Rants and WTF are you talking about and Coronavirus!

[QUOTE=BigBuddy69;2561486]Wait for some steamy chit-chat under the showers![/QUOTE]"Erotic Shower Confessions of a Leprechaun".

[QUOTE=McAdonis;2561537]While culture plays a part, I would argue that recent history (political and economic uncertainty and instability) play a bigger part. It is estimated that in the the early 1950's, 30 million people starved to death in China. If you have a 3-4 generations, where nobody in the family has faced uncertainty or economic hardship, that "savings reflex" diminishes. Case in point some Chinese students in Iowa:.[/QUOTE]It would be prudent to say that political and economic history is intertwined with culture.

The anecdote about the Chinese student spending lavishly is a fair one in which I can relate. I was pretty financially reckless in my 20's but have since made up for that. But we these are examples of immigrants who have secure occupations and education. We seem to be focusing on the "Crazy Rich Asians" demographic or at least the financially above average ones who try to emulate that life. What about the blue collar immigrants and those of other nationalities and ethnicities outside of East Asia? Would your university student example apply to the grocery store / gas station owner types? Would it apply to Indians and West Africans?

[QUOTE=Mursenary;2561716]Is there a correlation with men who do not have male friends and prolonged breastfeeding from mother's teat? She stopped breastfeeding when you were what, 15?[/QUOTE]With a so exceptional mother, you can only love women. Enjoy with your friends here and in brothels, when you didn't understand from your experience in brothels.

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2561698]That's assuming he has any employees, that his wife is a doctor, etc. Etc. We have a guy named Canada on the American politics thread that claims to be a high roller CEO and to have started many successful companies. But this almost surely isn't so as he spends all his days and evenings reciting the same talking points over and over here in ISG. That leaves little time for the grand ventures that he alleges, plus anyone who values their time and sees it as money wouldn't spend it that way. Not to mention that his spelling is often atrocious. At the end of the day about all we know about anyone here is that they pay for sex. Other than that we are reliant on what they tell us about themselves which is often worthy of a big grain of salt. If you are looking for the rich, and otherwise very important and successful people, look no further than a mongering venue or the seedy bars surrounding such. Just find a stool, say Hello, to the guy sitting next to you and he'll be glad to tell you all about it. Wink.[/QUOTE]Yeah, that Canada guy is very Shoo-ish but with a larger lexicon. But he might be telling the truth. I used to have a side hustle in internet marketing and named myself the CEO of my own 1-man company. The average internet marketing guy I met were not exactly the sharpest tools either, but many were "CEOs" also.

I actually think that Pessimist is a white collar professional. I give him a hard time because I think he's a tool with a narrow life experience who can't bare the thought of not being the smartest guy in the room; but he's not completely disconnected from society like many of these other guys.

[QUOTE=McAdonis;2561540]Many musicians use drugs to tap into creativity. Money, fame, youth, talent, access to beautiful women, good looks, so winners in almost every sense of the word.

Men on the higher spectrum of IQ also seem to dabble: Steve Jobs (LSD, marijuana) and Bill Gates (LSD only once).

There is a difference between recreational use and addiction.[/QUOTE]In some ZH clubs, cocaine which is cheap there, is for free for girls, maybe to help them to compete for Nobel award. I remember one reporting Linda. De at Globe was ballet dancer, but not really around the pole on few times she danced. I was proposed drugs only twice by girls, both German at Bruggen on Summer 2016. But my only drug is adrenaline I look for in my sports or on German autobahns. Look forward going to test and improve new engine, or maybe to push a Mustang Shelby I was proposed to try, even not really sporty, but what engine noise, best music.

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2561698]That's assuming he has any employees, that his wife is a doctor, etc. Etc. We have a guy named Canada on the American politics thread that claims to be a high roller CEO and to have started many successful companies. But this almost surely isn't so as he spends all his days and evenings reciting the same talking points over and over here in ISG. That leaves little time for the grand ventures that he alleges, plus anyone who values their time and sees it as money wouldn't spend it that way. Not to mention that his spelling is often atrocious. At the end of the day about all we know about anyone here is that they pay for sex. Other than that we are reliant on what they tell us about themselves which is often worthy of a big grain of salt. If you are looking for the rich, and otherwise very important and successful people, look no further than a mongering venue or the seedy bars surrounding such. Just find a stool, say Hello, to the guy sitting next to you and he'll be glad to tell you all about it. Wink.[/QUOTE]We all know that you're a pathetic old fart and Nursenary is an unemployed troll. I doubt that any of you have ever mongered anywhere.

[QUOTE=Mursenary;2561728]It would be prudent to say that political and economic history is intertwined with culture.

The anecdote about the Chinese student spending lavishly is a fair one in which I can relate. I was pretty financially reckless in my 20's but have since made up for that. But we these are examples of immigrants who have secure occupations and education. We seem to be focusing on the "Crazy Rich Asians" demographic or at least the financially above average ones who try to emulate that life. What about the blue collar immigrants and those of other nationalities and ethnicities outside of East Asia? Would your university student example apply to the grocery store / gas station owner types? Would it apply to Indians and West Africans?[/QUOTE]The CRA demographic is an extreme example, but it seems the average Chinese millennial is also losing the savings reflex compared to past generations. The money that their parents saved is allowing Chinese millennials to have some financial cushion, which would provide them with more disposable income than their salary would suggest. It also seems common for Chinese parents (even on a taxi driver salary) to buy their children a home. This is due to their parents' legendary saving habits. And in part due to the one-child policy, that allowed financial resources to flow to a single offspring. P2 P lending also seems to be fueling new spending habits for the younger generation.

[QUOTE]While mortgages are the lion’s share of household debt, credit card and consumer loans have shot up from just 4.6 percent of household debt in 2015 to 16 percent now, BMI Research shows.

“The young generation today has a totally different attitude to my generation,” said Ma’s grandmother, Wei Chunyin, 76. She grew up in the 1960s and said she was in debt just once - for 100 yuan, the equivalent today of $14.50.

“We were very economical and hardworking,” she said. “Clothing was just to wear, and we wouldn’t even really eat snacks, just food from our unit,” she said, referring to her workplace.

Ma’s generation is the first in China’s modern history to be raised in relative prosperity and social stability.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-debt-millennials-idUSKBN14015H[/QUOTE][QUOTE]While young people around the world are struggling to get on the property ladder, an HSBC study found that 70% of Chinese millennials have achieved the milestone.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-39512599[/QUOTE][QUOTE]Chinese regulators attempting to rein in Ant Group Co. and a swelling online-lending industry have a target in their sights: the excessive, debt-fueled lifestyles of the country’s youth.

Many used short-term loans to pay for expenses such as prestige cosmetics, electronic gadgets and costly restaurant meals. They found credit easy to obtain, thanks to Ant and other Chinese financial-technology companies that provided unsecured loans to millions of people who didn’t have bank-issued credit cards.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-youthful-debt-fueled-spending-spree-sparks-a-reckoning-11615631400[/QUOTE]RE: Nigerians and Indians. I emphasize the Chinese story here, because they are the worlds best savers. And if the younger generation can undergo such a drastic change in spending habits, then it could happen anywhere. Immigrant savings habits are forged in great part due to the economic conditions back home, and much of that is dependent on what decade they were born in, and what year they left their home country. If each successive generation of Nigerians and Indians get more "spoiled" like the Chinese have, their savings reflex will also diminish. You said yourself, you are frugal, but nowhere near as frugal as your mother.

[QUOTE=Pessimist;2561438]I think you missed the point. The decision to allocate x percent to sovereign debt, why to corporate, z to US stocks, z1 to them stocks etc is made by people much higher up in the hierarchy, namely political appointees. The well being of that fund impacts all of Norway and they don't leave that decision to some MBA from the US. The average PM just manages a small amount (in their case, even small amounts to one or two billion) and s / he may well beat his bogey handily but the allocation decision has a much bigger bearing on the total returns of the fund. But if you want to curse the PMs, go ahead but their feelings will not be hurt.[/QUOTE]Sure thing. And I agree on all of that. But it just also depends on how advanced the trading robots are.

[QUOTE=Mursenary;2561384]. As such, it's potential is limited by the boundaries of human imagination. That is a process that cannot be shortcutted. True AI in our lifetime remains a huge question mark unless we unlock the mystery of what sentiency really is. Human sentiency is currently restricted to our own primary motivation: the need to procreate our race. As such, the highest level of AI will be limited by our primary mission: survival and preservation.[/QUOTE]I am not so sure it has to be sentient. Any human ways of structurally learning can be taught to a machine. Theoretically, but of course fare more difficult to understand than a human mind can manage. But a machine might step by step. Our mind is probably using some quantum physics, but we are about to develop quantum machines also.

[QUOTE=Mursenary;2561363]All of this talk about transhumanism is incongruent with the author's disdain for current pharmaceutical technology. He believes in the future advancement of human capabilities but shuns the current advancements that will help get us there. Medicine, vaccines, and nootropic drugs are just the beginning of performance enhancement but instead of embracing those things, he opts for "natural" remedies that are much less effective. Ray Kurzweil himself takes over 100 pills per day, not just natural supplements buy also common diabetic and cholesterol medications, not to mention a few nootropic drugs. There are obviously potential harmful effects that must be managed and improved upon but the same will have to be done with AI technology as the field progresses. Yet the poster expresses zero apprehension it its advancement. We are much closer to Terminator 2 Skynet than we are to unlocking the science behind quantum physics and quantum biology yet his concerns are more focused on the latter.[/QUOTE]I just don't trust amateurs. And there are plenty of amateurs. I take about 10 pills per day myself ATM.

The only iffy thing here is that in order to achieve general AI, we might first have to understand the brain better on a large data sample. And one of the simplest ways of doing that is by nanorobots (not that it is simple. But the lesser of some difficulties perhaps). And that is where we are with vaccines and test kits developed by darpa too. This is where it stems from. It is due to transhimanism.

[QUOTE=Sirioja;2561808] ... But my only drug is adrenaline I look for in my sports or on German autobahns... [/QUOTE]Did you ever thing to race cars on a track, not on public roads? You know, so that you don't put other people in danger? You probably would be laughed off the track though, so it's easier to brag in a forum.

[QUOTE=McAdonis;2561871] I emphasize the Chinese story here, because they are the worlds best savers.[/QUOTE]True, but saving is only smart if you are the only one doing it. It's like avoiding bitcoin or dogecoin the moment the herds are investing.

So I remember somebody here who was very sure that this is not possible when I posted about this weeks ago. Will that person now admit that they were wrong?

[QUOTE=PaulInZurich;2561892]So I remember somebody here who was very sure that this is not possible when I posted about this weeks ago. Will that person now admit that they were wrong?[/QUOTE]I knew they will open in the last days I saw many big cars with Rumanian plates and prostitutes inside driving around Vienna. I could already go there today or tomorrow, will I go there for sure not.