Next Year's Federal Military budget over $700 billion. Is that a problem?

[John Newman]

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 07:06:10PM +0000, jim bell wrote:
>  On Wednesday, August 15, 2018, 11:37:15 AM PDT, John Newman <jnn at synfin.org> wrote:
>  
>  
>  On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 06:04:12PM +0000, jim bell wrote:
> >  On Wednesday, August 15, 2018, 3:55:16 AM PDT, John Newman <jnn at synfin.org> wrote:
> >  
> > 
> > On August 15, 2018 2:31:10 AM CDT, grarpamp <grarpamp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>There are some very wealthy early cryptocurrency anarcho OGs.
> > >>Given a working crypto prediction market, them dropping a million for a
> > >>solid prediction on when some cantalope will pop... a fun game for
> > >>them.
> > >>Any extra kicked in by the masses is just icing on the cake.
> > 
> > 
> > >Does an AP market dominated
> > 
> > How would you, or anyone, know if an AP-type market was "dominated"?   Whether absolutely secure and anonymous, or mostly anonymous, the vast majority of the population would not know who was using the AP system.  Sure, there would be speculation, but that is all.
> 
> >I was replying to an argument stating, more or less, that there are
> plenty of crypto-millionaires with money to blow, so it doesn't matter
> if - as I suggested - most people don't give enough of a shit to
> particpate in AP. The millionaires can fund it, and AP fixes everything!
> Or something :) I find it hard to believe...
> 
> So, you are admitting that you really wouldn't know if an AP market was in any way "dominated" by any group or another.  So, why didn't you say so before?  Why invent a phony objection that won't work?

And, neither would you know if it wasn't dominated, yeah? Except
by the outcome, which has to be inferred. So - if the government
didn't collapse, but you started seeing deaths of high-level or
up-and-coming corporate executives, and their critical researchers,
etc, etc -  well, that would be a pretty reliable indicator that
things were not going "as planned", I think.

> Once you do that, why not agree that only a very tiny percentage of the population would be necessary to start an AP system running.    A large percentage of the population is living on the government's tit:  Government employees, of course, , and welfare, etc.  Military contractors, also.   This money came from SOMEBODY.  Maybe such SOMEBODIES want that system to stop, now that they've learned about the AP concept.   But there is an additional possibility.


Maybe. Or maybe the CIA starts channeling money into AP to get rid of
its "enemies", cuz the government is loaded too :P 

I think you make the mistake of assuming that there is a sizable portion
of the population that wouldn't simply cringe at the idea of AP, aside of
course from the sociopaths that own the majority of the capital, and the
governments that enable them. 

Of course, I'm still fascinated to see it play out. The tech isn't there
yet, despite all the hyperbole about Augur as AP.


> 
> 
> > >by a bunch of the fucking ultra wealthy
> > 
> > Obviously, the "ultra wealthy" might appear to have one advantage over "the poor" in using AP:  They have much more money, on a per-person basis. But, the number of "the poor" (or, at least, those with incomes under, say, $100,000 per year)  greatly outnumber the "wealthy", and certainly the "ultra wealthy".
> > The Average American Net Worth Is Huge!
> > 
> >> Average net worth for America in 2014 was $301K.    Median net worth for America is $45K.   (Although, read that article; there is some dispute.)×
> >> Another factor is that in order to effectively use AP, you generally have to know who your target is.  And I am not merely referring to names.   In today's political system, in order to get what you want, you have to stick your head up and speak out.  That might make you a target.  But in an AP-type system world, you need not say anything, at least not anonymously..   To use AP you need to know who "the enemy" really is.  That's hard, when nobody is speaking up.   So even if a "ultra wealth" person has a virtually unlimited amount of money to pay into an AP system, how does he target his enemies?  How does he know who those "enemies" are?   He may know NOW, in a non-AP era, but he won't know in an AP-driven era in the near future.  
> 
> >Right, this gets back to my point about the interests of the ultra
> wealthy having very little to do with the stated goals of AP. It seems
> to me they would only be interested in culling their economic competition, 
> and otherwise propping one another up, no doubt with shifting alliances.
> I think it would boil down to just another way of gaming the system for
> the rich, to keep them rich.
> 
> 
> I have explained, above, that even with the use of imaginative accountants, the "ultra wealthy" currently fund at least a large majority of (for example) America's Federal Government.  
> From: https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2015-update/
> ×
> "In contrast, the top 1 percent of all taxpayers (taxpayers with AGIs of $428,713 and above), earned 19.04 percent of all AGI in 2013, but paid 37.80 percent of all federal income taxes. In 2013, the top 1 percent of taxpayers accounted for more income taxes paid than the bottom 90 percent combined.Nov 19, 2015[end of quote]
> 
> For now, let's just consider that "top 1 percent of all taxpayers" who "paid 37.80% of all Federal income taxes.  Do you think THEY believe that those taxes are being spent wisely?  No, they're not stupid, are they?  They know that money is being wasted.  
> 
> > >, whose interests I promise you do not align with yours, whatever sociopathic method they used to accrue their capital, even count as a functional AP market?
> > 
> > The fact that some "ultra wealthy" are using the AP system does not prevent others from using the same system.  So, the meaning of the word you used, "dominate", is limited.  
> > Do the "ultra wealthy" "dominate" the American food market?  Does a person whose net worth is $1 million eat 100 times as much as a person whose net worth is $10K?  Does a person whose net worth is $100 million eat 10,000 times the amount of a person whose net worth is $10K?  What about other spending, such as housing, transportation, entertainment, etc?
> 
> >AP is not a consumable like food. No, a billionaire doesn't shit a
> billion times a day. But he does have a billion times more money to
> spend on AP than Joe six-pack.
> 
> Except that he doesn't have a billion times more targets.  He doesn't know who to target, and will likely never learn, because AP is intended to be anonymous.   AP can be readily used to tear down governments and their oppression.  It cannot be easily used to oppress, if for no other reason that people who want to oppress don't know who to target.

I find it far more likely that "he" would target his economic enemies. I
feel like we've strayed off into fantasy comic-book super-hero land with
this 

> 
> 
>                               Jim Bell  

-- 
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