The Assumption With Gold

The underlying assumption when people say gold is the ultimate store of wealth is that there will always be a market infrastructure in which we can exchange the gold for other things (nutrients, potable water, cell phone chargers, etc.).

Perhaps this assumption is always why I've found discussing the issue with goldbugs so exasperating. A miscommunications about scenario parameters. The term "economic collapse" to them means fiat currency lowering in value so other people eat generic-label cereal while they get to buy Ferraris by trading for a few bracelets. Whereas to me the term "economic collapse" means that there is no food to buy at any price (or medium of exchange), and no gas for Ferraris at any price (or medium of exchange).

In a way, goldbugs are more optimistic about social stability in the future. It just seems to me that in past crises, the planet had a low human population and abundant resources. The peasant farmers may have been poor in terms of cool stuff (silks and toys), but the basics (food and water) were still obtainable. So a stable, tolerable poverty. The planet is at a point now where if the infrastructure fails due to an economic collapse, the basics aren't going to be obtainable. So social instability on a scale never before imagined.

In summary, I now feel a sense of peace with my gold-loving brothers. A miscommunication in perception. They believe in a market after dollar death whereas I am an eternal skeptic. Like with my religious friends who believe in life after death, I disagree but am open to pleasant surprise and will be very happy to be wrong.

Fair play -- a question of self-image? Researchers explain conditions under which people are prepared to behave fairly

Fair play -- a question of self-image? Researchers explain conditions under which people are prepared to behave fairly

Funny Cartoon

I used to could

"I used to could" is one of Jeff Foxworthy's made-up southern words. As in "Dink, do you remember how to embed images into a blog post?". Well, I used to could. I managed to add the link, anyway.

Hazy Recollections....Awkward Synthesis....

Austerity riots. I'm annoyed by them. First the rioters seem like spoiled children demanding the grown-ups figure out a way to make life a permanent Disneyland when any reasonable person realizes that their wish is logistically impossible. Then I feel annoyed about being annoyed by the rioters because I feel like a reactive pawn of some collective banking industry that has brainwashed me with carefully crafted lies. There is no winning. But the riots have acted as a muse of sorts:

Hazy recollections:

In the late Eighties a friend gave me "Atlas Shrugged" to read right after we graduated high school. It was intriguing. Hazy recollections of feeling that personal responsibility and rugged individualism were the only moral way of life. Absolute fairness! Had to watch out for bad people who wanted to manipulate their way into things they didn't earn.

Was it the mid-Nineties that Bono of U2 argued to some G7 summit that all debts accumulated by third world countries should be forgiven? After all, the debts were created by corrupt leaders of those countries who didn't use the money to help the citizens. On top of that, the payments on these corrupt loans were taking cash needed to finance projects that actually would help the citizens. Clean water and such. Its a very hazy recollection, but I recall thinking "Well that makes sense and seems ethicially to be the right thing to do". Sure, some nameless investors would lose money in the default, but they were bastards who shouldn't have been lending to other bastards who were clearly lying about using the funds for civic endeavors.

About a decade later I came across some mind-bending books on evolutionary biology. Soon, the CDS situation was spiralling out of control. I was curious and learned all sorts of horrendous things about the Federal Reserve system and the US financial system in general. I couldn't believe that educated people in suits created such sloppy work. And that the rest of us weren't even paying attention even though the sloppy work permutated nearly ever aspect of our physical existance. Sobering, no? This research led me to the Sudden Debt blogsite where an insider named Hell explained much of multifaceted horror along with a devotion to alternative energy since (well, one reason was saving the environment which seems like a good idea in general) the thermodynamic accounting wasn't balancing out any more with hydrocarbons. The blogsite also carried a mad genius commenter named Thai. He worked at light speed with complex ideas shooting off in all directions. Fairness perception in game theory experiments. Scaling benefits of cooperation. Zero sum, breaking symmetry, and fractals. It was a blur of mind-bending (mind-breaking at times) idea candy.

Awkward synthesis

So take all these puzzle pieces of knowledge and/or beliefs and fit them into a coherent, flowing picture. Well, not today obviously ;)

A Pleasant Dream

Sorry if this sounds a bit like transcendental ridiculosity, but I had a dream last night that seemed to indicate that the saloon needed a visit. It was quite a warm, pleasant dream that was apparently strange enough to raise me to a conscious state that I actually remembered it the next morning. These omens should be heeded ;)

And behold, JP and Dr. John had actually responded to my New Year's lament posting!

Dr. John was concerned about the future. As any sane person would be. Humanity has gotten itself into a cluster@#$& economically and politically. I just about start screeching in public (requisite bathrobe donned and donut crumbs in my hair) when people talk about "Recovery". It can't be recovered! The base has been ravaged (i.e. abundant and resiliant natural resources, shadowy NGOs buying untold squidillions of debt, etc.). Bidden or unbidden, change is coming.

Hell, instead of being terrified, let's make it entertaining! Together we can come up with the most outlandish, fantastic, and ingenious method for surviving The Change.

For transport of materials, I suggest the crazy-ass Australian Skylifter .

To which you might ask, "Dink, where the hell are we going?". And this would be a fair question. We'd have to do some reconnaisance at the time and see how stable the local populations were. Assuming, not at all stable (my default assumption), we'll need to stick to isolated areas. Northern Canada in the Summer and Amazon in the Winter? Sure, why not ;)

Then you might ask "What the hell will we be skylifting?". Perhaps you saw this on CNN.com a few weeks ago as well. Behold, The Ark . Apparently, we can "lyophilizize" (sp?) all sorts of food. Get some medium-scale desalinization equipment and we're good to go.

Please do feel free to add on any madness that you like; I'd love to hear about it. Its fun to idea-play. That's what the saloon was always meant for. I'm glad the dream reminded me of that. I better stop writing now before I get all sappy.

Pleasant dreams, y'all ;)

The Dread 2010 Is Now Over

And it is over in all time zones on the planet. I try not to be superstitious, but I could not help but to feel that 2010 cursed in some hugely, actively malevolent way. Though I experienced new levels of anxiety through a few truly nasty individuals, 2010 main method of attack seemed to be stomping on my friends. And being just a standard human creature, I was unable to defend them.

Perceptional bias, you might argue. 2010 wasn't dread for every living entity during every second of the year. I would be too tired to argue the point. I would nod politely to feign agreement so that I continued to appear fair and rational, but I would secretly continue to believe that 2010 was a bastard the likes of which I hope to never come across again. I feel greatly relieved that its 2011.