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Life During Class Wartime

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Re: Life During Class Wartime

#191

Post by adabyron »

themafia wrote: post #115
yabones wrote: post #52

For the vast majority of human civilization, all taxes were based on wealth. Your emperor, pharaoh, czar, or whoever was in charge sent a dude around to take a bit of everybody's stuff. Not how much income they made but how much stuff they actually had . It's only been the last 120-ish years that the idea that wealth and income were totally different things as far as taxation is concerned emerged. I think almost ever…

We have property tax, sales tax and inheritance tax. We also have mountains of loopholes through all of these. If you can afford a tax attourney your outcomes will be far better than those who cannot.

A lot of the loopholes are really simple. You don't need a sophisticated tax scheme, just enough money to do the simple ones.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#192

Post by tomhow »

ethanwillis wrote: post #189
tomhow wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re trying to make the case that “sometimes violence is the only answer”, please stop. It’s the responsibility of thoughtful people in a civilized society to find ways of solving problems, even very large and deep ones, without violence. As soon as we think “there’s no alternative other than violence”, we need to think harder. All the worst atrocities in history happened because enough people allowed themselves…

[flagged]

On this site we want interesting new ideas, not humanity's most primitive urges replayed over and over again.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#193

Post by ethanwillis »

tomhow wrote: post #192
ethanwillis wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

On this site we want interesting new ideas, not humanity's most primitive urges replayed over and over again.

So if it's not guillotines and instead massed autonomous attack drones that would be an acceptable way to discuss violence?

Just want to make sure I understand you fully.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#194

Post by jbxntuehineoh »

XorNot wrote: post #77
ethanwillis wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when these things aren't possible?

The US despite everything still runs a popular vote driven democracy that is clearly capable of implementing on short notice, sweeping changes to policy. The problem remains that the US voter consistently demonstrates they don't actually care about these problems though, compared to using the state to intentionally inflict misery on subgroups they don't like. The most radical thing the current administration proves i…

> clearly capable of implementing on short notice, sweeping changes to policy

well, as long as the policy changes in question can be implemented by executive order. good luck doing anything that requires actual legislation.

> The problem remains that the US voter consistently demonstrates they don't actually care about these problems though, compared to using the state to intentionally inflict misery on subgroups they don't like.

what does this mean, exactly? it sounds like you're trying to say that things would have been different, if only those pesky voters hadn't voted for Trump. but they _did_ vote for someone other than Trump in 2020, and that did very little to affect the issues mentioned in the article

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#195

Post by stavros »

slibhb wrote: post #176
zug_zug wrote: post #3

Yeah I'm glad somebody's talking about it. Wealth inequality seems like it will be THE defining issue of our lives (accelerated drastically by AI). I think there are many practical ways to solve it, and would love to see more proposals out there. Instead I tend to see nihilism or division.

Inequality isn't a big problem. Those who claim it is seem to think that the existence of really rich people causes the existence of really poor people. That is not the case. It's natural that things are less equal now that we're not farmers or hunter-gatherers. Economies of scale will massively enrich those who take build them. Sometimes it is claimed that inequality is a problem because the rich will control politi…

I don't think anyone says that really poor people are caused by the existence of really rich people. The argument, as I understand it, is that spreading the wealth of billionaires around would mean fewer really poor people.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#196

Post by noitpmeder »

adabyron wrote: post #191
themafia wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have property tax, sales tax and inheritance tax. We also have mountains of loopholes through all of these. If you can afford a tax attourney your outcomes will be far better than those who cannot.

A lot of the loopholes are really simple. You don't need a sophisticated tax scheme, just enough money to do the simple ones.

How about we just get rid of all the fucking loopholes

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#197

Post by Recurecur »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #185
kasey_junk wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this administration truly puts paid to the idea that billionaires control the US. Trump was _broke_ now he’s making billionaires the world over kiss the ring. This happened because he’s consistently harnessed the power of the popular vote. Just today he flexed that muscle in Indiana. I’m distraught that my fellow Americans keep falling for his circus barking and he’s made it clear that norms don’t matter and…

Trump was never actually broke, but his popularity comes from the fact that he took a bunch of public political stances that his political opponents refused to take because they genuinely thought those stances were immoral; and then won elections based on those stances because a lot of the electorate also liked them. There isn't actually one monolithic class of billionaires that all share the same interests and want…

“Trump was never actually broke, but his popularity comes from the fact that he took a bunch of public political stances that his political opponents refused to take because they genuinely thought those stances were immoral”

Um, no. His popularity comes from a willingness to actually do the things that many other politicians said they were going to do, often while campaigning, and never did.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#198

Post by pandaman »

nervysnail wrote: post #86
idle_zealot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a vanguard with special privileges then congrats, you've replaced the inequality of Capitalism with another inequality. This is the exact challenge GP is talking about; it's hard to avoid the tendency for power to accumulate.

What about the quantity of the inequality? If our equality at the moment is 1 to 60, certainly 1 to 6 is better, no? I cannot see a way out other than socialism, unfortunately. Why unfortunately? Because under current conditions a revolution seems very unlikely, and if you really decide to become a socialist, committed and organized, you risk a lot. You risk imprisonment, getting beaten by the police, going to prison…

>You risk imprisonment, getting beaten by the police, going to prison for quite some time.

That's very true, especially if the revolution succeeds. Only few OG Bolsheviks survived purges by their own comrades, for example.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#199

Post by tomhow »

ethanwillis wrote: post #193
tomhow wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On this site we want interesting new ideas, not humanity's most primitive urges replayed over and over again.

So if it's not guillotines and instead massed autonomous attack drones that would be an acceptable way to discuss violence? Just want to make sure I understand you fully.

Please don't, in one comment, call me “naive and childish” then try this kind of switcheroo the next. The topic of “guillotines” relates to performative violence against fellow citizens over political/economic disagreement. National defense is a different topic. They're both important topics and if they’re going to be discussed they deserve to be discussed earnestly. Glorification of violence has never been within the guidelines or norms on HN.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#200

Post by [deleted] »

jbxntuehineoh wrote: post #194
XorNot wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US despite everything still runs a popular vote driven democracy that is clearly capable of implementing on short notice, sweeping changes to policy. The problem remains that the US voter consistently demonstrates they don't actually care about these problems though, compared to using the state to intentionally inflict misery on subgroups they don't like. The most radical thing the current administration proves i…

> clearly capable of implementing on short notice, sweeping changes to policy well, as long as the policy changes in question can be implemented by executive order. good luck doing anything that requires actual legislation. > The problem remains that the US voter consistently demonstrates they don't actually care about these problems though, compared to using the state to intentionally inflict misery on subgroups the…

[deleted]
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