Rochambeau

Karma: 99

Rochambeau 26 Feb 2026 21:30 UTC
6 points
0
in reply to: philh’s comment on: Whack-a-Mole is Not a Winnable Game
The interest is offset by getting to keep the asset and its additional gains past when you would have sold it while still accessing a lot of the value; perhaps not worthwhile for some assets, but namely for real estate, people would be foolish to sell any investment property that is cash flowing (if not enough paper losses to offset the capital gains if they were to just sell or without a 1031 exchange).
I am already starting to do it and my fiancée more-so. He pays less in taxes than me (right now mostly due to depreciation) and that is despite making much more with real estate. We haven’t gotten to the die part, but with mortgage interest being tax deductible, you can continuously pay very little in taxes continuing to refinance out your equity in a property instead of selling.

Rochambeau 23 Feb 2026 21:02 UTC
1 point
−1
on: The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis—a finance-oriented vignette
I enjoyed reading these financial predictions that I haven’t seen in so much detail previously, particularly the part about massive default of fixed rate debt which I think makes a lot of sense. What I think is missing is this future world is the impact of massive deflation.
In a world where “a Claude agent can do the work of a $180,000 product manager for $200/month”, most white collar workers are moving into blue collar work, those with even a handful of years of savings will be sitting extremely comfortably in a deflationary spiral if they don’t have massive fixed rate debt. In such a situation if the Fed is still targeting 2% inflation, the government could start printing and spending massively (perhaps handouts to stop the mass-default of most fixed rate debt) with minimal increase in the CPI. Perhaps this would be terrible at any other time, but in this case everyone would be wildly rich regardless of bad economic policy (and AI companies would still be even more wildly rich). AI companies could of course hold non-dollars, but they’ll still face capital gains taxes denominated in dollars.
In a world where the richest have everything they can desire and those with a modest amount of savings are getting richer faster than they can spend the money, I doubt such a world will be anything but good (assuming alignment was solved). Nominally maybe in that world it would look scary, but in real terms everything would look great. At the very least this has made me realize I need to evaluate the security of my investments that I am using quite a lot of cheap fixed rate debt to obtain currently.

Rochambeau 19 Jan 2026 14:28 UTC
19 points
7
on: “The first two weeks are the hardest”: my first digital declutter
Kind of funny the buttermilk interaction hit me with the fact that we have always had access to the equivalent of the best AI models, asking questions about not too niche knowledge to the people around us.
I honestly wouldn’t even have considered asking a stranger a cooking related question like that, but at least for myself, I would absolutely love to answer that question if a stranger asked me.

Rochambeau 22 Dec 2025 17:58 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: lc’s comment on: Most successful entrepreneurship is unproductive
You are the one that made the strong claim “Most successful entrepreneurship is unproductive”. Are you saying that claim doesn’t need to hold up in the practical details? If so, maybe the post should be titled, “Successful Entrepreneurship Can Be Unproductive”.
If the hypotheticals in the post are all potentially not actually cases where successful entrepreneurship was unproductive for society, I am highly skeptical of the claim.
I understand illustrative hypotheticals, but to call most entrepreneurship unproductive by disregarding one the most important functions of entrepreneurship (price discovery) is silly; try having a productive society without efficient prices. The price discovery requires the “creative destruction” of businesses that, at a first glance, appears to be unproductive to happen.
Maybe I am just not understanding a nuance in your post.

Rochambeau 22 Dec 2025 17:15 UTC
1 point
0
on: Most successful entrepreneurship is unproductive
Tom’s business cannot with any confidence be said to be rent seeking behavior:
- There is value for being closer to customers (as you pointed out)
- Assuming no cartelization, the quantity supplied for car repair and maintenance increases reducing price, society is therefore richer in terms of amount of car repair.
- On the margin Fred may be forced to give more of his surplus to his employees to keep them (potentially enticing a more efficient number of mechanics for optimal allocation of resources that makes society richer as a whole)
- If Fred were to go out of business, the city might be left with a more optimally placed/ran shop and his building and employees are then available for more productive uses.
This scenario breaks down the second you leave ideal spherical cow static city land. In cases where Tom’s business is reducing total productivity, it could become productive at a moments notice from any number of hypotheticals: a large new housing development opens, a new common car is found to have lots of issues, Fred dies/a new shift manager is terrible. Tom is providing value simply by being latent capacity for car repair.
In your other examples:
- Venture Capitalist—finding the great startups that need funding weeks sooner is of massive value, to the extent they outcompete others, society is just left with VC that funds good deals sooner and the slow competitors employ fewer resources.
- Sushi Restaurant—Restaurants are very low margin, if 15% of demand moved to their 2% better restaurant each time, eventually the city is just left with 2% better sushi restaurants only, not 2% sushi and empty restaurants.
- Payroll Company—If the product is the same, they are at least providing redundancy of firms for whenever a competitor makes a big mistake. Its not like their competitors will keep the same staff, you end up with a similar amount of employees working in payroll in the end if companies are just as efficient.

Rochambeau 3 Dec 2025 20:46 UTC
7 points
0
on: The Missing Genre: Heroic Parenthood—You can have kids and still punch the sun
Have you seen the Fantastic Four: First steps? Perhaps that one is more a big instance of “something to protect” instead of involving the relationship between mother and growing child. Still I loved the setting (retro-futuristic world), I loved the shear positivity of the movie. The mother isn’t staying away from the action during or after the pregnancy.
A closer example of what you describe is The Incredibles. I maintain that is the best superhero movie ever made. Very large focus on the whole family though perhaps it is more about the mother trying to investigate where her husband is, though in the end the whole family is a team.

Rochambeau 14 Nov 2025 15:50 UTC
3 points
2
on: Don’t let people buy credit with borrowed funds
It isn’t obvious to me that “credit worthiness for sale” is bad on net. There are the high publicity cases of people committing fraud by way of purchasing creditworthiness in some respect, but there are also (and I’d guess more wide-spread less exciting) legitimate purchases of creditworthiness.
For example, it might not optimal for very competent newer investors/inventors/organizations slowly get capital investment or other support. If you think of the marketing campaigns, sponsorships, etc. as a bond to show they believe in their performance, and believe their purchase will pay off from success, then it is somewhat less concerning and also valuable to do some amount of sponsorship/marketing.
Someone very close to me is a very competent real estate investor, who has had exceptional returns (and I believe exceptional risk adjusted returns) much higher than what most other real estate operators are making for their investments. It is not efficient for him to slowly get investors while others who have had longer to collect investors get more capital for lower returning projects, it makes sense for him to “buy creditworthiness” in a sense, selling some of his share of his investments to entice people to refer investors to him.
Buying creditworthiness allows competent new entrants to get investors/support grow quicker than they otherwise would. Scams will exist, but that is honestly part of the creative destruction of the market (not that they shouldn’t be rooted out). Those that don’t do their due diligence will have a smaller say in how capital is allocated.

Rochambeau 27 Feb 2025 14:13 UTC
9 points
−11
on: Market Capitalization is Semantically Invalid
I think it is much less bogus than you think. Yes, price would change if a large number sell or buy, perhaps that would be more of a statement on liquidity than bogusness.
At anytime, all shareholders are able to sell their shares at the market price, therefore anyone still owning believes the price is at or less than it’s true value, likewise anyone has the option to buy at the current price so (barring non-idealities) everyone else thinks the price is potentially higher than its true value, therefore market capitalization is much less bogus as it is the price where there is balance between people’s capital put towards buying and selling bets on the true value (of course lots of assumptions: low transaction costs, ignoring tax treatment, spherical cows, etc, etc).

Rochambeau 17 Jan 2025 18:38 UTC
13 points
0
on: Tax Price Gouging?
I agree this would certainly be better than an outright ban on price gouging, though I don’t understand the advantage over not treating disasters differently.
The larger the tax base, ceteris peribus, the less distortionary the tax, so if you want more money for the poor during disasters, just raise normal sales/income/or property tax rate an amount to equal the revenue needed to help poorer people in disasters, and then don’t have the more heavily distortionary high tax that only applies to disasters. As an added plus, doing it this way avoids a high tax when adherance is lower and may be more popular than an onerous tax when goods are at their most expensive.

Rochambeau 10 Oct 2024 17:39 UTC
3 points
0
on: Are there any naturally occurring heat pumps?
An example I encountered when trying to understand jet streams is the Ferrel Cells. Hadley Cells and Polar Cells in the atmosphere are simply heat engines driven by air being heated and rising and cool air falling.
The Ferrel Cell is driven by air dragged along by the Hadley and Polar Cells, this means air dragged downward at 30° Latitude by the Hadley Cell is compressed, warming surroundings and moving along the ground to 60° where the Polar Cell drags the air up, expanding it allowing it to absorb heat from cool air around it before returning to 30°. Apparently consuming ~275 terawatts with a COP of 12.1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_circulation

Rochambeau 29 May 2022 22:32 UTC
6 points
0
in reply to: dkirmani’s comment on: How would you build Dath Ilan on earth?
This seems like the kind of thing that could be hosted in a place like Próspera. I believe the ZEDE law was very recently repealed, but I have yet to hear that the Próspera project is stopping and the constitutional amendment could be repealed next year. Próspera claims it will be proceeding and international law/treaties and it’s 50 year stability agreements protect it. https://prospera.hn/news/press-releases/built-to-last-legal-stability-in-the-zede-framework
It seems too early, but if Próspera survives this most recent political shift in Honduras, then it would prove to be protected from the political whims of Honduras (and its legal framwork already prevents changes in taxes or regulations even with a democratic majority. A betting market could thrive in such a stable environment, and possibly allow for longer term bets. Also the legal framework for businesses is very streamlined. https://prospera.hn/business
It might just be my wishful thinking and political biases showing, but if Próspera can prove to be resilient to changes in Honduras, I think it could become pretty close to Dath Ilan, or help other countries become closer to it. Positive signs are things like Minicircle, a reversible gene therapy company conducting trials in Próspera because they are easier to do there than the US. https://minicircle.clinic/

Rochambeau 27 May 2022 11:02 UTC
1 point
0
on: [$20K in Prizes] AI Safety Arguments Competition
Policymakers
A scorpion asks a frog to carry it across a river. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, and the scorpion replies: “I am sorry, but I couldn’t resist the urge. It’s in my nature.”
-Fable
We are the frog, and the nature of our future AI scorpions must be figured out or we all may die, or worse.

Rochambeau 1 Jan 2022 15:32 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: jaspax’s comment on: COVID Skepticism Isn’t About Science
Also there is a lot of confirmation bias. I don’t remember hearing any friends telling me someone they know died of Covid, but I have heard one say someone they know died right after getting the vaccine and another complaining about what they think are symptoms of vaccination and say their PCP has not been treating them seriously.

I bet there have been covid deaths of a friend of a friend, but that is a lot less notable to them or me compared to a potential death due to the vaccine. I wish I had recorded every covid/vax death/problem so I wasn’t just relying on my faulty memory.

Rochambeau 1 Jan 2022 15:16 UTC
11 points
0
in reply to: NoSignalNoNoise’s comment on: COVID Skepticism Isn’t About Science
Similarly what I have seen from by my friends and acquaintances is.
1. Disease breaks out.
2. Public health authorities/pharmaceutical companies push a new vaccine and claim it is X% effective/prevents the spread.
3. Later it is found to be less effective than initially promised/new variants make it less effective and boosters are now announced as needed.
4. People feel lied to, believing they were originally told vaccine was more effective than evidence shows it is/the fact that restrictions are still in place with the vaccine makes reduces its credibility in their eyes.

Rochambeau 22 Nov 2021 12:16 UTC
5 points
0
in reply to: Dave Orr’s comment on: The Meta-Puzzle
“I’m a rationalist.”

JKJK

Rochambeau 25 Sep 2021 0:18 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: aphyer’s comment on: The 2021 Less Wrong Darwin Game
Thanks for the explanation.

Rochambeau 24 Sep 2021 23:34 UTC
1 point
0
on: The 2021 Less Wrong Darwin Game
Someone please correct me if my interpretation of food and reproduction are incorrect as my programing experience is limited.
I see the energy being reduced by 20%, but what is the threshold for death?
The number of offspring is determined by rolling a number between 0 and 1 rolled 10 * creature energy times, and for each random number less than 1 / (body size x 10), a baby is created with the same energy as the original creature and no impact on the original creature?
I think I am missing where predator efficiency is accounted for.
In line 163/164:
(reproduce (. [organism-0 organism-1] [fight-flight-result]
(energy-of (. [organism-1 organism-1] [fight-flight-result])
does this mean reproduction of organism-1 and organism-0 is only dependent on the body size of organism-1? no impact of stored energy?

Rochambeau 20 May 2021 16:49 UTC
6 points
0
in reply to: Charlie Steiner’s comment on: What will 2040 probably look like assuming no singularity?
I have always wondered how high we can push the voltage on transmission lines. Maybe carbon nanotubes being as conductive as copper but lighter and stronger than aluminum could allow significant transmission of electricity across time zones, stretching out the load and allowing solar to power dark areas for some time without increasing storage. Transmission towers would need to get obscenely large, but the lighter lines would a allow for fewer of them.

Rochambeau 17 May 2021 10:42 UTC
10 points
0
on: What will 2040 probably look like assuming no singularity?
In terms of electricity, transmission and distribution make up 13% and 31% of costs respectively. Even if solar panels were free, I am not confident that reliable electricity would become 10x cheaper as unless each house as quite a few days of storage cheaply, they would still need distribution. Industrial electricity might approach that cheap, but I think it would depend on location and space availability otherwise at least some of the transmission and distribution costs would still exist.

Rochambeau 21 Nov 2020 12:38 UTC
4 points
0
in reply to: Multicore’s comment on: The Darwin Game—Rounds 21-500
See my other comment for BeauBot’s code. Below round 10 BeauBot starts 2, then from 10 to 29 it alternates 2 and 3 as starting bid, and 30 and beyond it always starts with 3.
I tried to make my bot never be outscored past round 29 but I believe if my opponent bids three when BeauBot bids 3 in the first round, Beaubot will bid 2 in attempts to cooperate making it possible for opponents to outscore it.