"Now, in chess, all the computer has is to play better than its opponent. It doesn't get that tremendous advantage of our inability to match machine precision and speed. Chess is a far more demanding problem than a video game (at least, for a computer)."

No, that's not true. Even if we consider pure-playing actors (that is, without an included library of matches) speed is also to its advantage. Both speed of learning -how much time takes a human player to analyse, say, the 100 most famous matches in chess history? 1000? 10000? 100000? (or, to be more humane, the implications of an aperture or defense) But also speed in playing -it was openings and mid-game what took a toll on the "intelligence" of bots and now chess engines count with both a lot of better "recipies/heuristics" and pseudo-IA, but late mid game and closings are almost-to-already within the reach of brute force attack for custom built computers.

"The 1984 Bhopal disaster killed more people in a single day than the entire nuclear industry has done in its existence. But for some reason chemical plants don't get a fraction of the scrutiny that nuclear plants do"

For "some" reason, you say, as if it wasn't obvious?

Bhopal was certainly catastrophic and an example of what predatory capitalism does -which is significant because that's immediately transposable to any other industry, nuclear included.

But, as terrible as it was, for the very nature of the business its impact was contained to a short reach (part of the deadly toll became from the industry being in the middle of heavily populated land, which most possible wouldn't be allowed in more advanced countries, which is why it was in India instead of USA because of predatory capitalism).

On the other hand, Chernobyl reach was the full of Europe, or Fukushima the full of Japan and Asian seashore. Bhopal was the worst possible incident for a factory of its class while Chernobyl and Fukushima were not the worst they could be and we know the same forces that made Bhopal possible are at work in the nuclear business too, so it's just a matter of time a full Bhopal incident, only on a nuclear facilty, to happen.

And no: that is *not* an acceptable risk.

Exactly that.

Credit card numbers are not secret but public identifiers. Stop using them as secrets and the problem vanishes.

Ditto for social security number.

So... this guy had his fifteen minutes of warholian fame, his access to github removed, and everything propmtly back to normal.

If that's power, I think I prefer the oldfashioned way power of billionaires.

"How do you get from "3^2+4^2=5^2" to anything like, say, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."?"

How we did it?

And, after all, if "We hold these truths to be self-evident", shouldn't they be self-evident to any other alien intelligence we might find?

And, if they result not being self-evident, wouldn't that mean USA Constitution should be declared void and unmeaninful since based on false pretenses?

Is there any public statistics by operating system / operating system vendor / entry application / entry application vendor about the successfully attacked networks?

"Wouldn't a UBI be about the most practical straight forward application of the second? Meaning no implied inflation here."

The very fact that there *obviously* are actors that can impact prices (on the offer side) means you are off-ground talking about the two theorems here. And the second one implies that there can in fact be an alternate equlibrium point pressing the system towards rised prices (even if current market were at a pareto equilibrium, which it isn't).

"Why exactly would it create inflation in potatoes?"

Exactly the same way that giving people money to buy houses that previously didn't have it created inflation in the real state market.

"In a free market the price of a thing tends towards the cost of a thing"

In a PERFECT free market AT STEADY STATE situation, with UNLIMITED ABILITY to increase the offer to meet demand, you'll end up EVENTUALLY with prices that will reflect the cost of the thing, plus the reasonable profit bound to the effort of production.

"I assume you must be familiar with the first and second fundamental theorems of economics, correct?"

You already decided what's the answer that meet your prejudices, right?

"You just tax the wealthy to cover it, and this is revenue neutral, and so there is no inflation."

That would be true if the expending habits of wealthy and destitutes were the same, which they aren't. So it's very possibly UBI wouldn't mean inflation on large yatches, but it certainly will in potatoes.

"You shouldn't speak about things you haven't properly studied. It makes you look foolish."

Exactly that.

" Prices should already be as high as the market allows"

That's right, once you add: "at steady state, under current circumstances".

Change circumstances and steady state will change, and so will do prices.

"If some fool tries to raise prices, their competition will be more than happy to advertise that they now have lowest prices"

Only if they need to. Competition will be twice as happy increasing their prices too, as long as they don't loose market cap. It's not a reasoning, but one backed by facts. Back when USA, for this or that reason, easied money for mortages, what did happen? True, maybe in the tactical short range, someone claimed to have the lowest real state prices on the neighborhood but the net result was... home prices increased just as it happens when more money is thrown to a market, everything else being equal -this has been known since Adam Smith days.

"Actually, in all seriousness. China is developing a digital currency. They can tailor each individual 'dollar' as to where it can be spent. Soon enough coming to a Democracy near you... Problem solved."

Very interesting... and very disturbing.

"No, UBS has the same issue as food stamps."

No, it hasn't.

In fact, UBS works *so* well, that your country already has a quite large UBS package and you don't even notice. I'll assume you are from USA.

When was the last time you had to worry about Canada or Mexico invading you to take out your wealth and making your live miserable? That's because national defense is already included in your country's UBS package.

If you ever felt the need to call the police, when was the last time you had to stop before calling to consider if your bank account's balance allowed for it? That's because public order is already included in your country's UBS package.

When was the last time you had to directly worry about tap water, street illumination, basic control of pollutants?... that's because civil governance is already included in your country's UBS package.

And then, let's go for other advanced countries with the notable exception of USA: their citizenship doesn't have to worry about their children going to school because education is already included in their respective UBS packages. They don't have to worry about their ability to pay for their daily insulin dose, or their cancer treatment, because healthcare is already covered by their respective UBS packages. They don't have to worry about unemployment bankrupting them in direct proportion to how much unemployment coverage is on their UBS package, they don't have neither as large a criminality problem nor as large a prison population as USA because that's also within their UBS packages, while in USA is a for-profit business, so no wonder things go for more of it...

But instead of understanding how well UBS works for them and therefore asking for more, because of the very reason that it works so well that it becomes "invisible", they are allowing the very rich to successfully attack and dismantle it as it's been the trend for the last three~four decades in those first-world countries (privatizing more and more parts of their countries' UBS packages: telco, energy, and increasingly healthcare and education) with citizenship even *voting* for it. They are already feeling the damage but still don't understand where their problems are coming from, since they are voting for even more at the same time that they are protesting about the results.

"Four people all getting UBI can team up to rent an apartment, buy food, pay utilities, and have a modest life. Four people all getting UBS can't do that."

Did you even read what I wrote? Four people all getting UBS don't have to team up to rent an apartment, buy food and pay utilities because they already have them to start with.

"People have basic needs beyond food and utilities."

If they are really basic, then they should be covered under UBS: that's exactly what UBS stands for.

"So how does denying the serfs enough to live on (A UBI) help with that?"

UBI is a way to increase monetary mass in practice so those in the top can pump even more wealth up to themselves. Tie it with the unvoidable inflation that follows and the "B" part becomes an unfulfillable promise.

End result: even more gap between those very few at the top and an increasing mass of people just on the verge of starving. If you think of it, that has been the "steady state" of civilization along History with the notable exception of the last 100~150 years (peaking somewhere between the end of WW2 and 1981). We are just bringing this historic anomaly back to average.

"It's in everyone's benefit. A stronger middle class makes more people that buy the services and goods of entrepreneurs."

Yes. But that doesn't beat being filthy reach in a society of serfs.