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hydroacetylene
10m ago
I mean it would wipe out some backtaxes and make Sheila Jackson Lee either be quiet or generate an amusing soundbite about nuclear weapons, what's not to like?
EverythingIsFine
12m ago
I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding the conceptual underpinning of child anti-poverty crusades. The idea is that kids are actually very flexible and if given a decent/adequate amount of resources and support, can turn out to be good to excellent in moral, social, and economic areas. Sure, the State isn't the ideal vehicle for this, but it can work passably (especially if in a broader family-support role, IMO, instead of a supplanting one), and it can also from a utilitarian point of view "discover"/empower otherwise underused and underdeveloped diamonds in the rough, so to speak, which can often become a net gain to society. I think history largely bears this out, as generally speaking societies with higher degrees of mobility (which is much easier if there's a decent basic standard of living) perform better and generate more innovation than societies which over-invest in select groups (which virtually never end up being as selective for intelligence and capability as claimed) at the cost of others.
That's laying aside, of course, the moral argument which cannot be ignored: Is having kids a human right? I think living in a society where you can have up to two kids and reasonably provide for them is, if not quite a right, at least something approaching a strong moral goal for society. What about the whole idea of people having equal, intrinsic worth? This requires at least some form of anti-discrimination effort against poor people. And of course I'm not even touching the whole "are people poor because it's out of their control or they made bad choices" axis which is I think too large a topic to touch without everything becoming subsumed into it.
And, of course, there's another, more practical problem: I'd argue eugenics as a movement, which is exactly what you're describing, is almost uniquely predisposed to slippery-slope type problems with abuse, racism, authoritarianism, and other gross excesses. Kind of like how communism sounds great on paper but just doesn't play well enough with human nature. So forgive me for calling out eugenics as being morally disgusting -- even if your particular argument may not be.
No_one
16m ago
It's Germany's San Francisco, left-wing lunatic central, with city police getting infiltrated by ethnic mafias.
No, voting patterns do not necessarily reflect value, truth, or even provide useful information for that matter. I recall recently on reddit's quant forum someone asked about about which strategy an individual was using, and I answered exactly and was still downvoted a lot even though no one objected or responded to how I was wrong, nor did anyone supply a better answer. My explanation was almost verbatim as the guy's strategy. Same for dieting/weight-loss subs where people get downvoted for perfectly good or useful advice. There are many instances like this, where perfectly good, well-worded responses get downvotes.
Not just Reddit but also Hacker News has this problem. Early on during Covid, for example, commenters who questioned the official narratives about the origins of virus and mask/social distancing efficacy were downvoted heavily; fast-forward four years and even the NYTs is writing full-featured articles entertaining the possibly of a lab leak, because no better explanation has been brought forward.
Just because voting patterns sometimes convey useful information does not mean they do often enough to be considered objective or reliable. If people did downvote out of disliking something personally, that would still convey information compared to voting on things even if there is no evident reason as to how or why it is bad, only that it is. For example, downvotes on comments promoting capitalism on a Marxist sub would be expected, but imagine if pro-Marx posts got downvoted a lot too. That would be confusing, but that is what happens a lot too.
I think there should be a delay before votes are visible to prevent possible bandwagon effects but I think votes should be shown to the individual in-real time so as to be able to better-ascertain the quality of a comment. If something is getting heavily downvoted, in light of the above, it may still may me pause and think if I am epistemologically blind to something. A few comments which explicitly and strongly state where I wrong is reason enough to know it will be downvoted a lot without having to see the number.
No_one
18m ago
Pretty much the entirety of the software field doesn't require anything but an internet connection.
Engineers at least some of them might need to go somewhere and talk to the production people and look at what goes on, but with software, there's never really any need.
ThenElection
18m ago
The USSR wasn't Real Communism. It suffered from a lack of communism. It was only because wreckers not devoted to true socialist ideals corrupted the system that it failed.
Felagund
18m ago
Supreme Court, Again
I'm back, because the nine are back.
Connelly v. United States
9-0, opinion by Thomas.
This deals with a question about estate planning. Two brothers, Michael and Thomas Connelly, owned a company, Crown C Supply, and agreed that Crown would be contractually obligated to purchase out the shares of either of them upon death (funded by a life insurance policy on each brother, owned by the company). Michael died, the money was paid out, and Crown purchased his stock at a value of 3 million. Then came the IRS, with an audit. An accounting firm that Thomas hired valued the company at 3.86 million, then, with the 77% share held by Michael, the valuation of the shares in the estate were about 3 million. The IRS, on the other hand, argued that the value should be 6.86 million (the 3.86 million valued before+3 million that was about to be paid out), and so there was about $900,000 more owed. The next two courts both ruled in favor of the government, and now, the supreme court rules unanimously for the government.
Now, why?
Redemption of stock is argued to have a net-zero effect on any given investor. That is (example borrowed), if you hold an 80% share of 10 million in cash, and the remaining 20% share is redeemed for 2 million, you'd now have a 100% share of 8 million, which is the same valuation as before. Hence the need for a corporation to redeem shares doesn't reduce the value of the shares.
Further, if someone else had bought the shares off of Michael, they'd be expecting to get the life insurance payoff in the valuation of the company, and so they'd be valuing it at the higher value.
Thomas (Connelly) argues that someone attempting to buy the value, separately, can't capture the value of those insurance proceeds, as those are about to be spent, and should be considered a liability for the company. (Clarence) Thomas rebuts this, saying that this is the same in essence as asking what the value of 77% of shares would be after the redemption had taken place, under the smaller valuation. But the relevant question in estate taxation is what the shares were worth at the time of Michael's death. (Clarence) Thomas further points out that this would lead one to think that Thomas (Connelly) would have a larger ownership share in a company with the same valuation, which doesn't make sense.
My own thoughts: my initial, reaction to the posing of the question was thinking that this was unfair for Connelly, as it felt like a liability, but as I read it, I was convinced that the court decided correctly. (Clarence) Thomas's arguments are persuasive.
Truck Insurance Exchange v. Kaiser Gypsum Co.
8-0. (Yes, eight. Alito recused himself.) Opinion by Sotomayor.
Unsurprisingly, there are many lawsuits due to damage from asbestos. This case dealt with whether an insurer would be able to "raise" and "be party to any issue" in bankruptcy. It is ordinary to put up a trust in such situations in order to pay for future claims against a bankrupt company. In this case, there was a plan in a proceeding of an insured company which handled outstanding claims that would be uninsured versus ones that would be insured differently. It provided more care to be sure that the claims would not be fraudulent when it would be uninsured. Truck Insurance Exchange wanted to be able to participate in the proceedings as an interested party in some relevant respects, as the bankruptcy code allows any "party in interest" to do so. The court does not rule on Truck's arguments about the case in particular, but does say that it is a party in interest, and so entitled to be able to object. This is a straightforward interpretation of the relevant portion of the bankruptcy code, as it was put in an open-ended manner. (The court also touches on legislative intent to back this up.)
There's probably a little more detail here that could be worked through, but I didn't entirely. This seems a sensible ruling, although I would be curious exactly how far "party in interest" can be made to stretch. Probably not excessively far.
Becerra v. Apache Tribe
5-4. Opinion written by Roberts, and joined by Gorsuch and the liberals (Kagan, Sotomayor, Jackson). Kavanaugh writes a dissent, joined by Thomas, Alito and Barrett.
This is a case dealing with Indian tribes and allocating money to them for healthcare costs. The majority rules that they should get more money. I still need to read most of the dissent, but presumably they disagree.
I'll write up this last case properly later, but I'll post this comment as is for now.
No_one
20m ago
When it comes to the proportion of rich people, is there any borough of London that has more than the one you live in ?
zPvQINBQvfFR
25m ago
Perhaps wild nature is in fact a giant suffering engine that should be abolished in its current form.
No_one
30m ago
I had a game how many CCTV I could get onto a single photograph. Think I managed 23 in one photo.
I was there in '13. On a low budget though. The transport was abysmal - buses slow and very full, not even in rush hour, underground cramped and hot. I'm used to the spacious, echoing and chilly Prague metro, which was, next to old buildings with metre thick walls the only refuge from the summer heat before AC became common... not so in London.
Didn't even think to buy food at a restaurant, just bought groceries and fixed some food for myself. Met a few locals who were staying at the same hostel because they couldn't afford rent in London while working. Had to deal with pretty nice French staff and one surly, incompetent black woman.
One of the places I went to visit was the artillery museum in Woolwich. Surreal. You go on a bus, endure the long ride and the mildly worrying schizo black guy talking to himself half the way. Disembark, see maybe one or two white people around, but the buildings look like Europe.
And of course, as I was taking long exposure photos of the pieces in there and some fucking kids were running around about and maybe 1-2 got into the viewframe when I wasn't taking pictures I was gently reminded to "not take photo of the children".
laxam
32m ago
It's both, plus state money. Plus, the big foundations that finance a lot of this receive favorable tax treatment to pretend to be charities.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
34m ago
All of these are incredibly unlikely.
Tactical nukes are overrated. Modern militaries are very good at delivering weapons to precise locations. Doing so via a single nuke vs. an artillery barrage is not worth the cost.
Strategic weapons are a different story. At least they have a use case. But if the Cold War wasn’t existential enough to see a launch, I don’t see any of the listed situations going further. If NATO marched on Moscow, sure, which is why that will never happen.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
53m ago
What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter. Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history, a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away—unlike the Armenians, Tibetans, World War II European Jews or Rwandans—have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?
Bolded for emphasis. He very clearly is not talking about people who are directly attacking Israel, but about a deliberate attack on people who see themselves as uninvolved third parties.
We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force.
Likewise here. Your understanding is that the author was describing a scenario in which the Vatican has invaded Israel?
How would the latter make sense at all? What could there possibly be to gain by nuking your own allies?
If they've allowed your country to be murdered, they weren't much of an ally, were they?
I predict this will get overwhelmed in the news cycle by Biden shitting his pants at a ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of D-day.
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