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- Is your startup governed by specific laws for data privacy etc.
- What about legal disputes, arbitration. How does that work for startups based out of Estonia ?
I'm still unclear of the benefits. Could anyone shed some light: What can we do with it that we can't do now? Let's say that I'm a solo entrepreneur or small SaaS owner from a developing country (e.g from Asia, Africa or LatAm) -- basically, typical HNer who's not from Europe/US.
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There's capitalism in a nutshell. Except first prize was granted by your parents and upbringing. Second prize was partially because of parents and upbringing, but with a bit more luck. And bronze? Yeah, well they're just lazy and bad and they deserve what little they have - cause the Gold and Silver earned what they have.
And this goes all the way back to the proverbial Adam and Eve? Don't we then all have the same ancestors and therefore all equal opportunity?
Just about every study done on the subject shows that the family you're born into has a HUGE effect on how successful you'll be in life.
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Again... As per my other response re: your apparent implicit belief in a labor theory of value, now you're espousing the implicit belief that a labor market must tend towards full employment, and at a wage level that makes revolution unattractive. If I might make the observation, your positions seem to be littered with false beliefs/understandings. I'm assuming another one of those false beliefs would be that you'd b…
You must be exacerbated... so I apologize. But, what exactly is false about this. It stands to reason that getting a job sounds a lot easier than starting a revolution for most people.
- you still can: you are not yet a slave, with the ruling class + machines not yet fully in control
- you have a reason to revolt: your life quality is low, because society does not give a damn about the losers
With those being true, a revolution should happen well before reaching those high unemployment figures.
"Estonia wants to be a role model and leader for a different way of seeing the world: a world that is more open, meritocratic and reflective of the demands—and opportunities—of the 21st century." Meritocratic seems highly promoted in many circles (seems like on first glace a good idea as opposed to say, despotic), but in a meritocratic world, what happens to the dumb and/or lazy (unmeritable?) people.
> in a meritocratic world, what happens to the dumb and/or lazy? They don't get to run things? Put another way: assuming you're going to have some sort of hierarchy, and you will, how would you want to organize that hierarchy? Merit seems like the least bad way to do so.
I'll take town board/administrator form of government, you take "meritocracy."
In my form of government the board members run for office periodically. The ones who get the most votes win. Then they hire a professional bureaucrat to handle the day to day business of keeping a municipality up and running.
Here's what I've got:
* a discrete (and anonymous!) method to determine who will become the board members
* local community members who campaign and are subject to citizens by virtue of elections
* at least one professionally-trained bureaucrat who more likely than not is competent in the job and given the power by the board to make day-to-day decisions like hiring and firing people
So... How does your meritocracy function?
What's the way you measure and get consensus on community leaders' merit?
How are those leaders held accountable?
How do you ensure at least one of those leaders is trained in a relevant field as opposed to being trained only in the art of rhetoric (shout out to Socrates for this question)?
Edit: clarification
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I've been thinking about this with respect to America's future. Basically, suppose people want a revolution. Well, that would require a competent leader to make the mob effective. This is the rub, if you have leadership skills then you make bank and would be in 'the system'.
The implicit assumption here is that American firms actually higher leaders based on some kind of objective leadership skills (and that the market will suck them all up). I'm guessing whoever wrote this hasn't grown up poor/discriminated against, didn't beat their peers and find themselves never-the-less judged/ousted because they "weren't of the right background/proper means/cultural fit". And remember, all it takes…
American firms actually hire leaders.
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I've been thinking about this with respect to America's future. Basically, suppose people want a revolution. Well, that would require a competent leader to make the mob effective. This is the rub, if you have leadership skills then you make bank and would be in 'the system'.
The implicit assumption here is that American firms actually higher leaders based on some kind of objective leadership skills (and that the market will suck them all up). I'm guessing whoever wrote this hasn't grown up poor/discriminated against, didn't beat their peers and find themselves never-the-less judged/ousted because they "weren't of the right background/proper means/cultural fit". And remember, all it takes…
More fundamentally the problem is that in America there is a very distorted sense of self. A total of 4% of Americans think they are less intelligent than the average American. [1] And so the vast majority of people in this nation who are not particularly meritorious think they absolutely are, or at the worst no less meritorious than average. Yet that, no matter how you measure it, is simply not the case.
[1] - https://today.yougov.com/news/2014/05/11/intelligence/
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The implicit assumption here is that American firms actually higher leaders based on some kind of objective leadership skills (and that the market will suck them all up). I'm guessing whoever wrote this hasn't grown up poor/discriminated against, didn't beat their peers and find themselves never-the-less judged/ousted because they "weren't of the right background/proper means/cultural fit". And remember, all it takes…
The problem with your statement is that many people did and continue to do exactly what was stated going from rags to riches. Elon Musk is probably the most well known example. Now one of the most influential business and technological leaders in this nation, he immigrated from South Africa with little more than to rely on than his ability, motivation, and work ethic. A soft spoken immigrant with a slight speech impe…
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if they were prone to revolution, you'd think "get a danged job" would be the path of least resistance (pun fully intended).
I've been thinking about this with respect to America's future. Basically, suppose people want a revolution. Well, that would require a competent leader to make the mob effective. This is the rub, if you have leadership skills then you make bank and would be in 'the system'.
When the country is split down partisan lines, it ensures that any action taken will also be cast in this light and demonized accordingly. And even better for the status quo, it can also be used to get people to even vote against their own interest. How many people voted for Hillary or Trump because they thought 'yes, this person truly represents my interests and views'? How many voted for them because they thought 'oh dear god the [other person] winning is simply unthinkable!'?
How did the American revolution happen? Aside from having a huge number of competent leaders, it was framed as a unified citizenry 'us' versus the outsider English politicians 'them'. And this is a general theme of revolutions. It is 'us' versus 'them' when 'us' is the people and 'them' is a detached government. Yet in the US 'us' means one half of the population and 'them' means the other half while the government seemingly works to further antagonize this divide.
If you plan to incorporate in Estonia, make sure you hire a local accountant because you really can’t decipher their accounting requirements yourself, put the lowest amount of capital required in (2500€) and mentally prepare for overall frustrating experience.
I applaud Estonia for all the efforts they have put into rising from the ashes of russian control but if I knew back then what I know now and had to make a choice now where to incorporate, I would skip Estonia.