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A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

theguardian.com

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Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#121

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #114
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ummm... At least in the US, they are absolutely not worried about law breaking at all. Look who they just elected president? "Law and order" is basically dead here.

Do you want the Orange Man to bring back all those prisoners he sent to EL Salvador? Would you like them in your neighborhood?

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article30...

When you use a list of tattoo elements to identify "Venezuelan gang members" and that list is also matched by the cheap options on the wall of any random tattoo shop, you tend to get a lot of false positives.

Mr. Mota can absolutely stay in my neighborhood.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#122

Post by jjani »

only-one1701 wrote: post #80
bufferoverflow wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are the same everywhere That is absolutely not true. People aren't the same even in adjacent neighborhoods sometimes. Some create great environments, some create hells on earth. Source: I lived in 3 different countries + an isolated island. But you don't even need my biased opinion on the matter. We have cultures that throw gay people off the roofs, and cultures that celebrate them.

Would love to know your thoughts on what differentiates people. Perhaps race?

Culture is everything. Culture being the people you're surrounded with on a daily basis, not the culture of an arbitrary geography. The people you interact with in your home, at school, at work, at the church/sports club. What is the distribution of their actions, values, practices?

It is the major decider from the way one talks, one walks, one acts, one decides, everything.

Can it be overruled by nature? Yes, very rarely. There's always a very small percentage of people (often thought of as neurodivergent, or witches, or simply free-spirited or eccentric, all case by case) who's neurogenetics cause them to partiaLly diverge. But these are the exceptions.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#123

Post by Gormo »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #76
itissid wrote: post #26

Its just people. People are the same everywhere, and are fundamentally unpredictable systems. How large groups behave does depends to a certain extent on context: by compared to others and your socio-economic situation. How they publicly expressed their values are entirely different from their behavior. This is to the dread of incumbent governments and pollsters. If you starve a wealthy man for 2 weeks he will be rea…

> People are the same everywhere That is absolutely not true. People aren't the same even in adjacent neighborhoods sometimes. Some create great environments, some create hells on earth. Source: I lived in 3 different countries + an isolated island. But you don't even need my biased opinion on the matter. We have cultures that throw gay people off the roofs, and cultures that celebrate them.

Individuals are drastically different from each other. Populations of humans, however, regress to the mean fairly readily, and even small groups (at least if they aren't grouped according to precise selection criteria) will tend to reflect very similar emergent patterns.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#124

Post by bsoles »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #76
itissid wrote: post #26

Its just people. People are the same everywhere, and are fundamentally unpredictable systems. How large groups behave does depends to a certain extent on context: by compared to others and your socio-economic situation. How they publicly expressed their values are entirely different from their behavior. This is to the dread of incumbent governments and pollsters. If you starve a wealthy man for 2 weeks he will be rea…

> People are the same everywhere That is absolutely not true. People aren't the same even in adjacent neighborhoods sometimes. Some create great environments, some create hells on earth. Source: I lived in 3 different countries + an isolated island. But you don't even need my biased opinion on the matter. We have cultures that throw gay people off the roofs, and cultures that celebrate them.

> If you starve a wealthy man for 2 weeks he will be ready to cannibalize... People are the same everywhere.

> That is absolutely not true. People aren't the same even in adjacent neighborhoods sometimes. Some create great environments, some create hells on earth.

Sure. People are not the same in their current behaviors. People are the same in how they acquire their behaviors or change their behaviors based on the conditions of their environments. And sometimes these changes are very quick.

To give a very simple example, many people in my native country who would throw burning cigarette butts on the ground, stop doing so immediately when they, say, immigrate to the US. They didn't really change all of a sudden; what remains the same is the people's opportunistic ability to adapt to the conditions of their environment, regardless of what is moral, just, etc.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#125

Post by bsoles »

ANewFormation wrote: post #99
mr_toad wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have cultures that throw gay people off the roofs, and cultures that celebrate them. And you could take single individuals from either culture and drop them in the other culture, and most of them would happily act and think just like the new culture, and swear blind that they’d always thought that way. It would be an interesting experiment to see how many individuals you could replace one-by-one before the cultu…

And so if you went to Saudi Arabia you'd pretend to be down with executing people for apostasy? Obviously it's an extreme example but many of the norms of a Western mindset would be no less offensive to billions of people in this world. What bias of moderation exists is that you probably wouldn't migrate to Saudi Arabia unless you were already mostly ok with their values. And if e.g. economic opportunity drove you th…

> What bias of moderation exists is that you probably wouldn't migrate to Saudi Arabia unless you were already mostly ok with their values... you'd probably keep your opinions to yourself, but it's unlikely your values would fundamentally change.

Then, how do you explain, for example some people who migrates to France from a majority Muslim country and decides all French people are infidels and deserve death? Similarly, I know a lot of people who would curse America, yet still chooses to live in America. They were never mostly OK with the values on their current countries...

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#126

Post by bufferoverflow »

neaden wrote: post #117
ANewFormation wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so if you went to Saudi Arabia you'd pretend to be down with executing people for apostasy? Obviously it's an extreme example but many of the norms of a Western mindset would be no less offensive to billions of people in this world. What bias of moderation exists is that you probably wouldn't migrate to Saudi Arabia unless you were already mostly ok with their values. And if e.g. economic opportunity drove you th…

If you grew up in Saudi Arabia raised by a typical family then yeah sure, you probably would be fine with it. Culture of course shapes people and I think it's silly to pretend you could freely swap adults but that doesn't mean that people are fundamentally different.

That's not what he asked you. You answered some other question.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#127

Post by Gud »

decimalenough wrote: post #109
Gud wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's sketchy about their tax structure? Just curious what you think. I think they are pretty open about it? The original purpose of IKEA was to foster self reliance, essentially making everyone a bit handier. IKEA brings decent quality furniture to people who otherwise wouldn't afford it. I think it's a noble goal, hence why I ask. As I understand it, and I could be wrong, IKEA is owned by a non-profit organization…

The Economist did a famous analysis of IKEA's tax structure: https://www.economist.com/business/2006/05/11/flat-pack-acco... TL;DR: The only beneficiaries of INGKA's charity are the owner and his family.

Sorry, that TL;DR is completely false.

1) the ”owner” is long dead.

2) the foundation is set up in such a way to perpetuate itself and its goal (to better mankind), forever. Not to generate wealth for Ingvar Kamprads offspring. He hardly left them penniless. His family does not control his foundations. They have a minority vote.

3) if the world’s billionaires set up their organisations in similar ways, the world would be a much better place.

You can read more here:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/everything-earn-ikea-founder-...

Ingvar Kamprad is known to have lived a simple lifestyle, despite being one of the wealthiest men while he was still alive. While travelling he stayed at cheap hotels and drove an old Volvo. Does this strike you as a man motivated by greed?

From your article: ”That control is so tight that not even Mr Kamprad's heirs can loosen it after his death. The foundation's objects require it to “obtain and manage” shares in the Ingka Holding group. Other clauses of its articles require the foundation to manage its shareholding in a way to ensure “the continuity and growth” of the IKEA group. The shares can be sold only to another foundation with the same objects and executive committee, and the foundation can be dissolved only through insolvency.”

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#128

Post by bufferoverflow »

mr_toad wrote: post #95
bufferoverflow wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are the same everywhere That is absolutely not true. People aren't the same even in adjacent neighborhoods sometimes. Some create great environments, some create hells on earth. Source: I lived in 3 different countries + an isolated island. But you don't even need my biased opinion on the matter. We have cultures that throw gay people off the roofs, and cultures that celebrate them.

> We have cultures that throw gay people off the roofs, and cultures that celebrate them. And you could take single individuals from either culture and drop them in the other culture, and most of them would happily act and think just like the new culture, and swear blind that they’d always thought that way. It would be an interesting experiment to see how many individuals you could replace one-by-one before the cultu…

Absolutely not. You can move me to any place on earth, I will not be okay with throwing gay people off the roofs for being gay.

The fact that you think like that is kind of insane to me.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#129

Post by milesrout »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #115
milesrout wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumanly is tax evasion if you buy them elsewhere then import them into your country without paying the required import duties.

How about vacationing in a country that has a lower VAT because hotels and everything are cheaper?

VAT is a consumption tax. If you consume goods in a place with lower consumption taxes then the tax is doing exactly what it is meant to do.

If you buy consumer goods in a low-VAT place but transport them to a high-VAT place and consume them, then that is clearly illegitimate for the same reason that it is legitimate for VAT to be applied to imports and refunded to exporters.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#130

Post by rambambram »

jsutter909 wrote: post #65
rambambram wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money that is not required to be paid cannot be called a tax. Taxes are not voluntary. Things like tax avoidance don't even exist, by definition of the word.

What would you call going out of your way to buy cigarettes in a lower tax jurisdiction? The word avoidance seems pretty fitting here. Taxes are as voluntary as the activity being taxed

I would call that an economic decision, or an opportunistic one. How can you avoid something that's not even there?
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