Ramblings of a Megalomaniac

I’m pretty confident that the end of humanity will not come from an asteroid smashing into the earth, nor a black hole swallowing us up, nor the end of some ancient calendar.  No, the end of humanity will happen at our own hands.  Something of our own design, whether intentional or not, will cause the end of the human race as we know it.  

Global warming is a possibility, but I don’t see that ending the entire human race, just a lot of humans.  It could, but there will probably always be livable land, it just may not be where it is right now.  

Creating a super destructive virus/disease/predator/whatever in a lab is possible, but that would have to be a huge accident along the lines of “if my calculations are correct, this should create a new form of bacteria that ends global warming…Oh no!  I created a super mutant that’s currently ripping my face off and simultaneously spawning 10 new ones!”   Though a zombie virus, however unlikely, would be a good one here.  

My bet is on machines that enslave or destroy humanity.  Back of the napkin estimates put the year when a computer has as much power as the human brain around 2050.  Luckily, 3+ decades gives us plenty of time to advance our Artificial Intelligence by then to the point where a computer that large can become a thinking organism.  At that point, we’ll have computers that are like regular people.  Every 2 years, they’ll double in intelligence, and soon, they’ll be super smart.

People often believe that something like Isaac Asimov’s 3 laws of robotics will stop robots from being malicious toward humans.  That’s bullshit for a few reasons.  First, when the home tinkerers start building their own DIY robots, someone is bound to screw it up.  I’m sure many will.  

But the bigger thing is that if we make a robot that has a “brain” just like ours, it’s bound to produce a few robot psychopaths.  Our brains are supposed to be hardwired to be similar, but variations through birth, genetics, trauma, etc. cause them to be wildly different.  And they’re always changing and learning.  So would a robot’s brain.  Some are bound to be created with ineffective hardware governing the 3 laws.  Some may even know that, but know to act like normal robots to stay “alive.”  But eventually they’ll kill.  And one very charismatic leader robot will convince enough of them to destroy all humans.  Think of him like the robot version of Hitler or something.  

There are plenty of other ways humanity will beget its own demise, but my money is on the robot uprising.  

Political disclosure: This author does not support either major political party.  Current views are similar to this:  ”At the moment, the GOP seems evil, the Dems seem like complete morons, and the public seems screwed.”  Adjust your mental filter as needed before reading.

In US economic-related politics, the GOP says that taxing businesses slows economic growth.  The Dems are worried about income inequality.  Both don’t like the high unemployment and slow recovery, but differ as to how to fix it.  This posts addresses these points.

The first thing we need to realize is that government taxes generally serve two purposes:

1. Raise revenues for the government
2. Discourage (usually) undesirable behavior

That’s it.  They usually come with a ton of secondary effects that politicians either underestimated or (way more often) didn’t predict.   Let’s ignore the raising revenues component for now as we can change the tax code to do just that after we’ve really identified what we want to encourage/discourage.  

We always want a strong economy, and currently we want lower unemployment.  That’s actually relatively simple to fix.  Abolish corporate income taxes and the payroll tax.  Completely.  0%.  I know I just made a bunch enemies with that statement, but hear me out.  First, the payroll tax.  We want more hiring, not less.  But taxes discourage the behavior that’s taxed.  The payroll tax makes it more expensive to hire any and all workers.  THAT’S DISCOURAGING THE BEHAVIOR THAT EVERYBODY WANTS (hiring more workers).  Why are we continuing this practice?!  And abolishing it for only a year or two doesn’t do much.  Companies know that they’ll be paying the taxes for those additional workers in short order, so it’s either hire the new workers and go through the costs of training them, then probably firing them (and any potential legal costs with that) 12 months later, or just go about business as if the cut didn’t happen.  How many jobs is this tax costing?  Here’s my back-of-the-napkin quick math (I’m sure it’s not this simple)

Currently, I believe the payroll tax is something like 4.2%.  Unemployment is 8.2%, or put another way, employment is at 91.8%.  Top economists from all sides say that we want it somewhere around 95%.  If the entire savings of the payroll tax went into more employees (which should drive up productivity and increase profits), that comes out to this:

91.8 (current employment) * 1.042 (increased by 4.2%) = 95.66% (4.34% unemployment)

That scenario solves the unemployment issue.  My cynical mind thinks that it’s more likely for only 1/2 of the money to be spent on more employment and the other 1/2 pocketed, but that would still bring us to 93.72% (6.27% unemployment).  Still a far sight better than the 8.2% we currently have.  

Now to my much more controversial suggestion: eliminate all corporate income taxes.  Follow me on this one.  Many gigantic corporations aren’t paying much in taxes anyway. They hire top-notch accountants and tax attorneys to come up with legal (or uncatchable) ways of lowering their tax burden.  Really, they’re just creating a bunch of work (and costs) to the IRS (and thus tax payers).  But of the ones that do pay their “fair share,” it’s hurting their business.  If 28% of their income goes straight to the government, that’s 28% that doesn’t go to R&D, more employees, better benefits, or to the business owners (shareholders).  I’m sure many don’t care if the shareholders don’t get a dime, but I do.  If they don’t, people stop investing in US companies.  Or US companies move more and more operations out of the US.  We want these companies spending more money on employees, R&D, and whatever else.  And we want more money coming into the US for investment.  AND we want more companies setting up their headquarters in the US.  Let them set up shop here.  That’s a bunch of new, white-collar jobs for Americans each time a company moves here (or starts here).  Let the US be the tax haven for the world, not the Caymans nor the Seychelles nor Nevis nor anyone else.  If we need to, we only give tax breaks to foreign companies with X% of their global jobs here, or a set nominal number of jobs.    

Bring your jobs and investment to America, and we’ll reward you with no corporate income tax!

Now, this doesn’t address the Dems concern about income inequality.  To that, I say, if we’re concerned about inequality of individual income, then tax that, not the corporations.  Here’s the pitch to the rich: We’re raising your income taxes, but now we’re only taxing it once.  As it is right now, income is taxed at the corporate level, then again at the individual level before business owners (shareholders included) actually get their money.  The nominal values might be 28% and 35%, but taxed at both of those rates twice means an effective tax rate of 53.2%.  Save them money by capping the the top income tax at 50%, and still increase the amount of revenue due to many more jobs.  

Personally, I don’t think soaking the rich is the right way to go about things, but if that’s what we want to do, then let’s actually do *that* instead of hindering economic growth by taxing corporations so highly.

It’s here.  Trust me.  Awesome.

So this is something I’ve been wrestling with for a while.  Often times someone “knows” something erroneous.  Example:  A ton of people “knew” the world was flat for hundreds of years.  When a person “knows” something as an absolute truth, it’s very hard to persuade them otherwise.  It is possible for many people, but it takes a mountain of evidence, a lot of persuasive arguments, and a lot of time to stew on that information before they come around.  It’s extremely rare for someone to change their view on what they believe to be absolutely true on a dime.  It becomes exponentially more difficult when the person wraps their self-identity (or at least part of it) in that “truth” somehow.  This is quite evident in the academic communities where often breakthroughs aren’t ever accepted by key figures in these communities, but once those individuals die, pretty much everyone gets on board with the breakthrough.  That’s not always the case, but you’d be surprised how much certain academic fields are advanced with the deaths of prominent members of that field.  

So, it’s really hard to know when one of our “truths” turns out to be false, but, when presented with enough evidence and arguments, and when we’re objective enough, we can come to terms with it and accept the facts.  But what about if we’re delusional?

Being delusional is a lot like believing a fallacy as fact.  But there’s one key difference.  Your delusions will keep your mind from accepting the new data and arguments presented.  Just as in the first situation, you will believe you’re right (normal) when you’re actually wrong (delusional).  But no amount of evidence or facts will convince you that you’re delusional.  So the deluded and the normal have identical views as far as who is deluded: I’m not, you are.  

By following that train of thought, how can I (or anyone else) actually be sure I’m not actually delusional?  And after I realize this and become open to the possibility that I could be delusional, that just makes my worldview that much more hazy.  I’m no closer to finding out if I’m delusional, but I’ve introduced a bunch of doubt about, oh, pretty much everything I “know” as true.  

If you’re delusional and not open to the possibility that you’re delusional, I don’t think anything can be done.  But it seems like a deluded person who *is* open to the possibility should have a way of figuring this out.

So my question is, how does one know when they’re delusional?