De ja vu all over again (c)

This discussion reminds me of attempts to reason with "Русская Весна" supporters back in 2014. Reason turned out to be useless then, it'll be useless now.

It's not even about money because typically a good solution does not require additional resources. What bothers me the most is mean spiritedness and an utter lack of compassion.

Phishing for Phools for chemists

Here's a good example how scientists phish for phools. In this case, the phools are government officials with a political agenda that requires spending large amounts of other people's money to generate big promises targeted at specific constituencies (coal!). Both phishers and phools are willing co-conspirators in the scam.

This type of science projects are great because they enable the officials to make huge promises with relatively low expenses. Also, such projects provide a perfect excuse for a failure after years of empty promises, "we tried really hard but the science didn't work out."

Of course, the key problem here is not the science but the underlying business case. It presupposes that the brand new technology built on top of the brand new science will be profitable in competition with already existing technologies in the established markets. This combination simply doesn't work - it's textbook finance. Therefore, the success of the industry is predicated on government subsidies. Given the environmental impact of the coal industry, it would probably be cheaper just to give people money and tell them find jobs elsewhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTzatG_pUmg&index=6&list=PLEDC55106E0BA18FC (starting from 39m).

"Либо шах, либо ишак."

What's the difference between a scientist and a prostitute? The prostitute doesn't need a PhD to fake an orgasm.

upd. You can see in the comments that people love the idea because the intentions look good and the outcome sounds plausible.

Jobs or dignity?

Should the tech industry worry about job creation? Here's a reaction from a pro-Trump journalist:

The tech industry's pet solution for the jobs lost to automation is universal basic income, the idea that the government should give everybody free money to cover basic needs by food and shelter. This shows zero understanding of the dignity that people get from work — yes, even the menial jobs that don't involve writing code to serve advertisements or help people order lunch to their desk at work.

Here we have a confusion between the means (jobs) and the ends (dignity). A job is one way to generate dignity and we know from history that having a job is NOT THE ONLY way to do it. Being a good mother, for example, is not a job but there's a lot of dignity in it.

The journalist assumes that
domain(f) = job
codomain(f) = dignity
f: job -> dignity

If we find a different domain for f we don't need to create jobs.

Hypothetically, if we gavw everybody a 3D game where they could generate as much dignity as they needed, the problem would be solved.

domain(f) = game
codomain(f) = dignity

Back to Henry Ford

What if I wanted to describe a technology — any technology — in terms of Category Theory? To do this I need to define a category that has a domain, a codomain, and an arrow between them.

The codomain is easy: it's a product of goods and consumers (see an earlier discussion on transactions). For example, in Henry Ford's case it'll be an automobile and an owner. Right here we can see that he invented the codomain itself because both the automobile and the owner are different from before (need to describe alternatives briefly).

What about the domain? The domain is a product of ingredients, capital and labor. Here, we can see that he invented the domain too. That is, he invented new kinds of parts and units, new kinds of machines, and a new kind of labor.

Then, the arrow between the domain and codomain is the assembly line process and mass sales/marketing/distribution organizations.

This is it. Once the the category is invented, we can populate it with all kinds of objects and arrows: from cars, to washing machines, to personal computers.

The technology revolution we are entering now involves a small change in the domain, i.e. replacement of labor (workers) with capital (robots). Another aspect of the revolution is that the codomain is saturated with stuff (in the developed world).

Also interesting to think about the invention of China by Deng Xiaoping in the 1970s. Modi is attempting to create the same category, by reinventing India.

As a side note, to "Make America Great Again" in Trump's sense, we need to uninvent both China and the current tech revolution, which is not going to happen. It's funny that the country intends to waste a lot of time, money and effort trying to uninvent a major existing category, instead of inventing a new one. I wonder how Peter Thiel is going to deal with this luddite crap in the Trump administration.

upd. It would be interesting to ask startups about their domains, codomains and arrows.

Friends only!

"World War II 101 - SNL" (Watch on YouTube)

Corruption? Corruption!

In just one day billionaire investor Carl Icahn, by using inside information he got at Trump's election night party, made more money, then the Clinton Foundation during all of its years of existence.

This is a sign of things to come. Because Trump's policies are difficult to predict, people close to his inner circle are going to make tons of money on the stock market, by using e.g. details of industry regulation/deregulation plans.