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I Worked for a Criminal Organization

openmonstervision.github.io

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Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#191

Post by athenot »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #174
athenot wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great article. > I remember reading about cases of scientific papers that were advertisements pretending to be research work. I'll update this point when I find some actual examples. Not exactly the same but related: soda manufacturers have been stressing the correlation between inactivity and diabetes, and in the process sliding in the message that sugar intake is not that big of a factor. That messaging g…

Thanks. It's related enough; if you know of a decent article on the topic, I'll happily link to it.

Here are a few links that contain some pointers:

NYTimes Blog: Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away From Bad Diets - https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-sc...

Endocrine Web: The Coke Controversy: The Marketing Message That Could Spell Trouble for People Dealing with Diabetes and Obesity - https://www.endocrineweb.com/news/diabetes/coke-controversy-...

Study: Coca-Cola – a model of transparency in research partnerships? A network analysis of Coca-Cola’s research funding (2008–2016) - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5962884/

Union of Concerned Scientists blog post: How Coca-Cola Disguised Its Influence on Science about Sugar and Health - https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/how-coca-cola-disguised-its...

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#192

Post by burnte »

Kaiyou wrote: post #155
jackcodes wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that taxes ultimately don’t result in lost schools and hospitals, as it’s never that 1:1, but do you ever think you could have cost your country a hospital, a new road, or a new warhead or whatever?

Taxes are pretty much theft at gunpoint, so I imagine nobody losing sleep over dealing with it in an appropriate way.

Taxes are dues for being part of a club. You're free to move to somewhere else if you don't want to be part of that club but you don't get to freeload.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#193

Post by burnte »

henvic wrote: post #171
Kaiyou wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are pretty much theft at gunpoint, so I imagine nobody losing sleep over dealing with it in an appropriate way.

On point. Tax is extortion. If you don't pay, they'll send the thugs after you. Try to stand your ground and they escalate the violence up to murder.

Taxes are dues for being part of a club. Any club will send security if you stay there, without paying, and refuse to leave.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#194

Post by burnte »

leetcrew wrote: post #160
Frondo wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are not theft, they are an agreed-upon payment for being a member of a society. Your parents, as guardians of a newborn, made your initial decision for you to bring you into the society. You maintained your consent by retaining your citizenship when you reached an age of majority. Taxes are the price you pay for retaining the benefits of your citizenship. Not theft.

this is sort of like the "wage slavery is consensual because both sides agreed" argument. what realistic alternative does someone who doesn't consent to taxation have? renouncing US citizenship triggers a large tax on the total value of your assets if you are wealthy. even if you're not wealthy, the US charges a flat fee of about $2000 for the process. you might literally be unable to afford renouncing your citizensh…

If you're looking to leave the country over taxes, why the hell would them trying to tax your assets bother you? You're leaving. You are welcome to leave, no one is forcing you. It's the same argument with bringing jobs to dead small towns. No one ever promised everyone could get any job anywhere, sometimes you have to move. No one ever promised you could live in any country without help paying for the upkeep.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#195

Post by wongarsu »

missingrib wrote: post #179
wongarsu wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is primarily your earned income where you pay taxes from. Income you were able to earn because infrastructure allows businesses to operate, police forces protect their property, physical safety and the shipment of goods, a court system allows peaceful resolution of conflicts, armed forces protect you from invasion, fire departments prevent entire cities from burning down by putting fires out early etc. Taking th…

The "benefits" were forced upon you without your consent, though. And some of those are blatantly misleading. For instance, most of the defense budget isn't spent on protecting the US from invasion. Most companies protect their property by hiring security guards, not calling the police.

> The "benefits" were forced upon you without your consent

That's not how democracy works. Many of these benefits only make sense if a whole area is covered (if your neighbor isn't serviced by to the fire brigade, that puts you at risk), so we instituted a voting system where people can elect representatives who set a tax rate and a budget detailing what that money is spent on.

If you feel like the selection of services is to your disadvantage you can also always go to another country. I hear Somalia has pretty cheap taxes, along with an accordingly small selection of services.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#196

Post by [deleted] »

didericis wrote: post #48
nitrogen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these used to inflate records of customer bills for laundering, or to deflate customer bills for tax fraud?

> pockets the unreported tax I’d assume tax fraud is much more common than money laundering. Maybe drug dealers and the like create enough of a market for “reverse zappers” to exist; not sure.

[deleted]

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#197

Post by nybble41 »

burnte wrote: post #192
Kaiyou wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are pretty much theft at gunpoint, so I imagine nobody losing sleep over dealing with it in an appropriate way.

Taxes are dues for being part of a club. You're free to move to somewhere else if you don't want to be part of that club but you don't get to freeload.

If it were just a "club" (as opposed to a protection racket) then joining would involve consent and you wouldn't have to move to quit. Also, it's not as if there's anywhere you could move to that hasn't been infested with its own "club".

Merely wanting to be left in peace in the place where you were born without being compelled to pay for things you never asked for is not "freeloading".

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#198

Post by nybble41 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #162
Kaiyou wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are pretty much theft at gunpoint, so I imagine nobody losing sleep over dealing with it in an appropriate way.

> Taxes are pretty much theft at gunpoint, It's odd how the people that think this are generally the same ones most likely to argue that “positive rights” that impose a cost on others are an incoherent concept, and positive entitlement can at most be a limited privilege granted by others based on available resources and expected utility of the grant. But they fail to recognize that the “right” to wall off goods from…

Property is not a positive right. Property ownership is derived from the self-ownership of the person who created the property by combining their own labor with unowned land. The exclusive right to decide how the property is consumed is a negative right; others have no obligation to provide anything to the property owner, only to leave the owner (including their property) alone. Homesteading imposes no cost on others for the simple reason that these others have no claim to the unowned land being homesteaded.

Your error is starting from the assumption that land is owned in common by everyone, rather than unowned. If land were actually owned in common then you would need to obtain permission from every single person on the planet before using any of it. You would starve to death long before you obtained even a small fraction of the necessary consent. And no, the government cannot grant that consent on behalf of others who never deliberately and voluntarily agreed to permit the government to represent them. You would need the consent of each and every individual.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#199

Post by nybble41 »

wongarsu wrote: post #195
missingrib wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "benefits" were forced upon you without your consent, though. And some of those are blatantly misleading. For instance, most of the defense budget isn't spent on protecting the US from invasion. Most companies protect their property by hiring security guards, not calling the police.

> The "benefits" were forced upon you without your consent That's not how democracy works. Many of these benefits only make sense if a whole area is covered (if your neighbor isn't serviced by to the fire brigade, that puts you at risk), so we instituted a voting system where people can elect representatives who set a tax rate and a budget detailing what that money is spent on. If you feel like the selection of servi…

>> The "benefits" were forced upon you without your consent

> That's not how democracy works.

That's exactly how democracy works. Unfortunately, a democratic society is not inherently a just society. It's just a bit more stable than autocratic societies due to integrating periodic small revolutions in lieu of less frequent but more severe transfers of power. The better versions have certain protections for minorities, which makes them less democratic but more just.

Moving to another country isn't a solution. That other country (yes, even Somalia) will already be infested with its own form of protection racket, and anything you could do to defend yourself against governments and wannabe governments in some other country you could do equally well right where you are. Moreover, why should you be forced to move away from the place where you were born just because someone else has drawn some arbitrary borders on a map and thinks it's too much work to create the system they have in mind without forcing everyone in that area to participate? How does their inability to exclude you from whatever benefit they think they're creating suddenly become your problem?

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#200

Post by fock »

Kaiyou wrote: post #155
jackcodes wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that taxes ultimately don’t result in lost schools and hospitals, as it’s never that 1:1, but do you ever think you could have cost your country a hospital, a new road, or a new warhead or whatever?

Taxes are pretty much theft at gunpoint, so I imagine nobody losing sleep over dealing with it in an appropriate way.

How about Somalia :). I reckon you can live without to many taxes there.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sfVbXjODdRQ/T9-dLQR5yUI/AAAAAAAAM...

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