On Game Theory, Dollar auctions and turning it around on phone scammers

This post is off the usual topics for this site. Think of it as a PSA though. We think the information in it is valuable to anyone who happens across this post.

There once was a man named John Nash. He was immortalized in the public consciousness by a quasi accurate but very incomplete film called, A Beautiful Mind.

He was indeed a Schizophrenic and a genius. And he invented a new kind of psychology, or more accurately, a new model for behaviour, not just human, and arguably not even just living things, called Game Theory”.

For those interested in a truly fascinating read on the subject, and one which will enhance your understanding of human and animal behaviour dramatically, or at least it did ours, get and read the book, Moral Calculations by Hungarian mathematician, Laszlo Mero. And try to ignore his generally left-of-centre bent. (Many Jews in particular were drawn to leftism early on, before its true nature became clear – something that has proven costly in hindsight.)”

One of the first examples of Game Theory in his book is a device called, The Dollar Auction. In summary, the dollar auction is where you convince a player to invest in something. Anything where they think there will be a payoff. Once they have invested anything at all, even a dollar and the time it took to invest the dollar, they will now have something to protect, and will invest more to protect that investment they have already made.

This explains a lot of phenomenon in life. People who stay with abusive lovers are a classic example. The endless taking of abuse is an investment in the payoff of not being abused.

Repairing a total lemon of a car to protect the money spent already to make it run, to protect the money spent to buy it.

But the one that we have all experienced is the Nigerian Money scam. At least in one form or another.

That is where a scam caller convinces you to spend time and effort to get a payoff. in the NMS it is where you get a treasure if you just pay off the various fees required to free it up and send it to you. This scam works astonishingly well and stings even very bright people. I knew a doctor that bragged (when the scam was new) that he was working on getting millions from a Nigerian Prince or some equivalent and he expected it any time now. Once he realized he had been scammed he never mentioned it again or said how much he had been taken for.

Variations of the scam are common and can be subtly different in ways that make it hard to recognize if you do not have the basics of understanding the Dollar Auction game. Again, reading Moral Calculations: On logic and human Frailty) can literally save you time money and brutal frustration and shame.

(the books has become very expensive. This is not an affiliate link, it’s just a link denuded of identifiers. See if you can find it used or maybe it is cheaper on Amazon.com instead of Amazon.ca) Just checked, yes it is.)

So it is with some pleasure I present you with this video.

The gentleman in the video below used to live stream on a relatively arcane streaming site, his real time defeat of phone scammers. he is what is commonly called, “A white hat hacker” and would humorously for us, waste time of phone scammers while actually hacking their systems, turning on their own web and security cameras and exposing them while frustrating and even sometimes getting them arrested.

We used to get notifications of when he was on air, which was when he got a scam call, and would then sit back and enjoy the show. He has a lot of equipment like voice changers and hacker tools. But all we need to protect ourselves is an understanding of the mechanism used.

He uses the Dollar Auction method back at them. So yes, a delicious layer of irony on top of the raw revenge factor. If you have been getting fewer scam calls, you have him to thank at least in part. They think they are getting a payoff at the end, EXACTLY like the Nigerian money scam. But instead they get dicked around forever. The only difference there is he is wasting time they would be using to scam you. He is not stealing from them any more than time and pride. While they will stop at never to take everything you have worked your whole life for.

Knowing the mechanism he uses, I think adds to the enjoyment of this video. And adds a layer of protection for all of us, as it becomes easy to recognize these forms of attacks on us, even if its in our personal lives, or phone scams, auto-repair and the various ways this mechanism is semi-consciously or fully deliberately deployed against us.

Below, a related video on how to mess with AI phone scam calls that anyone can do without special equipment. An issue that most likely will grow significantly in the very near future.

At least there is some minor satisfaction in that even phone scammers are being replaced by AI.

On Silver, and power – a genuine tectonic event for both

Once upon a time I enjoyed a subscription to a science magazine called, “Gizmag” which got captured by narrative enforcing agencies, renamed, and became a propaganda rag for the usual nonsense, blaming every event that could be framed as bad on Global warming from American and Western CO2 production.

But one of the themes that constantly floated by in every 3rd or 4th edition was some new battery tech breakthrough that would revolutionize everything.

This was of course, a damned half truth.

Yes a new battery tech breakthrough would indeed revolutionize a lot of things. Not just an incremental improvement, but at worst, an increment so large decisions at the day to day level would change, and at best, a genuine revolution in terms of things being better, less costly, more available and with less waste.

But none of these breakthroughs ever manifested into something real.

The idea is that if you can store a meaningful amount of power in a small space, suddenly crap ideas like solar panels and windmills actually become just that little bit more practical because at least you can store a little power for when the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow. To put it in terms of a blues song.

It means most of my objections, not all but a lot to electric vehicles no longer apply.

There are many more practical, and even far more important implications to a significant leap in energy storage tech, not all of which spring to mind right now. But it will mean a more convenient, less wired, quieter and cleaner world.

Enter Samsung and their announcement of a new battery tech with TWICE the energy density of the best LiPo batteries currently used in cars, without exploding, can be charged more times, which means less disposal issues and in all ways represents a true breakthrough in battery tech.

The thing is, these batteries need silver as one of the critical materials for their manufacture, and nothing else will do.

So I asked Chat GPT about this new tech and it gave me the following summary. And for those interested in exactly how much silver will be needed to make these new batteries, this article gives the amount needed for current global electric vehicle batteries alone, if only TWENTY PERCENT of current EV production adopts these new batteries, it means an annual demand of 16,000 metric tons of silver, which is a large fraction of the current global production of 25,000 tons annually.

Below the full post by Chat GPT. And for those that are just looking to know if it is still worth buying PHYSICAL silver and hanging on to it…

Yes.It is.

Chat GPT: Samsung has been developing a new battery technology that incorporates silver, and it’s tied to their work on next-generation solid-state batteries, not a standard lithium-ion battery upgrade. Discovery Alert

Here’s the key about it:

? Is Samsung using silver in batteries?

Samsung (specifically Samsung SDI) is working on solid-state battery designs that include a silver-carbon (Ag-C) composite material — typically in the anode region. Rather than a traditional graphite or lithium-metal anode, the silver-carbon layer helps with ion transport, stability, and safety in solid-state structures. Discovery Alert

? Why silver — what does it do?

Silver isn’t there just because it’s a precious metal — it has very high electrical conductivity and mechanical durability. In these prototypes it can:

  • Improve internal conductivity so electrons move more efficiently Discovery Alert

  • Help reduce dendrite growth (a common failure mode in metal anodes) Discovery Alert

  • Enable thinner, lighter battery layouts with higher energy density — prototypes suggest potential performance around 500 Wh/kg, roughly double what many current EV lithium-ion cells offer. Discovery Alert

That’s why silver is being discussed in significant quantities (estimates around grams of Ag per cell and ~1 kg per EV pack), and why analysts talk about its demand rising. Metals and Miners

? Benefits vs. cost

Using silver is expensive — silver costs are much higher per kilogram than typical battery materials — but the proposed advantages are significant enough that it might be worth it in premium applications:

Potential benefits:

  • Higher energy density ? longer range for EVs

  • Faster charging

  • Better cycle life / durability

  • Improved safety (solid electrolyte means fewer fire risks) Discovery Alert

Cost trade-offs:

  • Silver is much more expensive than graphite or copper traditionally used in batteries

  • Higher material costs mean initial adoption likely in high-end or limited segments

  • Scaling production and cost reduction are still big engineering challenges Discovery Alert

? Bottom line

Samsung’s silver-enhanced solid-state battery approach is real and is part of broader next-gen battery research; the silver isn’t a gimmick, it’s there to solve specific materials science challenges that could justify higher cost by delivering significantly better performance metrics (energy density, fast charging, lifespan, safety). Discovery Alert


A paragraph or two from the link above on the reality of this tech and its effects on Silver:

And when you add in the demand from the military, from the A.I. and robotics revolutions, and from the rising consumer class in Asia, you have a recipe for a supply crisis of epic proportions.

The question is not whether the price of silver will rise. The question is how high it will go. And the answer is that it will go much, much higher.


The world is about to discover that silver is not just a precious metal; it is the most indispensable metal on the planet. And the price is about to reflect that reality.

The Solid-State Battery Breakthrough: A Game-Changer for Silver Demand

Samsung has developed a new solid-state battery that is set to revolutionize the electric vehicle industry. This new battery offers a 600-mile range, a 20-year lifespan, and a 9-minute charge time. It is a game-changer for the EV industry, and it is a game-changer for the silver market.

Special thanks to JU for his consistent thoughts on metals and its relationship to economics.

About Gates of Vienna (And other sites)

Several days ago, there was an update to software which affected web servers. It was very much a back end software that users would typically be totally unaware of.

Tens of thousands of sites went down, and probably orders of magnitude more than that.

Mine was one of them, as was Gates and RAIR Foundation and other sites we are aware of.

Fortunately, the people who actually caused this problem, released a fix for it available to hosts within 24 hours and my site was restored as well as all other sites using the same host.

GoV however is using a host that was very popular for a long time but appears to have not gotten the memo on how to repair the problems the update did.

So in summary: The initial problem was in fact incompetence, and not malice. The sustained nature of the problem at GoV is suspicious as by now a host as large and well known as GoV’s is, really oughta know how to do the fix.

Hopefully a good solution will be applied within a day or two.

John Smallberries? Alien drones over New Jersey? Semi-exploding Teslas in Vegas?

1. Stephen Coughlin in at least one of his videos, explained that the plan seems to be to liquify our reality with constant narrative attacks until you have no idea what is real and what is not.
This feels pretty much like exactly what is happening.

There are at least a couple of elements here. The guy who is connected to the Tesla that blew up, apparently by a guy who was very competent in explosives, but wasn’t able to make a bomb that would even blow apart the car, along with the Drones over NJ and alien narratives and general WTF does any of this mean.

Here is an interview of a guy I’ve never heard of by another guy I’ve never heard of but apparently is a major authority and super important so the fact that he is doing this reveal, which … is not much of a reveal, is meaningful.

No offence meant to anyone. Maybe he is a seriously important guy. I just have not heard of him. But someone of this imputed gravitas requires a lot of caution.

One of the things they imply in this interview is anti gravity tech. This feels like more of the 2022 Alien invasion narrative the US government pulled on us all, using everyone from Tucker Carlson to 60 minutes.

The antigravity tech, which they refer to as “Gravitic propulsion systems”. So… yeah. This smells like an op more and more.

Below, the email that has so many people so frightened.

Here is an analysis of the email this op that I like for the moment until something that makes more sense comes along. The analysis uses a telos perspective, which at this point is the only one that matters, or allows for any kind of reasoned analysis.

As for the drones over NJ if anyone still remembers that, try and picture them from the descriptions and the few decent photos of them and then watch this video which was shot a couple of days after the mysterious drones over NJ stopped being spotted:

Now if I wanted to add some confusion to all this, I might comp this comedy science fiction movie from the 80s and call it predictive programming. It has all the elements. Alien space craft, New Jersey…

 

On game theory and a little fun for Christmas

One of my favorite all time books is by a Hungarian mathematician named László Mér? called, Moral Calculations: On Human Frailty and Game theory. If anyone wants a transformative read, this is certainly one of them.

Game theory overall is a model of human behaviour and fundamentally different from psychology or psychiatry. In fact, it applies to processes other than behavioural, which makes it even more fascinating. If Richard Dawkins has a claim to fame, it is that he appears to have merged game theory with Darwinian evolutionary theory and came up with something that explains a lot more about how life works over generations.

It is, I am told, the only model of behaviour that accounts for conflict. And some of you may have inadvertently been exposed to some of it had you seen the film, A Beautiful Mind, which is more or less about John Nash, the genius who came up with it. The film contains a number of distortions, but overall does show the story of the Nobel Prize winner for his contribution to economics via the creation of Game Theory.

One of the models used to describe human behaviour is called, The Prisoner’s Dilemma. And although the book describes it brilliantly and gives examples of its application, it roughly goes like this.

Two men are arrested for a bank robbery while speeding away. There is not enough evidence to try for the robbery, but they arrest them on a speeding in a school zone charge, which can get them 2 years in jail instead of ten for the armed robbery. The men are separated and individually told that if they rat out the other guy first, they will be released without charge while the other guy gets ten years for the robbery. If they both rat at the same time, it’s 10 years for both of them and if neither of them do, it means both do 2 years for the speeding. Of course they are not allowed to communicate, but it’s doubtful it would make a difference if they did.

Today, a friend of mine, (yes I still have one or two left) sent me the following video for fun. But I found it doubly enjoyable as it is a great little demonstration of the Prisoners Dilemma…

Not quite perfect, but close enough for fun.

YouTube wouldn’t allow the embed. So here is the original source of the video if you want to follow the creator.

North America test of Emergency Broadcast today apparently

There is a North America wide test of something or other which will deply some government measure on your devices. TV, Radio, Cell phones and computers. No idea what to do about it if anything. Lots of rumours and speculation about it from the extreme to the placating. Anyway, here is some material on it for better or worse. It is at 2:20 apparently. It does seem to be a good time to walk the dog and leave your phone off though.

More will be added as it comes to our attention.

 

Liberia

One Liberian leader ran a campaign with the slogan, “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I’ll still vote for him”. The campaign worked. I suspect it isn’t different in Canada or the US. They just word it more carefully.

Ted Kazinsky, The UNABOMBER dies in custody

Before going on with this post let us first deal with the moral question of reading the manifesto of a man who killed people.

If we removed all the writings of everyone who did that, and the books about anyone who did that, we would slash a measurable fraction of the English Cannon. Of course, Kazinsky is a little different in that one could argue that he killed people in order to get his work published. As opposed to say, Winston Churchill who found himself needing to kill a great deal of people to preserve the lives and liberties of millions upon millions more. Innocents at that. Perhaps its somewhat like the issue of using medical data created by the Nazis in their experiments on people. If you use that data to reduce suffering and save lives it gives purpose to the suffering and death of the victims. If you destroy it, its insult to injury.

Another data point.

Ted Kazinsky was a victim of MK Ultra. The CIA mind control experiments which involved brutal psychological and chemical torture of innocents. Frankly, one wonders why Kazinsky didn’t go after the people who did that to him. As should the Montreal mental patients secretly given LSD as part of the same program. And they weren’t even American.

This site has pushed a miniseries called Dopesick. We promoted it a lot. Its an amazing series. It is that perfect story that helps people come to the realization that Fauci and the US government are guilty as a group of political psychopaths standing next to a murdered, famous and beautiful actress. When people realize that US regulatory bodies had colluded with drug companies before to make heapum big cash, it makes it easier to understand that they did it again with the vaxx.
There is another series people may enjoy if they are interested enough in this whole drama. Manhunt: The Unabomber. A multipart series about the cop who figured out who the UNABOMBER was, and after he was jailed awaiting trial, talked him into a guilty plea as the authorities really didn’t have enough to convict him. Its a gripping series.

When his manifesto was first published, I read it a few times. Like anything else, it has some interesting observations, was right about some things and wrong about some others. Agreed with some, disagreed with others.

For anyone interested, here it is in audio format along with another video about him.

 

So if we, as good people, struggle to decide if we would use the data from say, Dr. Mengele even to save lives and reduce suffering, then the debate over whether evil people would use data from a program like MK Ultra would use that data to squeeze more authoritarian control over the public and increase suffering in the process, and of course in the result, is an easy one to answer.

They would, they can, and they most probably are.

The video below claims to be the complete manifesto read out loud. Of course, in the Orwellian world we live in, its hard to say if its a forgery or not. My copy from whatever paper I got it from is long gone along with my Intel 33 MHz. DX2 PC and its 4 megs of ram and floppy B disk drive I had at around the same time.

You have to watch on YouTube apparently. But given the interested his death will generate, it probably doesn’t put you on a list if you watch this now. He however, would probably say it will. I would listen to him.

 

Bert & Ernie fallacy

One of the ways to get at least a 3 finger grip on reality is the study of formal logical fallacies. Plus if you point them out using their latin names, you move ahead 3 points in any discussion you are having right away. Frankly though, that is a fallacy all by itself. Maybe we need a name for that one too. Argumentum ad Latium or something.

But the one of immediate interest is one raisedhere a few times over the last few years. There is likely a proper name for it, but so far, no luck finding it. So for the moment, let’s call it, “The Bert & Ernie Fallacy”.

The second half of this video is the relevant bit:

Seems silly here. But anyone who has taken more than 2 shots of the mRNA vaccines because they believe not doing so means they have a higher chance of getting the virus, becoming more ill than they would if they do not, or greater risk of ICU or death if they do not despite all the evidence that the shots crash your immune system and make you more susceptible to the disease, not less, are deeply invested in this exact fallacy. Add to this of course, the major side effects from taking this DoD gene therapy concoction.

If anyone knows a proper name for this fallacy, please leave it in the comments. For the moment, The Bert & Ernie Fallacy will have to do. Watch out for it. Clearly it makes room for democidal danger.

 

More objects shot down and NASA aircraft over Ottawa?

US shoots down another aerial object — this time over Lake Huron

The military shot down another aerial object on Sunday, this time over Lake Huron, marking the third day in a row the U.S. has taken down an unidentified aircraft over North American airspace, Michigan lawmakers said on Sunday.

Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) said he was in contact with the Department of Defense throughout the day, and confirmed in a tweet that the military “decommissioned” another aerial object. 

“I’ve been in contact with DOD regarding operations across the Great Lakes region today. The US military has decommissioned another ‘object’ over Lake Huron. I appreciate the decisive action by our fighter pilots. The American people deserve far more answers than we have,” Bergman tweeted.

Bergman told Fox News Sunday afternoon that he was told the object was octagonal and hovering at about 20,000 feet.

I just got a call from a solid source that said NASA had flown a prop-aircraft over Ontario and Quebec in a straight line and then straight back to point of origin. I don’t know more yet but will post when I do. Speculating, it is either doing various levels of atmospheric readings due to the solar event today, or the government of the US and other WEF nations are launching the Alien false flag thing we knew was coming a year and a half ago. Of course it could also be spreading another pathogen. “It being the various balloons and what not, probably not the NASA aircraft. We all know one is coming. More when there is more.

UPDATES:

Feb 12: Here We Go Again: Skies Over Lake Michigan Closed for “National Defense Purposes” (Update: NOTAM Cancelled)

Feb. 12: BREAKING: Congressman Reports Object Over Lake Huron “Decommissioned” (Update: More Sources Confirm Shootdown)

Feb. 12: Object Shot Down Over Lake Huron Was “Shaped Like an Octagon”: Wall St. Journal and Rep. Bergman Report

(Maybe its a UFC event?)

CNN coverage of press briefing on whatever this stuff is about