Whatever Happened to Steampunk? - <AUTHOR> https://modus.medium.com/what-ever-happened-to-steampunk-4ac936905165 <comment><USER2> As a San Francisco denizen, I can assure you reports of Steam Punk's death are greatly exaggerated.

In my circles at least, some people are annoyed at how much steam punk has infiltrated their other costume niches, like the Edwardian Ball.

As other people have said, the link to the iPhone announcement seems super tenuous given the prevelance of steam punk costumes on Halloween. But also, it's possible that the term needs less definition, and that ideas from the steampunk aesthetic have already permeated other art. For example, there is a lot of steam punk looking machinery and decorations at this new minigolf place in SF, but it's not being advertised as such: [https://www.urbanputt.com/](https://www.urbanputt.com/)

<comment><USER3> > new minigolf place

Urban Putt has been around for at least 6 years

<comment><USER2> Fair to not call it new, they apparently opened in 2014. But that is still two years after the article dates the steam punk period as ending, and it is still very popular.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article asserts, but provides no real evidence that steampunk has "died".

I wanted to refute the author's claim by looking at google n-grams, but the viewer cuts off in 2008 with the steampunk n-gram still going strong...

Instead I present anecdotal evidence that steampunk is not dead:

1\. The presence of an steampunk section in my local Spirit of Halloween store.

2\. The release of Carnival Row this year by Amazon, which I believe fits the bill close enough.

3\. A continuing new release of steampunk novels ([https://www.goodreads.com/genres/steampunk](https://www.goodreads.com/genres/steampunk))

Flimsy evidence, but perhaps enough to refute the death of steampunk, which is a strong claim.

<comment><USER5> Not sure it counts but there are a few anime and video games that some people call steampunk. Sakura Taisen/Sakura Wars, the latest version for PS4 was just announced at Tokyo Game Show a few weeks ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> To me Steampunk was an artistic movement and as such it is not dead. Sure there where some pretty cool things that actually worked well that came out of it, but it always seemed like that was the secondary purpose to the art.

I believe some people got so wound up in it that they basically became steampunk LARP'ers, but for the most part it was an art period and one that really for some reason catches my fancy. Maybe it's art for tinkerers or something like that, but as a child I really liked the wounder of 1000 Leagues and novels like that, and some steampunk pieces evoke that youthful wonderlust in me.

It's an art form that encompasses a lot of skills that I personally enjoy doing as a hobby. e.g Welding, Metal Crafting, Pneumatic, Hydraulics, Mechanics. Funny enough even though there was a time that I pursued artistic endeavors and was a pretty avid sketch artist and fairly good CG 3D artist. I have never endeavored to design a steampunk piece. Just too busy for art now days.

The question is, who will arise as the Picasso or Dali of the Stempunk period? I would love to know their name and pick up a few pieces now.

<comment><AUTHOR> If it's not dead, what's some recent steampunk art you've seen?

<comment><USER7> Seems a bit narrowminded to assume it's dead because you haven't personally seen any art in a while.

Steampunk is alive, but more niche. See [https://www.brassscrew.org/](https://www.brassscrew.org/) for instance.

<comment><USER8> A bit off on a tangent, but I love the 90s design aesthetic of this website. Is it purposeful or somehow linked to steampunk?

I can actually see old school web design becoming an art movement in its own right at some point in the future. Imagining what current and future tech companies would look like built on 90s style web technology is pretty fun.

<comment><USER9> > _A bit off on a tangent, but I love the 90s design aesthetic of this > website._

I think you and I experienced different 90s design aesthetics if a bootstrap looking site with a big hero image at the top evokes the 90s for you.

<comment><USER8> Ah, you're right - actually I just realised I clicked through to some of the links which have a completely different design - 2015 link for instance. Main site isn't 90s at all. Actually the design aesthetic I'm talking about might be more early 00s anyway as in the sibling comment.

<comment><USER9> Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah that link is maybe late 90s, but early 2000s is probably closer.

I hadn't clicked through to that year to see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Author doesn't mention it, but the demise of skeuomorphism and slow death of late 00's hipsterism (in the sense of fetishizing historical aesthetics in a modern context) goes hand-in-hand with the disappearance of steampunk.

<comment><USER11> Man I fucking miss skeuomorphism these days. I'm so damn tired of everything being text floating on bright white backgrounds. I live in a white apartment that I can't paint, at least put some texture and color in my virtual spaces where it's just about free.

<comment><USER12> I never liked the in-your-face skeuomorphism that Apple did. I would like modern UIs with subtle 3D cues, like Windows 95 had. I don't think that's a huge ask.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Success did it in. The Zybourne Clock was the ultimate implementation and perfection of the genre. Steampunk disappeared shortly after because there was nothing more left to achieve.

<comment><USER14> What is the Zybourne Clock? A quick google shows that it is a defunct game?

<comment><USER15> It was an idea for a community-designed video game on the Something Awful forums. This is a much better summary: [https://shii.bibanon.org/shii.org/knows/Zybourne_Clock.html](https://shii.bibanon.org/shii.org/knows/Zybourne_Clock.html)

References to Zybourne Clock made it into some pretty high-profile places thanks to former goons becoming adults and working their way into various industries: [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Johnny](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Johnny)

<comment><USER16> I think "Community designed ChronoTrigger rip-off" would be more apt

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The author suggests the correlation between searches for "steampunk" happening around Sept and Oct are due to iPhone sales which is interesting.

Here is an alternative theory though - what if its more related to Halloween?

<comment><USER18> In the 1990s steampunk was just what we called whatever it was that Tim Powers, James Blaylock, and KW Jeter were writing, and now it is costume goggles you can get at the Party City at the local mall.

<comment><USER19> I thought the steampunk genre was born with Wild Wild West - that awful Will Smith movie from '99\. That's what I remember from living through it. I would actually have a bit more respect for steampunk as a subculture if it's genesis resided elsewhere - that movie was so ridiculously stupid that steampunk has been tainted for me by association.

Edit to add: apologies all around, dear steampunk enthusiasts! Fwiw Steampunk really didn't enter anything close to the mainstream in my corner of the U.S. until that movie came out, and afterwards seemed to be everywhere I looked, so I don't think it was a totally unreasonable assumption. (And yes, I knew the movie was based on older material, but didn't know to what extent the visual aesthetic had already been defined.) As penance I will purchase one Steampunk item from my local costume store and wear it to my next all-hands work meeting.

<comment><USER20> No, steampunk as an aesthetic goes at least as far back as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and the term comes from the 1980s.

<comment><USER18> Steampunk is a modern retro movement. It is not Verne and Wells, but modern writers writing in a Wellsian mode. Why this should have come formed around a group of writers who, perhaps not coincidentally, had in their younger days been friends with Philip Dick, is unknown.

Gibson and Sterling were actually somewhat late to the game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really don't think Steampunk is tied to the iPhone in any way. "steampunk was a cultural response to the ultimate technological zeitgeist, the iPhone" is a pretty bold claim.

<comment><USER22> It's like someone picked two topics out of a hat (iPhone, Steampunk) and was tasked with writing an article about them. iPhones (and smartphones in general) were definitely a cultural phenomenon, but there's literally nothing tangible connecting them to Steampunk aside from the author's shallow, fluffed up wordsmithing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> You can't swing a dead cat through the Steam game listings without hitting something Steampunk inspired. They aren't brand new, but Frostpunk, Forgotten Anne, and They Are Billions are all since the article claims Steampunk peaked, and they have done quite well.

It's possible that the aesthetic has just become so ubiquitous that it doesn't bear noticing anymore in that context.

</comment><comment><USER24> Steampunk not dead. It's just that we discovered retrofuturism instead and graduated from the Victorian age that never was into the space age that never will be.

<comment><USER25> I like the way you say "discovered" as if raygun gothic was always there just waiting for someone to stumble onto it. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It became too cliche. As soon as it became associated with glueing a few cogs to a top hat it had to die.

<comment><USER27> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFCuE5rHbPA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFCuE5rHbPA)

Just Glue Some Gears On It (And Call It Steampunk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What's more likely? The iPhone has some hidden, subtle responsibility for the death of Steampunk -or- something niche like Steampunk found mainstream success, over saturated the pop culture market, then fizzled away back to something niche again?

</comment><comment><USER28> Off topic from the Article, but I like contrast between Steampunk and Dieselpunk. I find Steampunk optimistic about technology and Dieselpunk pessimistic. A motif in steampunk is that technology is here to enlighten and save us -- it's something to be welcomed with open arms. Diselpunk treats technology as something of we aught to be cautious. In that way, I think the 2000's, into the early 2010's were optomistic. In general, I'd assert that we are collectively much more cautious about technology today than we were then.

 _" I like the word "dieselpunk" if you are doing something like 'Weird World War II'. I think that makes perfect sense. But to me, World War I is the dividing point where modernity goes from being optimistic to being pessimistic. Because when you put the words "machine" and "gun" together, they both change. At that point, war is no longer about a sense of adventure and chivalry and a way of testing your nation's level of manhood; it's become industrial, and horrible. So playing around with that border between optimistic steampunk and a much more pessimistic dieselpunk, which is more about Nazis, was kind of interesting to me because early in the war we were definitely kind of on the steampunk side of that._" ~ Scott Westerfeld, via Wikipedia.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieselpunk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieselpunk)

</comment><comment><USER29> Huh? I was active in steampunk events from 2010 to 2018 [1][2], and never heard anyone even _mention_ an "iPhone".

[1] [https://vimeo.com/124065314](https://vimeo.com/124065314) [2] [http://www.aetherltd.com](http://www.aetherltd.com)

</comment><comment><USER30> > _How the iPhone popularized steampunk… and how the iPhone killed it off_

The iPhone had very little to do with either popularizing or killing steampunk... Its moment come and went (as far as a little more mass appeal goes) before the iPhone...

</comment><comment><USER31> Still alive in Coldwater, Ontario. [https://www.steampunkfestivalcoldwater.com/](https://www.steampunkfestivalcoldwater.com/)

</comment><comment><USER32> Personally, I could never stand the Steampunk aesthetic -- probably because of the people adorning it -- and I'm glad the world has moved on.

</comment><comment><USER33> Steampunk helps me come to grips with the industrial revolution, 150 years on. In an age of gigahertz radio waves and nanosecond computer speeds, I like thinking about 1 Hertz, 1 Volt, 1 Ohm, and 1 Farad (!) alt-histories.

As the story said,

> It's about using design to make the working of technology scrutable through > an object's aesthetic.

</comment><comment><USER34> If one takes Steampunk to be technological advancements beyond (but inspired by) the era coupled with an intense devotion to the style of the era, then Stranger Things could be considered the spiritual successor to Steampunk.

<comment><USER35> But Steampunk is just the Age of Steam version; the prototypical version is Cyberpunk. Which is actually inspired by roughly the same era as ST, but focussing on different elements of the era (and usual set farther forward from the inspiring era.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Steampunk hasn't really died, but more evolved- see branching movements like new weird, silkpunk, slipstream, cli-fi, hyperreallism etc.

<comment><USER37> Is silkpunk even a thing outside of Ken Liu's Dandelion Dynasty (which is amazing btw)?

<comment><USER38> I've never heard of that, but the steampunk aesthetic is present in Dishonored, for example, and many other computer games.

Steampunk is alive and well, and (arguably) more alive than ever. There are steampunk conventions, steampunk meetups, steampunk games, steampunk magicians even. This didn't used to be the case. It started as an obscure literary subgenre that few people had heard of. Asking on HN about steampunk 10 years ago would have probably drawn mostly blank looks. Now many people actually know what it is, and even participate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of the top 20 most popular HN submissions with "steampunk" in the title, including this one, 6 were 9 or more years ago. [https://hn.algolia.com/?q=steampunk](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=steampunk)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm planning to do a steampunky pc build soon! steampunk lives!

</comment><comment><USER40> I hate upvoting articles posted on Medium, but this one deserves it.</comment>


Ghost: Stealth Attack Hydrofoil Uses Supercavitation - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-08-21/juliet-marines-ghost-boat-will-be-hard-sell-to-u-dot-s-dot-navy <comment><USER2> Not stealth. Far to many flat 90/45* surfaces and corners. Nobody with any understanding of radar was involved in the design of that thing.

Not supercavitating. Supercavitation is based on cavitation, not sucking down air from the surface. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercavitation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercavitation). And the amount of energy needed to create a supercavitation void around those hulls ... The Shkval is essentially an underwater rocket and it still uses exhaust gases to top up the bubble in which it flies (see the little holes near the nose) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval).

Not a hydrofoil. No foils. It looks to be a SWATH hull (Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull) another great Canadian invention. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-waterplane- area_twin_hull](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-waterplane-area_twin_hull)

Who did this guy know at Businessweek to get this sales pitched turned into an "article"?

<comment><USER3> Won't an air envelope reduce friction as much as a vapor envelope?

RE: SWATH: their patent [http://www.rexresearch.com/sancoff/sancoff.htm](http://www.rexresearch.com/sancoff/sancoff.htm) discusses hydrofoils and SWATH as prior art [0182], [0183], but fails to describe how their "buoyant tubular foils" (BTFs) [200] are different.

<comment><USER2> They're pontoons on movable outriggers. Novel, but useless. An air envelope would certainly reduce friction but would basically kill buoyancy. Big metal tubes don't float in air. So without any real foils/wings to generate lift, even if a bubble could be formed, the pontoon would literally fall to the bottom of the bubble.

Supercavitating hulls (ie the ShVal torpedo) suspend themselves within a bubble via their noses. They are moving so fast that the nose, the only spot where the torpedo touches the water, provides enough lift to keep the thing in the bubble. But you need rocket-like accelerations to keep this going.

From their patent "whereby to provide propeller generated super-cavitated water flowing from the propellers and thence along an outer surface of said vehicle;" WTF? There is no such thing as super-cavitated water. Cavitation presupposes a CAVITY, a void ... something other than water. Maybe water with bubbles? Prop wash?

[http://www.google.com/patents/US20120097086](http://www.google.com/patents/US20120097086)

<comment><USER4> Another noteworthy design deviation (compared to run of the mill SWATH) of this vessel is the dihedral angle of the pontoon supports. Based on the wake behind the vessel, it appears that the pontoon supports might even be providing some lift. This could provide a hydrofoil like lifting effect, but the design of those supports wouldn't make a terribly efficient foil. The aspect ratio is all wrong. Hydrofoils typically have a very short chord, because water generates plenty of lift without a high aspect ratio.

This thing just sounds like a whole lot of smoke and mirrors. Hopefully the guy can sell it to some Hollywood studio to use in Mission Impossible 10 so he can recoup some of his investment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Sancoff began contemplating ways to give back to his country. To him, that meant shifting his focus from medical devices to weaponry._

That's a disappointing comment.

</comment><comment><USER6> This thing looks like it could really turn the tide in our fight against Cobra.

<comment><USER7> Yeah too bad these stealth designs work like ass against WWII era long wave radar. Sure, you can't use long wave for targeting, but something this big sitting so high out of the water seems easy to hit with a shoulder fired rocket. It seems like these super high tech ships and aircraft exist mostly to create jobs in various congressional districts. Then the get sold on the mythology of a cold war nightmare scenario that never happened.

oh well. at least we're safe from COBRA.

<comment><USER8> "Hinges allow the struts to move up and down like wings. While parked, or traveling through shallow waters, they can be extended to the side."

Maybe you missed this while scanning the article. This would allow the boat to sit high or low on the water; reminds me of the citroen cx which had high adjustable suspension.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another military device using supercavitation is the Soviet (now Russian) supercavitating torpedo:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval)

Max speed is 200 knots (230 mph) and it can go for almost 10 miles. That seems almost unreal, an object that size, going at that speed under water.

</comment><comment><USER10> There are numerous problems with this ship but the main reason why it won't be used is that the US Navy already has a very similar ship that has been in testing since 2006 and is all around better than the vehicle in the article.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M80_Stiletto](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M80_Stiletto)

50+ knots top speed, 4 x 1,650 hp engines

can carry a landing craft, 12 troops, and up to 20 tons of cargo

"A key feature of this vessel is that it can set up a network between a special forces team by launching an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that relays information between the team and boat. The Stiletto can also carry surveillance UAVs to provide reconnaissance for the SEAL team, and, using a clustered supercomputer on board, will be able to send real-time images to the team on shore."

Cost between $6 million and $10 million each.

For extremely stealth missions SEALs would use a underwater vehicle deployed from a C-130, another ship, or a submarine. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEAL_Delivery_Vehicle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEAL_Delivery_Vehicle)

"The 88-foot (27 m) long vessel has a notable hull design, an M-shaped hull that provides a stable yet fast platform for mounting electronic surveillance equipment or weapons, or for conducting special operations. The hull design does not require foils or lifting devices to achieve a smooth ride at high speeds in rough conditions. Its shallow draft means the M80 Stiletto can operate in littoral and riverineenvironments and potentially allows for beach landings. The faceted design suggests that the vessel has a low radar signature (i.e., stealth) in the frontal aspect and somewhat so from the sides."

[http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/m80-stiletto/](http://www.naval- technology.com/projects/m80-stiletto/)

[http://www.wired.com/2008/09/stiletto-vs- dru/](http://www.wired.com/2008/09/stiletto-vs-dru/)

[http://www.gizmag.com/stiletto-experimental-ship-with- carbon...](http://www.gizmag.com/stiletto-experimental-ship-with-carbon-fiber- m-hull-design-tops-50-knots-60mph/5151/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Also see ekranoplanes [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_vehicle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_vehicle)

(And hydrofoils, I was very excited by hydrofoils when I was a kid)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofoil](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofoil)

</comment><comment><USER12> Reminds me of the villains boat in Tomorrow Never Dies [1]

1: [http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/06/19/article-2005464-0C...](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/06/19/article-2005464-0CA0FEB500000578-484_634x261.jpg)

<comment><USER2> Which was based on the real Sea Shadow. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Shadow_%28IX-529%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Shadow_%28IX-529%29)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nothing like this will ever compare with a submersible in terms of "stealth". Who knows, maybe there already exists a supercavitating shallow draft sub for the spooks to use.

</comment><comment><USER3> Detailed schematics here: [http://www.rexresearch.com/sancoff/sancoff.htm](http://www.rexresearch.com/sancoff/sancoff.htm)

</comment><comment><USER14> Isn't cavitation a bad thing when trying to be quiet in the water?</comment>


Connect Telegram to other chat systems - <AUTHOR> https://sameroom.io/blog/announcing-support-for-telegram/

<comment><USER2> How popular is"21st century Captain Nemo"'s service?</comment>


How the Many-Worlds Theory of Hugh Everett Split the Universe - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-many-worlds-theory-of-hugh-everett-split-the-universe <comment><USER2> You can do a really simple thought experiment that provides a persuasive argument in favor of the many worlds theory. Or at least, it shows that wave function collapse is relative to an observer, not universal everywhere.

Start with Schroedingers cat: the cat is in a box, it's in a state of quantum superposition. It's 50/50 alive or dead. Now a researcher opens the box: the cat is found to be either alive, or dead, and according to the Copenhagen interpretation we say that the wave function has collapsed.

But, now take the cat and the researcher, and put the whole first experiment inside another box. Now the researcher inside the second (outer) box opens up the box with the cat. From outside the second box, we still must say that the first researcher is in a state of superposition, but when the second box is opened, the first researcher will say, oh, I've known the cat was dead for 10 minutes or whatever.

So, before we open the second box, has the wave function collapsed, or not? It depends on which researcher you are. But Every part of the universe is in some sense "in a box" until information passes to it from another part of the universe. I give you: many worlds.

<comment><USER3> The problem with many worlds is why do I think I'm in a particular timeline? If many worlds is correct, there is no "I", there are many rapidly branching "I"s, which intuitively doesn't make sense. Of course, each "I" will have the perception of being the sole "I", but the overall view that there is no singular "I" is very counter to my self conception. I prefer to preserve intuitions over conjectures, so I count that as a strike against the many worlds interpretation.

So, it seems like both the Copenhagen and the many worlds interpretations of quantum physics are wrong, given a preference for non arbitrary reference point and preserving intuitions. Is there a reason that those two must be the only possible interpretations?

<comment><USER4> >"I" is very counter to my self conception

it'a because of human nature, ego and self-worth. It's hard to accept that "I" might have many siblings living in different branches.

<comment><USER3> But perhaps those are valid constraints. Given that all of science is built from fundamental subjective perceptions, it seems inconsistent to extrapolate scientific theories that deny fundamental subjective perceptions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sean Carroll's new book on quantum physics that came out yesterday is the clearest laymen's exposition of quantum physics I have ever read: [https://www.audible.com/pd/Something-Deeply-Hidden- Audiobook...](https://www.audible.com/pd/Something-Deeply-Hidden- Audiobook/0525592474)

<comment><USER6> Another book I'm enjoying is "Einstein's Unfinished Revolution" [1] by Lee Smolin, which also has a deep dive into foundations of QM.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Einsteins-Unfinished-Revolution- Searc...](https://www.amazon.com/Einsteins-Unfinished-Revolution-Search- Quantum/dp/1594206198/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TMC2EZDUXMZ0&keywords=einsteins+unfinished+revolution&qid=1568216306&s=gateway&sprefix=einsteins%27+unfin%2Caps%2C315&sr=8-1)

<comment><USER5> I'm not familiar with that book, but I can say that Dr. Carroll's book is far better than any previous book on the subject I've read, in terms of getting rid of the confusion inherent in QM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Peter Woit in his blog "Not Even Wrong" [0] sometimes deals with the Many Worlds interpretation. He doesn't seem to be a fan.

He had a recent post [1] about Everett that's interesting.

[0] [https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/](https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/) [1] [http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=11202](http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=11202) [2] [https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=10522](https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=10522)

<comment><USER8> That characterization of Woit does not appear quite accurate. Woit's claim may even be bolder, in that he claims that there is no functional difference between MWI and Copenhagen.

> What strikes me when thinking about these two supposedly very different > points of view on quantum mechanics is that I'm having trouble seeing why > they are actually any different at all.

<comment><USER9> The main difference is one of rhetoric: Copenhagen insists that experiments have single outcomes. MWI insists that experiments have multiple outcomes in point of metaphysical fact.

Another difference is that the MWI has to explain the Born rule (which is problematic), whereas Copenhagen simply takes it as an axiom.

[http://blog.rongarret.info/2019/07/the-trouble-with-many- wor...](http://blog.rongarret.info/2019/07/the-trouble-with-many-worlds.html)

<comment><USER8> > The main difference is that the MWI has trouble explaining the Born rule.

To re-phrase, the claim in that article is that once MWI has done away with the Born rule, it has to deal with how the probabilities that we find in experiment are calculated under MWI.

.. Which is not obvious at first glance, because MWI seems to suggest everything happens with probability = 1.

Carroll acknowledges it is one of the challenges against MWI that needs to be answered.

Carroll offers "self-location uncertainty" as a way to recover the probabilities predicted by the Born Rule despite the determinism of the Schrodinger Equation

> But even if both people know the wave function of the universe, there is now > something they don't know: which branch of the wave function they are on. > There will inevitably be a period of time after branching occurs but before > the observers find out what outcome was obtained on their branch. They don't > know where they are in the wave function. That's self-locating uncertainty, > as first emphasized in the quantum context by the physicist Lev Vaidman. > ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20927410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20927410))

* edit - OP's post was edited but i'm leaving this post as-is.

> MWI insists that experiments have multiple outcomes in point of metaphysical > fact.

That doesn't seem right. under MWI there is only one Wafefunction and one big quantum state. There are not additional 'worlds'

<comment><USER9> > OP's post was edited

For the record, the original just said (as quoted in the above response) "The main difference is that the MWI has trouble explaining the Born rule." Upon reflection I decided that wasn't really the _main_ difference, that the main difference is the difference in ontology. But the fact that the MWI has to recover the Born rule from the linear dynamics is a major consequence of this difference in ontology.

The jury is still out about whether or not self-location uncertainty actually allows the Born rule to be recovered without begging the question. If it works, it would be a major breakthrough. Personally, I'll give long odds against.

[UPDATE]:

> There are not additional 'worlds'

Um, what do you think that the "MW" in "MWI" stands for?

<comment><USER10> The label "Many Worlds Interpretation" is a popular label for the theory, but it's not a particularly accurate one.

The original paper by Hugh Everett was titled '"Relative State" Formulation of Quantum Mechanics'.

The underlying principle of Many Worlds isn't actually that there are many worlds. Is that there is a singular wave function, which is the true reality. The things we refer to as "worlds" are massively-complicated entanglements and superpositions within that wave function, of which we—for some reason—can only observe one position of that superposition.

<comment><USER9> Everything you say is true. Nonetheless, if you read papers written by self- identified advocates of Everett, they invariably refer to it as "many-worlds" and they talk about "the branching structure of the multiverse" and "copies" or "versions" of yourself. So regardless of what you or I think Everett meant, the present-day advocates of his theory are clearly trying to advance the idea that there are, in point of metaphysical fact, many worlds.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but I would think every one of those advocates would also agree with what I wrote.

That the "world" described by many worlds is a convenient short-hand for a single position in a massively entangled system of particles in a complex- superposition.

It's the "Many Worlds" is common moniker, and the rhetoric does use the concept of worlds all the time, but whenever you get down to the specifics of the theory there really aren't many worlds.

I think it's unfair to hold the shorthand rhetoric against people when they attempt to get to that more precise level. It would be like using the plain english definition of "observation" against someone trying to provide a more rigorous definition of what an "observation" is under the Copenhagen interpretation.

Ultimatley, this discussion all stems from the original statement: "MWI insists that experiments have multiple outcomes in point of metaphysical fact." It's a fairly moot point at this point since that statement was removed.

<comment><USER9> > I would think every one of those advocates would also agree with what I > wrote.

No, they wouldn't. They don't. See my response to lmm here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20941803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20941803)

> "MWI insists that experiments have multiple outcomes in point of > metaphysical fact." It's a fairly moot point at this point since that > statement was removed.

I'll stand by that with one minor modification: contemporary advocates of MWI insist that experiments have multiple outcomes in point of metaphysical fact.

<comment><USER10> Sorry for the slow response. Been a busy couple of days :)

> No, they wouldn't. They don't. See my response to lmm here

I don't think lmm and I disagree.

I said "[The underlying principle of Many Worlds] is that there is a singular wave function, which is the true reality". lmm says: "The only thing that MWI demands we take as metaphysically real is the wavefunction".

I think this is expressing the same thing in different terms.

I said: "The things we refer to as "worlds" are massively-complicated entanglements and superpositions within that wave function". lmm says: "Given a wavefunction like 1/sqrt2(|experimenter who observed a live cat> \+ |experimenter who observed a dead cat>) ...". Again, I think our descriptions are in fairly close agreement.

I think lmm's description is a good summary of how the "worlds" in Many Worlds are viewed by Many Worlds advocates: "in the same way that people who hear a particular pattern of sound might find it convenient to think of it as a chord of two or three notes". The "worlds" aren't actually fundamental to the theory, but rather an emergent phenomena from them.

The reason for the label "Many Worlds" is not because they are the fundamental concept. It's because it's the most... interesting element from a pop-sci marketing angle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Fun fact, Hugh Everett is "E" Mark Oliver Everett's father, lead singer of The Eels.

<comment><USER12> Came here for this :-D.

<comment><USER13> :-D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Let me address another issue with many-worlds. It is a deterministic theory, even a hyper-deterministic theory, i.e. determinism applies to everything in the entire universe. Indeed, since there can't be any influences coming from outside and since the Schroedinger equation - the only dynamical equation of the theory - is deterministic, everything that happens today, e.g. what I am writing, the way each reader reacts, the details of all solar eruptions, etc, was all encoded in some "quantum fluctuations" of the initial state of the universe. Given the complexity of the (many-) worlds, it had to be encoded in some infinitesimal digits of some quantum state, possibly in the billionths of billionths decimal place. I am always astonished that some people seriously believe in that."

\- Nicolas Gisin "Collapse. What else?" [https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.08300](https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.08300)

<comment><USER15> This seems wrong to me? A lot of "things that happen" seem to be created by randomness generated along the way, from only observing subsystems.

I.e., suppose I create a random bit generator by shining photons on a half- silvered mirror and then measuring which way they go. I might then decide what to write depending what the bit is---if it's 0 I will write a HN comment, if it's 1 I will reply to an email.

In this case, the things that happen are determined deterministically, but it's not the case that there is some quantum fluctuation in the initial state of the universe which determines what I write. Rather, when I do the measurement of the bit, I create two branches, one with a HN comment and one with an email. Observers entangled with the first branch can only see the HN comment, but this complexity was created at the time of the measurement, not at the time of the big bang...

<comment><USER14> There is no "randomness generated along the way" in the MWI. Schroedinger's equation is deterministic and according to many-worlders is the only thing that "makes things happen". Everything that happens in every "world" was bound to happen since the beginning of the evolution of the "multiverse".

<comment><USER15> Right, but my point is that this doesn't mean that the initial state contains very much information.

Maybe a different example makes this clearer. Suppose you use a quantum random number generator to choose letters from A to Z, and write out a full book this way. If you consider the entire (multiple) world, it's basically Borges' Library of Babel: it has non-zero amplitudes for every possible book. So one possible "thing that can happen" is that Shakespeare's Hamlet gets written.

But that doesn't mean that the initial state of the universe somehow encodes the text of Hamlet. The initial state of the universe doesn't have any information at all, in quantum fluctuations or otherwise. You only see Hamlet emerge if you restrict your attention to some particular branches of the world. It was "bound to happen" that Hamlet would get written, but only because every book would get written.

<comment><USER14> The initial state contains as much information as the current state if the evolution is unitary (only Schroedinger's equation matters according to the MWI, right?).

And surely the wavefunction of a system of 10^80 particles (or whatever) does contain some information about what happens... or do you think that "every book would get written" independently of the form of the universal wavefunction?

<comment><USER15> But the "current state" of the entire wavefunction doesn't necessarily contain very much information. You only get most of the complexity (solar flares, novels) if you look at subsystems of it.

I think the situation is exactly analogous to the Library of Babel in Borges' story. If someone sends you the _entire_ library in the mail, they have given you zero bits of information. If they only send you a particular room of it you get more information, and narrowing it down to sending a particular book gives you more bits still.

It's the same with the multiverse. If we start out with the photon about to go through the half-silvered mirror, the state looks like |photon>⊗|me>, and then over time it evolves into

(1/√2)|photon went left>⊗|me observing left> \+ (1/√2)|photon went right>⊗|me observing right>

and the latter state contains no more information than the former one (you can run the time evolution backwards to recover the original state). However, if you restrict your attention and only consider one of the branches, e.g. |photon went right>⊗|me observing right>, then you _have_ added (one more bit) of information. And most macroscopic processes can be explained "one branch at a time", since in practice decoherence means that there are no noticable interactions between branches. I think in the MWI this is the source of most complexity in the universe: not detailed information encoded in the initial state, and not objective collapse, but the bits of information you implicitly create if you only consider one branch of an experimental outcome.

I imagine the same thing happens in general: we start with some uniform soup (with ~zero information), in a bunch different MWI branches it self-gravitates slightly differently so we get a different set of galaxies and stars in each branch, then for each branch that has a planet, different quantum randomness may cause different intelligent life to develop, and eventually they may write different books. Of course, it's also possible that some small initial state gets magnified, as a separate mechanism, but that's the same in objective- collapse and MWI. The random bits created by objective collapse are the same same the ones you get by looking at particular branches in MWI.

<comment><USER14> > If we start out with the photon about to go through the half-silvered > mirror, the state looks like |photon>⊗|me>,

But in the MWI what we start with is the universal wavefunction |Psi>. Say there are 10^80 particles in the universe and they may have a spin and could be in infinite locations. That makes for an ininite-dimensional Hilbert space. If we consider that the precision in the location variables is limited by Planck's length there are still around 10^180 possible locations in the universe for each particle. The Hilbert space where the quantum state of the universe is defined is huge.

Now, you say "the state looks like |photon>⊗|me>". To keep things simple and in the realm of Schroedinger's equation I will consider an electron instead of a photon, prepared in the state spin z=+1/2.

Is "|up>⊗|me>" shorthand for "(1 |up> \+ 0 |down>)⊗|me, the electron at that position, the rest of the universe>" which would be the "in-branch" quantum state of the universe?

If indeed |Psi> can be written as a superposition of that state and an inconceivable huge number of orthogonal states, are all those states (when their coefficient is non-zero) the multiple worlds?

But given |Psi> there are infinitely many (or at least a lot of) possible basis to express the pure state as a decomposition (including of course the one where the only non-zero "world" in the superposition is the one described by the wave function |Psi>). Do we count as "worlds" as well the states appearing in other basis?

Is this slicing of |Psi> into other states just a mathematical trick or does it have a physical meaning? Even if we can redo the operation at different times on the evolving |Psi(t)>, how are the "emergent substates" at different times related?

The answer to all these questions is far from trivial.

<comment><USER15> Indeed not, but is any of this relevant to the original quote, that deterministic dynamics means that the initial state of the universe must have lots of information hidden in the far-off decimals? I would hope that one could consider a simplified setting for that and then extrapolate back to the continuous case.

<comment><USER14> I agree the original quote doesn't present a very strong argument against the MWI. In the same way that arguments against determinism in classical physics are not very convincing. But seemed worth pointing out.

In the MWI case it's not clear how sensitive the "worlds" are to the in initial state. It's not even clear how sensitive they are to the current state! Better understanding of how (and how many) worlds "emerge" would be needed to say if the "problem" is or not as bad as in the classical case.

Is the number of worlds stable? Is it increasing? In any case, those worlds are the inevitable consequence of the initial conditions even though we can't even estimate how much fine-tuning is needed. I don't think "randomness generated along the way" is a satisfactory counter-argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm not sure if the Aeon article explains what Everett really meant, at least I still have questions.

Suppose we're eternally branching, as in the example about the up/down spin. If there's no way to visit other branches, how will we ever confirm this?

Second, what is the benefit of the branching interpretation? It seems to simply be a way to think about probabilities?

<comment><USER17> I'd recommend reading some of the explanations given by Sean Carroll on the subject. [https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/](https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/)

....and I didn't realize that Sean Carroll actually wrote this article! Still, he does some good explanations on his podcast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Haha... Anything is in some sense "in a box" until information passes to it from another thing. Philosophical points only...</comment>


Google hires Tesla's Autopilot Engineering Manager - <AUTHOR> http://9to5google.com/2015/11/30/google-hires-teslas-autopilot-engineering-manager-and-former-spacex-director-of-flight-software/ <comment><USER2> Does that make Google the new "Tesla Graveyard?" /s

</comment><comment><USER3> Things are heating up around autopilot tech!

</comment><comment><USER4> Url changed from [http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/30/9819646/google-tesla- poac...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/30/9819646/google-tesla-poaching- self-driving-cars-robert-rose), which points to this.</comment>


Ask HN: Need help deciding between a small django shop vs. large .net company - <AUTHOR> This is my first job after graduation (I'm 23) and right now I just started a position as a developer in a small company which uses python, django, aws, and knockout/angular. I got the position because my past internships have been this stack, however after taking a week I've discovered that their processes and codebase is a little terrifying and I feel like I'll end up in more of a mentor position. Today I just received a competing offer from a larger company (80-100 employees) which is similar in terms of salary but has many more perks: In house bar, fully stoked kitchen, free gym passes ect. Typically I'd jump at this however the stack is .net something that I'm not familiar with and am not to excited about as I'm not a big fan of microsofts history with their paywalled garden. What I'm really struggling with is I would like to be in a larger company where I can grow more as a developer but I'm wondering if it's worth it enough to sink my time into a .net stack especially when I want to be moving onto the west coast in 3 years. Any advice is more than appreciated. <comment><USER2> If you're just starting out and your experience thus far has been python / django then I'd say go for the .net job.

While .net itself may not be "cool" you'll benefit a lot from diving into an entirely different language, framework and ecosystem. Plus, it sounds like you may get some good mentorship, which is invaluable when you're starting out.

Bottom line: don't sweat the .net - dive into a different stack, spend a few years learning its way of doing things and then see what you want to jump into next.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't take this the wrong way, but at 23 you're not old enough to have lived through Microsoft's history, and it is likely that what you have heard is the agreed upon myth. Netscape's founders had a multi-billion dollar exit that allowed Marc Andreesen to become a VC and Jim Clark to once own a 90 meter yacht. In actual history Apple sued Microsoft, not vice versa and it was Microsoft's executive team who made 10,000 millionaires from its employee option pool.

Microsoft has open-sourced .NET and C#. It's been helping Miguel de Icaza develop Mono for many years.

That said, pick the opportunity with the best team. Pick the opportunity which will push you the furthest. Pick the opportunity where you will learn the most. Pick the one that takes you out of your technical comfort zone the furthest. Pick the opportunity to work with people who make decsions on technical merit.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wouldn't consider perks at all because no perk is going to make up for a place where you're not happy. If the salaries are similar then the main considering is if you'll enjoy the work at each company. From your description it sounds like you won't enjoy the django role because you won't have someone to push you to grow. Does the .Net role have great developers who can help you get better at your craft? Tech stacks come and go. You'll need to learn a new one again and again. Focus on the people and opportunities to grow.

</comment><comment><USER5> As someone who came from the Ruby/Rails stack to a C#/.NET MVC stack, I have to say it was eye opening. The stack has alot of bells and whistles and arguably benefits from the deep integration between the tools (Visual Studio) and the platform. I came in wanting to hate it and actively looking for things to bemoan but, it was rather a pleasant experience.

One last thing is the importance of writing code in a static/typed language. It allows you to write and build things in a different style. It changed how I looked at programming and once I had learned another paradigm, I became far more interested in others. It led me to functional programming which in turn led me back to Object Oriented Programming and reading a bit more deeply about the theory of architecture. It made realize that most of my career, I was either using someone else's architecture or just hacking together the bare minimum for the task at hand without any thought of how the system could change and grow over time.

</comment><comment><USER6> If your current companies codebase is "terrifying", then you may end up finding a lot of resistance to writing cleaner code anyway. Many of the "senior" developers could be suffering from expert beginner syndrome and not be too welcoming to different ways of thinking.

</comment><comment><USER7> I took a .net internship this summer and I'm actually really enjoying it. The most annoying thing to me has been dealing with wcf (which you may be able to completely avoid), but otherwise, it's been good. I was also apprehensive to stepping into .net/microsoft stack, but really, as long as you can use modern versions, the tooling provided by Microsoft and Resharper makes things really swell. There are still things that make you go "&#$@ Microsoft", but they aren't really an everyday type of thing. MSDN is great.

<comment><USER8> Not to be confused with F# @Microsoft being an extremely cool .Net/OCaml language.

<comment><USER7> Ahah, whoops. Edited for clarity. That's a funny coincidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> At this stage in your career is pick whichever one you are going to learn more from in terms of working with great people. By the way you worded it it sounds like the .net shop will have more people senior to you and therefore may be a better learning experience.

Perks and even salary at this point are far behind the benefits of working with an excellent team you can learn from, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER10> Some things to consider.

If you are starting out, keep in mind you are coming into a live and running environment. What looks chaotic to you may just be something that grew up organically over time and has an internal logic that isn't readily apparent. If they have money to pay you, they must be doing something right. Consider seeking that expertise out, even if you feel you are not necessarily being challenged at the technology level. You can always change jobs later when you have this experience under your belt. First jobs out of college are supposed to be "stepping stone" jobs anyway. "Get what you can and move on" is an entirely legitimate way to approach this.

Think about where you want to end up eventually. If you want to move into corporate-land writing reports against business databases, go for the .Net shop. If you want to eventually do "fun" stuff in startup-land, then stay where you are. Because the reality is the complexity of what people are doing with .Net is relatively low - they use it to run businesses, so you're always writing a variant of a shopping cart or accounting program. When people want to do something interesting/new/really challenging, they tend to choose other tools than those provided by Microsoft, inclusive of .Net.

So I guess if you want immediate security, go with the .Net shop. (Though be aware that in any large or even medium-sized organization you are as likely to have to learn politics as programming.)

Otherwise, stay where you are a little longer and see if you can find some value in what you have to work with now.

</comment><comment><USER11> What about stuff like health insurance, and 401k match? Young people typically don't think about these things, but getting a maximum match out of your 401k contributions (it's literally free money) while you're young will pay back quite a lot when you're looking to retire.

<comment><AUTHOR> health and dental match but I do not know about the nuances of RRSPS (Canada's 401k equivalent)</comment></comment>


Show HN: The Million Dollar Homepage reimagined as cyberpunk-inspired cityscape - <AUTHOR> https://milliondollarmetropolis.com <comment><USER2> I came in jaded, expecting yet another uninteresting clone. I have to say: it looks really pretty. If you did the modeling and assets, great job. Looks like you even use shaders?

I can't help but feel you'd be better off using this city for something more compelling. Maybe map the Coronavirus? Or make an API to render content as textures? Maybe make it into a music player that changes the shaders with intensity? I'm sure there's some ways to leverage this more :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yeah there are ton of potential avenues to pursue with this kind of thing. I actually thought about doing interesting music visualizations too.</comment></comment>


Robigalia: seL4 and Rust - <AUTHOR> https://robigalia.org/ <comment><USER2> Hi, project lead/main/pretty much only developer ( ;) ) here.

I didn't plan on posting this for another week :( There's a bunch of stuff that still needs doing, especially with docs and tutorials. The writing on the website is only a first draft. There are also no easy tasks for new contributor onboarding at this point in time, which I think is really important before anouncing a new project.

This largely started as a learning project by me and a few of my friends at uni last semester. A lot of people were interested in it, so we (I) decided to take it somewhere.

Here's the announcement email draft:

[https://lists.robigalia.org/pipermail/robigalia- dev/2016-Jan...](https://lists.robigalia.org/pipermail/robigalia- dev/2016-January/001860.html)

<comment><USER3> Very cool. Are you planning to write device drivers in Rust initially or something else like incorporating a rump kernel?

<comment><USER2> Drivers will be pure Rust. Someone else can port a BSD to run on seL4 if they want.

<comment><USER4> Was there any discussion over implementing a hypercall interface for the userland and writing drivers in Rust that are rumpkernel-ready? Instead of writing yet another OS-specific network stack, be able to reuse the Rust drivers for BSD and all other rumpkernels.

<comment><USER2> None of us have experience with rump kernels, but I'd be very interested in seeing what is needed to make that work. Right now the drivers we're writing are parameterized over hardware-access with traits. If a rump-ready driver could work in that existing framework, that'd be ideal.

<comment><USER5> some useful links on rust + rump kernel:

[https://gandro.github.io/2015/09/27/rust-on- rumprun/](https://gandro.github.io/2015/09/27/rust-on-rumprun/)

[https://polyfractal.com/post/adding-a-disk-to-a-rust- rumprun...](https://polyfractal.com/post/adding-a-disk-to-a-rust-rumprun- unikernel/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is awesome very good combination. seL4 is formally verified and then slap a memory safe and performant user-level code on top.

More info about L4 micro-kernel:

[https://sel4.systems/Info/FAQ/](https://sel4.systems/Info/FAQ/)

Now user-level here means drivers as well. So that would be interesting how it would work with Rust. Will it all default to unsafe code and just end up with pointer twiddling and memory overwrites and all the same errors. I hope not.

Currently it seems that the verification mode had DMA turned off and for SMP they run a kernel instance on each core and then send messages to each other via shared memory. That probably means not load balancing or not scheduling?

<comment><USER7> Re: low-level Rust, I've been really enjoying following this series:

[http://os.phil-opp.com/](http://os.phil-opp.com/)

It shows a variety of ways to safely wrap unsafe code and then provide strongly-typed safe interfaces to the hardware, no pointer twiddling required. A particularly good example is the section "Some Clever Solution" in the "Page Tables" post.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, I think I downvoted you by accident. HN's mobile interface makes scrolling risky... :)

<comment><USER9> We've all been there :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Create a secure POSIX-compatible userland on top of seL4._

This goal fills me with nerd lust. Getting ourselves a secure foundation to build on doesn't solve all our problems (not by a long shot), but such a drastic reduction in attack surface would be an incredible achievement.

<comment><USER11> >> Create a secure POSIX-compatible userland on top of seL4. > > This goal fills me with nerd lust.

I remember a L4 talk in which the speaker showed how more than 95% of the code of new OSes where devoted to being POSIX compatible and yet they 1) lacked a lot of features 2) missed many edge cases 3) had to modify their beautiful kernel design to accommodate POSIX use cases.

I think the only way forward is to do like Plan9 did. Just forget about POSIX and implement your own set of primitives (but first study what has been done in the last 40 years!). POSIX compatibility can come later with 80/20 library that maps POSIX calls and behaviour to the new primitives.

And maybe POSIX is not needed at all. If your OS is interesting enough people will add #ifdef'd code for your platform, just like many UNIX-y applications do now for Android, OS X or Windows.

<comment><USER12> FWIW, OS X is UNIX 03 certified: [http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3612.htm](http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3612.htm)

Android, for these purposes, is, of course, Linux with a different libc, so most of the POSIXy stuff is there, even if bionic is pretty awful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's the same foolish concept people have been reinventing since early secure UNIX's hosted on security kernels. Long story short, it was impossible without breaking applications and lots of staff back when UNIX had "dozens" of system calls. It's not going to work this time.

The solution high assurance security adopted was to virtually or physically isolate a UNIX/Linux stack that interacted with security-critical software that ran directly on microkernel and through mediated interfaces. This resulted in commercial work like INTEGRITY-178B and LynxSecure with Nizza, Perseus, and OKL4/OKLinux in OSS space. Look up "Mikro-SINA VPN" (yes with a k) for great case study. Middleware like Camkes was developed for integration. Similarly, kernels like INTEGRITY and PikeOS developed safe/secure runtimes that ran directly on kernel for Ada and Java.

What this project and all others like it need to do is this:

A. Drop all efforts at rebuilding UNIX in language X.

B. Get a user-mode version of Linux running on it with user-space drivers on microkernel for one, easily-acquired board.

C. Redirect safe language efforts on creating a secure runtime on the microkernel.

D. Create middleware tools along lines of Protocol Buffers, ZeroMQ, or LANGSEC stuff. These should allow seemless, efficient integration between untrusted (esp GUI) stuff in Linux VM and trusted stuff in safe lang uage runtime.

E. Begin on a POSIX-like runtime whose components can be stripped on a case- by-case basis. Focus on syscalls used by critical libraries and services first.

F. The current goal of full POSIX. 99% dont make it to E. If they get here, then great. If to E, then we get at least some apps. If to C and D, then we at least have trustworthy runtime.

That's my two cents worth and builds on what's historically happened in these efforts.

<comment><USER14> > A. Drop all efforts at rebuilding UNIX in language X.

... OK, but then you say "full POSIX" later. So how does that differ?

> B. Get a user-mode version of Linux running on it with user-space drivers on > microkernel for one, easily-acquired board.

How is this relevant to what happens later? The whole goal is to not rely on the Linux kernel.

> C. Redirect safe language efforts on creating a secure runtime on the > microkernel.

There aren't "safe language efforts". There is a safe language that already exists, and the effort has already been expended to make that exist. The project is creating a secure runtime on the microkernel using that safe language.

> D. Create middleware tools along lines of Protocol Buffers, ZeroMQ, or > LANGSEC stuff

You mean like serde? This is already done for the Rust ecosystem.

> E. Begin on a POSIX-like runtime whose components can be stripped on a case- > by-case basis. Focus on syscalls used by critical libraries and services > first.

How is this not what this project is doing?

> F. The current goal of full POSIX. 99% dont make it to E. If they get here, > then great. If to E, then we get at least some apps. If to C and D, then we > at least have trustworthy runtime.

... in other words, exactly what the project is doing?

<comment><USER15> I didn't understand the parent comment either. For what it's worth: this is the first project I've seen that _really_ made me want to start playing with Rust.

<comment><USER13> It's pretty simple: almost all efforts to duplicate POSIX in a safe language failed. The commercial practice is porting a POSIX or Linux API in C to a virtualized partition that runs on microkernel. Safety-critical apps run either directly on the microkernel or on a minimal, language-specific runtime running directly on kernel. Keeps TCB tiny. Overall app/system is split with untrusted components in POSIX/Linux system & security-critical stuff in the minimal partitions. Unlike safe POSIX, this is a proven model done by many small teams.

In this case, it would be a RTOS or user-mode Linux, plus a custom runtime or target for Rust apps, and IPC/middleware to connect the two. Way easier to build. POSIX comes later if effort comes along.

<comment><USER2> And for the Rust half, that's exactly what's in our roadmap and introduction :) Robigo (the POSIX environment) is a long-term stretch goal so that I can run my own OS on a RISC-V laptop of my own devising and still run traditional UNIX programs like GNU. I think we're in violent agreement.

<comment><USER13> Im on mobile and didnt realize you were project head when I first replied. Id have been more helpful. My bad.

Im glad your doing it gradually with intermediates. That will let it benefit spinoff projects or even products hopefully. Plus keep you from getting overloaded.

I also like that RISC-V is in your long-term vision. Keeping that in mind early will help avoid architectural mistakes early on. Id say use the ISA closest to it in meantime so little change is necessary.

Far as overall scheme, I'll email you some reference work if your interested in prior work on safe runtimes, split apps, high-security dev techniques, and so on. Might be able to integrate that into idiomatic Rust. That's your call though.

<comment><USER2> I'd be very interested in that! I don't have a lot of experience in this area, it's just something I'm interested in and started hacking away at. Email is in my profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was just recently wondering if an LSTM neural net could be trained as a decent decompiler from LLVM IR to Rust source. Feed that with Clang output of an established OS and coreutils(i was thinking minix3 but maybe seL4) and get a working if not necessarily idiomatic Rust OS. Refactor at leisure.

<comment><USER17> Why would you ever do that? You'd end up a bunch of unreadable rust code wrapped in a gigantic unsafe {} block.

<comment><USER16> The LSTM would be trained against an existing high quality Rust code base and it's IR; so I wouldn't expect a bunch of unsafe literal translations.

Whether the C side IR has enough debug metadata or could be annotated automatically would be the make or break.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is exciting. Sounds like exactly what Gernot Heiser was talking about: a sufficiently safe language for userland on seL4. Rust was the first that came to mind for me.

<comment><USER13> Gernot is a smart guy. I learned a lot from him on this stuff. Moreover, the ideas Im pushing here were described and implemented by his people at OK Labs then deployed in millions of phones. Also used in desktops and servers by US, UK, and German firms.

Rust is a good choice given its adoption. Only if they focus on a runtime instead of POSIX, though.

<comment><USER2> I know the website isn't terribly clear right now (it was posted a week earlier than I planned), but the first goal listed is exactly this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In order to support more than the unikernel or embedded use case I hope they'll take in the beloved rump kernels as it's unlikely to maintain an own copy of network and FS drivers, not speaking from graphics.

<comment><USER2> As I mentioned in another comment, someone else can port BSD if they want. Our goal is pure-Rust. We're already working on NIC support and a TCP/IP stack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't fully understand why. The idea of microkernels is to mitigate instability/insecurity from a lack of memory safety. This is exactly what rust actually provides.

<comment><USER21> I think I missed the correctness proof for the rust compiler and runtime.

<comment><USER13> Exactly. It's same reason high assurance requires source-to-object code traceability even for SPARK Ada. Of course, it's nice the tooling helps with that. Rust needs same thing plus either proven or zero runtime target. Unless it has it already.

<comment><USER2> I have plans slated for doing proofs about Rust programs in 2017, if not sooner (I'm interning at Data61 on the seL4 verification team starting in two weeks, and if I don't get a chance to work on Rust verification then, I'll start after I'm done)

<comment><USER13> Oh hell, you going to be working with the top talent. You might learn some high assurance skills after all. That makes your project 2x as interesting. Good luck on the new job. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Great! Once there's enough of this working, build a bootable router image on it for some existing small router. That will get it some use. Maybe even a secure router.

</comment><comment><USER23> Great project, best of luck with it.

</comment><comment><USER24> Is there any concern about the level of effort required to formally verify a kernel being a roadblock to continuous improvement (e.g. 64 bit support).

<comment><USER2> No. See any of the papers, eg [http://ssrg.nicta.com.au/publications/nictaabstracts/Elphins...](http://ssrg.nicta.com.au/publications/nictaabstracts/Elphinstone_Heiser_13.abstract.pml). The maintenance effort is quite reasonable. They've managed to evolve, and continue to evolve, the kernel even with the ever more stricter properties proven about it.</comment></comment>


Switzerland to vote on banning banks from creating money - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11999966/Switzerland-to-vote-on-banning-banks-from-creating-money.html <comment><USER2> Economic historian Niall Ferguson beautifully describes fractional reserves as one of the greatest innovations of humankind in Ascent of Money.

The miseries from bank runs and crashes are real, but even so, the total impact on human welfare from fractional reserves has been overwhelmingly positive.

How do we know?

There were holdouts in Europe originally, some central banks were slow to adopt fractional reserves. They were trounced by the economies of other European nations and their superior access to liquid capital.

We've essentially done the laboratory tests here, it's one of the few areas where econ plays like a hard science. We know the answer here, and it's not 100% reserve requirements.

It's a tragic topic to put to a referendum though, because I don't expect every random person to be an expert on the technical nuances of financial history. And this is a topic where intuitions are a pretty poor guide, one where I'd expect the wisdom of crowds to fail hard. PhantomGremlin's quote from George Bailey is a good example. Most people aren't bankers, and don't really understand how it works as a system, beyond their own account, so it's weird to ask them to make key decisions here.

<comment><USER3> _> It's a tragic topic to put to a referendum though_

How one can reach such conclusion is beyond me. People will discuss the question, and democratically decide. You'd be surprise the fierce debates that erupts among citizens when a serious question is on the table, and how everyone makes oneself enlightened before vote. This is what actual democracy is. This is how it should work _everywhere_ for any serious issue.

Designating a cherry-picked representative who carries exactly zero obligation to hold his promises is NOT democracy, but elective oligarchy. Almost all countries calling themselves democracies certainly don't deserve the name.

<comment><USER4> I'm curious to which country you're assigning these noble ideals.

In no place I've lived would the average person walking into the voting box have spent time studying the history of banking law and policy to make a well- informed rational decision. They'd at most have read the opinions of some journalists or listened to a news reporter, and would make their decision after discussions between similar poorly informed friends/colleagues.

Fierce debates != well-informed debates.

We elect representatives because it's known that the body politic, once it reaches a large size, doesn't have the time to be well-informed on all decisions they'd need to make as a pure democracy. To suggest so exposes a serious need for a second look at the situation.

Representative democracy isn't elective oligarchy.

<comment><USER3> _> I'm curious to which country you're assigning these noble ideals._

Actually all of them.

 _> In no place I've lived would the average person walking into the voting box have spent time studying the history of banking law and policy to make a well-informed rational decision._

Because most people have been mercilessly been beaten into obedience, and the belief that they aren't actually able to think by themselves, that they're inferior to the oligarchs in command (hint: they aren't. The President is no better than me and no better than the garbage man).

In 2005, in France, the "referendum on a European Constitution" lit an immense debate, and there was an incredibly well-formed decision on an enormously obtuse tome of legalese.

You can check that similar debates are common in Switzerland. People actually think about the problem, discuss it, and vote in conscience.

If you think people aren't able to think and decide autonomously for themselves, you are _actively opposing democracy_.

Ordinary elective oligarchy is the ideology that mostly pass as "democracy" nowadays, but please don't stay abused and go on pretending you like democracy when you don't.

<comment><USER5> Both of you are correct. The problem with direct democracy these days is that it ignores the power of mass media, which is to say it ignores the influence of money on a statistically significant portion of the voters.

 _Premise 1_ : if you continue adding people to the voting pool on an issue, at some point (X) you're going to exceed the number of people who have interest / time / capability to render themselves informed.

When you do, mass media begins to exert a much greater effect on the outcome (as these people are more susceptible to having their opinions swayed).

 _Premise 2_ : If you shrink the pool of potential voters, but keep the money involved the same, then corruption increases

\--

There are of course things you can do legally to fight both of these negative outcomes, but I feel you'll always be fighting the basic tendencies. The solution then isn't direct democracy (where mass media overrides logic) or oligarchy (where corruption rules) but some point in between.

<comment><USER3> _> Both of you are correct. The problem with direct democracy these days is that it ignores the power of mass media, which is to say it ignores the influence of money on a statistically significant portion of the voters._

That's why the example of the 2005 French referendum is so important. All of mainstream politics were campaigning for "Yes". All of media, papers, TV, radios were exclusively campaigning for "Yes". However, the "No" vote won by a comfortable margin 55% to 45%, and the campaign for the "No" almost entirely took place on the internet and social networks.

<comment><USER5> The outcome and the results are useless without normalizing against an unadvertised baseline.

If either traditional/big media or the internet and social networks influenced the vote by pursuading people who didn't do their own research -- that's a fundamental problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There is a website [0] and book [1] on this topic, _" Up until about forty years ago a good percentage of the money in circulation was produced by the Bank of England and the seignorage went to the Treasury. Today 97% of all the money in circulation is created as debt by the banks and the seignorage profit goes to them. The result is that between 2000 and 2009 the state has foregone a trillion pounds. How many public services could that have funded? ... Modernising Money shows how a UK law implemented in 1844 can be updated and combined with reform proposals from the Great Depression, to provide the UK with a stable monetary and banking system, much lower levels of personal and national debt, and a thriving economy."_

A survey [2] was done as part of a master's thesis at Zurich University, which found that, _" Only 13 percent know that private commercial banks provide the majority of the money in circulation. However, 78 percent of the Swiss population would like money to be produced and distributed solely by a public organisation working for the common good, such as the National Bank. Only 4 percent preferred the system we actually have today – that money is mostly created by private, for-profit companies such as commercial banks."_

[0] [http://positivemoney.org](http://positivemoney.org)

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Modernising-Money-Monetary-System- Brok...](http://www.amazon.com/Modernising-Money-Monetary-System-Broken- ebook/dp/B00BD8PHHY/)

[2] [http://positivemoney.org/2015/09/survey-confirms-people- have...](http://positivemoney.org/2015/09/survey-confirms-people-have-no-idea- about-how-money-is-created/)

<comment><USER6> So what you mean to say is that the Swiss will now create a system where Swiss banks are required to have a tiny and fully controlled "overseas" (about 5 cm overseas preferably) subsidiary that "really"/legally originates all the loans ...

Because it would still be legal for banks in every other country to loan out Swiss dollars with fractional reserve. (Or even with 0 reserve)

I bet France and Germany will soon be voting a 2% foreign bank tax and send a box of flowers to every Swiss citizen as thanks. Nah doesn't sound realistic. They're governments. They'll never send thanks to anyone for money they suddenly can steal.

<comment><USER7> >Because it would still be legal for banks in every other country to loan out Swiss dollars with fractional reserve. (Or even with 0 reserve)

There is more to money creation than just extending loans and crediting customer accounts. In order for such a debited balance to be actually useful, a bank needs to be able to settle interbank payments.

Interbank settlements are usually performed using central bank reserve accounts – and the central bank is free to limit access to that system only to 100% reserve compliant parties.

<comment><USER6> True. However ... any central bank is free to do that in any currency they please. So the ECB can do it for Swiss Francs today, for instance.

If you now proceed to say that that is lunacy ... I'd agree with you. But it's still how it works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like this initiative very much. It is simple and effective. Please do read the website of the initiative: [http://www.vollgeld-initiative.ch/2-minuten- info/](http://www.vollgeld-initiative.ch/2-minuten-info/). The initiative states that all Swiss banks should hold all your money on your checking(!) account in 100% reserve. Your money is always there. There is no interest rate. It is just like cash money. Only digital.

If you want your money to gain interest you can open a savings account. Or you can invest your money in any other investment opportunity. The 100% reserve rule does not apply to saving accounts.

And thus you, as a customer, have a clear choice. Money on your checking account is save and always yours. Guaranteed by your National Bank and/or State. Money anywhere else is treated as an investment. You win some, you loose some.

</comment><comment><USER9> I asked @yanisvaroufakis for a comment[1], here's the tweet: _It is a silly idea. Tantamount to preventing banks from lending Jack Jill ' deposits. There are far better ways to control banks_

[1] [https://twitter.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/68180815534559641...](https://twitter.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/681808155345596416)

ps. I understand what he is saying but I have no idea where "Jack Jill'" came from, probably he is referring to this comic: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_and_Jill_(comics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_and_Jill_\(comics\))

<comment><USER10> Jack and Jill are two arbitrary names here. With 100% reserves, a bank cannot lend Jill's deposits to Jack.

Note the dropped 's' in Varoufakis's comment.

<comment><USER9> I missed the dropped 's'! Thanks for making it plaintext for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It is important to distinguish between what we call "creating money" which is really fraudulently introducing multiple claims on the same monetary unit at the same points of time (and which remain unexercised until a panic) vs. loaning money, which can be done perfectly safely so long as the money being loaned is available for the duration of the loan.

So, when a bank issues an honest loan for a million dollars for 10 years, it needs to have 1 million dollars pledged to it by savers for at least ten years (in the form of CDs or what have you.) This money may be spent in the economy and thereby returned to the bank as a deposit of some duration, which can be loaned against again safely, _so long as it is reloaned under the same constraint_ : the bank must ensure that any loans made against the re- deposited money are done in a shorter term than the deposit is for. You can have very rapid loan growth in this manner, as time horizons expand during growth phases, and suffer none of the issues with multiple parties claiming the same monetary unit at the same time, commonly called bank runs.

Money can be safely "fractionally reserved" so long as intentional duration mismatch (which is really fraud) is not allowed. That's the core issue in the banking system. The production of the underlying money is a separate question, but I'm less and less convinced it matters all that much, as long as it isn't insane.

<comment><USER12> _" Money can be safely "fractionally reserved""_

What you describe is the opposite of a fractional-reserve system. It is a full-reserve system.

<comment><USER13> What happens if the bank lends 10 million as per the previous example, holding only 1 million, then the bank goes bust. Does that 9 million seemingly magic money stay with the borrower? I don't understand how it balances back again.

<comment><USER11> I don't totally understand your question: the bank is typically slowly paid back on the loan and the loan is collateralized, so the nine million dollars don't puff out of existence at a single point any more dramatically than it currently would. The bank would have time to deal with the inevitable defaults due to the duration matching of deposits and loans.

Obviously banks could still go bankrupt, but they would not be bankrupt _by design_ , like they currently are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can someone provide an explanation of how this works or provide a reference with an overview? The article is light on details. I assume this means preventing banks extending credit against deposits that don't necessarily exist?

EDIT: [http://ecedweb.unomaha.edu/ve/library/HBCM.PDF](http://ecedweb.unomaha.edu/ve/library/HBCM.PDF) it seems to be more about loans being spent and thus the spent money being at another bank and loaned out again

<comment><USER15> It seems clear enough:

" limit financial speculation by requiring private banks to hold 100pc reserves against their deposits. "

Normally, banks aren't required to actually have the money they lend out, so when a loan is credited to your account that money is created (and when you repay the loan, the money is destroyed). In many countries banks are required to hold a certain amount reserve (I think it's about 1.5% in the USA - the UK doesn't have such a requirement), so this is simply requiring that the banks have 100%, which means banks can only lend money they actually have.

EDIT: Did you mean how does the whole money creation thing work at all? There's a very clear guide at:

[http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarte...](http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf)

It's for the UK, but pretty much all modern countries work in a similar way.

<comment><USER16> That's not how fractional reserve banking works.

Say I deposit $100 in a bank. The bank has $100. Now, say the law requires a 10% reserve. They can lend $90--which they actually have. That person takes the loan, and deposits it in their bank. Now, there are $190 in deposits from the original $100. But the bank never lent money it didn't have. Instead, the money creation comes from the fact I get to treat my $100 deposit as good as cash on hand, even though 90% of it has been lent to another person.

<comment><USER15> No, read the pdf I linked. Yours is the first misconception they address.

In summary, though, if we imagine that the bank is required to hold 10% reserve: I go to the bank and get a loan for $900. This is credited to my account. _There is no requirement for this money to actually exist._ The same day, you go and deposit $100 in actual dollar bills. Your account is credited with $100.

The bank's liabilities are now $100 (in your account) plus $900 (in my account) for a total of $1000. The banks reserve is $100 (real dollar bills you gave them). This is 10% reserve so the bank is legally OK. $900 has been created.

That's how it works. More detail in the PDF I linked.

<comment><USER17> Under your scenario, if a bank can lend out $900 for every $100 it collects in deposits, then won't we see runaway monetary growth? Consider the following scenario:

1) Alice deposits $100 in Bank X

2) Bob takes out $900 loan from Bank X and deposits it in Bank Y

3) Charlie takes out $8,100 loan from Bank Y and deposits it in Bank X

4) Eve takes out $72,900 loan from Bank X and deposits it in Bank Y

5) ... the cycle continues ...

Also, I would assume that the interest rates that my bank pays for my deposits would be a lot higher if it could lend out 9x as much as it holds in deposits.

The model where a bank lends out 90% of its total deposits still makes more sense to me and will result in $900 of total money created per $100 initially deposited.

1) Alice deposits $100 in Bank X

2) Bob takes out $90 loan from Bank X and deposits it in Bank Y

3) Charlie takes out $81 loan from Bank Y and deposits it in Bank X

4) Eve takes out $72.90 loan from Bank X and deposits it in Bank Y

5) ... the cycle continues ...

and if you sum the geometric series, which in this case is finite, you get $900 of total additional money created for the initial $100 Alice put in.

<comment><USER18> "2) Bob takes out $900 loan from Bank X and deposits it in Bank Y"

If Bob takes cash from Bank X and deposits in Bank Y, Bank X has less cash, that movement is reflected in their balance and in their reserves.

If Bob makes and electronic transfer from Bank X to Bank Y, at the end of the day, Bank X and Y have to clear their balance with each other. As some people have moved money in the opposite direction, from Bank Y to Bank X, the balance could be compensated.

If for some reason, people only retire money from a bank without never making deposits, you have a bank run and it's an indicator of mistrust in that bank.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This looks similar to the Chicago Plan [1], a proposal by Irving Fisher to transition the United States to a fully-reserved banking system.

[1] [https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp12202.pdf](https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp12202.pdf)

<comment><USER11> Thank you very much for this link.

The elimination of intentional duration mismatch and the introduction of fraudulent time-money claims by the financial sector is one of the most important moral and social issues we face.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't really understand how this isn't a proposal to effectively end lending.

If banks are required to hold 100% reserves against their deposits, where exactly are they supposed to get money for lending?

The article says "they'll only be able to lend money that they have from savers or other banks" but that seems inconsistent with the 100% reserve requirement. If I'm required to hold on to 100% of deposits, I _can 't_ lend them out.

<comment><USER21> It is more likely to kill almost all deposits. The bank wouldn't really profit from stored money so they will want fee for keeping money. Interesting experiment but I definitely wouldn't want it to happen in my country.

<comment><USER7> Only if central bank deposits do not bear interests. If they do, depositing money at a commercial bank would increase that bank's central bank balance. If the central bank's deposit interest rate is higher than the commercial bank's, this would generate a profit for the commercial bank.

In the Eurosystem, for example, minimum reserves bear interest even today; only excess reserves are "punished" by negative interest rates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> One of the reasons I immigrated to Switzerland is direct democracy and stability. Since two hundred something years Switzerland is politically neutral. It is ranked the most stable economy in the world and the most competitive nation ([https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Switzerland-the-most- competitiv...](https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Switzerland-the-most-competitive- economy-in-the-world)). The Swiss Franc is the sixth most-traded currency in the world. If you get your salary in Swiss Francs, you maximize the chances that the salary you earn will actually be worth something in the future and is not just paper.

If you look for a tech-job in Switzerland, I work as a tech-recruiter in Zurich. Check out my story "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in IT" on [https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i- moved-t...](https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-to- switzerland-to-work-in-it-c7ac18af4f90) and / or send me a mail to the address in my HN-profile.

<comment><USER23> > If you get your salary in Swiss Francs, you maximize the chances that the > salary you earn will actually be worth something in the future and is not > just paper.

Or, when living in a country with untrustworthy currency, you can just exchange your savings to USD (or CHF etc.) and have them equally protected.

<comment><USER24> Your comment suggests you've never lived in a country where you would want/need to exchange your currency.

The smart money (I.e. politically well connected) gets to exchange their money. As soon as every one else finds out, capital controls have been introduced.

The politically well connected, usually, get to continue exchanging their money at an artificial rate.

<comment><USER23> The idea is to be exchanging them _in_advance_, i.e. exchanging the savings part of your monthly salary to USD every month. Don't wait till the shit hits the fan and everybody wants to get rid of their local money.

<comment><USER24> A country cannot have a widely distrusted currency for long, because everyone will do as you say (exchange away).This causes capital flight, so the gov't introduces capital controls shortly thereafter.

So the only way to do as you say is to be (far) more prescient than your peers. You need to be far more prescient because you have to beat the gov't insiders too.

Also, prescience does not save your future earnings (I.e. after controls have been imposed)

Or you take a risk and use the black market

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Visual map of the money markets [http://money.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the- worlds-money-an...](http://money.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-money- and-markets-in-one-visualization/)

The history of the Federal Reserve: [http://www.jekyllislandhistory.com/federalreserve.shtml](http://www.jekyllislandhistory.com/federalreserve.shtml)

An implication from the power of private banks to create money out of nothing is that people will have to borrow money for their homes essentially part of their future income to the banks and its bond holders.

</comment><comment><USER26> How will they know how much they should create?

Could they just abandon taxes and rely 100% on printed money or are modern states too expensive to be supported by inflation alone?

<comment><USER27> That's what I have been thinking how the system should be.

Just print eg 3% more money each year. Give eg 30% of the new money to the state for its expenses, give the rest equally divided to all the population. End of story.

No need for IRS, no need for filling taxes, layers, tax accountants, tax checks. The amount would be insignificant (as a percent) for the rich, significant for the poor, thus helping them more. The only tax would be the specifc controlled inflation.

Looks to me as a very simple, nice system. ..Any thoughts anyone, why this would or wouldn't be a good idea, and / or how it could possibly be improved?

<comment><USER28> I think it would be hard for central banks to control inflation well in this system. Japan has been trying hard for 20 years to trigger inflation through QE and related money-printing schemes, but it hasn't translated to inflation.

In Japan's case, inflation happened because of a sales-tax increase. Taxes are forced spending, and you can target heavy savers if you need to.

I think that just the levers of how much money to print and percent going to gov't could give a good amount of control though.

Some practical considerations though: How do you get the money to each person? Not everyone has a bank account. In a lot of countries (including US), there's no good single-identifier to find people either. Fraudsters could claim for other people, and the innocent people couldn't get their share. There's some logistics involved.

One small thing is that taxes have also been used a way of incentivising certain behaviour. Carbon taxes aren't about generating revenue but reducing pollution. How would that enter in this new system? Maybe Carbon...incentives? Kind of weird to implement I think

<comment><USER26> > How do you get the money to each person?

Unconditional basic income?

Money would find its way from the consumers to companies that need investment. Instead of banks estimating how viable your business is before giving you a loan you'd get your money straight from your customers. The market would decide which endeavors should get funding.

My only concern is that printing money would not provide enough money to run country budget (let alone basic income) without creating hyperinflation.

<comment><USER28> I meant on the logistics side of things. Lots of people don't have bank accounts. Lots of people don't have any solid ID. Plus you'll get people who are really in limbo in whatever system you build to get money to the people... some tricky stuff (especially if it's real large amounts of money).

Maybe Medicaid has solved all these kinds of issues already, and it's just about scaling

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Fractional banking deployment is the equivalent to nuclear power discovery, nuclear fusion can used to create energy using nuclear power plants our to destroy using atomic bombs.

The same way Fractional banking can be useful by increasing the credit supply and destructive when over leverage.

Simply put Fractional banking creates a derivative instrument on money.

</comment><comment><USER30> Seems like an extreme move. Why not vote to raise the fractional reserve minimum and then see what effect it has?

</comment><comment><USER31> Doesn't the stock market create (and in the inverse, destroy) money?

If Apple goes from $13/share to $700+/share, those hundreds of billions of dollars are basically created from thin air, aren't they?

<comment><USER32> No. The share price is the latest price someone purchased that share for. It's just a metric. Someone did literally spend $700 and gave it to someone else in exchange for one "share". Now, you may call a "share" just a piece of air--but it is something that has value. The money for it, however, comes out of my pocket and is definitely not thin air.

<comment><USER33> What if you skip selling the shares for money and you use them directly to buy something? I'm pretty sure you can buy other companies with a partial payment in shares and you can hire people doing the same, so the share acts like currency in some scenarios.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > as a way of preventing asset bubbles and curbing reckless lending

That hasn't worked out very well.

<comment><USER35> Which modern economy has a banking system that requires 100% reserves? i'm genuinely asking. I've never heard of this kind of concept and do not understand the implications, except it seems that the central bank would become enomously more influential.

<comment><USER36> Actually, a Bitcoin-based system would, wouldn't it? (just thinking). So far I think people have hard time to figure out all the side effects of 100% reserves. I'm tentatively for it, though humans are great at "unintended consequences"...

<comment><USER37> No. Bitcoin has no mechanism for limiting lending. It's just fiat asset. Because bitcoin is not local currency anywhere, there are no mandatory reserve requirements for giving loans against bitcoin deposits.

Fractional reserve banking affects only for very liquid money-like assets like on demand deposits. Long term deposits create money outside reserve requirements. I think one solution is for banks to start offering people time deposit & credit card combinations. Income goes into time deposit and people use credit cards almost exclusively.

Poor people without credit cards might might have to pay a lot for having money in a bank, so they might turn into holding cash.

<comment><USER36> Bitcoin has built in limit to lending: you can't, in the classic way it's been done. Whoever has control of coins, has complete control. If I give you any bitcoin in a way that you can spend it, then I don't have a mechanism to get it back without your consent. So no "lent" bitcoin really exists within the system.

<comment><USER38> I think the point that needs to be made is that there is very little incentive for a bitcoin owner to store their bitcoins with a bank. People store cash because it's susceptible to being stolen and inconvenient to spend versus a debit card. Banks have complete control of our cash and we can only get it back on their terms, but that doesn't deter most anyone from lending it to them.

<comment><USER39> > _there is very little incentive for a bitcoin owner to store their bitcoins > with a bank_

Well, a bank could offer to pay interest on the deposits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Well, it's a bad idea, but you can't prevent masses from shooting themselves in the foot but feeling good about it.</comment>