Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights • Hacker News Board

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#291

Post by trollbridge » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 8:05 PM UTC

mae3x wrote: post #182

trollbridge wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the U.S., it's about 28% of the populace which pays no taxes (or ends up netting to zero or negative taxation; for example, working families with children are often in a situation where they might owe $2,000 in taxes but also get a credit of $5,000, for a net refund of $3,000.) My 28% figure includes property, sales taxes, etc. but does not include taxes that employers, landlords, and so on pay. This is all very b…

when you say "pays no taxes" do you mean income taxes or any taxes altogether? What about FICA/SECA 15.3% tax? Sales tax? Property tax? Individual income tax only makes up 53% of federal revenues as per https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/gover... .

The 28% included payroll taxes, sales tax, property tax and so forth. If you don’t include those, it’s closer to 60%.

Someone with 3 kids earning $26k gets about $10,000 in cash back per year (wiping out $2k in payroll taxes) and $12k of food stamps. Assuming they spend 100% of their cash on either taxable items with 8% sales tax or rent with comparable property tax, that’s still net minus -$5,280.

If we include food stamps and the value of Medicaid at $500 per head per month it’s net minus -$40k. And that doesn’t include things like housing assistance and energy assistance.

Such a person DOES pay gross taxes… they just don’t owe on net.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#292

Post by SauciestGNU » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 8:21 PM UTC

joquarky wrote: post #279

imzadi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory about this, as well as how it seems most powerful are abusers, is that you have to be willing to comprosmise your morality to get into that position in the first place. So it is not that being rich and powerful corrupts you, but you have to already be at least somewhat corrupt to get there at all.

Do sociopaths even have a natural sense of morality?

Morality and empathy are orthogonal ideas, I see no reason why someone with antisocial personality disorder couldn't develop a moral philosophy.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#293

Post by IAmGraydon » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 8:36 PM UTC

robinhood wrote: post #4

Fascinating to see how many tech people, as soon as they get rich, turn to extreme. Name them all - they mostly all are very active on X, and each new tweet pushes the limits of what was previously deemed unacceptable. I'm rich, so my opinion must be more important, right?

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." -Lord Acton (1887)

It's simple. I think a large percentage of the population (maybe even most) are truly, innately bad. By "bad" I mean that they would always choose to benefit themselves over the wellbeing of others. Social constructs and the need for social acceptance keeps most of those tendencies at bay, but when a person gets enough money and power, they're able to express/project all of that badness and with little consequence to boot. There are endless examples of this throughout history. Right now, tech is giving a small percentage of the population outsized power and influence. We shouldn't be surprised with the result. Humanity is what it is.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#294

Post by tsoukase » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 8:58 PM UTC

The beyond-3-SDs right side of the bell curve makes the rules and plays with them. It controls policy and law, shapes public opinions and enjoys capitalism.

The only correct POV is theirs: there is no middle and lower class (having 1000 or 5000 more wealth than someone categorizes both of them as subordinate anyway), only the elite and the plebes.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#295

Post by rozap » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 9:00 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #97

andsoitis wrote: post #29

> one that would strip voting rights from anyone who pays no income tax It could be an interesting thought experiment to consider the second and third order consequences, even if, from first principles this is a non-starter in a democratic society. First off all, what percent of people do not pay any taxes on income? What portion of them are poor vs. hedge fund managers or other super wealthy people who have structur…

We don’t have to go farther back than 100 years in history to know what this looks like. Poll taxes, land ownership requirements, etc. were pretty common. So were goon squads to beat and murder people who tried to change that. It wasn’t good.

"Great men of history do not introspect, move forward, go!"

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#296

Post by slowin » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

Ancapistani wrote: post #280

red-iron-pine wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not by accident, they're targeting specific demographics for a reason angry young men will vote to abolish democracy -- and have, in Europe circa 1930s -- if you can convince them it'll benefit them. step 1 is to start speaking to them in ways they connect with. put another way, with the boomers dying rapidly, the largest source of MAGA is young men...

Why is the left doing the opposite? There is no place for a young man who views masculinity through a traditional lens on the left.

This is itself a 4chan meme. They also view neo-liberals as "the left", while most leftists definitely do not.

Worrying about "woke", "no place for a young man", trans anything... none of these are actual problems, just 4chan/ultra-right boogeymen.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#297

Post by pavel_lishin » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 9:18 PM UTC

> A reply from “Eric Thor,” who claimed to be a retired banking executive as well as “armchair economist and policy wonk,” proposed a sliding scale: zero votes for anyone who pays no income tax, one vote for those earning $1–100K, two votes for $100–200K, scaling up in that pattern to a hard cap of five votes for anyone earning $500K or more.

hell yeah, dude, I LOVE that I can lose my health insurance if my manager's manager decides he doesn't like the cut of my jib. Why shouldn't I lose my right to vote, too?

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#298

Post by pavel_lishin » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 9:19 PM UTC

taybin wrote: post #28

The thing about this that's so distasteful is that it removes the basis of enfranchisement from being the inherent worth of a human life and moves it more to "what have you done for me lately". It's pretty gross.

It also lets my manager decide whether I get to vote or not.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#299

Post by Rygian » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 9:37 PM UTC

FLeXMurphy wrote: post #57

robinhood wrote: post #4

Fascinating to see how many tech people, as soon as they get rich, turn to extreme. Name them all - they mostly all are very active on X, and each new tweet pushes the limits of what was previously deemed unacceptable. I'm rich, so my opinion must be more important, right?

Who is going to say what is and isn't acceptable? You?

The Overton window.

You don't get to shift it without raising questions about your motives.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#300

Post by otterley » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 9:45 PM UTC

vivekd wrote: post #288

otterley wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The suggestion is inflammatory in and of itself. The right to vote is core to democracy. One should expect even the slightest suggestion of abrogating this right, even to a tiny minority, to be met with a vociferous allergic reaction. Stripping voting rights is a historical leading indicator of a trend to totalitarianism so it has to be nipped in the bud immediately.

I disagree. I don't think there's any historical data showing a correlation between loss of voting rights of a % of the population with totalitarianism. I think among the few countries where it has been tried would be Canada stripping Japanese of voting rights in WWII. Of course this was bad, but at the same time it doesn't seem to have, at least not in most people's view, turned Canada into a totalitarian states. In…

> among the few countries where it has been tried would be Canada stripping Japanese of voting rights in WWII. Of course this was bad

That's the point.

> There's no possibility of free speech or free exchange of ideas so long as portion of the population thinks we have to immediately nip dangerous ideas in the bud without exploration.

The "nipping dangerous ideas in the bud" language relates to those ideas being implemented, not being discussed.

Find us a person who honestly believes there a class of citizens (other than convicted felons, minors, and mentally incompetent) shouldn't have a right to vote who doesn't want to use it for political gains.