91–97 of 97 posts
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The Internet Archive is fully compliant with the DMCA's safe harbor provisions; in the event an item is reported by a copyright owner, it will no longer be served to the public (but it will remain in storage until a later date).
Wow. This is a really, really clever hack around this flawed copyright system!
Hundreds of thousands of books can now be liberated. Let’s bring the 20th century to 21st-century citizens. Everyone, rev your cameras! If this was 10 years ago, they would be talking about scanners --- this brings me back to the days when P2P filesharing was absolutely blooming, and people would freely scan and share in various forums ("bookz scene") the books they had either bought or borrowed. The average camera o…
As I recall, someone had built a machine that turned the pages and took pictures of the pages. I think they were refining it, as it just snapped both facing pages at once, and were going to market it. I never did find out what happened to that project. The work was being shared in one of the alt.bin. newsgroups and they had written a few blurbs about their machine. This predates the popularity of crowdfunding, I don'…
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I do give to charity, actually. That hardly precludes me from wishing my money, and others', was used more efficiently. I feel like this isn't going how you were expecting. I was supposed to be exposed as a hollow "progressive" who's free with other people's money but is secretly a grasping hypocrite. You shouldn't assume everyone is selfish just because you are.
To add to your point - and not a detractor from your point, just because you don't have the means to solve a problem doesn't mean your not qualified to point it out. You may not know how to fix it, but you can probably point out when you've got a compound fracture. If it isn't you with the broken bone, you're probably qualified to suggest that it probably is quite painful. I've donated a fair sum already this month.…
"I don't mind paying taxes." ... "I seriously wish they'd spend that money more wisely, or at least more in line with my values".
It's irrational to say, "I don't mind that money is being coerced from me by people who are squandering it and using it in ways that are not in line with my values."
I don't think that your position is actually conflicting, but perhaps misstated. That is to say, maybe what you don't mind is the concept of taxation as such. Yet you acknowledge that the actual people who, today, are charged with coercing money out of you are not spending it wisely or in line with your values. So of course you must mind. Otherwise why even mention that?
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I really hope I get to live long enough to see society have to tackle the "oh fuck, currency as a concept is useless" problem, aka the steps leading up to post-scarcity...Highly highly unlikely... Is there ever going to be a post-scarcity era, or is scarcity contextual? Perhaps it is just going to be a moving target, like AI seems to be? Once a chess playing program that could beat the world champion was a pipe dream…
> Is there ever going to be a post-scarcity era, or is scarcity contextual? There cannot be a post-scarcity era as long as one man is able to impregnate more than one woman.
Woops there goes your one-liner dismissal of an entire concept?
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I'd be happy to pay more taxes to get, at the very least, better social services for those who can't support themselves. I want to live in a world that cares for those people. If you prefer a selfish motivation, I also want those services to be available for me and my loved ones, should they be needed in the future. The blocker is that I don't have the time, expertise, bargaining power, or economies of scale to effic…
Take how much extra tax you are willing to pay. Pay it to charity that best supports those ideals. If you're not already doing this people will suggest talk is cheap and posturing has a negative value to society at large. Good luck with it!
One person who wishes for governments to do more for the poor can't be held responsible for the entire homeless population in the nation. That's absurd.
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I do give to charity, actually. That hardly precludes me from wishing my money, and others', was used more efficiently. I feel like this isn't going how you were expecting. I was supposed to be exposed as a hollow "progressive" who's free with other people's money but is secretly a grasping hypocrite. You shouldn't assume everyone is selfish just because you are.
No, you're making assumptions. You're willing to pay more to solve a problem. Do it. No realy. Do it. The amount you're willing pay, pay that. It's that simple. Don't read more into it. Do it.
You're saying - "instead just give 5,000 dollars to a homeless person, done!"
I think the absurdity of the suggestion is apparent but just in case - there's the obvious issues of
1. Assuming OP is a software engineer with no knowledge of "the homeless plight" or the best economic mechanisms to drag someone out of homelessness, there's no way they could give the money away in a way that actually defeats the problem withouts significant research effort.
2. Donating to charity is a possibility, but is not as effective as "everyone paying 5% extra tax," which leads me to...
3. Rather than paying an extra 5% tax, the OP's most effective course of action would be to lobby the government and his/her local population to make efforts to pass legislation that enables the government to levy a tax on everyone, and then use that money to solve the homelessness problem.
So, just like the OP said, economies of scale, effectiveness.
I am mildly upset that everyone is somewhat attacking someone for wanting the right thing to happen but not just making it happen on their own. How absurd!
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> Is there ever going to be a post-scarcity era, or is scarcity contextual? There cannot be a post-scarcity era as long as one man is able to impregnate more than one woman.
What if several men choose not to impregnate any women? Woops there goes your one-liner dismissal of an entire concept?