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Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

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Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#221

Post by ryangs »

roughly wrote: post #116

There’s a thing we tend to do as engineers where we hear a thing and then start thinking through the implications and design, which is normal, but also we seem to assume we’re the only ones who’ve ever thought about it, and therefore our concerns must be unaddressed, and we’re brilliant, so clearly nobody’s ever thought of them before, so we’ve gotta share them. If you’d like to see this behavior in action, this is t…

Epistemic statuses are a great aid in sharing ideas without sounding overly confident.

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bbtvDJtb6YwwWtJm7/...

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#222

Post by throawayonthe »

roughly wrote: post #116

There’s a thing we tend to do as engineers where we hear a thing and then start thinking through the implications and design, which is normal, but also we seem to assume we’re the only ones who’ve ever thought about it, and therefore our concerns must be unaddressed, and we’re brilliant, so clearly nobody’s ever thought of them before, so we’ve gotta share them. If you’d like to see this behavior in action, this is t…

[dead]

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#223

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

Galanwe wrote: post #217
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say “employee gross”, is this analogous to what we Americans colloquially refer to as “take home pay” eg the final amount you get after all taxes and the like have been removed from your pay? I know it is common in Europe to refer to salary this way but in USA it is rare, salary is usually discussed with taxes still included in the States

Super gross = the total cost of the employee paid by the company Gross = super gross - employer contributions, usually around 20% Net = gross - employee contributions, usually around 40% Most employees, Europe included, talk in gross/year. It can happen that people (usually in the lower bracket) talk in net/month. In the example above, the cost to the company is expressed in super gross, 64k. That would leave ~50k as…

Enlightening! Sweden (and perhaps some of the other Nordics) seem to use net/month a lot more than gross/yr (anecdotal observation as an American expat). Everywhere I have chatted with Europeans all seem to talk in post tax numbers however by default.

The unfortunate consequence of this cultural difference is that it makes it harder to compare salaries between the States and Europe.

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#226

Post by Galanwe »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #223
Galanwe wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super gross = the total cost of the employee paid by the company Gross = super gross - employer contributions, usually around 20% Net = gross - employee contributions, usually around 40% Most employees, Europe included, talk in gross/year. It can happen that people (usually in the lower bracket) talk in net/month. In the example above, the cost to the company is expressed in super gross, 64k. That would leave ~50k as…

Enlightening! Sweden (and perhaps some of the other Nordics) seem to use net/month a lot more than gross/yr (anecdotal observation as an American expat). Everywhere I have chatted with Europeans all seem to talk in post tax numbers however by default. The unfortunate consequence of this cultural difference is that it makes it harder to compare salaries between the States and Europe.

I think there are two main factors to take into account:

- If you are in a lower tax bracket, the taxes are almost the same for everyone, so talking "net" is okay. If you have a more substantial income though, there starts to be more difference in net amongst people, as it depends on how your compensation is technically paid, and how much it is. So for the same gross, people can end up with different net.

- People tend to think in terms of what is wired to their bank account. For a long time, most (western) European countries did not have "source tax", meaning you would get your gross every month, and are supposed to save up for the income tax coming end of the year. That changed a lot in recent years, and more often now the income tax is directly subtracted from your monthly wages, which may direct people to talk in net.

> The unfortunate consequence of this cultural difference is that it makes it harder to compare salaries between the States and Europe.

I get you, and that's not just because of gros/net, but also just the general cost of living that changes. I lived in a baltic country for a number of years with half the gross I had in western Europe, and felt substantially wealthier.

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#227

Post by anticensor »

jjani wrote: post #185
DannyBee wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I really hope that we'll get a legal precedent for this actually being possible and durable in at least some countries, because that was the promise of OpenAI at some point as well." Lawyer here - it is basically impossible to do what they (and others) want. There are few (if any?) countries, where either provision would survive bankruptcy, for example. They could always choose to dissolve rather than restructure, b…

> You can also do hilarious (to me) things like create enough shareholders (let's say 7 billion), make shares non-transferrable, etc, so that even though theoretically it requires a vote, such a vote is practically impossible. Doesn't this mean it's quite possible to achieve what they want? Is there a limit on how absurd the statutes can get (at least in your jurisdiction)? Votes have to be held at 3:00AM on Mondays,…

In-person voting requirements are typically enforceable if the place is real and legally and practically accessible. IANAL though.
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