Nexus of Neuronheads

TLDR: I do not mind (too much) if the tech oligarchs and their coding bunny slaves, the “techies”, and enabler professional thinking people (like Dennett, Hinton, Joscha Bach, and Hofstadter et al) want to believe the machines can be superior in intelligence and moral capacity than they themselves are. They are probably right. There is empirical evidence they are right. ELIZA was already superior in moral input–output than the tech bros. But I do not believe any machine is superior in intelligence to myself or my readers, the machines are not even thinking, so have zero intelligence.

Behaviour is not intellect.

Robert Sapolsky (an avatar for any free will deniers, including the professor with that name), while not a nazi, is a nazi enabler. By “nazi” here I mean mostly AI/tech nazi, but increasingly it seems the generic usage is apropo.

Right. Got that off my chest. Now for the part I hope (in vain) nerds will continue reading. That includes all the biological determinists like the soulless followers of Dawkins and Sam Harris, not just the compsci nerds.

This is going to be an uncomfortable essay, if it was not already lol, but critical in the times we find ourselves.${}\dagger$ If you are a materialist or physicalist, or even physical–emergentist then please just bear with me. When the neoliberals and their neoreactionary spawn, the nazis, are gone — crawling back into their superhero bat-caves — we can go back to agreeing to disagree on the metaphysics and nature of “free will”.

${}\dagger$If not critical for you to read, it was critical for me to write, for my own sanity and stress relief. Not that all stress and anxiety is relieved. But I know from experience pointing at and naming evil is a first step to wiping it out.

It is uncomfortable to publish, not to write. I had an energy in writing this essay, but nervousness in publishing since there is rife opportunity for liberals to misconstrue and fail to comprehend. I should know, I am a liberal myself. But I do not have a singular identity, I’m also a dirt poor and thoroughly dirtbag thoroughly working class leftie. As Kevin Mayes helpfully confirmed independently, I am not in the Professional Managerial Class.

If you already know the Weimar story please skip the next section. The main point of this essay is closer to Neoliberal empowerment of Neo-nazis .

The Subthesis

This one is not original, plenty of MMT’ers before me have pointed out that it was the Versailles Treaty which caused hyperinflation (not the Weimar policy! it was imposed by the French Allies) — as Keynes predicted (The Economic Consequences of the Peace ). The post WW-I hyperinflation was a result of war reparations, but that put the willies up the next guy in power. Chanceller Brüning, who, scared 𖨚𖦙𖥣𖢧ꛚ𖠢𖨚𖨚 of inflation (for no good reason), imposed harsh (and needless) austerity policies.

Imposing a debt in gold on a government that cannot be paid will always lead to hyperinflation. Why? Because they cannot possibly be forced to default, they can always buy the gold, at the cost of currency devaluation. A currency, being a numeraire, can be endlessly devalued. Just stick extra zeroes on the notes and/or issue more notes (same thing). This can continue indefinitely until the actual source of the inflation is removed, in this case the war reparations and the shutdown of the Ruhr Valley industries.

Why the austerity afterwards? Wasn’t the deutschemark at the time an MMT system? It was. But if you do not comprehend MMT your policies will likely be backwards. If you also think neoclassical economics is correct then there is no doubt, your policies will be backwards with certainty.

But the thing is, they can always ensure their people have enough currency at the new price level, always. The problem is the political disruption, not the financial side. It becomes a financial problem when the government fails to re-gauge by issuing more currency. The Weimar government got it right, they issued more currency, by the truckloads. Nevertheless, it was understandably highly disruptive. The currency issuance was not the cause of the hyperinflation though, it was the effect. It also always hurts the working class and the unemployed the most — when does their wage re-gauge? Answer is, a lot later on.

Nevertheless, the truck-loads of deustschmark distributed was the “correct” policy under the crushing gold denominated reparations debt and French occupation of the Ruhr Valley industrial area combined with German worker strikes. Under the imposed Treaty war reparations the German’s faced little other option but to default on the debt. In effect the Treaty of Lausanne was a like a default, but negotiated, and really reversing the stupid Versailles Treaty.

But the damage was already done, because the next guy in power had become so fearful of hyperinflation (for no good reason) he imposed crushing austerity. The next guy in power after that promised to reverse the austerity and Make Germany Great Again. The rest is history as they say.

Why was the austerity needless?

Because Germany had the industrial power to provide for all their people. Once the Ruhr Valley industries got humming again, and the reparations causing the needless financial turmoil — and false inflation phobia hysteria psychology — were lifted. While the inflation stopped dead, the phobia did not. Because of this 7 million+ Jewish people were savagely murdered in a Holocaust.

Inflation of a numeraire currency is not a financial problem, not ever! The problem is political and class war related. The misunderstanding of the nature of the Weimar hyperinflation was the cause of the false mindset that led to the austerity. The austerity was clearly unjust to many lumpen proletariat in German, and this fueled Hitler’s rise to power. Aided by one of the greatest ironies which plays out even today: “military Keynesianism”. Call John Maynard Keynes a toff eugenicist all you like, he at least understood peace was preferable to war, and that peace is not secured when the victors fail to forgive the debts.

It is an archetype of a conservative mind to not forgive debts. Conservatives tend to think the debt was fair and just. How could it not be under the glory of capitalism? (lol.) That’s a big q.v. to the Cambridge Controversy: the losing side there were the neoclassicals who believed labour gets a just reward. The winners were the post-Keynesians who showed labour is exploited. The neoclassicals conceded defeat. History, or really the schools of economics (if you can call them “schools” — “fake knowledge” factories), completely forgot who won. (See also why bright and wise students do not want to take economics courses .)

Neoliberal Empowerment of Neo-nazis

If you are down with this subthesis again, you can skip to the real meat of this essay Why the AI Boosters are Nazi Collaborators . I think I can keep this one brief.

The point of the Weimar story is that neoliberal austerity economics breeds working class resentment of the elites, and this sometimes can lead to significant working class support for fascists. As we know, the fascist only need about a solid 35% of the demos support. The fascist becomes seen as their saviour. You can bleat all day long about how this is stupid and self-destructive, and it is, but you cannot deny the workers are correct in seeking a saviour. When the lampost is the only light around you tend to look for your keys under it.

Or consider Thomas Frank’s What‘s the Matter with Kansas? . Labour Party, Greens, and Liberal partisan organizations (fake progressives) have still not learned.

In an orthogonal arena of politics there is a parallel in climate and ecosystem catastrophe. When the liberals demand an end to coal mining jobs and such-like, the lower income workers will side with their bosses all the time. (Yes, I know, all the more reason to get rid of wage slavery, but like it or not (and I don’t like it) that’s carts before horses.)

Only MMT can tell you why it never needs to be “Jobs or the Environment” but can with very simple policy be protection of jobs & the environment. By “jobs” I mean fairly compensated spiritual endeavour, worthwhile engagement in crafts, trades and professions, not wage slavery.

Not to put too fine a point in it: Neoliberalism is a precursor to fascism. We would not have Trump without Reagan on through Obama. We would not have Luxon & Willis without Douglas/Richardson on through Adern & Robertson. Maybe you do not regard Luxon & Willis/Seymour as fascist, but their government over-reach is not classic neoliberalism, so it is pretty much a fusion neolib-techno-fascist menu.

It is almost worse than fascism, it is techno-fascism and extreme rentier-ism without the military Keynesianism to support! We should just invent a fake war to increase our employment rate. (That was a joke, but not altogether comedic in intent!) Did I just offend any neolib snowflake sensibilities? Apologies if I did. Remember, only the tech-nerds are required to continue reading under my Substack MK-ULTRA experiment here.
You will continue reading or your brain will explode.
You will continue reading or your brain will explode.
You will continue reading or your brain will explode.

Why the AI Boosters are Nazi Collaborators

This is the uncomfortable bit.

Why? Because I know a lot of tech enthusiasts see themselves as righteous libertarians freeing the masses, and all that rubbish. I am telling them you are nazi collaborators. So… massive dissonance cognitive have you young Skywalker.

You’d think I’d better back-up my case with oodles of irrefutable data and correlation versus causal analysis. But I can’t, I do not get funded for any of this, and have huge piles of other research needing attention — which is also friggin unfunded. So excuse me if I venture an opinion that ain’t funded by any donations.

Besides, in my spiritual economics book you do not always need data if you have a base marble moral reasoning. The data is good to have. The benefit of spiritual arguments is that both liberals and conservatives can accept them. Only brain-dead zombies or psychopaths would not accept a spiritual argument${^\ddagger}$

${^\ddagger}$And people who do not believe in free will, but they’re zombies, so stating that would be redundant. There is a subtlety here too: people may not believe in free will, but want to believe, I do not begrudge that person — all they need to do is admit their beliefs might be wrong. The people who do not want to believe in free will are nazi collaborators.

The spiritual trumps the empirical. Which is to echo the physics GOAT, Albert Einstein: “If my theory had been wrong then I would have been sorry for the dear Lord.” That is to say, if your moral reasoning is good, the empirical data will validate, or the empirical data is wrong. Of course, one’s moral reasoning may be stupid so “not good” in which case there is good reason to revert to data. But how do you know your moral reasoning was good? The answer is that you do not know for sure. But with sincere motive and purity of heart you can still give the moral argument.

I myself would then get empirical data to back-up my claims. But that costs a lot of time and energy, and that’s my problem. Some things are too urgent for the time lag.

Today the message is too urgent to wait for the data.

In this case, the audience has to take it all as a cautionary tale. So here it is…

The Short Tai Che Forms

Spiritual frame now: denying the inherent spiritual nature of humans (and all other sentient beings) is not only unscientific, but morally reprehensible.

It is unscientific because science has nothing to tell us about subjective consciousness. Science can only study what is objective.

On whose authority is the ‘denial of the spirit’ morally reprehensible, you might ask? You can surely figure this out for yourself, and there are many sources. But just consider, what is the source of all our moral reasoning faculties in the first place? These are purely platonic abstract concepts, more universal and timeless than anything physical or man-made.

If you want something more concrete, then just consider universal mathematical theorems. Start from mathematics, realize it is not man-made nor a social construct, and go from there.

The symbols and language forms we use to communicate mathematics is socially constructed. The platonic mathematical ideas are not. Postmodernism is an evil plague. (There is no absolute evil, only some things ’less good’ than others. But postmodernism is way down the list of Goods.)

I wrote this short firm for the tech nerds. Because the nerds are the ones who need to hear this. Anyone who is already anti-fascist and anti-neoliberal is wasting their time reading this. To you good people, please stop reading and go back to your good works.

The Long Tai Che Form

Ahhh, fugghit. I don’t have the energy for it today. I started writing all energized, but it was better for my mental health after 30 minutes to go back to some school work.

This is sad stuff upon editing before I hit “publish”. Why so may cusswords? In a more civilized time I’d have written this piece with mild manner and utmost politeness. But in a more civilized time there’d be no need to write this essay. Also I am a mere mortal, and being above the fray is not a spiritual luxury I can afford today. That is no excuse of course. So fair warning ok, cusswords will be typed. Don’t like it? Stop reading. Yes I am writing in quite juvenile and puerile mode, but sorry folks, that’s my mood today. Today, despite my hopes Ōhanga Pai can be about spiritual economics, today I do not feel like a Saint of MMT.

My challenge to you if you are a nice polite person: write this essay in our own words to convince a conservative. I’ve failed at the task.

The long form would have been an essay about how people who think machines can think are nazi enablers.

The argument would be that you are enabling the tech bros. The rest is simple extrapolation.

The tech bros are a weird fusion hybrid libertarian–fascist–technofeudalist– techno-monarchist lot. Point is, their politics are all over the place like brain spew. That is because they are just banal self-serving hypocrites and idiots. But dangerous idiots.

Old Mike Norman (hardly the most woke or PC guy out there) called the rich ꕗꗇꕷꖡꗇ𐝥ꕒꕷ “idiots” — and he knew a fair few in his trading desk days. He is not wrong.

Having a lot of government scorepoints in your bank account does not make you smart. It makes you just lucky to have got away with whatever malfeasance you have gotten away with. Exploiting workers one way or another. Even if passive income. Warren Buffet does not directly exploit workers, but he sure as heck exploits workers. Where does he think the net currency comes from that he takes off the losers in his stock trades?

(Net currency does not come from bank credit.)

Buffet’s personal wealth makes him look terribly smart. But how tf smart is it to enable tech billionaires and exploit the working class passively? It works for his bank account, but not for society, so it is 𝔣𝔘ℭ𝔎ℑ𝔑𝔊 idiocy I tell you. Buffet is for damn sure a nazi enabler. He would deny it, but they all do.

It is easier for him to sleep at night since he never sees the faces of those he has exploited. This is “by definition” sort of stuff, not up for debate.

People who think machines can think are nazi enablers. People who think humans have no free will are nazi enablers. People who think humans have no metaphysical soul are nazi enablers. Sam Harris might not be a literal nazi, but he is a nazi enabler. Your liberal’s precious Barak Obama — dare I say it? Yes, a nazi enabler.

Obama: “Bailed out Wall Street, just say ’thank you’. For the rest of you folks on main street, we’ve run out of our own scorepoints folks, sorry.”

IRL I am a pretty docile meek sort of peaceful dude, I never swear or deliberately cuss, but somehow when I write I become a beast. This brainworms about an AI Singularity is disgusting and anti-scientific, it 𝖕𝖎𝖘𝖘𝖊𝖘 me off.

Robert Sapolsky is indefensible. His story is, make no bones about it, “we cannot possibly blame Elon and his fashy gamers” messing with government systems since “they simply had no choice in the matter. Poor them!”

In their worldview when the AI Singularity overlord arrives we will welcome It with open arms because we have no other choice.

Well, I am here to crudely tell you 𝔣𝔘ℭ𝔎 that you 𝔣𝔘ℭ𝔎ℑ𝔑𝔊 🅽🅰🆉🅸 ꕗꗇꕷꖡꗇ𐝥ꕒꕷ.