I guess I don’t understand what you mean “with no external inputs”. It’s in the physical world, with gravity. Isn’t that an external input? Driving the feedback loop of “I fall on my face if I do it wrong”?
That falling on the face is irrelevant, as it's just a byproduct of some pre-determined programming that is not learned. Surely if this was a learned experience the deer after failing on its face would quickly learn it's best to not try and stand up. Why am I standing when I just keep hitting my face into the ground?
The reality is the drive programmed into the brain is to stand up at all costs, even if that means landing flat on your face once in a while.
I guess in my mental model, the deer continues to try and stand because it wants to things like food and water, and it sees other deer standing and walking around. Psychologists do talk about a state of "learned helplessness" if a living creature fails too often.
I don’t know anything about the state of research here, this is just what I always assumed. I’m sure there are built in drives and reflexes, etc. It seems perfectly reasonable that they could be "higher level" than the ones I assumed (food, water)
> trying to dethrone the U.S. dollar or replacing it in the global system with the renminbi
Obviously, this will never happen. The reason the USD is so popular is because it is a stable and fungible currency. Those are the exact opposite characteristics of the renminbi.
China adopts a 'closed' capital market system, meaning companies and individuals are not free to move money in or out of the country, except in accordance with strict rules set down by the Chinese government.
The Chinese government has even imposed daily withdrawal limits on its citizens and their bank accounts.
Why would anyone opt to replace a fluid currency like the USD with one that is tightly controlled by a government?
In 1983 Turbo Pascal sold for about $50.00 meaning some 40 years later that price would be equivalent to about $250.00 given an inflation figure at about 3.5% per annum.
By comparison, a very expensive IBM PC shipped with a free version of Microsoft BASIC burnt into the ROM.
True, but by comparison Microsoft BASIC was, for lack of a better word, useless for anything serious.
Plus, don't forget hobbyists would 'borrow' software from each other, you'd get a free (possibly older version) of a compiler with a book...
I think I paid $69 for Turbo Pascal (spent all my birthday money in 1992), previous to that I had an old version of Microsoft Quick Pascal that was only $14.95 from Surplus Software. As well as Turbo C 1 that came with a book from SAMS publishing.
In 2023, Australian full battery electric vehicles made up 7.2 per cent of all new vehicles sold, compared with 3.1 per cent in 2022. That is despite a decade of EV denial by one particular side of Australia government, meaning EV re-charging infrastructure in Australia is still decades behind the rest of the developed world.
Because investing in infrastructure (of many types) often carries with it capital expenses and have low returns that are unbearable for most potential market players but once in place allow the provisioning of services who are very useful to the population.
In this case, nobody was going to build EV chargers if there were no EVs on the road and nobody would buy an EV if there were no chargers on the road. Stepping in and giving the initial incentive to break that cycle is what this type of intervention, such as subsidies, does.
And why do Australians think governments should build power distribution systems? Why can't we leave that up to private enterprise?
And why do Australians think governments should fund the building and upkeep of federal highways? Why can't we leave that up to private enterprise?
Surely the best option is to make sure every public road is a toll road. That Liberal Party approach to road building has worked great in NSW.
Toll Holdings is now one of the most profitable companies in the world, thanks to a Liberal NSW government turning every major NSW 'public' road into a Toll Holding toll road.
That's how good government works, making sure the public pay tooth and nail for a 'public' road as that helps out the donors and the shareholders.
Back in 1856 Eunice Newton Foote, created an experiment showing CO2 traps heat from sunlight, by putting jars containing varying degrees of CO2 in direct sunlight.
What she wrote in her paper describing that experiment was the heat rise happing in the jars fill with CO2 could also happen to our planet.
“An atmosphere of that gas,” she noted, “would give to our earth a high temperature”.
So, the science describing this phenomenon is nothing new. When it comes to the science, there is no longer any doubt.
Back then BRIEF was also an amazing development environment. Now it was not so much an IDE and more of a programming editor, but it was still amazingly good for software development.
The predictions of a 'soft landing' being required have turned out to be false, as the USA economy has shown remarkable strength. Compared to the rest of the world the USA economy is booming, with high GDP growth, high employment and low inflation.
And with inflation falling, the Fed now has room to start cutting rates. In an environment of falling interest rates with a strong economy it seems highly unlikely the USA will into fall into recession next year, as that would require something of an economic catastrophe.
I think the economy looks healthy. But underneath it, I think there is a very sizable population that is way worse off than before. This population lost a ton of purchasing power due to inflation. They also don't own homes which means they couldn't take advantage of the 2.5% mortgage rates. Instead, owning home is impossible for them right now. White collar jobs are now harder to come by. Many of these work gig work. So while they're employed and their wages are higher due to inflation, their living standards have collapsed and is in a recession.
What you're describing is a fairly universal phenomena found in many developed economics around the world. Over the last decade or more many countries have seen a hollowing out of their middle class, with stagnant wages growth and rapidly rising house prices.
However, I find it hard to believe the majority of the US population are currently experiencing recession like living conditions, only because the latest US quarterly GDP came in at a whopping 5.2%
That GDP figure shows the vast majority of the US population has money to spend, and they are happy to spend it.
Firstly, while total debt might have quadrupled, in that time the size of the economy has also grown, and that means the debt has become easier to finance.
Debt sits at about 130% of GDP, and was about 68% of GDP back in 2008, meaning when measured against the size of the economy it has not yet doubled.
Also, by comparison debt to GDP hit 116% in 1946 and managed to return to 31% of GDP in 1974, showing that given the political will, the USA has no trouble paying down its debts.
The US economy had a huge boom from 1946 to 1974, powered by amazing demographics and advances in technology that we don't have today. I don't think political will is what made that possible, just good timing.
High debt with high growth is still much better than high debt with low growth. And Trump record on handling debt issue is no better than Biden. Trump added $USD 7.8 trillion to the debt during his term in office, whereas Biden's has added about $USD 5.4 trillion.
Like Trump, a big chunk of Biden's debt was COVID relief.
If the majority of debt was going towards infra, building new factories or improving old ones, reducing cost of housing/health/edu of workers, its all cool. But for a long time now, a mega machine exists that diverts it towards real estate asset inflation, stock market asset inflation, monopoly power consolidation, interest and rent collection, financial sector fees, buying national assets of poorer countries, startup ponzi schemes etc etc. The parasite is fantastic at generating lot of activity. The question for the US has always been how will the parasite be confronted and when.
It's very difficult for any major institution to not have problems similar to this, as there will always be individuals in positions of power who take it upon themselves to make decisions that can be construed as corrupt.
However, the fact this issue was revealed to the public, reported widely and also found to be a highly dubious shows the institute is working fine.
They appear to have systems and processes in place to help stop these kinds of dubious decisions, and because of the blowback from this rather poor decision, I'm certain the people at the FDA working the next round of approvals will make sure they hold up to scrutiny, which will be stronger than ever.
Of course major institutions will always face these sorta problems.
However your comment seems to assume the FDA self-corrected. They faced a lot of external criticism and eventually partially capitulated. Even then they just restricted its listed audience.
> They appear to have systems and processes in place to help stop these kinds of dubious decisions
Except that it was external pressure that forced changes, not internal processes. The congressional report found that the FDA violated their own processes. Thankfully we still have a fairly transparent government and the incident was made public.
Though congress seems to have just given them a slap in the wrist. No officials were fired AFAICT, why wouldn't other FDA officials do the same in the future? Based on the parent article it might still be happening.
FDA Warning Letters: your pharmaceutical manufacturing plant was found to have adulteration and QA issues (again). Your medication actually has other medications or precursor/intermediate chemicals in it (again). FDA's response: a wag of the finger (again). So you "fix" the issue the next time the FDA Boy Scout comes around. All set.
