macgurn-blog

[macgurn-blog]

Is the US becoming an oligarchy?

Most likely, yes. We started out as a group of slave powered colonies, then after a few hundred years we became a republic to protect slave owners, then slavery ended and after suffrage was won we headed towards becoming a democracy which peaked shortly after the civil rights era, but before democracy could take hold we became a corporatocracy which we are now, and before liberals, millenials, and disenfranchised minorities have a chance to steer us back towards democracy we will become an oligocracy, and then eventually a full fledged oligarchy.

Many optimistic liberals believe we can still turn this ship around and become a democracy, but the reason we won't is simple: the corporations own and operate both parties which are now virtually indistinguishable aside from stances on some trivial social issues.

There are only a few minor obstacles to overcome before we transition from corporatocracy to oligarchy:

Firstly, the internet has become the only reliable source of accurate information, and therefore needs to be completely controlled and manipulated. With the gradual loss of net neutrality, the internet will eventually no longer be an issue. The loss of the internet as a tool to rally against the power of the corporatocracy will be the end of free speech as we know it.

Secondly, a third party could emerge that threatens to represent the will of the masses. The establishment parties have already demonstrated their deft ability to quash third parties from having any meaningful impact as we saw most recently when they handcuffed Jill Stein and her running mate when they tried to participate in the presidential debates. Bernie Sanders was more or less railroaded in to supporting an establishment candidate immediately after the same establishment cheated him out of any chance of winning the party nomination.

Thirdly there is the threat of revolution, but as we continue to militarize the police, any groups that threaten to overthrow any part of government can and will be brought down and marginalized.

Fourthly, AGI will blossom out of a wiki type crowd-sourced algorithm database which will create a utopia for all creatures human and non-human alike to share in its infinite bounty. Sadly, that isn't how oligarchies operate. Once AGI is created, the rich and powerful will seize control and use it as a tool to monitor everyone else and prevent them from creating another version.

How bad is oligarchy anyways? Isn't Putin's oligarchy doing pretty well? No, Putin assasinates reporters that talk against him, and he executes rival oligarchs and distributes their wealth between himself and his oligarch buddies. In Russia it's illegal to create or show unflattering images of Putin. In Russia if you create a brilliant new product, Putin's mobsters are sure to take the lion's share if not all of the profits from your idea. Homosexuals are persecuted in Russia. Millions of people starve to death or commit suicide in Russia every year.

If you're dead set on living in a democracy then your only chance is to buy yourself Canadian citizenship which is neither cheap nor easy.

If there is ANY hope at all, it's that the sleeping masses will somehow wake THE FUCK up. The truth is available to anyone who's ever heard of YouTube. Here's a perfect example of a source for truth: https://youtu.be/6qKrPPv2ErY but sadly hardly anybody tunes in.

Good luck to you all. I'm focusing all of my efforts on getting the fuck out of this country before it's to late!

[macgurn-blog]

Is Bitcoin a scam?

12/17/2017

After weeks of diligent research I have concluded that currently all cryptocurrencies are pure bullshit. Every single one that I've looked at so far anyways, and there are several hundreds.

How do we know you ask? Just look at the non-effort to increase transaction volume. In the entertainment world, content is king. In the world of currencies, transaction volume is king. Transaction volume is precisely the reason the US dollar is king. If serious businesses aren't selling actual goods and services for Bitcoin then there's really no point to it. It fits the textbook definition of a Ponzi Scheme: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

If Bitcoin was serious about becoming a viable transaction currency, they would remove price volatility from the equation and spend most of their effort incentivising businesses to accept it as a form of payment. No serious business wants to be paid with money that could lose half it's value overnight. A point that Warren Buffet also made when asked about cryptos.

Here's a video that demonstrates the enormous waste involved with maintaining the Bitcoin hype: https://youtu.be/2Jqf_wZKFCc

The reason they often build these blockchain mining bases near power plants in freezing climates is because the cooling is a huge expense.

Listen to the world's leading security expert explain some basic security issues with crypto: https://youtu.be/syI9X_uKvUA

Besides these remarkable security flaws, there's a myth being hyped about blockchains being decentralized systems. The fact that none of them are decentralized and that all of them are actually maintained and controled by system administrators leads to even more doubts about how secure they are, not to mention the shadow this debunked myth casts on their credibility.

Note that McAfee owns a Bitcoin mining facility and has found numerous security issues that are inherent in all blockchain software. Despite these vulnerabilities McAfee supports the Bitcoin hype because of his steak in the scheme.

Paul Krugman said Bitcoin is a Ponzi Scheme that will stay afloat until somebody looks down and sees there's no floor beneath them.

Don't get me wrong, the US dollar is also a scam, mainly due to the fact that The Fed prints money (quantitative easing) to raise inflation, a subtle type of tax for the privilege of following the almighty dollar. Plus there's the periodic bank bailouts we pay for.

It won't be an easy task to invent a self-stabilizing cryptocurrency that competes with fiat currencies, but it is possible.

One idea is to invent an encryption program that turns smart-phones in to blockchain nodes, which would theoretically make big hubs obsolete. Then a simple algorithm would equalize the value of the currency after every exchange so there wouldn't be any speculation. Profits from exchanges could be used to incentivise businesses to join, and also for advertisement and software maintenance.

There are crypto-coins pegged to the US dollar but I can't vouch for any of them because there is virtually no transaction volume, and of course exchange volume doesn't count.

Cryto-futures are being offered as a way to guarantee retailers that their crypto-revenues don't lose value, but as we saw during the bank bailouts, futures are essentially insurance contracts that in the event the cryptocurrency bubble pops, the insurance companies are free to declare bancruptcy. Best case scenario: the Fed steps in and buys the insurance companies in which case your crypto money is actually US currency which defeats the whole purpose of cryptocurrency in the first place.

I strongly suspect that the reason Satoshi Nakamoto haven't revealed themselves is because when the shit hits the fan, they don't want to be seen holding the smoking gun.

Eventually the current cryptocurrency bubble will pop, and the next generation of digital currencies will emerge. I predict that many years from now a solid digital currency will be the norm for the vast majority of transactions. In the mean time, we're stuck with the buck!

#satoshinakamoto #ethereum #dontpanic #gambling #winning #trust #cryptocurrency #crypto #bitcoin #forex #motivation #money #luxury #stocks #stocktrading #stocktrader #millions #billionaire #dreambig #laptoplife #nodaysoff #millionaire #traderslifestyle #hardwork #hardworkpays #luxurylifestyle #eth #genetics #science

[macgurn-blog]

Is "free will" an illusion?

I am a so called "compatibilist", which means that I believe free will is compatible with determinism. This may seem contradictory or even ridiculous at first, but if you follow my logic, I'm sure you'll agree.

Determinism means that since the laws of nature / physics are unbending and perfectly logical, the position and momentum of all things in any one moment in time, predetermine the position and momentum of all things at any later moment in time. Theoretically, if I gathered enough data on the position and momentum of all things, and if I knew perfectly all of the laws of nature, given adequate time and computational power, I could accurately predict anything, even my own future choices. For example: this is exactly how weather is predicted. We use various gadgets to determine the current condition of the atmosphere and things tangential to it, and then we use computational algorithms to make predictions. If we have perfect data, and make perfect calculations, we can predict the weather perfectly accurately. However, it is impossible to collect perfect data on anything, and we also don't know all of the laws of physics, so the best we can ever do is make reasonably good predictions of the weather. Likewise, since it is impossible to collect perfect data on the current state of my brain and everything tangential to it, it is also impossible to predict what choices I will be making in the future.

Free will means that I get to consciously choose between one course of action and another based on my own personal preferences at the moment I decide which action to take. Robots also make choices, but they're not conscious, so they don't actually choose freely. At first it may seem contradictory to believe that all things are predetermined including my future choices, and yet I still get to make those choices, but it is the very fact that I can predict the consequences of my actions with reasonable certainty that allows me to make logical decisions in the first place. Oddly however, even if the laws of nature were randomly and unpredictably changing from one moment to the next, not allowing me to make reasonable predictions of the consequences of my actions, I would still be able to make decisions based on my preferences, therefore free will exists even if determinism does not.

The only conceivable way that my choices might not be made freely would be if I myself was not in control of my mind and body, but insofar as I believe I am in control, I also believe that I make my own choices. This is not to be confused with choices that are made for me by others. Free will constitutes only choices that are presented before me that nobody else has any say over. These are choices of actions that I will be taking myself assuming I have the physical ability to execute those actions. If I was completely paralyzed but with my mind in tact, my ability to do things would be severely limited, but even then I would still be able to make choices, such as whether I want to think about bananas or monkeys. Likewise if I was ever to find myself confined in a straight jacket and tied to a chair in solitary confinement, I would still have free will to try to free myself from the jacket or not. I may not ever escape the jacket, but at least I could choose to try.

One might argue that being confined to a straight jacket in solitary confinement would rob me of my free will, but in a sense we are all in one form of confinement or another. For example: when was the last time you chose to travel to the galaxy of Andromeda? Never, right? Not you, nor anyone you know, unless you have an astronaut friend, is free to escape the gravity trapping us on this planet, but even the astronaut has no way of getting to Andromeda. We are all confined to our tiny little solar system in this remote galaxy, far far away from Andromeda. We only get to choose to do things that are possible for us to do, but regardless of what level of confinement we are forced to adhere to, we still have choices to make, and that means that no matter what, we always have free will.

Freedom of action and free will are not the same thing. Just because I can't choose to be a rhinoceros, doesn't mean there are no other choices for me to make. Freedom of action is limited to things I could theoretically do, whereas free will includes only the things that I want to do. If someone forced me to do something I didn't want to do, then on some level, I still had a choice to make, which means that I did want to do it even though I strongly would rather not have done it, therefore the definition of "want" is to decide to choose one action over another based on the determination of which action is the least undesirable.

All decisions are made based on "want". If we do something without any consideration of the consequences of that action, then we acted without choosing, in which case any consequences were accidental. I didn't want to fall asleep while driving and thus kill the man I ran over, therefore it was an accident. This removes me from the guilt of having chosen to kill him, but I'm still guilty of negligence for having chosen to drive while sleepy, therefore I am guilty of manslaughter. I didn't want to kill anyone but I did kill him. I didn't want to fall asleep while driving but I did fall asleep, and as a consequence I killed a man. The free will came in to play the moment I chose to drive while knowingly sleepy. I based my decision on the determination that it would be able to stay awake, and unfortunately I was wrong and caused an accident. I'm guilty of making a bad decision, which ultimately lead to a bad outcome.

Many people believe that things are not predetermined, that mother nature does not adhere to strict rules, and that perhaps a supernatural entity is himself making all of our decisions for us in advance, and that he decides what is, and what is not, and how nature works, or if it even works at all, so if that's the case then he is also the one writing this blog for me, so you can take it as the word of God. I did not choose to write this blog, God did, and he knows everything so it must be correct! Or maybe he wrote it knowing that it was false and is therefore pulling your leg. In either case, since God is making all of my decisions for me, then I am essentially an extension of him, and therefore every decision I make is by his free will, which is then essentially also my free will, in which case I not only have free will, I am also able to travel to Andromeda whenever I so choose! Such is the logic of deists!

In reality there can be no God, because if there was, then it begs the question, "Who made God?" We know that God cannot make himself because in order to do that, he would have to not exist at the moment he decided to create himself, thus simultaneously existing and not existing, a logical fallacy!

We also know that he can not have existed before time because without time, there is no change, and without change there is no future, and if there is no future, then there is no past, and if there is no past, then there never was anything, and nothing will ever be, which we know to be false since here we are now!

We also know that a God did not create time, because in order to do that, he would need time to do so, and since he hadn't created time yet, he would have no time to create time, and therefore time would never exist, in which case clocks would not exist, but we since we have clocks, we have time, and therefore time exists independently!

I hope this explains why we know free will is not an illusion. I suppose it's theoretically possible to exist solely as an observer without any ability to act thoughtfully in any way, but clearly I am not in that predicament, nor would I want to be!

[macgurn-blog]

Is AlphaZero a cheater?

[Update:] February 2019, Stockfish beat AlphaZero on equal footing as predicted. In order for A0 to qualify for the TCEC competition, Google's Deep Mind team had to make a version of A0 that could operate under competition rules, thus Leela Chess Zero was created. Finally, we have a way to compare A0 to the rest of the competition, and unsurprisingly it failed to measure up. Stockfish 190203 defeated LCZero v20.2-32930 by a score of 50.5-49.5 in the TCEC Season 14 Superfinal 100-game match held in February 2019.

12/7/2017

Yesterday my nerd oriented news feed was flooded with reports of Google's AlphaZero / Deep Mind AI program slaughtering the reigning world champion chess engine Stockfish with 28 decisive games and no losses after only 4 hours of self training. This news warmed my heart, as I have lost countless thousands of training games to Stockfish, Houdini, Fritz, & Komodo over the years, with only a few dozen cherished hard fought wins & draws under my belt. In one game AlphaZero (A0) sacrificed 3 pawns for a positional advantage, and then spent another 60 moves to force a resignation by Stockfish, the kind of masterful gambit you rarely see!

Unfortunately, although the 28 wins displayed a level of play we rarely see, what none of the reports mention is that A0 actually cheated! Here are 5 reasons the contest was not legitimate:

#1 The only way to accurately assess the true strength of a chess engine is to abide by the TCEC rules which stipulate that during a match, both engines must have equal computation time & power regardless of time controls. A0 used that 4 hour "training period" to construct a relational database the size of a football field (sextillion evaluated board positions), using hundreds of 2nd generation 11.5 petaflop TPU modules to do so. During the match vs Stockfish, A0 only needed one module to access and navigate between branches in its newly constructed database. This vs Stockfish operating with a much smaller database explains 28 wins with no losses! In games like chess that can be calculated with brute force, the bigger database always wins. The monster database A0 had at its disposal constitutes an unfair computational advantage.

#2 Stockfish & his rivals Houdini & Komodo each perform differently under different time controls. For the A0 match they conveniently chose a 1 minute per move time control, which is not any kind of typical setting, and not one that Stockfish performs optimally at. 1 minute turns out to be just enough time for A0 to navigate between branches in its massive relational database, giving it an unfair computational advantage!

#3 Stockfish is not actually the reigning champion. It was defeated already in the TCEC Season 10 by Houdini & Komodo. Houdini is en route to becoming the new champion in a few days. They claim they beat the champ, but in reality, they beat an old version of a former champ, a fact that they must have known when they inaccurately announced their crushing victory.

#4 Google's team avoided appointing an independent arbiter for the match and never offered any form of verification that their claims were true. Did it really only "self learn" for 4 hours? How big was its database of move positions (estimated sextillions)? Did it merely use brute force or did it actually teach itself deep chess theory the likes of which have never been seen? None of their claims are remotely verifiable. When Stockfish did become champion late in 2016 it was subjected to strict rules and supervision to ensure that no cheating took place in TCEC Season 9. In this match, A0 was not restricted in any verifiable way!

#5 If Deep Mind truly did "self learn" itself to be the penultimate GM, and on equal footing in terms of computational hardware as they claim, then it must have developed some very deep chess theory, the likes of which have never been seen before. In that case, the total resources needed to beat it's first known competitor must be comparable to the total sum of the Stockfish program, which means that it could be easily packaged and exported as a stand alone product alongside the current bonafide leading engine Houdini-6.03. A0 would not only become the #1 selling engine on the market, it would also gain the notoriety that entails. But this will not happen, not because they're too modest to take their fair market share of the chess engine business, and not because there would be any risk to their highly proprietary intellectual property, but because they did not do what they claimed to have done. They used Deep Mind's superior processing capability to look deeper in to the tree of possible future positions than Stockfish possibly could. That alone explains the flawless performance, without the need for developing deep chess theory. This wasn't some genius noob beating a genius expert, this was a noob remotely launching a nuclear weapon vs a genius armed with only a shotgun. The noob didn't need to be smarter to win, he only needed a far superior weapon! Sooner or later, they will either be exposed for being a fraud, or they'll have to show some tangible results.

Now before anyone tries to claim that there's no way to package A0 as a stand alone product, superior in every way to all competitors old and new, you should know that this isn't a controversial concept. Software companies with far fewer employees write and package much more sophisticated software every day to be able to run on all kinds of different platforms. The Deep Mind algorithms that supposedly developed A0 into what they claim it is would not need to be included in the package. Whatever complexity allegedly lies inside the heart of A0, it would be no more difficult to convert to any standard encrypted compiled object oriented software program than the likes of Microsoft Excel or QuickBooks. Some people have stated that since A0 uses TPUs instead of CPUs, it is exempt from the TCEC rules of engagement. This is nonsense. The A0 algorithm can be modified to run on any type of hardware.

I'm surprised I haven't heard any blowback yet from their obvious deceit. I would think the Stockfish team would be humiliated except for the fact that they already lost their title weeks ago in TCEC Season 10. I'd like to see A0 go up against the new champion Houdini on equal footing. My money would be on Houdini!

This incident reveals the flawed character of the Deep Mind team leader(s). They're using a bait and switch maneuver to mask their lack of real achievements in AI! On their website, they brag about having 350 people dedicated to their AI facility for several years now. They've spent tens of millions of investor dollars and have nothing to show for it except a few highly orchestrated publicity stunts.

I strongly suspect their team is under fire from the board of directors for not having produced any tangible evidence of any progress, and shareholders want to know if it's worth continuing to pay 350 people to work nebulously on a mission that is almost certainly guaranteed to fail. Therefore, they diverted some of their efforts to concoct a scheme to attempt to demonstrate some form of plausible success. A scheme which so far has failed to demonstrate any legitimate achievements.

Mark my words, they will never reveal their supposedly hard found extreme knowledge of chess theory, and they will also never attempt to package and sell it. They will make every excuse as to why they can't share the deep insites that A0 supposedly formulated to prune that tree of positions down so deftly.

As much as I would love for A0 to not be a sham of a hoax of a charlatan, it clearly is! Shame on Google for having wasted everyone's time masquerading as the Gods of AI code!