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Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:42 pm
by MSimon
That is EXACTLY what I mean by base. The remnants of the evolutionary inheritance of competitiveness, needed to survive our hostile past, in a world of scarcity. Like the preservation of bodyfat by rapid elimination of unused muscle, these are evolutionary hold overs, that no longer serve us, in a world where security and abundance are within our grasp.
They may be base to you but they are still with us no matter how hard you wish them to go away.

The females still flock to wealth. That is where you want to start. Change the women. And good luck with that.

Engineering wise I prefer to deal with the world as it is rather than plan on some fantasy not in evidence.

The USSR is still looking for the Socialist Man (he seems to be a lot like your altruistic man). As far as I know they never found enough of them to keep the system running and in any case they were exploited by the Soviet alphas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:55 pm
by KitemanSA
MSimon wrote:
KitemanSA wrote: Suppose they had offered you 25$/hr plus 3% of the savings... Would you have worked there? Would you have worked as hard and as profitably? Sometimes the PROMISE of FUTURE payment is more effective than the current payment.
No problem.
Except Sarbanes Oxley makes that pretty much impossible these days.
Is this from experience or is it more of a "the government is bound to screw it up for us" assessment of the law? I don't see anything in the briefs that indicate such activity can't happen, just that it must be reported more fully. Am I missing something?

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:59 pm
by MSimon
I would think that EMC2 would be willing to give profit shares, but even if they didn't, the increase in the standard of living, resulting from the technology, would be far more, than the increase in standard of living, from being paid market rates.
Depends on the value of the salary vs how big the benefits are supposed to be at some distant future date ( NPV ). It will take about 20 years for this project to have a significant effect on civilization. Do you have any idea what a 20 year time frame does to NPV of some future reward? It is so bad that most companies will not take on projects that have a more than 5 years to payoff.

And what is the advantage to me now in terms of impressing the girl I want to marry who wants to have kids within a few years of marriage? Zero.

What is the NPV of not being able to get the girl? Negative. Very negative. And what is the value of me rising above the crowd now vs everybody rising at some future date? Why would I want to wait until I have a lot of competition? That lowers the value of the reward.

You see. It is very unfortunate. But I think like a human.

And humans is very interesting creatures.

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:12 pm
by MSimon
Is this from experience or is it more of a "the government is bound to screw it up for us" assessment of the law? I don't see anything in the briefs that indicate such activity can't happen, just that it must be reported more fully. Am I missing something?
The current value of the reward has to be market to market and deducted from profits. Now. Even if it is to be paid later out of future profits. It increases capital requirements in other words.

Oh. Yeah. The cost of accounting is far from zero as well.

Do some research on how Sarbanes Oxley is strangling Silicon valley.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 01&sc=1000
It has been six years since Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act after the devastating accounting irregularities of Enron and WorldCom. While the intent of the law was to prevent corporate fraud, there is growing evidence that it has done more harm than good, and is undermining the venture-capital industry in Silicon Valley.
Rep. Michael G. Oxley, R-Ohio, recently said in an interview with the International Herald Tribune that Sarbanes-Oxley was passed in haste. "Frankly, I would have written it differently. ... Everyone felt like Rome was burning."

Sarbanes-Oxley went too far in regulating corporate governance, resulting in at least three unintended consequences.

-- It was insufficient at preventing insolvencies and accounting shortfalls in companies such as Bear Sterns, Lehman Bros., American International Group (AIG) and Merrill Lynch.

Estimates from leading figures in the venture-capital community indicate the average company will now take 12 years before it can successfully issue an initial public offering (up from five years pre-Sarbanes-Oxley) because they do not have enough capital to cover the estimated $4.36 million hidden tax in yearly compliance costs, according to an estimate by the Financial Executives International.
VCs set a goal of cashing out in 5 years. At 12 years the NPV of an investment is zero (effectively). Especially when you add in the added expenses.

Google is your friend. You could have learned this on your own. But humor me. In exchange for me finding this, follow the link and read it all.

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:39 pm
by imaginatium
MSimon wrote:They may be base to you but they are still with us no matter how hard you wish them to go away.
Yes they are still with us, but there are some individuals who have evolved further than to be dominated by them.

MSimon wrote:The females still flock to wealth. That is where you want to start. Change the women. And good luck with that.
Actually I've had great luck with that. I wouldn't trade all the women who love and adore me. for any number of women who "flock to wealth", I'm just not interested in women that shallow.
MSimon wrote:Engineering wise I prefer to deal with the world as it is rather than plan on some fantasy not in evidence.
Engineering wise I prefer to deal with the most highly evolved people, of the world as it is, not those who cling to the values of a more barbaric age.
MSimon wrote:The USSR is still looking for the Socialist Man (he seems to be a lot like your altruistic man). As far as I know they never found enough of them to keep the system running and in any case they were exploited by the Soviet alphas.
Do you know what year it is? there has not been a USSR for over 20 years. And as a former county Libertarian Party vice-chairman, I'm certainly not advocating socialism.

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:02 am
by TallDave
I wouldn't trade all the women who love and adore me. for any number of women who "flock to wealth",
They all do, it's just a matter of degree. Men are hardwired to appreciate physical beauty, women are hardwired to seek status. Money is a primary form of status.
The remnants of the evolutionary inheritance of competitiveness, needed to survive our hostile past, in a world of scarcity. Like the preservation of bodyfat by rapid elimination of unused muscle, these are evolutionary hold overs, that no longer serve us, in a world where security and abundance are within our grasp.
You're talking about the mechanism by which society survives. Without competition, there is very little motive to produce. That was Simon's point about what happened to the USSR.

You can survive (i.e. be clothed, fed, and housed) in the U.S. without working. That's an abundance undreamt of in earlier centuries -- but it's built on the accumulated productivity improvements of centuries of cutthroat capitalist competition and persists only because a large portion of people aren't satisfied with mere subsistence and compete for status symbols, from larger homes to better cars to higher-resolution TVs.

Ultimately, we have no motivations beyond our programming. We can choose which principles to apply so as to better satisfy them, but all of life serves to satisfy urges built into us over the eons. Do away with them and the only logical result to a pointless existence is suicide.

A society can commit suicide the same way. Childless post-Christian Europe, gripped by self-loathing and ennui, is just waking up to the demographic realities of being overwhelmed by the virulently militant faith of the prolific immigrant class they've allowed to settle amongst them. Even as the great cathedrals close, more and bigger mosques spring up. Even as the Pope apologizes for another multitude of Catholic sins real and imagined, unapologetic daggers find the Theo Van Goghs who dare criticize Islam -- and those in power cower behind "hate speech" laws to appease their ruthless new guests. You don't have to follow the trend lines very far to see only one of these ideologies has a future.

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 12:33 pm
by Skipjack
A society can commit suicide the same way. Childless post-Christian Europe, gripped by self-loathing and ennui, is just waking up to the demographic realities of being overwhelmed by the virulently militant faith of the prolific immigrant class they've allowed to settle amongst them. Even as the great cathedrals close, more and bigger mosques spring up. Even as the Pope apologizes for another multitude of Catholic sins real and imagined, unapologetic daggers find the Theo Van Goghs who dare criticize Islam -- and those in power cower behind "hate speech" laws to appease their ruthless new guests. You don't have to follow the trend lines very far to see only one of these ideologies has a future.
Could not have said it any better. Though I am not in favor of any ideology. I dislike them all equally.

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 3:07 pm
by pfrit
MSimon wrote: Do you know what year it is? there has not been a USSR for over 20 years. And as a former county Libertarian Party vice-chairman, I'm certainly not advocating socialism.
I will rise to the challenge. I am a libertarian as well, though have never had any desire to serve. My personal political pet peeve is political parties. One always hears that our government is based on a two-party system. It isn't as we are not a parlementarian system, we have a constitutional republic. Our government is based on a no party system. Our founding fathers hated the idea of parties. Adams and Jefferson only adopted them as a short term expediant measure. They blind us. Case in point. I argue that all reasonably sane americans are both libertarians and socialists. For socialism, even if you believe that government operated police are bad, find me a solution that is better. Many have been tried and they were all terrible. It is also the best example of a socialist program. We are socialists. For libertarianism, imagine that you got over the teenage belief that you are unique and that no one else is like you. Then imagine that you got over the young adult belief that I am better than you and we are better then them. Use the mature view that we are all pretty much the same. It then follows that you should not think of laws as appling to all people, just to you. When do you believe it is appropriate for the government to tell you what you must do and what you can't do. Do you obey all the traffic laws all the time? Can you really tell me that you believe that the most efficient way for you to help your fellow man is for the government to coerce you to do it in the way that they want you to? Do you really like your elected representative? Would you want your daughter/son to date them? See, you are also a libertatian. Most ideas are only incompatitable when you capitalise them.

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:20 pm
by KitemanSA
BRINGING THIS BACK MORE TO TOPIC....
This topic basically started with a discussion regarding which government agency would be best to control the $200M government program to do WB-100. Then I, in my naivite, suggested that in NON-government hands, the cost may be whittled down to something more like $40M. MSimon suggested it wasn't possible and we were off to the races.

Bringing it back to that first off topic; MSimon, how would you structure the design-build-operate team to bring it in at the lowst cost, and how low do you think that cost coould possibly go?

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:53 pm
by pfrit
I apologize for my off subject tangent.

On subject, I would suggest that the lowest true cost for the project would be attained by the group that could make the most use out of it's existing equiptment. An electrical utility may have the most available real estate and the lowest energy costs. A mri company may have existing SC magnets to use in the project. An aerospace company may have the best existing manpower. A holding company may have all of these in its portfolio. What is the wb-100 chief expense?

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:28 pm
by ravingdave
TallDave wrote:
I wouldn't trade all the women who love and adore me. for any number of women who "flock to wealth",
They all do, it's just a matter of degree. Men are hardwired to appreciate physical beauty, women are hardwired to seek status. Money is a primary form of status.
The remnants of the evolutionary inheritance of competitiveness, needed to survive our hostile past, in a world of scarcity. Like the preservation of bodyfat by rapid elimination of unused muscle, these are evolutionary hold overs, that no longer serve us, in a world where security and abundance are within our grasp.
You're talking about the mechanism by which society survives. Without competition, there is very little motive to produce. That was Simon's point about what happened to the USSR.

You can survive (i.e. be clothed, fed, and housed) in the U.S. without working. That's an abundance undreamt of in earlier centuries -- but it's built on the accumulated productivity improvements of centuries of cutthroat capitalist competition and persists only because a large portion of people aren't satisfied with mere subsistence and compete for status symbols, from larger homes to better cars to higher-resolution TVs.

Ultimately, we have no motivations beyond our programming. We can choose which principles to apply so as to better satisfy them, but all of life serves to satisfy urges built into us over the eons. Do away with them and the only logical result to a pointless existence is suicide.

A society can commit suicide the same way. Childless post-Christian Europe, gripped by self-loathing and ennui, is just waking up to the demographic realities of being overwhelmed by the virulently militant faith of the prolific immigrant class they've allowed to settle amongst them. Even as the great cathedrals close, more and bigger mosques spring up. Even as the Pope apologizes for another multitude of Catholic sins real and imagined, unapologetic daggers find the Theo Van Goghs who dare criticize Islam -- and those in power cower behind "hate speech" laws to appease their ruthless new guests. You don't have to follow the trend lines very far to see only one of these ideologies has a future.


Very clearly thought out, and Very well said.


David

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:05 pm
by MSimon
Yes they are still with us, but there are some individuals who have evolved further than to be dominated by them.
If they are at a reproductive disadvantage then it doesn't matter how evolved you think they are.

As I said. Start with the women. They are the arbiters.

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:09 pm
by MSimon
Actually I've had great luck with that. I wouldn't trade all the women who love and adore me. for any number of women who "flock to wealth", I'm just not interested in women that shallow.
Unless you are making babies it don't mean nothin. You are an evolutionary dead end. Surviving babies are the real test.

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:15 pm
by MSimon
What is the wb-100 chief expense?
Not knowing enough.

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:28 pm
by pfrit
MSimon wrote:
What is the wb-100 chief expense?
Not knowing enough.
Far too true... :) Even so, what will cost the most in the R&D process? Facilities, magnets, electricity, personnel, or something else? $200 million in 5 years is $40 million a year. You would have a hard time hiring $40 million worth of human talent in a single year. Anyone who disagrees has never hired a large staff. So what is the driving expense? The facilities would be very expensive if you had to buy and build it yourself. How many magnets are you going to burn through to get a working system? These aren't little hand wound magnets here. Each stage would use an ever increasing amount of energy. You can't just operate at night during the months of the year when electrity is cheap like the LHC. Where would the money go? The group that could provide the most from existing resources will be able to do it the cheapest. In true dollars, not accounting dollars.