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

fortune.com

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

#321

Post by UncleMeat »

trollbridge wrote: post #291
mae3x wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Somebody with three kids earning 26k is in extreme poverty. If them being a net receiver of government funds is considered a bad thing.... Christ.

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

#322

Post by UncleMeat »

4d4m wrote: post #312
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sorta the reasoning behind statements like "billionaires shouldn't exist". It's not a statement that people shouldn't see fruits of their labor, but that past a certain point, its no longer about the fruits or even the tree, but the power that comes with it. In a democracy, those who get lucky in business are not owed power. So yeah, billionaires and trillionaires shouldn't exist, because their existence is a…

Why don't we just cap every dev at 75k like Europe? Not sure how this argument helps society have the drive to be an outlier and create value.

I find it very hard to believe that there will be no motivation to create value if you can't possess more than $999,999,999.99

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

#323

Post by otterley »

vivekd wrote: post #302
otterley wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 impl…

>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. Easy the philosophers Plato and Socrates who believed that only philosophers and those who sought wisdom should have a say in the affairs of the sate. I mean philosophy is full of ideas of how nations should be…

> Plato and Socrates who believed that only philosophers and those who sought wisdom should have a say in the affairs of the sate [sic]

Plato and Socrates obviously weren’t democrats. Also, neither of them is still alive.

> philosophy is full of ideas of how nations should be organized and it's interesting because there's no dogma around it and no villainizing disagreements

That’s because philosophy is abstract. Nobody of any importance is seriously claiming that we should have philosopher-kings leading Western societies. It’s too distant a threat.

> last I checked Tobais Lutke was discussing the idea not implementing it

Lutke was only discussing the idea, but that doesn’t mean it should be paid any heed. It’s also completely fair game to publicly shame him for such ideas.

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

#324

Post by chriscrisby »

kennywinker wrote: post #262
chriscrisby wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Majority of Americans pay little to no taxes.

By percentage of income, or by dollar value? By dollar value, that seems possible. By % of income? Does not seem possible.

Top 50% of taxpayers paid about 97% of all federal individual income taxes. Therefore bottom 50% pay nothing or next to nothing.

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

#325

Post by rayiner »

rainsford wrote: post #314
rayiner wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regardless, if you work at Shopify, you should consider quitting. You do not have to work for a crazy person like that. Democracy is an engineering exercise, just like any other system. Every part of the system has trade-offs that must be evaluated. You can make a logical argument that any other policy is open to abuse, etc. But why do you have to accuse other people of being “crazy” for having ideas about how to e…

Like any engineering exercise, there are ideas within the bounds of reasonable debate and ideas that are so bad they should be immediately dismissed and those advocating for them excluded from further discussion until they can participate like intelligent adults. If I'm a civil engineer designing a bridge, I think it's perfectly reasonable to call someone crazy if their plan is to build it out of Popsicle sticks and…

The difference is that you can prove with math and physics that building bridge out of popsicle sticks is crazy. Whereas your point here is based on emotional appeals (“bones of poor people”) and religious dogma. Poor people are the ones who suffer the most from dysfunctional government. Every unit of inefficiency or dysfunction in public services—every late bus or bad teacher—is a tax on the people who can least afford it.

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

#326

Post by andsoitis »

ilaksh wrote: post #125
andsoitis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a structural problem in our socio-technical system. it has always been like this, has it not? almost by definition the more resources you have the more power you have. this is how the universe works.

Yes that's what money is almost by definition and government has always had that relationship. But realize that money and government are technologies and we can create new versions or even new paradigms.

> But realize that money and government are technologies and we can create new versions or even new paradigms.

I'm intrigued. What is a paradigm to replace money?

Musk is predicting that in around 10 years' time money would no longer be relevant, but doesn't have a framing of what would make up for the things that money does. I think he misunderstands money.

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

#328

Post by throw2ih020 »

4d4m wrote: post #312
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sorta the reasoning behind statements like "billionaires shouldn't exist". It's not a statement that people shouldn't see fruits of their labor, but that past a certain point, its no longer about the fruits or even the tree, but the power that comes with it. In a democracy, those who get lucky in business are not owed power. So yeah, billionaires and trillionaires shouldn't exist, because their existence is a…

Why don't we just cap every dev at 75k like Europe? Not sure how this argument helps society have the drive to be an outlier and create value.

An absurd argument - 75k over a 20 year career as a dev is only $1.5 million (before living expenses and tax), which is a fraction of the $5 million lower bound in my original comment.

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

#329

Post by Ancapistani »

slowin wrote: post #296
Ancapistani wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Voting statistics by sex show that it is a problem.

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

#330

Post by unknownfuture »

senordevnyc wrote: post #313
consumer451 wrote: post #310

The eventual flagging of this post makes me so sad for our civilization, of which this website is a HUGE part. I believe there was a very interesting conversation happening here.

[flagged]

Thing about offhand comments from random guys like Lutke is a) they're born of the cultural pool in which he's swimming, which is made up of many other very influential rich guys, and b) they have the power and influence to actually make their ideas happen.

One only need look at Peter Thiel's private rich club for assholes and the ideas they're circulating or the absurdities espoused by the effective altruists that birthed guys like Sam Bankman Fried to realize that it's worth paying attention to wild, off the cuff comments by folks like Lutke. His ideas might be more prevalent than you realize.

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