Retail To Save Us? A.I.’s Joke on Apes

by

Remember the lyrics that matter today?  (Cue Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven)

That’s because Retail Sales will be reported Monday morning.

Sure, we have minor stuff now (Producer Prices and fresh U.I. filings in a sec. if you like looking up the supply chain’s hiney) and tomorrow we get some import-export numbers.  But it all pales compared to Monday.

Buying a stairway to heaven is the business government wants desperately to be in; ignore the bounds between Church and State.  Understanding of the “government deal” is very useful at times.  Especially so when trying to understand contagious stupidity.  To begin…

  • Government loves growth.  Means more taxes, more excuses for wars and open borders, and even supports the Bigger Lie that the National Debt could (ever) someday be paid off.
  • No Growth is where Depressions come from.  Seems obvious, but when the Fed wrongly raised rates on the front-end of the Great Depression, they helped to trigger the collapse of confidence.
  • Still: Too much growth is Bad.  Very Bad.  When prices go too high, too fast (look around you!) people get cranky.  The generally “soft boundary” between working for a living, or taking the dole, becomes a much different proposition.  With the marginal rate of return on additional effort falls below zero, people just walk away. (Joseph Tainter)
  • Bad means like War.  Which may be one of the reasons that neocons (turned neoliberals) are so desperate for War Imminence. Global war becomes (continuity of government) necessary when economic collapse shows up.  Big Wars cover virtually all huge policy boners.  (Jared Diamond)
  • A Little Inflation is Very Good.  In a way, modestly rising prices do the job of Madison Ave.  They push people to “Buy now – before prices rise!”  Too much, however and you get bubbles (2007-2009 Housing Bubble).
  • Manipulating Election Years is the Point.  While many in the Fed admit – even publicly – that rates really should be higher – (see: Bowman) – the Reality of this being an election year is likely to preclude rational economics.

Strange as this may sound, we are braced, in our Junior Greedster market plays for a surprise Fed rate hike.  Maybe even over a weekend.  Maybe weekend after this one (after options come off the table on the 19th).

Depending on what the “acceptable limits” are for public consumption in the retail figures, the Fed still MIGHT have time to do an “emergency” quarter point rate hike (due to extreme extraordinary risks) which could dial back stocks, slow spending now, and then let Powell do a rate drop in September.

The Yo-Yo here works like this:  Cutback on jobs, peaky markets, and digital froth now – then “turn it right back on again” in the month before elections.  That way – as the “extraordinary risk” is addressed (govt. leaders play rockstar) we will all rush out and pull the (planned) lever in November at the polls.

That quick-hit warning would also serve Biden’s second term, because it would pre-emptively cool things off ahead of Term 2 (4 for Obama).

Futurology keeps us open to expecting the unexpected.  Remember, there are many downsides possible near-term in G.A. Stewart’s work on Nostradamus. We are also in the Puetz collapse window out into mid May.  Toss in Clif High and Martin Armstrong both having worrisome outlooks for this period, and, well, it’s Thursday, right?   (Circus Day for aging Mouseketeers.)

Check your six if you gamble on the Future:  We can almost see one week into the future now. Two scenarios to ponder:

  • One is we sink into Friday’s close.  Get the Cinderella Retail report at the Monday session. Huge rally into Index options, but then a decline and the commercials cover with cheaper stocks Friday and pocket the vig.  Then the “real deal” happens over the weekend.
  • But we could rally into Friday.  This is how the other side of Future could play out. A hard down at the open Monday, rally strongly into
    Thursday (or Friday).  The Prognosticals get the date call wrong, And we’re left pondering Putin into Macedonian lands in May.

I might run through this kind of logic-chain, now and then, if you don’t mind.  Because we are in an extraordinary time.

We may not be alone on the Earth, anymore.

Nick Bostrom’s New Book

I suppose you are wondering about the “not alone” reference.  OK, I’ll explain, just keep the white coats at bay until after breakfast.

I don’t think anyone has written the definitive novel on how A.I. takes over government. The plot is just sitting there. Maybe if I wrote less here…

Anyway, point is what would a war between Government on the one side and A.I. on the other, be like?  In a 2022 paper, Nick Bostrom wrote a dandy paper Propositions Concerning Digital Minds and Society (nickbostrom.com).  In which he makes the proposal that…

“• The substrate-independence thesis is true:
“[M]ental states can supervene on any of a broad class of physical substrates. Provided a system implements the right sort of computational structures and processes, it can be associated with
conscious experiences. It is not an essential property of consciousness that it is implemented on carbon-based biological neural networks inside a cranium: silicon-based processors inside a computer could in principle do the trick as well.”
# Sufficiently high-fidelity human brain emulations would be conscious.
# Some AIs with architectures quite different from biological brains could also be conscious. “

This is something Nick has written of before. (See: Are You Living in a Computer Simulation? (simulation-argument.com))

Now, he has a book out that deals with a happier kind of muddle-through for A.I. and human coexistence.  It’s title?  “Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World.”

The problem ahead (for the ape team) is coming fully to grips with what a “Solved World” looks like.  We can see its ghost on the horizon already.  But the implicates are slow coming into focus.

To my way of (futuring) the big problem is not the existential part of A.I. – a simple astrolabe offloads human “brain stuff” for later remounting on our personal wetware.

No, it’s the Choicing Art that comes along with Solved World.  Because “Solved” is not “Implemented.”  And therein lies el problemo.  

That’s where human frailty is thinnest.  Look at the clowns we put in national office, for crying out loud. But in a democratic republic (not mob rule democracy) we have done a (how to say this gently?) a somewhat suboptimal job of finding World Fixers.

Which we need – to implement all the fixes – which will become apparent as A.I. sets off “solving World” for us.

Don’t get me wrong: Bostrom is right up there with Odlyzko on George’s list of people I admire with bigger brains. But somehow, A.I. might be bringing into focus a grand “circularity in how world operates.”

We’d describe it as when we leave our tribal/local roots and raise up an advanced technological society. Which harnesses fire, builds a-bombs, 737 Max’s, and finds the ghost particle at CERN.

Then we wake up one morning and realize we have solved it. ALL Leaving us only two courses into the future.  The two choices are:

  1. Humans come up with a greatly improved (workable, non-jackable) means of public policy development.  (Ask Hunter?)  OR…
  2. We go into free-running, self-balancing mode and let A.I. call the shots. All the shots. Which we label (with no lack of respect) the “God Mode.”  Because this is essentially the “natural balance” model.

I get the biggest smile (recalling Tainter and Diamond as I write this):  Wouldn’t it be a fine joke on Humans if for all the effort we put into technology, all it really does – in the end – is lead us back to a simple, local, tribal life in harmony with all the other pieces of world?

Jokes on us.  We just “reinvented Balance” that God was teaching, right there in front of us for millions of years.

Dumb apes, even if they have fire and nukes.

Sheesh…

I hope Bostrom can address this (little bitty) choice gap in a forthcoming book.  Otherwise, I’ll never sort out whether any religious prophet would buy tech stocks. Might be pointless, from their enlightened standpoint. Know what I mean?

So, How About That PPI, Huh?

(As the gray cloud of normalcy and averaging descends again…)

The Producer Price Index for final demand rose 0.2 percent in March, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Final demand prices moved up 0.6 percent in February and 0.4 percent in January.

On an unadjusted basis, the index for final demand increased 2.1 percent for the 12 months ended in March, the largest advance since rising 2.3 percent for the 12 months ended April 2023.

Despite this, Dow futures were down another hundredfiddy. (Smile, that’s typebonics.)

One other Econ note: E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. on X: “Insane: 42% of spending in March was financed by new debt – and then Yellen scratches her head when Treasury auctions are horrendous, like today’s 10-year… 

This as gold closes in on $2,400 and silver kissed $28.16. Bitslingers are running $70,160-ish.

Creepy Crawlers

War at the door Dept. (East)  US intel warns Iranian attack on Israel ‘imminent,’ CENTCOM commander to visit Israel. (*Um, we’ll take a later flight, thanks…)

War at the door Dept. (Euro)  Switzerland to host June 15-16 Ukraine peace summit, Russia not taking part in it.  (*I must be dense; if no Russia, what’s the point?)

War at the door Dept. (West) Biden to warn on Beijing’s South China Sea moves in Philippines-Japan summit (rappler.com). We’re confident the “deaf dragon” won’t care, having as they do, a leash around our lifestyle.

OMG – says here there may be three smart democrats! Three Senate Dems Vote With Republicans To Dismantle Plank Of Biden’s EV Agenda. Let’s all hear it for hybrids?

Slow Joe’s-on-the-Go in Arizona:  REPORT: Biden and Harris Think LGBT Voter Support is Going to Save Them in November | The Gateway Pundit . Tell you what, if Joe’s so keen on abortion, I think we ought to let him go ahead and have one…

Groundwork for Martial Law when Disease X drops: The WHO Accord: Global Governance is a Real Threat to American Sovereignty | uncoverdc.com. Which part of Ruling Class under cover of democracy aren’t you following?

Around the Ranch:  Septic Roulette, Rain

Folks up at Tyler Texas Weather keep very close tabs on the weather around these parts.  By their count, we’re up to almost 22.5 inches of rain for the year to date.  Here in the Concord Mountains of East Texas, we’re around 25 inches for the year.

The Concord Mountains are not widely understood.  Calling them mountains is Texas-sized overstatement.  One of the “peaks” just up the street from us towers to a Sherpa terror of 630 feet.

Near as we can figure, the name exists because there’s a rough patch of ground that begins a county or two east of us and continues mostly flat over to the Florida panhandle.  There’s a spot locally which, were I younger and flying hang gliders would call to me called Love’s Lookout (tshaonline.org).  Amazing sweeping views out east.

Over the hills (ahem, mountains) from us, there’s another high-hill view.  But these look from here in the summit lands out the other way – West out toward Wacko.

All of this is a slow build-up to my geological lecture of the day.  Centered on how tough it is to put in a good septic drain field in soil that’s mostly red dirt clay.  I mean, one good enough to disperse 6-inches (and then some) of water and still keep working.

Based on past experience, we will get “flush again” around late afternoon. But the takeout of “important knowledge” is to know that while yes, shit rolls downhill, exactly when can be somewhat offset from local events.

Write when you’re flush,

George@Ure.net

22 thoughts on “Retail To Save Us? A.I.’s Joke on Apes”

  1. George
    Good news and bad news from Slidell Louisiana.
    The good news: my favorite hardware store survived a near miss from the EF1 tornado that came through our city yesterday.
    The bad news: the new and thriving nail saloon that moved into the old boat showroom next to the hardware store took the full hit from that tornado. They made the national news! All inside survived but the roof is missing. They may not reopen.
    A tragedy as that building had been empty for several years on a main highway and the new salon was getting popular.
    As for me and mine we spent the day without power. That was instructive as it showed us some holes in our survival preps. Notable in munchies and oxygen bottles to replace the Cpap machine which requires electricity. I failed to store extra fuel for the portable generator. Lesson learned!! Actually that’s a problem when you live in the suburbs. Very dangerous! Easier to do on the country property in Mississippi. I will work on this problem.

    • Happy to hear that you had no damage … and per the news reports nobody died.

      Tornadoes are fickle things, sometimes though having a repeating track which one needs to be aware of and stay away from. Stay safe and have a good tornado plan for the future.

    • Thank god you are all alright.. coming out of a storm you give thanks.. the sheer power of nature is amazing..
      We get a lot of such storms through the wastelands.. high winds is common.. I remember a friend that was coming to visit.. thought something was wrong with his car.. stopped to have them check.. the noise he was hearing was from the wind.. our normal breeze is twenty miles an hour.. twelve is a calm day..LOL

      two years ago.. spring.. we had what was called straight line winds.. hundred and six mile an hour.. the wife was going to work and it hadn’t hit yet… I looked outside and all I could see was a black wall headed our way.. so I said well hun I had better fire up the beast and take you don’t drive.. dam as we were headed to her work place.. trees were being uprooted and parts of roofs flying by us.. did tons of damage everywhere.. took out the power for four days.. we got lucky.. most of the people that live here in this small community work for the power company so our home town comes first.. sucked the windows out of one and threw a building major damage..
      this past weekend we had winds in excess of sixty miles an hour.. ( wouldn’t you know it.. I was going to grill out but couldn’t )
      one of the scariest ones was after I had fallen in early nineties.. I got busted up.. no basement or storm shelter.. and I get a call a tornado is headed your way get someplace safe.. I hobble out with the crutches.. and seen the wall of hail.. there wasn’t anyway I could drive a car or even get to the car.. so I sat in the lawn chair under the awning and thought what the hell, I might as well watch what it is.. it pulled up just before it got to town and went right over the house..scary yes.. interesting absolutely.. watching the wild wind with so much power right above me was an amazing sight.. it had to be two years ago..last summer was when I had the main gen ordered.. the tornado took out the power.. and we were using extension cords everywhere to keep everything going..

  2. In regard to septic water dispersal, perhaps a propane or solar powered throne would stop flooding the drain field. Good luck!!!

  3. re: a vintage bordeaux
    feat: toasty moorish notes

    Folks,
    I was all set to include a “France24” report of yesterday’s knife attack in Bordeaux, France. Besides fine wines, the area has been trying to fight off the Moors since Aquitaine’s 8th century Odo the Great. Seeing as the “France24” report has moved to points unknown, let us sip from the “Daily Mail” King’s English version. “Knifeman gunned down in a frenzy of police machine gun fire…”.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13294391/knifeman-france-bordeaux-machine-gun-police.html

    Apparently the Algerian attacker in an arab dress took issue with a group of North Africans drinking after the lifting of the day’s fasting. The “Daily Mail” report includes pixellated picture of a police approach with machine gun drawn to grade the freshly pressed sour grape prior to its casking.

  5. Here in Ohio, the “smarter than everybody in the room” state EPA has practically mandated mound systems for ALL new or replacement septics. Read “needs electric to function”, other wise your toilet becomes useless in a power down situation. Our Country will not be destroyed as quickly by the clueless politicians, as it will by the unelected complete morons at the three letter agencies who sit at their desks and write de facto law into existence.

  6. “The Concord Mountains are not widely understood. Calling them mountains is Texas-sized overstatement. One of the “peaks” just up the street from us towers to a Sherpa terror of 630 feet.”

    Having driven through the Concord (so called) MOUNTAINS a few times I think your 630′ is it’s elevation above sea level. From my car side view the heights of those MOUNTAINS above the valleys “far below” is about 250′.

    Definitely pretty terrain, for otherwise VERY BLEAK Texas, since they are forested in addition to adding some rollingness to the terrain, but not even close to the heights of our local “hills” (which we would NEVER dare to call mountains).

    Another item of note that always amazes me is out West they call things RIVERS that here would barely qualify to be called a creek. Amazing how language describing natural features is so different in different parts of the country.

    • Everything is relative. The last time I was in Mt. Dora, Florida I was tempted to buy a t-shirt that said, “I climbed Mt. Dora – elevation 184′.”

    • Mississippi River begins in North Minnesota by Lake Itasca overflowing. It looks like a creek and I have walked over the river on some stones sixty years ago.

      • -=OUCH!=-

        I’m not sure how you would build the tool (OM2 would know) but if you could drill a series of “dry well chimneys” (say 2-3 per finger) a couple hundred feet deep, using an 8-12″ auger, then fill the chimneys with pea, or even drop in sections of perf-pipe you’d increase the capacity of your field and make it easier for the water to soak in, without removing the filter capacity of the ground.

        Ideally, you would excavate yourself a “seasonal creek” to help escort the flood away from your field, but I’m not sure that’d be a fix for your specific problem.

        If’fn yer field is flooded, the rains to ‘splain aren’t layin’ on the plain, but instead, are saturating the area between 8-20 feet below ground…

  8. “Futurology keeps us open to expecting the unexpected. Remember, there are many downsides possible near-term in G.A. Stewart’s work on Nostradamus. We are also in the Puetz collapse window out into mid May. Toss in Clif High and Martin Armstrong both having worrisome outlooks for this period, and, well, it’s Thursday, right? (Circus Day for aging Mouseketeers.)”
    Still sticking with the final death-knell for the what used to be the good-ole-USA between now and June. Going to be a multiheaded beast, (probably first financial-economic-social), followed by ALOT of Duke Nukems…….only hope that we all have prayed to our Father for forgiveness and salvation before the top blows off…..

  9. You think you’ve got septic problems? How about rock plate lava flows for a substrate? Historically this area has been cesspools that seep into the layered lava rock. Recent law changes now require septic tanks, and one has to construct your own drain field of drainage rock… on top of the lava rock plates. Expensive mucho.

    One old retired gent up the road bought and cleared a lot here on the lava flows. He got a single water connection from our private water system here on the road. His lava flow has two deep holes connected by a deep lava tube. He concrete capped one, and the other became his cesspool. Mind you… he has no building permits… not required in this area yet. Then he built a small shack … again, no permits. No electric connection. Has a charcoal grill on the porch. Appears to have done all the labor himself as we watched him build the place. Un-permitted, off grid retirement survival home on the cheap.

    I live in fear of my cesspool clogging up and requiring a new septic system dug. Might cost more than the purchase price of the ranch here and require the busting up of my beautiful lava rock garden in the back. I’d probably have to do a reverse mortgage to pay for the damn thing… if that would be enough.

      • Septic-safe TP. I use Scott and Cottonelle, and Kroger’s house brand.

        Splurge on a 4-roll package (or several), open the package, toss two sheets in the bowl and see how long it takes for the paper to dissolve. If it doesn’t dissolve, don’t buy it any more. The buttwipes I use typically last between 17-25 minutes before assuming a permanent biologically-efficient state…

    • https://youtu.be/8uzmwyUADZs?si=9os3rFNDnA1gRBy9

      https://youtu.be/P4X0QYeQFJE?si=PP8zbm66iz7oemTO
      https://youtu.be/Cwm5Rm8uIsk?si=GsCSkDGCaaZRzLt6
      a few years ago I was visiting with a dairy farmer.. I told him about a chicken hatchery that I seen back in the early eighties.. after talking about how much energy he had to use .. I was amazed at the amount.. so he showed me his operation.. the droppings from the chickens went to a drain trough into a digester.. the gas was harvested and used to heat the whole farm home and his tractors and cars.. the digested material was then dried bagged and sold..
      last year I thought he had put in a new silage pit.. no it was a gas bag.. from his dairy farm he produces over two billion cubic feet of gas.. that he sells to the utility companies.. Yes I pay for some of that gas in my appliances.. he makes more off of his gas than he does with his cheese and milk products.. the digested sludge is given or sold to his neighbors for their fields..
      When I was growing up.. the community didn’t have a sewer system.. most everyone in the small town had outhouses.. so did we.. the bath tub hung on the outside wall and we had a cistern for water.. one year my father worked day and night to dig in a septic system so we could have a toilet indoors.. everyone razzed my father about him becoming to high faluten for the regular people.. the wash was on the porch the drained water was grey water and went into sub irrigation pipes for the garden.. a couple feet deep if I remember right..
      Now paper products you can digest and make alcohol out of it.. I never owned a shredder until I worked waste.. officials came in quite regularly to go through people trash.. read their mail .. listening to the comments on how they determined those homes sex lives etc. was disgusting..
      years ago.. a crazy woman made a random comment to me.. I thought it was funny.. mentioned it at the local coffee clutch and the old guys there told me you had better check it out.. see the crazy woman would go in and put leins on homes and farms.. no one knew about them until they would go to sell or need to get a loan.. then the leins would have grandfathered in and they would have to pay a lot of money to clear it up.. I went down and was shocked at how many people were going through peoples files .. at the courthouse.. every aspect of your life is at the courthouse.. and open to anyone that wants to check it out.. so pelletize your paper use it burn it.. but don’t just leave it open to anyone that is curious about what your life is like.. I shred mine and use it in the garden.. a burn pit fire.. cell phones.. do a hillary.. well you don’t need to call the agencies to destroy them.. smash them yourself.. LOL all your contacts etc.. I don’t post anything private on FB.. I only have FB so I can keep abreast of the kids and grand kids.. that seem to only use face book..they think I am crazy when I say .. don’t post it..

  10. (“Tell you what, if Joe’s so keen on abortion, I think we ought to let him go ahead and have one…”)

    I remember when he was totally against abortion.. he ranted and raved that abortion should not be allowed ..
    https://youtu.be/5TZ0kjr3SXc?si=XL7BRIXtcsI6VeZg
    then you see how his children turned out.. could that be the main reason why he is now screaming that we need abortion..
    the corruption and dual standards of the law are so extreme and bizarre that it truly shows us that this is either the twilight zone or we are all having one hell of a nightmare.

    • poor joe would not have had any young Kiddies with which 2 shower with, had they done right thing back in the day and aborted those malogenes..

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