Re: STOCKS: An unnerving thought

From: phil osborn (philosborn@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Apr 15 2000 - 23:48:32 MDT


>From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com>>Subject: STOCKS: An
>unnerving thought
>Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 22:13:05 -0500
>
>An unnerving thought recently occurred to me. We've all seen that
>famous video of the bridge that collapsed. Remember how, in the
>beginning, it started to undulate up and down, like a wave, and this
>went on for a while? And remember how, just before it finally broke
>down and fell into the river, it started to undulate from side to side,
>like a strip of paper twisting?
>
>And you know how this stock market has always been volatile, but now the
>Dow and the Nasdaq are being volatile in opposite directions?
>
>Oh, never mind. I've been predicting economic Doomsday more or less
>continuously since 1994, so even if I'm right, I don't get any credit
>for it. But it's still an unnerving thought.
>--
> sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky

I had a similar image the other day, but more closely related to the actual
subject. I imagined this incredible pyramid scheme, with everybody putting
money in and hoping desperately to be able to guess when it would collapse -
better than the rest of the suckers. Then, when the pyramid starts quaking,
they see that there's another one to jump to that's still going up. But
they quickly drive that one to the limit as well, so they then jump back to
get in on the bargains in the first one. Problem is that there isn't much
new money available from anywhere, so this oscillation is just a predictor
of the imminent general collapse.
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