therobot24

Joined 15 years ago

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Comment · 2 months ago
Comment · 2 months ago
make sure you watch the youtube video embedded in the website, it adds some real perspective of just how massive this is
Comment · 1 year ago
the bitter lesson is to _let_ data and compute do the majority of the work, it's not to remove humans completely, but wherever possible
Comment · 1 year ago
Have you tried google deep research? i'm curious how well perplexity compares to it.

I've been using Gemini Deep Research to replace my Google search since it does a web search and provides links you can check yourself to any citation that the resulting report uses.

Comment · 1 year ago
until there's actual enforcement, there isn't the incentive to tell the truth...

It really is sad how much data has been captured and monetized of the average person. It seems like we're only continuing to turn up the heat as we continue to 'boil the frog'.

Comment · 1 year ago
republicans wanna spend the way 'they want to' and cut every way the democrats want to spend, and just the opposite is true too (austerity only really matters when it's the other party with the control of the budget)

pair this with each district, state, and constitute company/nonprofit/whatever looking for a piece of the pie creates an utter mess of non-stop spending

Comment · 1 year ago
I think you're focusing too much on the analogies he used instead of the thesis -- everything is aligning to a leader who isn't respected outside of the USA, much like kim jong un. That if saber rattling is the future of the US, then divestment will only increase and won't easily return. And further, the benefactors of this transformation is whoever doesn't have to adhere to our saber rattling which will be as many other countries as possible.
Comment · 1 year ago
Comment · 1 year ago
I think the writer should have also taken a moment to reflect on the underlying _need_ that led to these revolutions. Each need is implicit to what's discussed in the table, but would be useful to help frame the discussion of the underlying questions that are discussed. For instance, going from IR3 -> IR4 created a _need_ of information management, where Google was the first major player in providing search as that means, now agents are taking the role of search & retrieval as a single action.
Comment · 1 year ago
ok i think i'm starting to get it a bit, the double edged sword is essentially the reason for focusing on emergent results which (i'm guessing in Friedman's mind) have more options for mechanisms for good results than a constrained market might.
Comment · 1 year ago
>> In my view, the scenario and reasoning by Friedman in how he applies market forces applying to business decisions is a view where you have an assumption of 'knowing the result'

> I think it only appears that way if you take small quotations like this out of context.

Can you help me understand this. Like the purpose of using logic to deduce decision making is because there's a fundamental structure in assuring the result from those deductions is accurate (or enough to continue manipulation of the problem data). When you try to predict market reaction to a decision and ascribe harm or success based on the decision you're creating causation out of correlation, often incorrectly. Again, not an expert in economics, but when i view theories of free market forces and how they're part of the logic of business decisions i can't help but think the people using this information are assuming their knowledge and logic aren't fundamentally flawed and as a result are essentially just guessing without thinking they are.

Comment · 1 year ago
So my interpretation of how Friedman drew his theories of market (and granted I'm no expert, just a layman reading things online) are about every business should optimize as much as utterly possible even if this results in exploitation, because the market will accept exploitation until it can't and correct. I think you and i are aligned in this belief. Where i think we're separated, likely cause i just didn't explain it very well, was that to me, this means you as a CEO are accepting exploitation under the guise that you have the ability to react to the market forces to correct for it. That you 'know the market' and can adapt as needed. Such as described in the Friedman quote within the article which expresses an extremely libertarian view of how companies should be able to hire and fire workers:

> “...consider a situation in which there are grocery stores serving a neighborhood inhabited by people who have a strong aversion to being waited on by Negro clerks. Suppose one of the grocery stores has a vacancy for a clerk and the first applicant qualified in other respects happens to be a Negro. Let us suppose that as a result of the law the store is required to hire him. The effect of this action will be to reduce the business done by this store and to impose losses on the owner. If the preference of the community is strong enough, it may even cause the store to close. When the owner of the store hires white clerks in preference to Negroes in the absence of the law, he may not be expressing any preference or prejudice, or taste of his own. He may simply be transmitting the tastes of the community. He is, as it were, producing the services for the consumers that the consumers are willing to pay for. Nonetheless, he is harmed, and indeed may be the only one harmed appreciably, by a law which prohibits him from engaging in this activity, that is, prohibits him from pandering to the tastes of the community for having a white rather than a Negro clerk. The consumers, whose preferences the law is intended to curb, will be affected substantially only to the extent that the number of stores is limited and hence they must pay higher prices because one store has gone out of business.”

In my view, the scenario and reasoning by Friedman in how he applies market forces applying to business decisions is a view where you have an assumption of 'knowing the result' of any decision and using that 'knowledge' as justification for reasoning. When in reality, you don't know the result, you can estimate, but that's about it. So when an exec is applying Friedman principles they're trying to 'know the market' and that's a fundamental error in my mind due to the chaos of the world how it can manifest across all avenues of life.

Comment · 1 year ago
optimizing business value in the manner perpetuated by Friedman assumes you know more than you do and can adapt to things because of that knowledge, ultimately no one can actually do this because the world is chaotic and difficult to anything and everything that tries to master that chaos
Comment · 1 year ago
That's why you use gov to fund reliable research, collective money funding collective good of knowledge
Comment · 1 year ago
paywall

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