Reg the Fronkey Farmer

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

I had heard of ‘wooly buggers’ before, up near Helen, in northern GA. Is it a Southern term? I often walk along the banks of the Chattahoochee and see fishermen there too. Never heard the term in Ireland in relation to fly-fishing for trout. Not my scene but big with some locals and tourists.

Anyway….I hope Loomer gets herself further disentangled from the algorithm.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Have a great week everyone!

“Heaven and Hell are not future destinations; they’re descriptions of social conditions. If the causes of suffering are earthly, then so are the remedies.”  – RTFF.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

That will teach ya not to cover your ears when the promoter sirens sing…..”Oh brother where art thou” (by the excellent Coen brothers, is the best version of the Odysseus….:-) and some great songs too…..

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Religion explained the unknown while the unknown was vast. Neuroscience explains why those explanations felt true. As our understanding of the mind grows, revelation is asked to compete not with disbelief, but with explanation.

Hypatia of Alexandria might have said……”If the soul’s visions admit of natural explanation, then let us investigate those explanations without fear. Truth does not diminish when its causes are discovered; it becomes clearer.”

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Abby Martin is not new to being a liar.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

There is so much AI slop online selling Woo to the vulnerable and gullible at the moment. But when I hear sports people or footballers promoting it, I want someone nearby to vomit all over them.

 

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Taco Bell – Lettuce spray their new investigation turns up something more solid.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

My usually retort to “being born a Catholic” is “No, I was born an atheist, without beliefs in any gods, just like you were too”….

and….

“Please explain to me why children need to pray? Better they to go to a church where they can learn to fly”.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

I was recently told by a student warrior that I cannot be a Zionist because I was an “Irish Catholic by birth” and “obviously I could never be Jewish”.

But I am a Zionist, I replied, and gave no more information. This bothered him greatly. His friend asked how was it possible for me to be a Zionist.

I replied “By using my right to self-determination” and said no more.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

**INTERNATIONAL BAR, DUBLIN — NIGHT**

A crowded bar. REG is standing beside two women, CLAIRE and AOIFE. The conversation has reached the dangerous point where someone has asked what he is interested in.

**CLAIRE**

So what do you do when you’re not working?

**REG**

I think about why England survived Napoleon economically while Holland didn’t.

Aoife slowly lowers her glass.

 

**AOIFE**

Go on.

 

Reg pauses. He had expected mockery. Possibly intervention.

 

**REG**

Well… England had developed an unusually effective fiscal-military state. Strong public credit, dependable taxation, funded national debt—

 

Claire grips Aoife’s arm.

 

**CLAIRE**

Did you hear that?

 

**AOIFE**

Dependable taxation.

 

**CLAIRE**

Christ!

 

Reg glances around, wondering whether they are taking the piss.

 

**REG**

Whereas Holland had enormous accumulated wealth and highly sophisticated financial markets, but its political and military position became increasingly vulnerable—

 

**AOIFE**

Vulnerable wealth.

 

She takes a sip.

 

**AOIFE**

That is devastatingly attractive.

 

**REG**

It is?

 

**CLAIRE**

Please don’t interrupt him.

 

Reg straightens.

 

**REG**

Then Napoleon becomes involved.

 

Both women lean closer. Rickie Lee Jones sings in the background.

 

**CLAIRE**

I knew there would be a third party.

 

**REG**

He imposed the Continental System—

 

**AOIFE**

Of course he did.

 

**REG**

—trying to isolate Britain from European trade. But Britain had naval supremacy and access to global markets.

 

Claire stares at him.

 

**CLAIRE**

So Britain refused to be economically controlled?

 

**REG**

Essentially.

 

**CLAIRE**

That is incredibly hot.

 

**REG**

I haven’t even reached the Dutch debt structure.

 

**AOIFE**

Don’t tease us.

 

The BARMAN approaches.

 

**BARMAN**

Another round?

 

**CLAIRE**

Not now. He’s explaining sovereign borrowing.

 

The barman looks at Reg with a mixture of disbelief and respect.

 

**REG**

British government debt was not merely a weakness. Because Parliament had credibility and taxation was reliable, the debt itself became a financial instrument.

 

Aoife closes her eyes briefly.

 

**AOIFE**

Say “credible institutions” again.

 

**REG**

Credible institutions.

 

**AOIFE**

Slower.

 

**REG**

Credible… institutions.

 

Claire fans herself with a drinks menu.

 

**CLAIRE**

I thought men like you only existed in historical fiction.

 

**REG**

Men who understand eighteenth-century bond markets?

 

**CLAIRE**

Men who can explain them without using a whiteboard.

 

**REG**

I have one in the car.

 

Both women stare at him.

 

**AOIFE**

You brought a whiteboard?

 

**REG**

You never know when comparative economic analysis may be required.

 

**CLAIRE**

We’re leaving.

 

Reg’s face falls.

 

**REG**

Ah. Yes. Of course.

 

Claire takes his arm.

 

**CLAIRE**

You’re coming with us.

 

Aoife takes his other arm.

 

**AOIFE**

And on the way, you’re going to explain why Amsterdam lost financial primacy to London.

 

Reg allows himself to be led toward the door, calculating various Poisson distributions in his head.

 

At the bar, CHUCKIE watches them leave as Ricky Lee Jones falls silent.

 

**CHUCKIE**

What the hell did he say to them?

 

**BARMAN**

Something about Dutch liquidity.

 

**CHUCKIE**

I offered them chips.

 

**BARMAN**

No, you offered them carbs. The market has spoken.

 

Outside, Reg stops.

 

**REG**

Just to be clear, are we going somewhere for coffee?

 

**CLAIRE**

Eventually.

 

**AOIFE**

First, Holland.

 

They continue down the street.

 

Reg smiles to himself.

 

**REG**

I always knew women wanted a coherent narrative. And I can mansplain ‘credible institutions’ to you all night!

 

**CLAIRE**

We do want it. Don’t even think about stopping now. Oh such a narrative!

 

**AOIFE**

But most men lack an adequate taxation base.

**Reg**

And bear in mind that additional stimulus does not always produce sharply diminishing returns. Our safe word will be ‘Laffer Curve’.

They disappear into the Dublin night.

 

From the doorway, the barman watches in silence.

**BARMAN**

Hey Chuckie, How do you like them economic modalities?

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Yes, but you can install a local LLM on you home pc and ‘train it’ to be something like a “Feynman  Teacher”. The teaching system needs a policy that treats the student’s demonstrated understanding rather than the completion of the immediate problem, as the objective.

EG “Discuss the impact of the rapid economic development of the country after the Dutch Revolt on the modern Dutch banking system”. Rather than the LLM answering directly, it would first ask “Please explain your understanding of the event of the Dutch Revolt”. Once the LLM sees that the student understands, it asks further questions, like “How well do you think the Dutch managed growth within international capital markets and the bond markets during the late 18th century….and so on….

So the LLM instruction is – diagnose first, then build the answer from the student’s existing model. The crucial improvement is that the next question must depend on the student’s answer. A weak system would simply march through a preset questionnaire. A proper tutor would notice, for example, that the student understands the Revolt politically but has missed the link between merchant wealth and public credit, and would focus there.

I started building one that challenges theistic beliefs. (or all supernatural ones) by being Socratic ‘all the way down’. I must finish it…

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Yes, I think so. It think that is a very good question. An AI trained only on pre-1905 knowledge might be less capable than one trained today, because modern AI can challenge classical assumptions partly because its training already contains Einstein’s challenge. When present-day AI suggests questioning absolute simultaneity, it is not independently recreating relativity; it is drawing upon a world in which relativity is already established.

Einstein plus AI would probably have been stronger than either alone. His genius was seeing that the clocks were the problem. He escaped the cuckoo clock of inherited mechanics while most physicists were still redefining the shadows in Plato’s Cave. (I had to include that line because it sounded good in my head!).

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

I guess we could call on Feynman again with his cure for ‘metacognitive laziness’ and get students to learn the Feynman Technique first?

Explain the idea in plain language.
Notice where the explanation becomes vague.
Return to the source and repair the gap.
Explain it again without hiding behind jargon.

AI could be built into that process rather than used to bypass it. That way AI stops being an answering-machine and become an examiner.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Einstein’s originality did not emerge from knowing nothing that had gone before. He ‘stood on the shoulders of giants’ like Maxwell and Lorentz and others. Much of his work was reorganizing existing ideas around problems they had not fully resolved. For years Einstein clung to the prevailing cliché that the universe must be static. He later called that his “greatest blunder”. If he had an AI subscription it would have told him something like  “Albert, you have added the cosmological constant to preserve a prior assumption. Remove that assumption and examine the unmodified equations.” In that case, the LLM would not have done his thinking for him. It would have challenged the cliché that was obstructing it.

Feynman’s principle is the right standard: “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”

Confirming a prediction strengthens a model. Refuting it removes a bad path, reveals a hidden assumption, or forces a better question. Both outcomes reduce uncertainty. Proving something correct or incorrect is a win for Science.

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