Iron Framing

MMT, if nothing else, provided heterodox economist with a new language framing. One that is emancipatory. If only the normie MMT’s took this seriously. We tend to only see Mosler and Mitchell apply the better language consistently. Although sometimes I even get peeved with Mitchell. Why? Because like Stephanie Kelton, sometimes, just sometimes, he leads with the mainstream myth.

For better pedagogy (learning absorption) I believe you must begin with the truth. Then you can work backwards to exhibit the mainstream models, and that way they appear even more laughable. Kelton is especially bad at leading with the myth. Never lead with the myth.

One exhibit of the laughable is this chap Underwood on the MMMT101 comments section, if you let him take an inch on mainstream understanding of BOE monetary operations he’ll take not a mere mile, but a lightyear. Of course this Underwood behaves like a know-it-all, and the rest of us are idiots, so it’s fruitless debating with him. Hopefully he will die before me, so I’ll get a small ratchet effect propagating MMT. Undoing his wrongs.

However, these “wrongs” often boil down to,

1. Language framing — Underwood can weasel word his way to “prove MMT wrong”. Or at least he tries to show the markets would freak out if MMT’ers got into power. (Your response should be let, them, tell them to ꘝꕯꕷꕷ off to Argentina with their bazillions, and don’t ship them anything. When they try a UKP payment, just block it. Why? For them being 𖧥𖨚𖨚𖦙𖥕ꛚ𖠢ꕷ.)
2. Self-imposed Constraints — sure the government “must borrow” from the CB “in order to spend”. But that’s a voluntary constraint. Why do you have it? The fear of the Inflaton Bogeyman? 🤣 Only cosmology has a metaphysical Inflaton, and it is a fiction in that case as well!

I learned that No 1. language framing from Bill Mitchell, don’t blame me entirely for the cusswords. It’s in the MWW Macroeconomics extended textbook as oral canon.

Let’s re-phrase those self-imposed constraints correctly (also happens to be funnier):

• Parliament must suck the balls of the Central Bankers in order to authorize their computer operators to mark-up bank accounts to clear government payments. Why do we impose that again? Must be central bankers like their balls getting licked. (Cricket balls of course, to generate reverse swing. What? … did you think I meant something else?) ((But then why do non-Cricket playing nations do the same, is it actual perversion?))
• If it’s not the ball-licking, it is fear of either capital flight or inflatons appearing from filling the fiscal vacuum with real currency?

Government spending never leads to Inflaton’s appearing. It is spending into a vacuum — created by the tax liabilities and banking usury.

When their is no real production then you get Inflaton’s condensing out of the fiscal vacuum. Pretty much the opposite of Undertoad’s story.

I could write for hours about this, but my eyes are sore and droopy, so I won’t. If you want me to emit more words then donate.

Never Lead with the Myth

I also learned this in theoretical physics. It can seem cute to teach via history. But you’d best do so only with experiment, not the historically laughable theory. So the Photoelectric Effect is great. The precession of Mercury (all planets, but only Mercury is easy to measure). Single particle Two-Slit interference. Stern–Gerlach. And so on and so forth.

For me, one of the greatest of all time is Galileo, but Eratosthenes and the other Greeks with their Well and Solstice take some beating too. Friggin geniuses. You don’t get a Newton without a Galileo & Brahe–Kepler, you don’t get an Einstein–Maxwell without a Faraday. You won’t get a Turok–Boyle without a CERN and CMBR cohort.

There is nothing worse than priming a young theoretician’s mind with the myth. It makes it all the harder to undo. Who can say they were not once tempted by the Story of Barter? (Not me, because using seashells to as a medium of exchange seemed ridiculous from the outset. First, in survival mode you share, because you must. Second, even if Robinson and Friday were arch capitalists, one of you can always get up in the night and cook the seashell ledger. You cannot do so with a double-entry booksheet which you each own a half of, and keep secure. Tally sticks dude! Which means you need a Third Castaway who gets fed, sheltered, and only has the job of keeping the accounts. Roasting his testicles when he cannot blind match the cryptographic security.) No system is perfectly protected against fraud by cahoots. SHows you the banker is supposed to be the good guy autistic who throws a fit when the books don’t balance. Poke holes in my synopsis why don’t you?🤣 Clint Ballinger did a fair enough job in 1000 Castaways, so go bug him.

Language is Not All

I cannot tell you how depressing it is to me to here so-called “scientists” talk about how “Your thoughts are not your own,” and “Your mind is generated by language,” and other cognitive science shibboleths. It’s all pseudo-religion, which means fake, and nasty. (True religion is Good, but is damn near impossible to find. Maybe none exist.)

So here’s the main lesson for today, taking a leaf from the great Prof. Emily Bender’s research.

Never say the LLM’s (or any future algorithms) are “generative”. They do nothing but re-generate (that is, digging up string fragments and re-emitting them).

The magic of the LLM bots is that with regeneration (recombination of old strings once emitted and now re-used) you have amazing variety, which mimics generativity. Its a terrible thing though, to mistake thought for shuffling string emissions, or the converse. I would say an injustice. Also, increasingly, perhaps a crime against humanity?

But psychological projection is a powerful human capacity. Young kids need to be inoculated against the instinct. Use it, but don’t misuse it. I would say even be skeptical that your pet dog or octopus can think. It probably can’t. But the point is, how can you ever know? You cannot ever know what it is like to be an Octopus. No mathematical model will ever tell you what that is like.

Upon that which you do not know please consider remaining silent. (That’s the more polite Ludwig.)

Combinatorics is damn powerful. You can tell a friend what it is like: shuffle a deck of cards, and the chances are googols to 1 that the order you arrived at has never been seen before in the history of our universe, counting all alien species who play cards with a 52 card deck or more. Counting all card shuffles to the projected death of all stars.

Kind of puts a different complexion on “unique” doesn’t it?

Luis Borges and his Librarians probably did not know the half of it.

The cleverness of the LLM’s is not in the LLM, it is in the software engineers who created the algorithm that ensures the string emissions (or pixels in the case of images — although in computer registers they are still strings or similar bytes) were recompiled into seemingly meaningful sentences. How did they do that? Well, they initially had no theory for it, but compute probaable next str fragment seemed to “just work!”

Of course, they often fail, and when they do only then can you rightfully suspend projection of your mentality without feeling you are doing the machine a moral injustice. The failure modes are what are important, not the success modes. The successes of an algorithm are what is supposed to happen, blindly. It’ll always be the case (imho) that the machines and robots are not sentient, and you’ll tell by the failure modes, which are qualitatively completely different to our only known thinking beings (ourselves). By “ourselves” I mean me. For you, I cannot tell, you might all be Zombies.

So without thinking, just by shuffling, you appear “generative” and yet nothing of any generative thinking was really involved. The thinking comes when you use the deck to do something with. Maybe taking money off the Undertoad’s of the commentariat world.