December 2021 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Batshit-crazy, ex-cop sounds like Gramps!
by professor rat 07 Dec '21

07 Dec '21

This Hostetter Motion to Dismiss for outrageous Govt Conduct is a doozy. https://twitter.com/emptywheel?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwg… The entire 10,000-person assault on the Capitol a latter day COINTELPRO operation. Oh, and he's proud of his part in that.

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Aussie crypto platform Wikileaks, sorry, myCryptoWallet collapses
by professor rat 07 Dec '21

07 Dec '21

Crypto traders are reportedly down thousands of dollars following the collapse of another prominent Australian trading platform. https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/wealth/liquidators-called-in-after-co… Send lawyers, Devs and money. https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/stolen-laptop-liquidators-of-co…

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Steven Schear's drivel
by professor rat 06 Dec '21

06 Dec '21

Reminds me greatly of Gerald Bull's cannon launching system. He was a renowned expert in military cannons. He did serious experimental work on launching satellites this way from a location in Canada. He sought funding to take his ideas to the next stage but was apparently blocked by U.S. interests. To survive he took a contract from Saddam's Iraq. The Israeli Mossad did not like it and told him if he continued he would be killed, which they did a few months later

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Re: Cryptocurrency: Prediction Markets vs Prediction Polls (Atanasov 2017)
by professor rat 06 Dec '21

06 Dec '21

>>>> Likely that between the two, only prediction markets enable the possibility of encouraging real-world outcomes. <<<< And assertions without evidence may be dismissed without examination.

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SpinLaunch hurls satellites into space using a spinning machine - Big Think
by jim bell 06 Dec '21

06 Dec '21

https://bigthink.com/the-future/spinlaunch-company-hurls-satellites-into-sp…

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Pastor Craig Wright is a thief and a liar
by professor rat 06 Dec '21

06 Dec '21

W&K Information Defense Research LLC, has won $100,000,000 reflecting that Craig Wright wrongfully took bitcoin-related assets from W&K. Many years ago, Craig Wright told the Kleiman family that he and Dave Kleiman developed revolutionary Bitcoin based intellectual property. Despite those admissions, Wright refused to give the Kleimans their fair share of what Dave helped create and instead took those assets for himself. This verdict sets a historical precedent in the innovative and transformative industry of cryptocurrency and blockchain. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/12/06/craig-wright-found-not-liable-f…

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Cryptocurrency: Prediction Markets vs Prediction Polls (Atanasov 2017)
by grarpamp 06 Dec '21

06 Dec '21

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2660628 Distilling the Wisdom of Crowds: Prediction Markets versus Prediction Polls Management Science, Early View, Forthcoming 37 Pages Posted: 15 Sep 2015 Last revised: 28 Nov 2017 Pavel D. Atanasov Pytho LLC Phillip Rescober Independent Eric Stone Independent Samuel A. Swift University of California, Berkeley - Institute of Business and Economic Research (IBER); Tepper School of Business Emile Servan-Schreiber LUMENOGIC Philip Tetlock University of Pennsylvania Lyle Ungar University of Pennsylvania Barbara Mellers University of California, Berkeley - Marketing Group; University of Pennsylvania - Marketing Department Date Written: March 1, 2017 Abstract We report the results of the first large-scale, long-term, experimental test between two crowd sourcing methods – prediction markets and prediction polls. More than 2,400 participants made forecasts on 261 events over two seasons of a geopolitical prediction tournament. Some forecasters traded in a continuous double auction market and were ranked based on earnings. Others submitted probability judgments, independently or in teams, and were ranked based on Brier scores. In both seasons of the tournament, last day prices from the prediction market were more accurate than the simple mean of forecasts from prediction polls. However, team prediction polls outperformed prediction markets when poll forecasts were aggregated with algorithms using temporal decay, performance weighting and recalibration. The biggest advantage of prediction polls occurred at the start of long-duration questions. Prediction polls with proper scoring, algorithmic aggregation and teaming offer an attractive alternative to prediction markets for distilling the wisdom of crowds. Keywords: Prediction, Forecasting, Prediction Markets, Crowdsourcing JEL Classification: C82, C93, D84 Suggested Citation: Atanasov, Pavel D. and Rescober, Phillip and Stone, Eric and Swift, Samuel A. and Servan-Schreiber, Emile and Tetlock, Philip and Ungar, Lyle and Mellers, Barbara, Distilling the Wisdom of Crowds: Prediction Markets versus Prediction Polls (March 1, 2017). Management Science, Early View, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2660628

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Bury the dead at Mar a lago
by professor rat 06 Dec '21

06 Dec '21

usatoday.com A just monument to the Trump presidency: Bury the 500,000 COVID dead at Mar-a-Lago Robert E. Lee's home, now Arlington National Cemetery, became a final resting place for Union soldiers in 1864. We should follow . . . "

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Starlink Download Speed Touches 370 Mbps At 14,000 Feet Altitude - But With A Catch
by jim bell 06 Dec '21

06 Dec '21

https://wccftech.com/starlink-download-speed-touches-370-mbps-at-14000-feet…

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Trying to Talk about Politics Re: The Non-Non-Libertarian FAQ
by Karl 06 Dec '21

06 Dec '21

Not being a current libertarian, it is hard to translate all of life's flows into market-based terms of political argument. This seems to make it hard to communicate with libertarians on politics, who appear to have the same assumptions with regard to what is good as most people would, but different conclusions. > there may be other arguments for the State that do not rely on political authority, namely consequentialist arguments The term "consequentialist" appears to be used repeatedly without its meaning introduced. https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/consequentialism > Consequentialism is an ethical theory that judges whether or not something is right by what its consequences are. For instance, most people would agree that lying is wrong. But if telling a lie would help save a person’s life, consequentialism says it’s the right thing to do. This is confusing to me because I see everyone as making consequentialist decisions based on expected probabilities. This seems to be the only way a living being forms decisions. Why give it a word? People's moral judgement and trust of you, how behaviors spread from you, how culture acts if everyone adopts a behavior, and how you feel in the future, are other forms of consequence. It reads as if "consequentialism" is used to describe a focus on some clear results, at the expense of results that people might find harder to describe: or some results that somebody values, at the expense of some results that they would like to ignore. > Other libertarians have sought to provide a more consequentialist justification, by showing how private property replaces the zero- (or negative-) sum transactions of the commons with the positive-sum transactions of a market economy. I don't know what is being described here. Why would a commons ever have a non-positive sum of anything? What thing are we summing that this is possible? Okay, I websearched and found "tragedy of the commons" which is a claim that shared resources exhaust if everybody takes from them. _This never continues because everybody who does it eventually dies_. That is why biological life has not breathed all the oxygen in the atmosphere away, or eaten all the plants up, already. If you are attacking a common resource, you are not going to succeed unless you prevent everybody else from learning about the issue and acting on it. Thoughts? How is a market economy more "positive sum" than people contributing to shared resources simply because they all need them?

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