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You can bet your bottom dollar...

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 JLS 10 Jan 2018
Top Predictions

1. We are all going to die.
2. World governments will continue to fail the environment for all of your life time.
3. World governments will continue to make war for all of your life time.
4. Donald Trump will not make America great again.
5. Successive UK governments will continue to fail to halt growing inequality for all of your life time.
6. There will be some nice sunny days later in the year.

7. What you got?
2
 plyometrics 10 Jan 2018
In reply to JLS:

The Curly Wurly will continue to get smaller, and more expensive.
OP JLS 10 Jan 2018
In reply to plyometrics:

Cadbury doing their bit to tackle obesity in the population or a cynical profit making exercise?
 neilh 10 Jan 2018
In reply to JLS:

Point 5.This is from research from the Joseph Rowntree foundation as reported in the FT.This suggests that inequality in terms of income has declined ( in other words it is not growing like you imply). Flies in the face of what people think!!

Official statistics on UK household incomes are based largely on survey data. These suggest income inequality grew sharply during the 1980s but then remained roughly stable from the early 1990s until the start of the financial crisis.

Since 2008, income inequality has declined because higher income households were hit harder by falling earnings and asset returns during the recession. At the same time, the value of benefits received by lower-income families was largely protected.


In reply to JLS:

1. Progress in Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing and Genetic Engineering will change everything.
2. If we are under 60 we are going to live a lot longer than we think.
3. Blockchain will disrupt banking and insurance as much as internet shopping disrupted bricks and mortar retail.
4. We will have small groups of people living on the moon and mars within 20 years.
5. There will be a world government. It will be the only option because robots and weapons of mass destruction will make war unthinkable. Before this happens a major power will use nuclear weapons preemptively against a rogue state which threatens it.
6. Much of the financial industry will cease to exist. There will be a universal income, universal access to education, health and social care. Taxes on wealth will replace taxes on income. There will be legal constraints on family sizes.

2
pasbury 10 Jan 2018
In reply to JLS:

Bastards like Rupert Murdoch and Robert Mugabe will live very long lives.
1
 jonnie3430 10 Jan 2018
In reply to JLS:

> Top Predictions

> 1. We are all going to die.

We're incredibly lucky to be alive, to be alive in this time, to be alive in this time in this country.

Enjoy it as much as you can, and help others enjoy it too, as they make you enjoy more.

Ignore the other stuff unless you can change it, we're only human and there's not much point in us being here. History shows that it's always happened and always will, and bad times will come again.

Queue the video of the 9 life lessons from Tim Minchin to UWA.
OP JLS 10 Jan 2018
In reply to neilh:

>"Since 2008, income inequality has declined because higher income households were hit harder by falling earnings"

Is this just a trick of statistics that shows, than at mass pleb level, inequality has declined, while ignoring the statistically insignificant 1% at the top zooming off into the stratosphere?
4
OP JLS 10 Jan 2018
In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Some bold stuff in there.
The universal income can't come soon enough.
In reply to JLS:
> Some bold stuff in there.

You know, I don't think so. I think the progress in AI and genetic engineering is far enough along to make that a safe bet. Quantum computing less so perhaps. I've been working in computer science/electronics for about 30 years and until about a year ago I was consistently sceptical about AI. But these days it really looks like they have cracked it for a lot of real-word use cases so we should be thinking about the future based on the reality of AI and the near certainty it will get even better.

I think that it would be naive to expect political and economic systems not to need radical changes to adapt to a world where AI and robots can do most things better than humans and we have increasingly precise control over the mechanisms of life. Artificial intelligence is also going to accelerate the rate of technical progress so I think it's easy to be too conservative about how quickly things will change. It's not about socialism vs capitalism: those ideas were consequences of the technologies available in earlier ages and we shouldn't expect either of them to work when the ground rules are changed.

> The universal income can't come soon enough.
Post edited at 17:43
 BnB 10 Jan 2018
In reply to JLS:

> >"Since 2008, income inequality has declined because higher income households were hit harder by falling earnings"

> Is this just a trick of statistics that shows, than at mass pleb level, inequality has declined, while ignoring the statistically insignificant 1% at the top zooming off into the stratosphere?

The truth is that not much has changed over quite a long period and there is no acceleration of inequality today, more a mild decrease. You and the people who liked your post are believing what you'd rather believe, be that wilfully in the face of the facts or out of insufficient effort to research them. This from two different angles:

https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed

http://uk.businessinsider.com/ons-stats-on-income-inequality-in-britain-in-...

As an aside, if the 1% are insignificant, why worry about them zooming off into the stratosphere as you put it? As it happens, they are highly significant because their wealth greatly distorts the graph in the direction of greater inequality, yet still the levels decline. Interesting how the facts refute the impression most people are being encouraged to form.

4
OP JLS 10 Jan 2018
In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

I've little doubt you are correct that we are on the cusp of the AI revolution. However, I think how our politicians will manage the ensuing changes in society, remain in doubt. I have little faith in politicians. When I consider how well managed the closing of steel plants and mines were, I am sceptical that the re-ordering of society will be anything other than painful and chaotic. To me, World government and universal incomes sound centuries away yet...

OP JLS 10 Jan 2018
In reply to BnB:

Interesting graphs and figures in those links which I have no means to refute.

 Timmd 10 Jan 2018
In reply to neilh:
> Point 5.This is from research from the Joseph Rowntree foundation as reported in the FT.This suggests that inequality in terms of income has declined ( in other words it is not growing like you imply). Flies in the face of what people think
> Official statistics on UK household incomes are based largely on survey data. These suggest income inequality grew sharply during the 1980s but then remained roughly stable from the early 1990s until the start of the financial crisis.

> Since 2008, income inequality has declined because higher income households were hit harder by falling earnings and asset returns during the recession. At the same time, the value of benefits received by lower-income families was largely protected.

I suppose reducing levels of inequality, if that stems from higher income households being hit harder by falling earning and by asset returns, doesn't do a lot to improve life for the poorer people if the cost of living rises faster than wages do, as has been reported a few or a couple of times lately? I'm thinking that even if inequality does fall due to the richer people being squeezed, if life stays hard, or gets harder for the poorer people (hopefully it won't) that could fuel a perception of greater inequality than there actually is. Small increases in the cost of living are always going to affect the poorer people more, I would think, making wealth feel more beyond reach. Thinking about things more, social mobility needs to be factored into things, too. I'm thinking that levels of inequality, social mobility, and the cost of living in relation to wages all need to be combined to create a fuller picture. The cost of living is currently higher than it has been more recently.
Post edited at 19:09
1
GoneFishing111 10 Jan 2018
In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Point 6 sounds a bit like communism to me? Or am i misunderstanding? Genuine question
pasbury 10 Jan 2018
In reply to BnB:

Income or value of assets?

Wake up and smell the quantitive easing.
Removed User 10 Jan 2018
In reply to JLS:

We will have prosthetics for the brain.

You will be able to connect your brain to external memory.
In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

> 5. There will be a world government.

This obviously can never be true. We had a referendum and the voice of the people of britain was clear.........
 neilh 10 Jan 2018
In reply to Timmd:

It’s also been reported that inequality is not as depressingly bad as people think, but that does not make headline news nor fit in wi th what people are fed on a day to day basis.

Joseph Rowntree foundation would be considered by most people to be pretty neutral in terms of political bias and certainly worth respecting.
 Big Ger 10 Jan 2018
In reply to JLS:

7. The Twist will make a comeback, as will bell bottoms, and paisley shirts with wing collars.,
OP JLS 10 Jan 2018
In reply to Ron Rees Davies:

Well, a world government without us obviously...

 mypyrex 10 Jan 2018
In reply to Removed User:

> We will have prosthetics for the brain.

> You will be able to connect your brain to external memory.

How will that work for Trump?
1
 Timmd 10 Jan 2018
In reply to neilh:

> It’s also been reported that inequality is not as depressingly bad as people think, but that does not make headline news nor fit in wi th what people are fed on a day to day basis.

No it doesn't. Do you see what I mean, that even if inequality drops, if the cost of living rises, then it doesn't do a lot for the poorer people in practical term that inequality has dropped?

> Joseph Rowntree foundation would be considered by most people to be pretty neutral in terms of political bias and certainly worth respecting.

Indeed. I like the Joseph Rowntree foundation.
1
pasbury 10 Jan 2018
In reply to Removed User:

A neural lace? The most perfect instrument of torture that can be conceived.
In reply to JLS:

> To me, World government and universal incomes sound centuries away yet...

I don't think society remaining stable but taking a long time to respond is a possible outcome. If it doesn't respond fast enough it will be destroyed by war or revolution. Major transitions, like the collapse of the former Soviet Union, which would be far more convenient if they happened slowly do not happen slowly, they get blocked until there is no way of stopping them and then they happen suddenly.



 BnB 10 Jan 2018
In reply to pasbury:

> Income or value of assets?

> Wake up and smell the quantitive easing.

Yes, wealth inequality is moving in the reverse direction of income inequality but, when you delve into the numbers, it turns out that the measure of wealth inequality is still well short of the level back in 1995, having recovered only a third of its fall in the decade preceding the crash.

http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/media/press-releases/britains-increasin...

London house prices are in the process of crashing badly at the rarified levels of the super-rich, which probably presages a downwards turn in the chart in the near future.
In reply to GoneFishing111:

> Point 6 sounds a bit like communism to me? Or am i misunderstanding? Genuine question

Yes, it sounds a bit like communism/socialism but I don't think that's a helpful way to think of it. Science Fiction is more relevant than Karl Marx. We need to think about how to deal with a situation where our technology produces more than enough for everyone while human labour becomes less necessary. If people's work is not economically necessary then they need to get money from somewhere and the productivity of machines should be for the benefit of everyone.

In the past planned economies were far less effective than market economies but in the future sheds full of computers running economic simulations and AI software may make much better planning decisions than politicians ever could.

Part of the solution will be finding new goals and challenges and the most obvious one is exploring space.
 Brass Nipples 10 Jan 2018
In reply to JLS:

A mini ice age is coming in 2030 and governments will do nothing to prepare for it.
 wintertree 10 Jan 2018
In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

> ... Quantum Computing ...

Perhaps I am being very blinkered but it’s not clear to me that QC is so transformative.

It’ll wreck the basis of most of our secure key exchange mechanisms and therefore most current encryption, but quantum key exchange is immune to the effects of QC and is progressing nicely.

Beyond that, QC transforms some very specific problems that are rarely the limiting factor of how useful a computer is.

I’m wishing I had more time to stay abreast of the various classical/quantum hybrid languages, hardware and emulators being released (eg Microsoft’s Q#) - this might start to reveal where people more imaginative than me are developing real and potentially transformative applications of QC. Alternatively, perhaps some of the quantum annealing stuff would allow subsets of AIs to retrain in a highly dynamic way to adapt to changing conditions. I was following the brouhaha around- and typical academic snobbery against DWave but have fallen behind.
In reply to wintertree:
> Perhaps I am being very blinkered but it’s not clear to me that QC is so transformative.

I'm no expert on quantum computing and I'm less confident it will be workable than the other technologies.

However, if we figure out how to make practical, relatively large quantum computers it is literally paradigm shifting. At the moment if you have an n-step problem you can do it in one time period with n sets of hardware, n time periods with one set of hardware with a quantum computer can do all n-steps simultaneously with one set of hardware.

Where you have a search problem where the number of compute steps needed to check every outcome scales exponentially with the problem size you very quickly can't just brute-force it on conventional hardware but a quantum computer doesn't care.

> Beyond that, QC transforms some very specific problems that are rarely the limiting factor of how useful a computer is.

I'm not sure, I think there's a distinction between what problems algorithms are already being developed for and which may be within the reach of quantum computers early on and how far quantum computers could go if the hardware became more practical.


Post edited at 21:31

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