311–320 of 653 posts
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> directly caused the deaths of several children You're completely wrong, as I've pointed out below. "Especially girls" because they probably couldn't find boys with a cervix (HPV causes cervical cancer) Impossible to take these hysterical takes serious, do better.
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Taxation is the mechanism that moves power from the people to the government, and increasingly politicians and their specific interests. Do you actually believe that if your taxes went up, power would be less concentrated, or that you or your countrymen would have more power? Every government goon doing authoritarian dirty work collects a paycheck and wouldn't do their job without it.
The natural flow of money tends towards pooling on certain individuals and groups, because accumulating capital is significantly easier when you start with capital. This is unwanted, first because it produces individuals powerful enough to topple the people’s will, and second because it is not in the interest of society for wealth to be accumulated rather than moving. By first principles you need a system to limit ac…
I'd also feel a lot better about "Elon gets $200B payout", because he gets $2B and $198B goes to tax payers -- seems pretty fair. $2B is still more than anyone ever needs to live a lavish life of luxury and/or start any reasonable self-business, or buy off any politicians.
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> I think they mean "taxation of the too rich" in that case. Everyone wants taxes to go up on everyone making more than them, and for their own taxes to go down. The problem is this is a collective negotiation, not a discussion about what to ask the genie for when we rub the lamp. If the middle class wants to decrease their own taxes (which is the political issue that objectively affects them the most, and how they l…
> Everyone wants taxes to go up on everyone making more than them That is a different debate. I think what the parent means is that taxing the rich is a way to prevent them from becoming too powerful. I do agree that it should be illegal to be too powerful. One should not be more powerful than an entire country, it makes no sense.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taxation is the mechanism that moves power from the people to the government, and increasingly politicians and their specific interests. Do you actually believe that if your taxes went up, power would be less concentrated, or that you or your countrymen would have more power? Every government goon doing authoritarian dirty work collects a paycheck and wouldn't do their job without it.
The natural flow of money tends towards pooling on certain individuals and groups, because accumulating capital is significantly easier when you start with capital. This is unwanted, first because it produces individuals powerful enough to topple the people’s will, and second because it is not in the interest of society for wealth to be accumulated rather than moving. By first principles you need a system to limit ac…
Making the government resistant to manipulation is a distinct problem. It's a game theory/mechanism design problem, and its solution doesn't require taking in lots of money. Giving the government more power/money causes people to spend more effort to manipulate it, so any weaknesses are exploited to the fullest extent.
> and second because it is not in the interest of society for wealth to be accumulated rather than moving.
This reveals a significant misunderstanding of how capital works in an economy. None of the billionaires that come up when you type in "billionaires" into Google have access to liquid cash anywhere near the number that shows up next to their face. Their money is invested in productive projects, it's paying salaries and invested in equipment. Concentrating capital is what allows a civilization to take on big projects. As a society we want big projects to be paid for by individuals bearing the risk (skin in the game). In a free-market, capital concentrates in individuals who, empirically, know how to use it well. Spending other people's money is a great way to make sure that money is spent frivolously. You can criticize luxury spending all you want, and taxing that is something most people consider "fair", but you aren't speaking for anyone economically literate when you say that you don't want capital to concentrate. I want it to concentrate as much as it does naturally.
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This is what google shows: 7 deaths out of 24K vaccinated individuals. "An Indian government committee and subsequent investigations concluded that the seven deaths were most probably unrelated to the vaccine itself. The reported causes included drowning, snake bite, intentional ingestion of poisonous substances (suicide), malaria, brain hemorrhage, and viral fever." This was in a trail for the HPV virus so presumabl…
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> So answer me honestly: Did that same billionaire (Bill Gates) and his organisation (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) do the same exact trials in his home country (USA)? "clinical trials of unproven vaccines on thousands of poor minor girls, without consent of then and their parents"
This accusation is toothless. You would need to show two things:
- There were actual unacceptable risks or side-effects from the vaccine under test (your article completely fails to show this, and if you believe it does, then you are simply a victim of clickbait formulations)
- The study was done in India because of risks to subjects deemed unacceptable in the US (and not simply because it was cheaper)
What the article does show is that there was shoddy handling of consent. Which is valid criticism! But it is also somewhat unsurprising given the low literacy rate at that time and place. And this alone is simply not sufficient foundation for your accusations.
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This is what google shows: 7 deaths out of 24K vaccinated individuals. "An Indian government committee and subsequent investigations concluded that the seven deaths were most probably unrelated to the vaccine itself. The reported causes included drowning, snake bite, intentional ingestion of poisonous substances (suicide), malaria, brain hemorrhage, and viral fever." This was in a trail for the HPV virus so presumabl…
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What sources are there on the hospitalisations?
Power corrupts, end of story. Democracy (limited terms), taxation and anti-monopoly regulation are examples that show a path to cure the disease. Nobody should be trusted with too much power for too long.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/03/pam-bondi-trump...
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> I think they mean "taxation of the too rich" in that case. Everyone wants taxes to go up on everyone making more than them, and for their own taxes to go down. The problem is this is a collective negotiation, not a discussion about what to ask the genie for when we rub the lamp. If the middle class wants to decrease their own taxes (which is the political issue that objectively affects them the most, and how they l…
I'm having difficulty parsing what you're saying in your first paragraph. What is it to 'meet the wealthy half way'? Did the ultra wealthy meet the middle class or the poor half way when they essentially ended their tax obligations and legalized mass influence buying in Citizens United? What's the 'half measure' that is going to rein all that back in?
That doesn't change the state of the negotiation, which is that cutting taxes for the middle class will also require cutting them for the wealthy. If you optimize for your own personal notion of fairness, or retribution, you may very well fail to coordinate in your own self-interest.
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A curiously frivolous way to frame the decision to get involved with a notorious sex trafficker. Nothing to do with values, integrity or culpability, just some boys missing their mommies.
He's strangely breezy about the whole thing. '...a short jail stint in one’s past for “soliciting prostitution” simply doesn’t sound disqualifying, according to the secular liberal morality that most academics hold, unless you researched the details, which most didn’t.' Uh. Really?
(I repeat for emphasis, since I know people will bring it up if I don't, that the ages of the people Epstein solicited and the circumstances under which he solicited them were not as widely known at the time.)
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The natural flow of money tends towards pooling on certain individuals and groups, because accumulating capital is significantly easier when you start with capital. This is unwanted, first because it produces individuals powerful enough to topple the people’s will, and second because it is not in the interest of society for wealth to be accumulated rather than moving. By first principles you need a system to limit ac…
Agree, I think the issue is that taxes specifically flow to "the government" in the abstract. If there was a simple law like "95% of income or gains above $10M are taxed and redistributed equally via check / IRS rebate to every citizen automatically" then it could be a high-trust system that helps out everyone. Politicians, though greedy and self-interested, would have little choice but to continue the program untouc…