong answers to the exam questions.

Except when the wrong answer causes  significant impact on people's lives.

[alancalverd]

People don't matter to an economist. All that counts is selling your model to a politician, and getting a research grant to develop another one.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

How Bitcoin ACTUALLY Works - Michael Saylor

The claim that bitcoin is risk free ignited a debate in the comment section.

This discussion does not mention the real risk.
Bitcoin is a "currency" with zero intrinsic value, like US$.
Bitcoin is not "money" with intrinsic value, like gold.
The moment no one wants the Bitcoin for whatever reason, the holder has nothing of value.
The risk of Bitcoin is just that, it can, in a heart beat, fall to zero value.
People holding on to Bitcoin saying they have made x amount of $ because of current rate are delusional, the only people who ever made money on Bitcoin sold it. If some event happens where people run to sell, you will quickly realize your losses. Bitcoin is a very high risk (could quickly have zero value) currency (not money) that so far has yielded great returns.

Value is always subjective.
The moment no one wants gold, just like Bitcoin, the holder has nothing of value. The risk of gold is similar ? it could fall to zero if demand disappears. The value of gold is driven by human perception - there is no intrinsic value of gold written in itself. Yes there is culutral and industrial demand for gold but this is also true for Bitcoin.

Arguments like  "The moment no one wants Bitcoin for whatever reason, the holder has nothing of value." and "Bitcoin could, in a heartbeat, fall to zero value." is true for all assets - they?re valuable because we choose to value them.

One lesson from this thread is that we can't value things if we are not conscious, like when we go are driven into extinction.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

People don't matter to an economist. All that counts is selling your model to a politician, and getting a research grant to develop another one.

People's lives do matter to people.
John F. Kennedy: 'Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.'

[alancalverd]

Food and water have intrinsic value, as does land, because they are all essential. Work has intrinsic value but is evanescent, so we reward and represent it with currency which is permanent, transferrable, and at least linked to something of intrinsic value. Problem with cryptocurrency is that it never represented anything essential, nor human effort of value to the donor of the currency, so the number attached to it only represents somebody's guess at what it might be exchanged for in the future.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Food and water have intrinsic value, as does land, because they are all essential.

Until the technology is advanced enough to allow a complete recycling.

Land in itself doesn't carry much value, since most land on earth is not occupied. So is land on the moon, Mars, Venus, Ceres, etc.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Work has intrinsic value but is evanescent, so we reward and represent it with currency which is permanent, transferrable, and at least linked to something of intrinsic value.

Intrinsic value of work is in rearranging information or materials to fulfill customers' needs. Automation makes work cheaper in most cases.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The claim that bitcoin is risk free ignited a debate in the comment section.

Crypto currencies started with idea of avoiding centralized institutions from overly controlling our transactions and taking away some values from those transactions.
When governments start to realize that Bitcoin or other crypto currencies have taken away a significant portion of their power, they will start restricting or even banning it outright. This is the biggest risk of crypto, IMO.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Problem with cryptocurrency is that it never represented anything essential, nor human effort of value to the donor of the currency, so the number attached to it only represents somebody's guess at what it might be exchanged for in the future.

Your concern has been addressed by the comments I posted in reply#1731

[alancalverd]

Until the technology is advanced enough to allow a complete recycling.

Or regresses to a pre-industrial level where recycling was indeed 100%.

Land in itself doesn't carry much value, since most land on earth is not occupied. So is land on the moon, Mars, Venus, Ceres, etc.

It all has intrinsic value since everyone has to be somewhere, but that value can be anywhere between $1.5M and 2.5 cents per square meter for habitable land on this planet alone. If bits of another planet were for sale you'd have to consider the initial cost of claiming ownership and occupying it.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Or regresses to a pre-industrial level where recycling was indeed 100%.

But it run in uncontrolled conditions, which involved a lot of uncertainties, and took a lot of time and space, which caused unconsidered side effects.