Tuesday 11 November 2008

Inferences drawn by human individuals and bias built-in in perspective.

The abstract for the paper 'FROM SIMPLE ASSOCIATIONS TO SYSTEMATIC REASONING: A Connectionist representation of rules, variables, and dynamic bindings using temporal synchrony', which currently depicts the mode, I want to put my mind into, to go through the article 'World stocks down amid fears of deep recession', in yahoo.news. It followed up the technorati link Tag Page for: speculators that brought me into the post 'Speculators are not "Investors"' and the aforementioned article in yahoo.news.

"Abstract: Human agents draw a variety of inferences effortlessly, spontaneously, and with remarkable efficiency — as though these inferences are a reflex response of their cognitive apparatus. Furthermore, these inferences are drawn with reference to a large body of background knowledge. This remarkable human ability seems paradoxical given the results about the complexity of reasoning reported by researchers in artificial intelligence. It also poses a challenge for cognitive science and computational neuroscience: How can a system of simple and slow neuron-like elements represent a large body of systematic knowledge and perform a range of inferences with such speed? We describe a computational model that is a step toward addressing the cognitive science challenge and resolving the artificial intelligence paradox. We show how a connectionist network can encode millions of facts and rules involving n-ary predicates and variables, and perform a class of inferences in a few hundred msec. Efficient reasoning requires the rapid representation and propagation of dynamic bindings. Our model achieves this by i) representing dynamic bindings as the synchronous firing of appropriate nodes, ii) rules as interconnection patterns."

I want to use that ability of, as myself, a human agent, to draw and extract a variety of inferences out of the available body of background knowledge, but guided by my own unique perspective, unique defined as myself, as any other individual, I am a single unit.

The inferences derived by the author of the post

"If the "instruments" traded on Wall Street have no connection to a tangible economy, then what are they "investing" in? They aren't "investors," they are "speculators" in the worst sense of the term.

Let the speculative "instruments" die so that our society can rediscover an economics founded on fundamentals that benefit real people, not just the cuff-linked and spangled elite. There will be pain in the short run, but that sacrifice will build our character as a nation.
"

providing the co-ordinates of my perspective.

Relevant to perspective adhered, by any human agent, is that quote from the New Scientist, 24 June 2000, No 2244, article 'Wired like a human', page 11

"When the researchers tested the circuit, they found it processed information much like the brain. In particular, when multiple signals were fed in, the inhibitory neuron suppressed the weaker signals. This is akin to "sensory attention" that occurs, say, when you focus on an object, and everything else fades into the background."

Human agents assume that stance, in everything that deal with in life.

Friday 7 November 2008

Barack Obama pledges to restore 1,500,000 jobs lost by the credit crunch. Should not.

Threads responsible for the associations brought forth

- Current credit crunch: just a bear-bull game for stock markets to play or a point of no-return in the path for re-organizing societies
- Investors shun Greek debt as shipping crisis deepens
- εργάτη πολέμα σου πίνουνε το αίμα
- THE SHAM-FUL JOBS REPORT NEEDS OBAMA'S ATTENTION


Credit crunch 1,500,000 U.S jobs lost thus far. And what? Do they need to be restored? Should not.

The words written by a commenter, in the Telegraph.co.uk 'Investors shun Greek debt as shipping crisis deepens', article who I mentioned before in 'Current credit crunch: just a bear-bull game for stock markets to play or a point of no-return in the path for re-organizing societies' post, entered my mind.

"... a destructive world economy system based on raping the planet to produce rubbishy goods most can do without is winding down. A system which requires year on year increase in rubbishy consumption and destroys families ..."

He was talking about rubbishy products.

Another commenter in the same article points out

"... de-industrialised nations that no longer produce anything but forms and pop music can start producing a real form of wealth again."

The mention of the word wealth, brought a tinge of bad taste, by virtue of their unpleasant associations. Associations that become evident when you visit websites of this sort, as this one prominently displayed on the top of Ask.com search pages, as a sponsored link. Wealth, money, three or four cars? Is that the kind of wealth implied in the comment?

Wealth teeming with notions, as we have been customarily subjected to, of products being wasted as they can not be exchanged with money. From the back-alley refuse bins of supermarkets to the EU butter mountains and milk lakes, products which have not realised their goal of benefiting, with their use, the individuals they were targeted for. Wasting, simultaneously, destroying the efforts of all the people involved in their production, diminishing the value of their work and of themselves. Products which are destroyed before the end of their useful life, because they are overproduced, or fall victims of the new for old insurance policies, the insurance industry heavily promotes, therefore raw materials, and other resources, are wasted. Products have no value at all, if they are not attached with money?

It struck me that, this should not have been the kind of wealth the commenter was referring to, as there is something wrong with the word wealth, the meaning attached to it.

That is not the meaning of wealth. Wealth should not be associated with money. How some wise guy entrepreneur will make money out of. Practices that constantly interfere, and in the end, rob, subtract, instead of, add value, for the products and services offered to the public. Products have no value at all, if they are not attached with money?

These are not the products people crave for, benefit by and enjoy with. Real wealth has no need of money, no price tags attached. As it is commonly said out of popular wisdom. Money can't buy happiness, in whatever way this is construed, in the minds of every single individual.

Governments and states in their fervour to show hallmarks of a thriving economy, presumably to their public, in reality just to rub it in the face of their opposition, they are easy prey to the guile of unscrupulous entrepreneurs. Out to create jobs, out of the thin air without any consideration whether the jobs created would be of any value for the public at large.

As this blogger in one of his posts have asserted and stated

"[m] of course, I should point out, that personally I would not give, even 50 euros to someone, to do most of the jobs of the 700 euros, because the only thing these jobs produce is hot air."

In the New York Post website, in the article 'THE SHAM-FUL JOBS REPORT NEEDS OBAMA'S ATTENTION', is stated

"... even in a horrible job market and during a credit crunch as we have today, Washington believes courageous entrepreneurs are forming businesses and hiring people."

Courageous entrepreneurs forming businesses and hiring people! What a hogwash. As if any entrepreneur, is out there for other people's sake and not for his very own. That he cares about other people before his own overriding objective: make money. That with the loot stashed from 'fat cows' periods, is out to buy cheap, shattered, broken pieces, the credit crunch is leaving behind, calculating that they will worth more, when it is over.

Create new jobs? Are you kidding? We are here to make money.

No one should expect, notwithstanding people with clout, world leaders and the like to rely on entrepreneurs for any jobs to be created. Any jobs created should solely be based, by having in mind the good of the public, whether it offers a real service that people can benefit and enjoy. And not the monkey jobs, that produce nothing except thin air, rubbishy products and account for fake growth. Should not attempt to resuscitate, revive and proliferate a rotten cycle of growth.

Courageous? Anything but. First it doesn't or barely applies for them, as it is out of context and even in their own game, for whatever standards, if there are any, they abide to, within the context of making money, they will go for the easiest pickings. Corpses that offer no resistance, minimal risks involved. And unfortunately there will be plenty around, your entrepreneurs will thrive.

It is paramount to save from their clutches, jobs, industry sectors, activities that produce real products, and represent real growth and which are faced with the danger of being subjected through their ruthless criteria, which boils down to how much money will I make out of. And in the process leave behind nothing worthwhile, for the people to enjoy.

Get governments and states away from that mob, and get closer to the people.

Wednesday 5 November 2008

Current credit crunch: just a bear-bull game for stock markets to play or a point of no-return in the path for re-organizing societies

Thread-thoughts dangling their wares stimulating new thoughts

- Investors shun Greek debt as shipping crisis deepens
- Credit crunch 'may hit UK growth'. What kind of growth are they talking about?
- The human mind is an invaluable asset to be wasted by the monetising societies.
- Throwing overboard relentlessly whatever is remotely connected with what is not agreed now.
- The paradigm shifts in our minds.

This article 'Investors shun Greek debt as shipping crisis deepens' in Telegraph.co.uk announces the spread of the credit crisis in the shipping industry stating that

"The daily rental rates for Capesize big ships have dropped $234,000 to $7,340 in weeks, leaving operators stuck with heavy losses on long leases. Empty ships are now crowding Singapore and other global ports."

why would they be empty ships crowding Singapore and other ports? Are there no goods to be transported, has the world stopped producing

"... coal, iron ore, and grains, and other dry goods."

why in the same article states that

"... It is telling us that world trade in raw materials has slowed dramatically."

is it not the case that

" .... banks shut off credit lines to the industry .."

that created the woes in the shipping industry. Certainly, you would expect a reduction in the amount of raw materials produced worldwide, but not to the extent that they would entirely account in the announced downturn in the shipping industry.

And besides that, raw materials will get cheaper as they would cost less for the individuals the world over. What is the primary and foremost concern of the article's author, for such an unsolicited act? Interested only to safeguard the unscrupulous demands of shipowners, speculators, or any other parasites that suck up unreasonable profits, just because they happen to have the control of the means for rendering the services the world expects from them.

The comment by the article's reader John Wood,on October 29, 2008, at 05:04 PM, readers comments that have a lot more juice than the article has, gives a proper account of the reasons for the credit crunch

"All that this 'credit crunch' is doing is proving that you cannot borrow for growth indefinitely. It is like the cartoons when a character is carrying a leaking barrel of gunpowder and a fuse is lit behind. Eventually he stops, the lit fuse catches up and Kaboom."

incessant purposeless growth, growth for the sake of growth, that do not add any value in the lives of individuals, as the reader, O G Osborne, on October 29, 2008, at 07:43 AM, states

"Perhaps, as it's no longer easy to transport goods, de-industrialised nations that no longer produce anything but forms and pop music can start producing a real form of wealth again. Wait till fuel gets so expensive that we have to make stuff right where it's sold!"

De-industrialised that produce thin air, services that offer so little, materializing just for the sake of keeping societies in motion, creating jobs that are worthless and which are wasting individuals lives.

And on whose shoulders the burden will fall? The reader, A German in Spain, on October 29, 2008, at 11:49 AM, spells it out

"Both countries will have to suffer a lot. Spain because of the housing crisis and low productivity and therefore unemployment and Germany because a big part of the industrial sector will be send on forced holidays for some time. Mercedes will close all factories for 5 weeks in December. In the end unemployment should soar there too."

Unemployment which is expected to rise, forced holidays and/or what has already been decided for Iceland

"... Iceland was forced to raise interest rates 6 percentage points to 18pc by the IMF as a condition for its $2bn (£1.3bn) rescue package."

straightaway, the burden is passed on to the people in Iceland to bear it, to bail out the handful of individuals that caused it, in the first place. A fate that is in store for other countries to come.

Whereas individuals who have exploited to the hilt their privileged positions, as the reader named Greek, on October 29, 2008,at 04:02 PM, stated in his comment

"Most of the traditional Greek Shipping companies, are very cash rich and have mortgage free ships. This drop in the market has been anticipated and is an opportunity to purchase more ships at reduced prices, only to have more mortgage free ships, when the market picks up again, as it will."

will remain unscathed and not only but, as the reader Aloicius, on October 29, 2008, at 11:49 AM so emphatically declares

"Today's piece is more of the same. The situation is shipping, banking and elsewhere is extremely serious but it is no more then par for the course as evidenced by the past couple of centuries of cycles and excesses. To the astute it spells opportunity while all the others whine and regret."

This callous remark, indicative of an individual so detached from his surroundings, so cocooned within his bubble, his little world, ignorant of others, sees the whole affair as just another opportunity for making more money. So much gives the essence in the whole shambles. For the astute, he says, it spells opportunity, while the others whine and regret. The astute, the wise guys, who would not be affected at all. And who are the ones that, not so much about whine, but certainly will regret it, all the other individuals, that through no fault of their own, they would allow these smart-alec individuals to make a kill and make more bucks.

They will continue their past practices, as the reader Peter Charter, on October 29, 2008, at 08:48 AM, states

"Having spent 10 years as a client of these shipping companies I am overjoyed at their demise. A more greedy, unreasonable, lazy bunch of proverbials you will never find. When the goods times roll they double their rates overnight, now listen to them bleat. Their mates the ship brokers are no better always using bunker prices as an excuse to add 50,000 to the charter rate. I will not be alone in rejoicing."

And certainly is not. Voices of this sort, as the reader's Chris, on October 29, 2008, at 11:49 AM, are no longer shouted out in the desert

"Steve at 9:35 is right. It's absolutely wonderful that a destructive world economy system based on raping the planet to produce rubbishy goods most can do without is winding down. A system which requires year on year increase in rubbishy consumption and destroys families because it's all based on fractional reserve banking is breaking down. We should throw a party."

They no longer fall onto deaf ears, they are heard and get responded.