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The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

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Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#381

Post by takklob »

thrance wrote: post #324
api wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that only a problem for democracy? It’s one of the central problems of civilization and has been discussed by philosophers since the Greeks. In monarchies you’d often end up with kings and people in line for the throne being murdered and all kinds of palace intrigue to select for the most conniving psychopath. In theocratic systems you get hypocrite self dealing priests. In socialist and communist systems you…

> Why is that only a problem for democracy? Because democracy at least pretends to give power to the people. Except letting a few individuals wield enough wealth and power to buy media, politicians and judges is completely antagonistic to the basic ideals of democracy, and not many realize this (yet). > I’m not aware of any system that [...] Liberal democracy is better than feudalism, I see no reason why our systems…

[dead]

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#382

Post by fromMars »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #126
regularization wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His e-mails show him trying and failing to get a Russian visa. Not much of a Russian agent. Actually the person who was trying to help him was until this week the UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson. He had to resign this week due to the emails. He previously spent decades attacking the UK Labour's left like Corbyn and trying to make the party more amenable to the type of people Epstein hung around with. Odd that…

John Kiriakou Openly claims he was mossad in recent interviews. Also look up Israel’s relationship with pedophilia (being a safe haven for the accused and convicted). You’ll find plenty of Jewish in isreal media sources reporting on this.

The antisemitism is here. Pedophilia is essentially legal in Europe with the age of consent in many countries.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#383

Post by yboris »

whatever1 wrote: post #150

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.

Sortition may be what you're looking for: "sortition is the selection of public officials or jurors at random, i.e. by lottery, in order to obtain a representative sample". No one can amass power because it's short term and random.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#384

Post by canjobear »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #216
sgentle wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

He's criticizing other people's attitudes there, not stating his own.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#385

Post by nicoburns »

alphazard wrote: post #292
palata wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they mean "taxation of the too rich" in that case. > moves power from the people to the government In a functioning democracy, the government is the people. If the government is against the people, it's not a functioning democracy. And needless to say, a non-functioning democracy is not a proof that the concept of democracy doesn't work.

> 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, and for their own taxes to go down.

That's not true at all. I make a good salary as a software engineer, I absolutely think I ought to be taxed a little more than I am, and would gladly pay that money to live in the better society I believe that would create.

I believe this attitude is pretty common in many parts of the world.

That being said, I do think the extremes of wealth (there is a big difference between a millionaire and a billionaire) have a particularly detrimental effect on society by completely distorting our economic system (there can be no such thing as a free market when such a small number of individuals control such a large proportion of the spending power).

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#386

Post by ozgrakkurt »

nicoburns wrote: post #327
alphazard wrote: post #258

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.

> 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? Absolutely. The source of most of the corruption I see in the world today is wealth, and specifically wealthy people paying people off to get their own way. If there was less wealth inequality there'd be much less scope for this. Note: I believe this would be the case even if t…

Burning money might actually be a legitimate thing to do since it causes deflation as far as I can understand

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#388

Post by breuleux »

krapp wrote: post #372
breuleux wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's easier for a small number of people to coordinate, than a large number. That's basically my main argument for replacing election-based democracy by lottery-based democracy. Electing the right representatives is a coordination problem in and of itself, a process which the wealthy are already quite adept at manipulating, so we might as well cut the middle man and pick a random representative sample of the popula…

Whomever controls the process that decides what a representative sample is and selects candidates is now the middleman.

It's generally easier to make such a process tamper-proof than an election. You can pick a cryptographically secure open source PRNG and determine the seed in a decentralized way by allowing anyone to contribute a salt into a list which is made public at the deciding moment. Then anyone can verify the integrity of the process by verifying the seed includes their contribution, and computing the candidates themselves.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#389

Post by nicoburns »

zozbot234 wrote: post #320
program_whiz wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Most super-wealthy folks are not going to spend anywhere on the order of $200B or even $20B (in the broad timeframe of Elon's payout) on their own consumption. Even if Elon spent $100B on a mission to Mars or whatever it is that he cares about, would you really have reason to object to that, any more than if the money was spent by NASA? (The whole Apollo program and surrounding stuff probably cost on the order of tha…

> Even if Elon spent $100B on a mission to Mars or whatever it is that he cares about, would you really have reason to object to that

Of course I would. It shouldn't be up to Elon how that money (and the capital/labour they command) gets spent. It should be up to all of us. And if I want it spent on libraries or healthcare instead of space exploration then I should get my equal say in that.

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