Re: Time telephone

On Mar 18, 7:17 pm, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
<mooregr_deletet...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Williamknowsbest" <William.M...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1174254670.260838.75160@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Mar 18, 5:42 pm, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
<mooregr_deletet...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

You assume wrongly that trading stocks is very much like playing the
lottery. There are fundamental things that are going on that make
investing in stocks different than playing the lottery. The abiility
of a company to earn profits for example. People would tend to quickly
invest in companies that earned profits and avoid those that did not
earn profits.

Umm, no I don't assume any such thing.

Then I don't understand why you treat knowledge of the future of the
stock market in the same way you treat knowledge of the future of say
a horse race or lottery. In the case of the stock market real wealth
is being produced. In the case of betting wealth is merely being re-
arranged after the house takes its cut of course.

So, perfect information about the future in the case of the market
allows everyone to share in the profits without incurring any losses -
which is a clear benefit. And perfet information about the future in
the case of betting allows everyone to get their bets back less the
take of the house.

aWhat I assume is that when people
all have access to the same information, they will tend to react the same
way.

How people react to information about success or lack of it have no
bearing whatever on the ability of a profitable company to make
profit. How people react to information about a winning lottery
number determines directly how many people will be rewarded and how
much money is placed into the pot for distribution.

We're just changing when they know this information.

We're also changing certainty with which the information is known.
Guessing who will profit and who will lose in business involves some
risk of error. Removing much or all of that error will make things
more efficient.

In the case of business this improves things. In the case of betting
it reveals betting for what it is, a waste of time and energy.

As for a company that earned profits, that's only because it performed
better.

Profits are made by a business when they create something of value.
Wealth is created. The farmer in the field grows food. The worker in
the shop makes products. The doctor in the hospital heals the sick.
The teacher in the school educates the ignorant. The worker in the
office delivers a service. This time and attention of workers on the
needs of others creates value. Those business entitites which
organize, promote and deliver services more efficiently than others
earn greater profits. Those companies are the companies that perform
better - because they created more.

Knowing which companies which concepts which people will kick ass in a
competitive marketplace before it happens will make the investment of
capital less risky, more efficient, and provide a powerful impetus to
those who do less well to improve or die.

But if I know why or how it performed better I can do many actions,
including calling my former self and having them sell short (if the company
will go down) or change its marketing to perform better, etc.

Yes. You will use time signalling to improve your use of capital to
increase your return. In a larger context you are doing just what I
say you are doing.

And I can sell short, so can everyone else, and pretty soon no one is there
to buy. Before you know it, that stock stops trading.

No, the price would fall to its real value. That might be its
liquidation value, but there would be a price it would trade at. It
would be larger than zero.


Now assume you know what company is going to do better. You decide to buy
the stock from me. However, I also have knowledge of the future and know
that they'll do even better NEXT quarter, so I hold onto the stock longer
and you can't buy it now.

Again the price would rise on the information. Not infinity, just
higher than it would be without the forward information.

Askyourself as owner of the stock where you get the most money. Being
a rational person there would be a price you would sell it at. There
would still be a market price. That price would just be higher than
without the information - perhaps far higher,but not infinity as you
suggest.

Basically the perfect knowledge of the future locks it into place.

No it doesn't it merely allows stocks to achieve their rational
values. You mistake downward pressure to mean zero value and upward
pressure to mean infinite value. Markets don't operate like that.
Well before the price reached zero someone would buy, well before the
price reached infinity, someone would sell, volatility would be
reduced, turnover would be reduced, bt there would still be markets.



To the extent it is unknown which company will actually earn profits
stock market can look a lot like a lottery. But to the extent it can
be known that companies will earn profits and what those profits will
be would benefit investors.

Except it won't.

Profits benefit owners. There's no way they won't.

Since I can call back and change the future, there's no
guarantee that the company will do as well as originally predicted.

You've made a third error most folks make about markets. No one
person can control the market. Its like a king standing before a tide
and telling it to go down. You can control your own behavior - if you
listen and believe your future self - but you cannot control the
market. Everyone having information about the profitability of this
or that company or lack of profitability of this or that company, will
depress the losers and inflate the winners - and prices will
accurately reflect those values or lack of value. But there's no way
that one person can drive market prices around.



basically it wouldn't change a thing since ultimately everyone
would have access to the same information, basically the status quo.

Again, your assumption is wrong. Some companies like GE actually
create wealth, other companies like Enron, do not. So, to the extent
money is NOT invested in Enron and invested in GE everyone benefits.

Irrelevant.


People invest in companies that will provide the greatest return.
There are two aspects of profits made in this way. Appreciation of
stock value and stock earnings. Appreciation like betting will even
out and no one will be ahead, as in the case of the horse race..
sharing in the profits - the purse - benefits everyone.






Stopping crime is another version of the grandfather paradox. Someone
breaks in my house and robs me. Cops identify the miscreants and send
a signal back in time and arrest the fellows as they step in the front
door. There was a movie like this with Tom Cruise - that would be a
huge benefit. Minority Report - they used ESP not time telephones.

Terror attacks, IEDs, military attacks, could all be prevented before
they happened. Which would be awesome. Though philisophically
problematical. But that's true with other aspects of quantum theory
as well.

Until the terrorists watch the cops spring their time trap and call their
associates and tell them to show up 15 minutes earlier and ambush the
policy.

Assuming the terrorists have access to time telephones - this creates
many paradoxes - the police would of course respond. So, what
determines the outcome? The terrorists live in a world where they
prevail always, the cops live in a world they prevail always - and
there is peace in both worlds.

Or that the future isn't what it once was and we're back to being unable to
predict it.


Some feel that at the quantum level the future impacts the present.
The only reason we can remember the past but not the future is because
of the way things branch. Viewed as a time line the universe is like
a tree. The base of the tree branches into many directions as we rise
from the ground. So too from the big bang the universe has many
things that could have happened, and in some versions of physical
theory, they all exist... we remember the path we took to the present
branch, but when we look forward we see zillions of branches most of
which cancel out.

Yes, in the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics, there are
many versions of you in the future all calling you to tell you
things. and they're not all consistent and many could cancel out.
This may be one possibility.

One man said he would tell himself to ask her out. Say that
happened. There might be another version of himself that would say,
don't ask her out - after spending years with her... and on it
goes.

We won't really know until Mallet completes his first round of
experiments. I'm still hoping that the nonparadoxical use of time
telephones is possible. Namely, I can get my meal served to me the
instant I order it, or get the furniture I want the afternoon I select
it! lol.



.

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