One of Hasan’s pieces of advice he repeats often is “be normal”. People on the left can get obsessed with politics. Don’t go around constantly talking about politics when it makes people uncomfortable. Try to be relatable and likable first, only broach the subject of politics when it’s appropriate and the other person seems comfortable with it.

He’s not saying there isn’t room for deeper more intense political discussions but they require some amount of trust and good faith from both parties.

It’s probably advice I could stand to adhere to more often.

They could potentially release source only with no art assets. Then you wouldn’t be able to compile the game without either owning the game or pirating the assets elsewhere. But it would allow community members to update the game when it breaks or to add new features. Similar to the Mario 64 decompile.

While all this would be great for consumers it would probably take legislation to get publishers on board with something like this. Publishers have a financial incentive to let the games languish then force you to pay to get a “remastered” version.

The reason why subsidies in the US lead to corruption and subsidies in China lead to innovation has nothing to do with how long the industries have been subsidized.

The US subsidizes industries to bailout corporate executives that made bad decisions.

China subsidizes workers who innovate towards ends that we know we need to be working towards as a species. Such as building electric vehicles to address climate change.

Even if the economy worked how you’re suggesting addressing climate change would be a worthy investment. It’s an end that has been obvious that we should be investing in for decades. The US refuses to do it because it would take power out of the hands of the corporate executives who they are busy bailing out.

Well, where do you think the money for subsidies comes from? Taxes.

This is logically incoherent. Money doesn’t exist in nature my dude.

Take out a physical dollar and look at it… what does it say on it? If you do this you will find it says it’s a note from the federal reserve.

Every US dollar in existence was originally spent into the economy by the federal reserve which is managed by the US government. That is a matter of fact. To suggest money comes from taxes is incoherent. Taxes are how the government destroys money not how it creates money.

Now maybe to control inflation we should take money out of the economy through taxes. Especially in places where money is being mismanaged… if we do, the aforementioned corporate executives seem to be at the top of the list of places where large amounts of money is being mismanaged. Given that in the context of the automotive industry China is managing their wealth better than the US.

Well, it seems I may have wooshed myself.

Sandy Cheeks

This may surprise you but Nintendo no think Industrial Revolution good for humanity.

Facebook has been enshitifying for years and the stock has gone to the moon.

A lot of what enshitification is, is fucking the users to increase shareholder value.

The arichornlover/uYouEnhanced fork is better supported currently.

Peter Zeihan is full of shit. He’s been predicting China will collapse in a decade for well over a decade now. Here’s a video explaining some of the basic mistakes he makes in his analysis.

deleted by creator

Well how do you do fellow Jacob Geller fan.

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/c/unixsocks

I used to be a right-libertarian when I was a teenager. I could have seen myself going down the fascist pipeline if I hadn’t been exposed to critiques of capitalism. It’s undeniable that there are problems with society now. We’re a capitalist society that’s been deregulating for decades and things have gotten worse. It’s obvious the problem wasn’t “lack of free-markets”. At this point you either have to reject social progressiveism as the problem or capitalism. Many of my friends chose the former I chose the later. Now everyone here on Lemmy is beating me up.

I just want people to have control over their own lives and a big part of people’s lives are their place of work.

I know perfectly well how progressive taxes work.

It’s very obviously that you do not.

The point of my original post was that most people making average wages will not necessarily pay more taxes if social services increase. If the taxes are progressive taxes that is definitionally true.

A progressive tax is a tax where the greatest tax burden falls on those with the greatest ability to pay the tax. That is typically on those making more than average.

A regressive tax is a tax where the greatest tax burden falls on those with the least ability to pay the tax. That is typically on those making less than average

You keep bringing up (often false or tenuous) examples of regressive taxes. There are examples of regressive taxes in Europe and elsewhere, I don’t dispute this. This does not undermine my point.

There are also examples in Europe and elsewhere where progressive taxes have been successfully implemented. My original post was pointing this fact out.

There is no point in moving on to any of my more complex points until you demonstrate that you comprehend this.

Do you understand why giving examples of regressive taxes in Europe does not undermine my position that taxes to pay for social services should be progressive?

Wealthy people own companies. Companies are perfect tool for accumulating wealth, since you can reinvest profits forever and pay income tax (corporate rate) only on stuff you intend to extract to your own name, which is usually not much compared to total amount of generated income.

Right… to get at that wealth through taxes you would need a wealth tax or a tax on corporate profits along with outlawing stock buy backs.

Private person, on the other hand, is taxed on whole income and may qualify for usually laughable deductions. Got huge bonus from your job at the end of the year and plan to get few months off work to “invest in yourself” and learn a new trade? Tough luck, buddy, you are “rich” now - welcome to higher tax bracket, government will take their cut first and let’s see what you’ll be able to afford with what’s left.

That’s not how a progressive taxes work. Under progressive tax you get taxed at a higher rate as you make more money, but only the amount above a certain threshold is taxed higher, you’re not going to receive less money because you make above a certain amount as you seem to be implying. It’s explained more fully in this short video. https://youtu.be/VJhsjUPDulw

In terms of reinvesting in yourself, yes there should be universal access to education. If you’re capable and desire to improve yourself through education that should be free and you should be paid to pursue that self improvement. A society made up of smarter people benefits us all, we should make that investment.

VAT is a scam to fuck people who have to spend their income for actual living. If you live paycheck to paycheck you’ll end up paying VAT on your whole income.

Agreed VAT is a regressive tax that taxes the poor more. We see 100% eye to eye here.

Wealthy people don’t get their income in salary, salary is for working class. Dividends, capital gains, royalties - in any jurisdiction it’s possible to find something which will be less severe than income tax, which is also often not progressive or capped at something like 20%.

Well, yes which is why I said I support sovereign wealth funds. That is the state owns portions of companies directly in the same way other shareholders do. This cuts out the wealthy people entirely. The State can then use dividends of that fund to invest in social services. It can also use it’s position as a shareholder to give working people better labor contracts.

Dividends, capital gains, royalties - in any jurisdiction it’s possible to find something which will be less severe than income tax, which is also often not progressive or capped at something like 20%.

So you support lowering incoming taxes and raising taxes on dividends, capital gains, royalties? Sound like a decent policy to me. Well this is something else to consider; its almost like its more complicated than my original sarcastic comment implied.

Social security contributions are easily bypassed by employing yourself as CEO for minimal salary. Boom - now you have same healthcare as people who have to pay great chunk of their whole paycheck for it.

Uhh… yeah we should close that loopholes, right? Even if we didn’t close that loophole I still think its a much better system for healthcare than in the US.

If we restrict ourselves to EU citizens and your particular country is really anal or maybe 20% or something tax is too much for you anyway - you are free to move to Cyprus, Malta or Switzerland, which will have 0% capital gains if you meet not too tough conditions. Or “move”, you just have to get a residence there to declare as your primary one and be present at least sometimes - there’s no border control, it’s really hard to track if you spent there more than half a year for tax residency purposes, this is usually a matter of long legal battles and you won’t even get into that territory if you’re not doing anything too bizarre.

Not all that familiar with these kinds of tax dodging schemes within in the EU. But US corporations do similar things with the Cayman Islands. We could probably close these loopholes with enough political will. But again the easier and cleaner solution is a sovereign wealth fund which I mentioned in my first comment responding to you and you have not yet acknowledged as a way of raising funds.

I’m living and doing business in EU and it took me quite a lot of time to get from nothing into the position where I can utilize at least some of the benefits of the above - but you have to be completely fucking blind to not see that it’s rigged and tax burden on people who don’t try to game the system is completely disproportional.

Perhaps that is how things are but how should things be?

^This is what the law and order crowed says when the law is for wealthy and powerful people.

Honestly, I was being a bit facetious by responding to an overly simplistic comment in an overly simplistic way. Personally, I think we should fund universal welfare programs by cutting out the ultra-wealthy middle man with a sovereign wealth fund like they do in Norway. No need to tax the ultra-wealthy if they don’t exist because they can’t extract the wealth from the people in the first place.

*Fully paid by higher progressive taxes on wealthy people.

I think the Patreon model would work best for a social media network. There are a few patreons that make on the order of 10s of thousands of dollars per month. That seems like that would be enough to pay for hosting and wages for a few coders and admins*. Not everyone would have to pay so it could be a free public service for everyone else. The people who fund a social network need to be funding it because they see there is a societal need for such a network not because they expect a return on their investment; or because paying gives them some special privilege within that social network.

*Or even better several separate patreons for the coders and admins in a federated network.

https://archive.is/5e67T