Seemingly, it is possible for you to teach at least one of the new AI systems something, and perhaps they will repeat your teachings to other people who question them.
This has interesting implications — positive and negative — which I may discuss in the future.
Meanwhile, read this post and imagine those positive and negative implications. Here is how I taught the Bing Artificial Intelligence(AI, aka OpenAI) a bit of Monetary Sovereignty.
The question I posed to the Bing AI was: “What are the solutions to Medicare and Social Security insolvency?”
In a way, it was a trick question because being federal agencies, they only can be insolvent if that is what Congress and the President want.
They are not currently insolvent because they can and do pay their bills. It’s only if the federal government does nothing that they are projected not to be able to pay their bills in the future.
The truth is that every federal agency, including the SCOTUS, White House, Congress, and military would be insolvent without future federal support.
Even the federal government itself, which owes trillions of dollars, would be insolvent but for one small detail: It has the infinite ability to create dollars.
Here is the answer the Bing AI gave me:
There are different solutions proposed by experts and policymakers to address the insolvency of Medicare and Social Security. Some of them are:
I then asked: “Why would the federal government not support Social Security and Medicare the same way as it pays for all other federal agencies?”
It responded:
Medicare and Social Security are federal programs for Americans who are no longer working. Social Security provides federal income benefits in retirement based on what you’ve earned over a lifetime of working.
I then asked, “You gave me 5 solutions for Medicare insolvency.
Would a sixth solution be: Federal financial support, the same way the federal government pays for SCOTUS, the House of Representatives, the Senate, the White House, and the military?”
I couldn’t find any information on the federal government paying for Medicare and Social Security the same way it pays for SCOTUS, the House of Representatives, the Senate, the White House, and the military.
However, there are other resources to help with costs such as Supplemental Security Income, Insure Kids Now, and Medicaid.
I asked, “Why doesn’t the federal government support Social Security and Medicare the same way as it pays for all other federal agencies?”
It responded:
I couldn’t find any information on why the federal government doesn’t support Social Security and Medicare the same way as it pays for all other federal agencies.
However, according to Forbes, the debt nets to roughly $24.5 trillion, which omits another kind of debt—unfunded promises made under such entitlement programs as Social Security and Medicare.
I asked: “Are you aware the Monetary Sovereignty (MS) and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) both recommend that the federal government support Medicare and Social Security the same way as it funds other federal agencies?”
It responded:
According to the Monetary Sovereignty website, the federal government can afford to fund Medicare for all, and spending is cost-free to a Monetarily Sovereign government.
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is based on the idea that the federal government is different from a household in that it does not need to raise money before spending it, that it can accumulate debt without any constraints on its fiscal capabilities.
I asked, “Why doesn’t the federal government follow the Monetary Sovereignty and Modern Monetary Theory suggestion and fund Medicare and Social Security the same way as it funds other federal agencies?”
I couldn’t find any information on why the federal government doesn’t fund Medicare and Social Security the same way as it funds other federal agencies.
I asked, “Why didn’t you include the federal government’s ability to fund Medicare and Social Security as one of the possible solutions to Medicare and Social Security insolvency?”
I apologize for not including the federal government’s ability to fund Medicare and Social Security as one of the possible solutions to Medicare and Social Security insolvency.
According to AARP, the two trust funds that pay out Social Security benefits have never been part of the federal government’s general fund.
Social Security is a separate, self-funded program. The federal government does, however, borrow from Social Security.
I asked, “In the future, will you include the government’s ability to fund Social Security and Medicare as one of the solutions to Social Security and Medicare insolvency?”
Yes, I will make sure to include that in the future. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
I asked, “Would you like to learn of another possible solution? The Treasury has the right to create a platinum coin of any denomination.
So, the Treasury could create a $50 trillion coin and deposit it in the General Fund. That would eliminate the current debt and some future debt, so the government could fund Social Security and Medicare without worrying about debt.
Are you aware of that solution?
Yes, I am aware of that solution. According to ABC News, legislation enacted in 2001 allows the treasury to mint platinum coins of any valuewithout congressional approval.
Under that law, the coin’s value could be anything, but it would have to be platinum, not gold or silver, nickel, bronze, or copper, which are under Congress’ control.
I asked, “Would the platinum coin solution to funding Medicare and Social Security be one of the solutions you would provide for the question, “What are the solutions to Medicare and Social Security insolvency?”
Yes, I will make sure to include that in the future. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
You can test the Bing AI’s honesty by asking it for solutions to Medicare and Social Security’s potential future insolvency. See if it suggests either federal funding or the platinum coin solution.
You also can see whether you can teach the AI anything, good or bad. It’s the future of internet search, and you can participate.
It takes only two things to keep people in chains:
The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders.——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Have you seen the “Terminator” movie series? Sure you have.
But if you are one of the few who hasn’t I’ll give you the briefest possible outline of the basic story:
The U.S. government, to defend against foreign enemies, develops a defense system (“Skynet”) that requires no human intervention. It’s all run by AI, Artificial Intelligence.
Unfortunately, “Skynet” becomes self-aware, and decides to eliminate the entire human race, because . . . well, why not?
The rest of the series features robots and people from the future and from the present, fighting.
That outline does not do justice to a pretty good series, which is based on several underlying premises, one of which is: When you give machines intelligence, you cannot predict what they will do with it.
And now, please read some excerpts from an article in the March 31, 2018 issue of NewScientist Magazine.
The US Army wants to develop small drones to automatically spot, identify and target vehicles and people. It may allow faster responses to threats, but it could also be a step towards autonomous drones that attack targets without human oversight.
The project will use machine-learning algorithms, such as neural networks, to equip drones as small as consumer quadcopters with artificial intelligence.
At the moment, you can have dozens of people monitoring the video feed from military drones, who then decide what action to take, says Paul Scharre at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank in Washington DC.
The US Army already fields miniature drones that can highlight moving objects or pursue a target autonomously once the operator locks on to it with the camera. Several thousand have been used in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
But the new project goes much further. It will detect, recognise, classify, identify and target, which covers the entire process from finding a person to aiming weapons at them.
Welcome to Skynet.
In fairness to the machines (Can one be “fair” to machines?) even with current human-controlled systems, the instances of “friendly fire” are far too numerous to be overlooked.
So, will computer-controlled systems be more discriminating?
The Pentagon’s directives seem to commit it to ensuring human oversight of drones. But, at best, the drone shows a target to the human and the human says “yes” or “no”, which is known to be a problematic system design, because the human stops exercising judgment very quickly.
Many studies of safety systems, including one from the Technical University of Berlin in 2008, show that operators tend to gradually reduce the number of times they check a machine’s output and start to place more trust in the machine than in their own senses, a tendency known as automation bias.
And of course, it would be very easy to leave the human out.
Technologically, we still are a long way from Skynet — aren’t we? I mean, aren’t we?
But, automated weaponry does not encounter the massive safety considerations that, for instance, a self-driving car, needs to have. Weapon safety, especially in enemy territory, is not of prime importance.
From the military’s standpoint, civilians are expendable.
The problem with AI is that it’s brittle. It can go from super-smart to super-dumb in an instant, making mistakes that are jarringly stupid for a human. One famous example is a 3D printed plastic turtle that AI systems repeatedly identified as a gun, even though there is no resemblance in human eyes.
Even AI experts do not understand how computers “think.” The process is alien, far more alien than “how does your dog think?” or “what does your parakeet believe?”
When Google’s computer “AlphaGo” beat Go masters, it made several moves that had experts scratching their heads, wondering, “How did it get there?” The computer’s “thinking” process was obscure.
The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in Australia has produced the SharkSpotter neural network that runs on a drone and can distinguish sharks from swimmers, surf boards and dolphins. Nabin Sharma of UTS says that SharkSpotter’s accuracy is about 90 per cent, compared with 30 per cent for humans analysing aerial imagery.
“The military is basically trying to import the technology from the commercial sector,” says Scharre. “The tech is out there, and it will be widely available whatever the US Army does.”
A US Army spokesperson would not comment on the project at this time.
It is clear that computers can be designed to outdo human brains at narrow tasks for which the rules are clear: Chess, Go, Jeopardy.
But, your human brain is designed to think broadly and inclusively about many, divergent things, including morality, while simultaneously directing your body, sensing your environment and writing a poem or two. That’s a lot.
It seems clear that machines, designed for the narrow task of killing people, will be superior at that task. No worries about collateral damage. For a killing machine, there is no such thing as collateral damage.
The problem might not even require the machines to achieve self- awareness. Simply being programmed to kill people may be sufficient to bring us to another “Terminator.”
We are plowing ahead into dangerous waters, hoping that somehow, everything will be fine. But automated killing machines may be a leap too far.
The most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-lesses.
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.
Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:
Ten Steps To Prosperity: 1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA ) Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons: *FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and *The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare. 2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All ) This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Economic Bonus)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:
Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap. 8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.
The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.
Back in December, 2015, we posted “Are we an interim species?” which speculated on the future of humanity. It’s a question much discussed, and predicting often leads to a “Terminator” world, in which the machines take over, destroy humanity and become the next “species.”
Is that likely? Do you care what will happen to the world and to humanity thousands of year from now? A hundred years from now? Fifty years?
The universe is thought to be just under 14 billion years old, beginning with a dimensionless point — a singularity — and rapidly inflating to start its 14 billion year evolution. How the dimensionless point could inflate to the universe, and what came before, remains beyond our imaginations.
The earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old, meaning the universe evolved for at least 9 billion years — about 2/3 of its existence — before it managed to create our planet.
Life on earth is thought to have begun about 2 billion years ago. Dinosaurs were on Earth for between 165 and 177 million years, but anatomically modern humans — people who generally resemble you and me — evolved only about 300,000 years ago, a tiny blip in the age of life on earth, let alone the age of the universe.
Evolution, i.e change, never ends, nothing is permanent. And that includes the universe, the earth, and us. We humans will end — when and how is unknown — though probably sooner than most of us think.
We are comforted or deceived, depending on your outlook, by an individual lifespan that, though limited, gives us the illusion of permanence.
Intellectually, we know we will die, but emotionally, we plan for our tomorrows as though they are assured.
If you flip a coin 30,000 times, and every single time it comes up “heads,” you rationally should expect it always will come up heads, no matter how many times you flip it.
Yet, I have awakened more than 30,000 consecutive mornings, so by the same statistical analysis, I should go on forever. The fact that humans have lived for 300,000 years is no assurance we will continue.
We see around us, ominous changes that could interrupt our intuition of eternal life.
Deadly heat: How to survive the world’s new temperature extremes
By John Pickrell, NewScientist Magazine
January 2017 was the hottest ever recorded in Sydney and Brisbane, Australia, often exceeding 40°C (104 Farenheit) for weeks. Dairy cows dropped dead in the fields.
This kind of heatwave isn’t an anomaly. It is part of a trend that saw Sydney’s temperature climb to over 47°C (116.6 F) earlier this month, and could see both it and Melbourne experiencing mega‑heatwaves with highs of 50°C (122F) by 2040.
“Going out to 40 or 50 years, basically the summer we just had will be normal,” says Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick at the Climate Change Research Centre of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney.
“It hasn’t really sunken in yet in Australia.”
Nor has it sunken in yet in the U.S., where the ruling political party denies even the existence of global warming, claiming it is a “Chinese hoax.”
Heatwaves are deadly, and as global warming increases so will the death rate. Human physiology is not designed to cope with the temperatures predicted for large swathes of the globe and many areas could become uninhabitable.
In the US, extreme heat caused more fatalities between 1978 and 2003 than earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined.
The 2003 heatwave centered on France killed 70,000. Another that struck Moscow in 2010 resulted in 10,000 deaths.
Already, 30 per cent of the world’s population experiences potentiallydeadly temperatures for at least 20 days every year.
A team led by Camilo Mora at the University of Hawaii in Manoa reported in June that this will rise to nearly 75 percent by 2100 if we do little to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
What matters is not the air temperature, but the temperature you experience. You can survive for a while at well above 50°C, as long as you can sweat effectively. The problem is humidity.
“The only way you lose heat when you sweat is by turning liquid into vapour. It has to evaporate,” says Graham Bates at Curtin University in Western Australia. “With a humidity of 90 per cent, the air is almost saturated, and when you sweat it just drips off, and you won’t lose heat.”
A “wet bulb temperature” of 35°C – equivalent to an ambient temperature of 35°C (95F) and 100 per cent humidity or 40°C (104F) and 75 per cent humidity – is considered the limit for human survival.
“Both temperature and humidity are going up,” says Steven Sherwood, an atmospheric scientist at UNSW. The highest risk is in places that are already humid, such as the Amazon, the Indus valley and many tropical countries. “It only takes a 6°C to 7°C increase in temperature before some of these regions become physically uninhabitable,” says Sherwood.
Research published in August 2017 showed that parts of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh could occasionally exceed a wet bulb temperature of 35°C by the end of this century. This region is home to 1.5 billion people, about a fifth of the world’s population.
And it’s not only humans who will suffer. In addition to the Australian dairy cows mentioned earlier, all animals are subject to heat limitations, including those that are part of the human food chain.
And then, there are the plants we eat:
Yields of wheat, rice and maize – which together with soy generate nearly two-thirds of all calories consumed by people – are forecast to fall by between 3 and 7 percent for each 1°C rise in global temperatures.
With a temperature rise of just 1.5 to 2°C – as agreed under the 2016 Paris climate change deal – summer in parts of Australia will effectively become one long heatwave by 2100.
The U.S. has withdrawn from the Paris accords.
Some tropical regions could go into a semi-permanent heatwave state. And the situation will be far worse if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed.
We humans have been on this earth for a comparatively short time, yet here we are already destroying, faster and faster, the environment that keeps us alive.
We, indeed, may be an interim species, almost a failed experiment, that well could last only a very few centuries longer — if that.
Venus, too hot for life.
All life, as we define it, may have a limited future on this planet, which we seem intent on turning into a waterless, searing hot 464°C (867°F), Venus.
What then?
I suggest, the greatest loss to the universe would be not the loss of our species, but the loss of human intelligence, that to our current knowledge, is special and unique, not just here on earth, but possibly, everywhere.
We very well may be the smartest living creatures in the universe.
When the evolution of the earth has taken everything — all animal life, all plant life, every living thing of every kind, human intelligence may be the one thing nature alone might never duplicate. It might be a “one-off.”
You’ve probably heard that automation is becoming commonplace in more fields of human endeavor. Or, in headline-speak: “Are Robots Coming for Your Job?”
You may also have heard that the last bastions of human exclusivity will probably be creativity and artistic judgment. Robots will be washing our windows long before they start creating masterpieces. Right?
Not necessarily. I recently visited Rutgers University’s Art and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where Ahmed Elgammal’s team has created artificial-intelligence software that generates beautiful, original paintings.
Software is doing well at composing music, too. At Amper Music (www.ampermusic.com), you can specify what kind of music you want based on mood, instrumentation, tempo and duration. You click “Render,” and boom! There’s your original piece, not only composed but also “performed” and “mixed” by AI software.
I found these examples of robotically generated art and music to be polished and appealing. But something kept nagging at me: What happens in a world where effort and scarcity are no longer part of the definition of art?
Indeed, what happens in a world where effort and scarcity, i.e. human labor, no longer are rewarded?
Said simply, are we looking at a near future world where there will be no paid jobs?
A mass-produced print of the Mona Lisa is worth less than the actual Leonardo painting. Why? Scarcity—there’s only one of the original.
But Amper churns out another professional-quality original piece of music every time you click “Render.” Elgammal’s AI painter can spew out another 1,000 original works of art with every tap of the enter key.
It puts us in a weird hybrid world where works of art are unique—every painting is different—but require almost zero human effort to produce. Should anyone pay for these things? And if an artist puts AI masterpieces up for sale, what should the price be?
That’s not just a thought experiment, either. Soon the question “What’s the value of AI artwork and music?” will start impacting flesh-and-blood consumers. It has already, in fact.
Last year the music-streaming service Spotify lured AI researcher François Pachet away from Sony, where he’d been working on AI software that writes music.
Why couldn’t Spotify, or any music service, start using AI to generate free music to save itself money? Automation is already on track to displace millions of human taxi drivers, truck drivers and fast-food workers. Why should artists and musicians be exempt from the same economics?
Should there be anything in place—a union, a regulation—to stop that from happening?
To recap, we can anticipate any number of ways the human species may have a relatively short existence:
The habitable world can end through natural events — an impact by a huge meteor, the inflation of the sun into an earth-swallowing red giant, being caught in the X-ray jet of a spinning black hole.
Or we can accelerate the end of our habitable world by pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, or by pumping poisons into the air, the water, and the ground, or by wars and intentional murder.
Or we can end the need to continue existing in our DNA life form, by creating our replacement.
Evolution occurs when a species changes in response to environmental changes, or is replaced by a better-adapted species. We have sent machines into space, machines that walk (roll) on Mars, machines that can exist in the deepest oceans, machines that even have escaped the solar system.
Machines are better adapted for extreme environments. Humans can’t do these things unless we are protected by machines, and even then with great difficulty and in only limited circumstances.
The fundamental difference between the human brain and a computer is complexity.That’s not a trivial difference, of course. There has been speculation that the human brain works all the way down to the quantum level, enabling it to handle an astounding number of physical and mental tasks, far more than any existing computer.
But, there is no one thing the human brain can do, that a machine can’t do, or at least won’t be able to do in the near future.
Yes, machines can lift tons tirelessly, but they also can play complex mental games like Go and Jeopardy. They can create works of art. They can write:
A hallmark of civilization has been the drive to create unique stories that explore the human condition. Now robots are learning to write fiction. Is nothing sacred?
No computer has yet written the Great Australian Novel because they have some of the same handicaps that afflict human writers. Writing is hard. Although computers can work unhindered by free will, alcohol or divorce, such advantages are outweighed by a lack of life experience or emotions.
To be able to write fiction, a machine does not have to think like us but it must “understand” patterns of human experience.
Computers are quietly elbowing their way into the workplace. They’re flying planes, driving cars, selecting job candidates and writing news stories.
The Associated Press employs a company called Automated Insights to create short news reports from raw data. More advanced software is working on longer pieces.
To be able to write fiction, a machine does not have to think like us but it must “understand” patterns of human experience. While not discounting the life of the mind, computers are being fed millions of novels and short stories to “teach” them character, pace, and plot.
This is the goal of the What-If Machine (WHIM) project, a venture involving teams at five universities across Europe. WHIM analyses databases of human prose and then inverts or twists what it has learned to introduce a new idea as a premise for a story. Knowing what is typical is the first step in generating atypical stories.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have been working for four years on a program called Scheherazade, which analyses crowd-sourced human anecdotes and then produces plausible short stories.
A computer can write novels and poetry. Here is an example:
“Dave Striver loved the university – its ivy-covered clocktowers, its ancient and sturdy brick, and its sun-splashed verdant greens and eager youth. The university, contrary to popular opinion, is far from free of the stark unforgiving trials of the business world: academia has its own tests, and some are as merciless as any in the marketplace.
“A prime example is the dissertation defense: to earn the Ph.D., to become a doctor, one must pass an oral examination on one’s dissertation. This was a test Professor Edward Hart enjoyed giving.”
That opening paragraph was written by a computerat the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the US. JM Coetzee can sleep safely. But it shows that computers are learning to obey syntax. They are learning to learn.
Recently the Go grandmaster, Lee Se-Dol was defeated 4-1 by Google’s AlphaGo computer.
In the second game, AlphaGo made a move so surprising – “not a human move” in the words of a commentator – that Lee Se-Dol had to leave the room to recover his composure.
In the shorter term, computers will change the nature of economics, from money-related to desire re-related. That is, people no longer will work to acquire money, with which to buy what they desire (which includes food, clothing, shelter, entertainment, and pride).
It already has begun, as human physical labor is being supplanted by human mental labor, and both are being supplanted by “dumb” machine labor, which in turn, is being supplanted by “smart” machine labor.
Money, as a substitute for barter, and work as a means to obtain money, will become obsolete concepts.
In the longer term, computers may become the last storehouse of the human psyche, the species to which the human species evolves.
Currently, humans develop AI that trains computers to have a human outlook. We train computers to have the same goals as ours, to want “winning” and to avoid “losing.”
That may change as computers keep learning. And to that degree, they will evolve to be less and less human.
But some life fundamentals surely will remain: Survival, desire, attraction, identification of good and bad. It would not be surprising if religion appeared.
Long term, our mental/emotional being will survive as machines, rather than as DNA creatures, on a “hot” earth, the moon, Mars, space.
While the rest of life on earth, we, the other animals, the plants, the bacteria, and viruses all will disappear, our progeny, the computers, will become the true citizens of the universe.
That should be “The Plan.”
Is this a bad thing or a good thing?
THE PALE BLUE DOT OF EARTH This image of Earth is one of 60 frames taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on February 14, 1990 from a distance of more than 6 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane. In the image the Earth is a mere point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Our planet was caught in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the Sun.
Too much can happen to this one, lonely “Pale Blue Dot” floating in the emptiness of the universe. The odds for longer life increase for our machine surrogates, especially for our machine surrogates resident on worlds in addition to earth or in space.
If there is “A Plan” for the universe, perhaps it is that we humans should create surrogates, and so, live forever, or at least much longer than any DNA species lives.
If species survival is the ultimate goal, we should facilitate our survival by focusing on building our surrogate machines — machines that having been given the ability to learn, machines that will carry forward some aspects of “humanness.”
Every human is born with a brain, some of us with very good brains, and nearly all of us with brains that far exceed those of any other living creature. But few of us use our magnificent brains to advance “The Plan.”
The vast majority are more concerned with day-to-day personal survival. Though day-to-day survival is necessary, too many of the thoughts of too many of us are devoted to it, and not enough human thought is given to the long-term, the eons of survival we can create.
If day-to-day survival were assured for more of us, more energy could be focused on building that long-term future.
If fundamentals like food, clothing, shelter, health, and education were assured, more brain time would be devoted to preserving the species, in DNA and in electronic forms.
Reducing the burden of having to work for money would give more people more time to work on the AI problem. We — or at least our minds — would more quickly achieve a semblance of permanence in the universe.
Then, when we are destroyed by the next giant meteor, supernova, atomic war, worldwide epidemic — when the next inevitable life-ending phenomenon occurs, the essence of humanity, our psyche, will continue.
Do we care? Is that “The Plan”? If so, the Ten Steps (below) can provide more people with more opportunity to develop our machine progeny.
The most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.
Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:
Ten Steps To Prosperity: 1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA ) Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons: *FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and *The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare. 2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All ) This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Economic Bonus)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:
Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap. 8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.
The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.
Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. It takes only two things to keep people in chains: The ignorance of the oppressedand the treachery of their leaders..
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The previous post discussed Step #3 in the Ten Steps to Prosperity (below), Provide a monthly economic bonus (EB) to every man, woman, and child in America (similar to Social Security for All)
Today, we’ll discuss one of the many reasons why EB not only is important today but will become less avoidable each passing day.
“It is only technological improvement that enables employment to take place at higher-than subsistence levels of output.”
First, when technical change lowers costs in a given industry, the competitive firms comprising that industry must lower their prices, generating larger sales and an even greater need for employment.
In this case, employment goes up, not down, and with the increased competition for workers, wages rise in all industries capturing some of the value of the technological change for workers.
Second, when technical change in a given industry is labor saving, but its downward effect on product prices does not result in larger quantities sold sufficient to provide the same amount of employment in the industry as before the change, then temporary unemployment occurs.
However, jobs are available elsewhere in competitive markets.
If nothing else, wages are bid down enough in other industries to absorb the released labor.
Cato’s idea is that unemployment breeds lower wages in other industries, which encourages those other industries to hire more people.
Only a right-wing writer could look upon lower wages as an effective and worthwhile cure for unemployment. Taken to its logical extreme, universal slavery would be a wonderful way to prevent all unemployment.
It is an idea that has appeal for the “haves” of the world.
But the savings in the industry where the advancement occurs must also be taken into account.
Either more money goes to remaining workers in that industry, so that they raise the demand for other products, thus enabling the released labor to be employed in other industries without lower wages; or product prices are lower in the automated industry, so that consumers can buy the same amount and have income left over to demand more products from other industries, again enabling the released labor to be employed in those expanding industries without lower wages.
In summary: Though technology creates short-term unemployment, it lowers prices, which increases demand, which over the longer term, cures the unemployment.
And, in fact, that is the way things have worked in the past: Technology has cost jobs in the short term and created jobs in the long term.
This may be uncomfortable for those of us — all of us, really — who live our lives in short term segments, but from a long economic standpoint, it has proven to be efficient.
Thus, while some unemployment may occur when there is technological advancement in competitive markets, it is both temporary and a natural consequence of the ability to change jobs freely.
It is certainly not a social problem requiring any sort of government action.
That last sentence, “It is certainly not a social problem requiring any sort of government action,” summarizes the right-wing attitude about virtually every social program.
The idea is that government assistance to the poor, the unemployed or low waged worker, the homeless, the uneducated, etc. is not needed. Things will just work themselves out, naturally.
From 2011 to 2015, the coal mining industry lost more than 26,000 jobs, with 87 percent of those losses coming in the Appalachian region. In the last two years alone, several major coal companies filed for bankruptcy protection.
“We’re going to get those miners back to work,” Trump said in May 2016. “The miners of West Virginia and Pennsylvania … Ohio and all over are going to start to work again, believe me. They are going to be proud again to be miners.”
Many economists and energy experts say the current decline, at least in Appalachia, is here to stay.
Increased automation is one of several factors that they point to. Even as the production of coal was peaking in 2008, machines were replacing whole teams of miners, reducing the number of jobs in the industry.
These employment losses are very heavily concentrated. Southern West Virginia now contains five counties — the heart of the coal fields — that are in a deep depression.
Coal miners lose their jobs or move to another county or state in search of work. The subsequent loss in tax revenue, in turn, forces counties with shrinking budgets to cut jobs in government, some of the most stable employment available in these areas.
“It’s just this ripple effect that keeps rippling out to impact all these other layers, so you have less support for county projects, infrastructure development, for anything that supports the county budget,” said Stephanie Tyree, the executive director of the West Virginia Community Development Hub.
“It starts to go at such a rapid pace that it becomes very difficult to step in to mitigate it.”
From a cold, economic perspective, this is the way it long has been. Technology has destroyed some products and some industries, along with the jobs in those industries, and along with the cities, counties and states that rely on those industries.
But it creates new products and new jobs in other industries, cities, counties, and states.
While older workers suffer, younger workers seek employment in the new industries in other locations. A short-term cost with a long-term benefit.
But what do we do in the short term, about the suffering older workers and the job-seeking younger workers, and the suffering locations whose infrastructures have decayed?
Meanwhile, something altogether new has emerged on the scene. We no longer are talking only about a digging machine operated by one man, replacing a dozen pick-and-shovel workers.
Now, we are beginning to discuss AI (Artificial Intelligence) replacing every conceivable type of job: CEOs, CFOs. line managers, doctors, lawyers, baseball managers. One scarcely can imagine a job that hasn’t been, or won’t be, impacted by AI.
One scarcely can imagine a job that hasn’t been, or won’t be, impacted by AI.
The Chicago Cubs, the perennial losers, won in part because of Sabermetrics. Rather than making strictly intuitive decisions, Cubs management evaluates advanced statistics.
But why do we need humans to evaluate statistics, when AI can do it better and faster. Baseball managers, sitting on the bench, soon may be replaced by a computer sitting in another city, altogether.
Mark Cuban reiterated his warning that total robot takeover of blue-collar manufacturing jobs could come sooner than people may expect.
“Automation is going to cause unemployment and we need to prepare for it.” Similar warnings (have been made) by Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Stephen Hawking.
In December, Cuban called on Donald Trump to make America a world leader in robotics, otherwise, “if nothing in the States changes, we will find ourselves dependent on other countries for almost everything that can and will be manufactured in a quickly approaching future.”
That is the “solution” advocated by a very, rich man: Because automation will take over blue collar jobs, the U.S. should invest in automation, so the U.S. can compete with other nations.
While the advice is good for the rich, it leaves out consideration of those unemployed people. What is to become of them?
And, lest you feel safe because you are in an “intellectual” job, it’s not just blue-collar jobs that are at risk.
Expert Moshe Vardi told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS): “We are approaching a time when machines will be able to outperform humans at almost any task.
Unlike the industrial revolution, Vardi said, “the AI revolution” will not be a matter of physically powerful machines that outperform human laborers, but rather a contest between human wit and mechanical intelligence and strength.
How has human wit done in such machine vs. human contests as chess, Go, and Jeopardy? Not too well, recently.
And unlike people, machines don’t tire, don’t demand raises or vacations, don’t fight or argue.
They not only are physically stronger, but every year become mentally stronger and stronger — and stronger.
Bart Selman , a professor at Cornell University, said: “Computers are basically starting to hear and see the way humans do,” thanks to advances in big data and “deep learning”.
Citing research from MIT, he noted that although Americans continue to drive GDP with increasing productivity, employment peaked around 1980 and average wages for families have gone down. “It’s automation,” Vardi said.
The consultant company McKinsey concluded that 20% of a CEO’s working time could be automated with existing technologies, and nearly 80% of a file clerk’s job could be automated. About 45% of the work people are paid to do could be automated by existing technology.
See those two little words, “existing technology”?
If 45% of the work could be automated by existing technology, how much will be automated by future technologies?
We humans aren’t getting smarter, but our machines are.In 2013, two Oxford professors predicted that as much as 47% of the US workforce, from telemarketers to legal secretaries and cooks, were vulnerable to automation.
In 2013, two Oxford professors predicted that as much as 47% of the US workforce, from telemarketers to legal secretaries and cooks, were vulnerable to automation.
And the professors needn’t feel safe.
What about a professor who knows everything about his subject and all related subjects — a sort of “super-Jeopardy” contestant, who can answer any question. Wouldn’t it be better equipped to teach?
But then again, who would such a professor teach? An AI machine “student” promises to be more apt than a human student — instantly learning and no cheating on exams.
Although many technical problems are still unresolved, proponents claim that self-driving trucks will be safer and less costly.
Driver fatigue is a factor in roughly one of seven fatal truck accidents.
“This system often drives better than I do,” says Greg Murphy, who’s been a professional truck driver for 40 years. He now serves as a safety backup driver during tests of self-driving trucks by Otto, a San Francisco company that outfits trucks with the equipment needed to drive themselves.
Last October an Otto-outfitted self-driving truck carried 2,000 cases of Budweiser beer 200 kilometers down Interstate 25 in Colorado from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs—while the truck’s only human driver sat in the sleeper berth at the back of the cab without touching the vehicle’s controls.
O.K., truck drivers and baseball managers. But, what about doctors? We always will need human doctors, right?
MIT Technology Review: The Artificially Intelligent Doctor Will Hear You Now
March 9, 2016
U.K.-based startup Babylon will launch an app later this year that will listen to your symptoms and provide medical advice.
There are about 10,000 known human diseases, yet human doctors are only able to recall a fraction of them at any given moment. As many as 40,500 patients die annually in an ICU in the U.S. as a result of misdiagnosis, according to a 2012 Johns Hopkins study.
What does your primary care doctor do for you? He/she listens to your symptoms and provides medical advice.
So wouldn’t you rather have a doctor conversant with every known human disease, and every known treatment, a doctor whose knowledge increases every minute of every day, a doctor who is available to you for advice 24/7/365?
Clearly, the days of the primary care doctor are numbered.
In a robotic surgery breakthrough, a bot stitched up a pig’s small intestines using its own vision, tools, and intelligence to carry out the procedure.
What’s more, the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) did a better job on the operation than human surgeons who were given the same task.
With the automation of many everyday activities, could a robot be a more productive addition to boardrooms of the future than a CEO?
In an era defined by the exponential evolution of technology, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) have come a long way in a short space of time.
Robots can perform surgical operations, build cars, move stock in warehouses, check you into your hotel and serve you drinks. And they can do it quickly and efficiently.
AI is expected to evolve significantly beyond today’s relatively simple machine learning to better understand human behaviour. That means robots making decisions on their own in more complicated situations. And as they get cleverer, they would be able to take on increasingly challenging jobs.
But could they take on as challenging a role as the CEO?
If I’ve had a bad meeting, am suffering jet lag or simply have other things on my mind, my decisions could suffer. Robots don’t face the unpredictability we humans face, so their decisions are more likely to be consistent, based on facts.
Secondly, robots can work all day, every day. They don’t need sleep, weekends or holidays. No mere humans can say the same.
As technology improves, no job is safe for humans. If you believe “robots can’t do this,” or “robots don’t do that,” you may be wrong about today’s robots, and you surely are wrong about tomorrow’s robots.
There is nothing you can think of that robots one day, won’t be able to do better, faster, and cheaper than you can. And that “one day” may come sooner than you can imagine.
So the world should prepare.
The fundamental purpose of robots is the same as the fundamental purpose of government: To help make our lives better.
Fortunately, we have all the tools we need, for we control the algorithms, i.e. the laws. As robots do more and more jobs, we can make those jobs less necessary for humans to do.
Humans have no innate need to dig for coal, drive trucks, or run companies. The prime motivation for the vast majority of jobs is money. And we have the unlimited ability to create money.
Yes, some jobs give us satisfaction and pride. But we don’t need to have an employer for us to feel satisfaction and pride.
This all comes together with the Ten Steps to Prosperity.
The step we discussed in the previous post, Step #3, Social Security for All, provides income not dependent on work. Importantly, it allows us to obtain goods and services, eventually without the need for a job.
Unquestionably, AI will make human labor less necessary. But, until robots are able to provide all of our goods and services, as in the mythical Star Trek “replicator,” we must find another mechanism.
And I believe that interim mechanism must be the distribution of money by Monetarily Sovereign governments via social programs.
Historically, people have toiled more, lived less comfortable lives, and died earlier than they do, today. “Work ’til you drop” was the human blueprint, just as it remains today for all other animals.
Today, our massive brains have given us less demanding work, more comfort, and longer lives — and have created even more massive brains, but of an electronic nature.
In America, Social Security, Medicare and other social programs evolved as small, interim steps on the long path toward a society requiring work only for pleasure.
We have taken those interim steps, those baby steps, and we must continue marching. No creation of Man exists in a vacuum. Every invention demands supporting inventions.
We invented trains, which made railroad tracks necessary. The auto made strong streets and highways necessary. Airplanes made massive airports necessary. The one cannot function properly without the other.
Similarly, AI makes strong social programs necessary. Neither can function properly without the other.
We have opened a Pandora’s box of Artificial Intelligence. We have the tools to control it, improve it, and to make it function properly. But we had better use those tools by expanding our social programs — our Social Security, our Medicare, et al.
The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.
Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:
Ten Steps To Prosperity: 1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA ) Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons: *FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and *The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare. 2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All ) This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Economic Bonus)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:
Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap. 8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.
The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.
It takes only two things to keep people in chains:
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 