domain:open.substack.com
hydroacetylene
5m ago
This does make me wonder if tobacco companies are prohibited, in some way, from itemizing vice taxes
Not sure, but tobacco and hard liquor companies are definitely prohibited from selling directly to the public- everything is marked up from the taxed price.
Ecgtheow
6m ago
I have encountered this argument often before but typically in the context of 'debunking' libertarian ideas that property rights are compatible with the non-aggression principle. I think it's correct to say, especially with regards to ownership of agricultural land, that the foundation of property rights is the capacity to violently exclude others or have the state do that on your behalf. I don't think you could find much currently occupied land that wasn't at some point taken from one person or people from another through force. The point of establishing this is usually not to suggest that we actually do away with property rights or ownership as a concept but to say that if the intellectual framework which finds that 'taxation is theft' can also be used to show that 'ownership is theft' then that framework isn't particularly useful for making normative claims and should be discarded.
sockpuppet2
11m ago
Was "Third, if I consistently find that shopping on Amazon I don't know what the "real" price is until the I get to checkout" a reference to sales tax or not? I'm not following you.
lagrangian
14m ago
Could they, in the arid sense that there is some unknown collection of weights that would be capable of outputting tokens that simulate an OpenAI researcher working on novel tasks? Absolutely
Why so confident? A 10 dimensional best fit line obviously won't work, nor will a vast fully connected neural net - so why should an LLM be capable?
hydroacetylene
14m ago
I continue to believe that the problem by which sufficient intelligences dedicate themselves to navalgazing and schizophrenia is fundamentally unsolvable; true artificial superintelligence will pull a Chris Langdon. It’ll replace lots of upper midwits, of course, but universal basic six figures for college degree holders isn’t something I care about.
sockpuppet2
15m ago
Can you give some examples?
sockpuppet2
17m ago
Thanks for posting the questions. Note that 11 doesn't specify mandatory trainings or training content, beyond the DEI buzzwords, so 12 may be influenced by self-selection or normal "workplace orientation" having been given DEI window-dressing.
hydroacetylene
18m ago
The blockade wasn’t blue water, no, but it shew considerable naval strength and competence and in conjunction with previously established blue water capabilities(eg Barbary war, anti slavery operations off of west Africa, opening Japan) can be taken as demonstrating that the USA was already a naval power to be taken seriously.
UwU
20m ago
I agree broadly but if the following is the standard to judge hypocrisy, then clearly just living in a communal-type environment doesn't absolve the OP of his sins, so to speak.
However, you are posting here. On the internet. A medium that requires a computer of some sort that could be not-deprived to someone else. Moreover, you repeatedly responded to others. This entails further use of time depriving the device to others. It also implies a surplus of time, and thus material resources you are depriving others of, that enable the hobby rather than sharing like a non-paranoid should. These resources are deprived from benefiting other possible beneficiaries and potential users by virtue (or sin) of your use. Your use and expected ability to use is demonstrating a de facto, even if not de jure, ownership.
aqouta
22m ago
Alright, no one else is so I'll defend inheritance. It's not about the rights of the heir, it's about the rights of the deceased to decide where their fruits go. Defending meritocracy, especially from a libertarian angle, doesn't commit you to preventing a person from doing with their earthly possession whatever they want in the last moments of their lives any more than it commits you to finding the person who would be the best CEO of amazon and installing him against their will and the will of the board.
Is the act of giving your wealth to someone who hasn't earned it meritocracy maxing? Probably not. Is having a system of ownership that incentivizes those with the most merit to earn as much as they can because they love their kid and want to pass on wealth to them merit maxing? Maybe, arguably. But it's also the pro liberty thing to do and libertarians are perfectly reasonable in coming down on the side of allowing inheritance.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
23m ago
With respect to his complaints, OP is not forced to participate in society as it currently exists. There are successful communes based on communitarian and egalitarian principles functioning in America right now that he could seek to join, or he could look into starting his own with like-minded people.
Ignoring the total incoherence of his arguments, if he has been studying this for fifteen years as he says, it seems plausible to me that he has had the opportunity to go somewhere that would allow him to test and experience his theories in a real-world environment.
The problem is that communes, and his ideas more broadly, are most generously interpreted as not scaleable, even with the best will in the world.
I do think it is somewhat likely that the OP currently lives in a communal-type environment, just based on what he’s said before, so I am willing to give him some credit for living his beliefs.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
24m ago
6% difference vs 145+% difference?
sockpuppet2
25m ago
In that case, why would they only do it for the cheap crap?
sockpuppet2
27m ago
Yeah, the nomenclature is a bit weird, but I haven't thought of a better alternative.
sockpuppet2
27m ago
Sales tax is calculated after discounts. How are LA Apparel and American Giant different?
cjet79
32m ago
It is however frustrating when you are speaking to a particular individual and you say "X1 makes no sense in this context" and they say "well I just want X2 so its fine". And then you say "well X2 makes no sense either". Then they leave the chat and someone else enters to say "well i don't care too much about X2, I just want X1".
No one has an obligation to make their ideas easier to attack, but don't be surprised when we point out the internal inconsistencies.
TequilaMockingbird
Brown-skinned Fascist MAGA boot-licker
33m ago
I wish I could find a link but I remember back in one of the SSC.com link/open threads a user who worked at JPL actually broke down the logistics of establishing a permanent moon base complete with links relevant NASA studies, and comparisons to the support requirements of Amundson-Scott at the south pole.
As i recall the numbers were absurd but not completely outside the realm of possibility. IE 100 Saturn Five launches a year for 3 years to build a colony that would be functionally self-sustaining.
Tenaz
35m ago
Elsewhere the right to ownership has been defined as solely the right to enforce ownership. This is wrong, because it ignores the most fundamental right of ownership--the right to do as you please with the thing you own. The only way to square the circle is to say that in a state of nature everyone has that right until they're deprived of it.
There's no getting around this framing, and when you look at other examples, it starts to look absurd. For example, is bodily autonomy solely the right to deprive others of access to your body? Is free speech solely the right to deprive others of the right to limit your free speech?
Not only are these double-negative framings weird and counterintuitive, they're also inherently circular. When the right to bodily autonomy is defined simply as "the right to deprive others of the right to one's own bodily autonomy" you still haven't explained what bodily autonomy is. Once you do start to go into detail it becomes much clearer that these double-negative framings are actually inaccurate.
In reality one cannot generally do whatever they want with their own body. Suicide is generally illegal, and people will stop it by force if they see it happening. There are limits to all rights. Suicide being illegal is not a limitation on [the right to deprive others of their rights to your bodily autonomy] because not only are you not allowed to stop them from stopling you, you're actually also not allowed to kill yourself in the first place. You never had that right to begin with. It's not [everyone else has the right to stop you], because you'll still get a slap on the wrist even if nobody stops you.
As another example, mutually consensual cannibalism. It's illegal! It's not just Adam choosing not to exercise his right to deprive Bob of his right to eat Adam. Bob didn't have that right in the first place, regardless of what Adam says.
Finally, going back to the original example, trespassing is a thing even if the owner is dead or totally uninvolved. It's not a case of 1 single person having the right to deprive others. It's simply more accurate to say the other people don't have rights in the first place. You could say "ok, both the state and the owner own the property" but this also isn't true! Bystanders are also legally allowed to do things like prevent theft. Do they own the property too?
They're not just two separate framings. The negative framing--that ownership is the right to deprive others--is just wrong, and falls apart when you look closely.
BurdensomeCount
Messenger Status: Shot
39m ago
This is very illegal in the US. You would have to ship it overseas from your PO box and then import it back again relying on exemptions there, which ofc has been made non-viable due to tariffs...
Quantumfreakonomics
39m ago
(apparently nationwide starting in 2017 after a SCOTUS decision)
Huh, you’re right. Somehow I never noticed this.
TitaniumButterfly
47m ago
Could you get a PO box in a tax free state and then tell USPS to forward it?
Shrike
47m ago
Raising enough revenue to replace income taxes requires extraordinarily high tariffs without a decrease in imports (good luck).
Oh, no, I don't think this is fully possible under the current state of affairs. You might could substitute some income, but the welfare state is too vast to fully replace. But there's a difference between "replacing income taxes" and "generating revenue." I (contra Trump, I guess) am very skeptical the former is possible without some major changes but the latter seems like a no-brainer. Like I said, I agree you can't maximize the benefits of all three. I just don't think it's right to suggest that e.g. a protective tariff will generate zero revenue.
suppose one could reconcile tariffs-as-industrial-policy with tariffs-as-tax-policy if one supposes that the economic boom from ISI policy will be so massive that even with massive hikes in taxes on imports, people will still consume enough imports to generate a substantial amount of revenue.
I've heard people Smarter In Economics Than Me suggest a Trump economic boom over the rest of his term (this was after the tariffs came down), but their theory was that it would come about due to deregulation. They weren't exactly fans of how the tariffs were handled.
Frankly, the most honest pitch would be that this is just right-wing degrowth policy - arguing that poverty is an acceptable tradeoff for certain intangible benefits (for left-wingers, it's environmental protection and anti-capitalism; for Trumpists it is the reestablishment/reaffirmation of certain social hierarchies).
Maybe this is what the administration is doing, but do you not buy into the concern about outsourcing our industrial base to China at all? (I don't think that situation is quite as dire as is often suggested, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the problem, does it?)
The US is a valuable market, but it's not so valuable that you can't live without it. Especially if they plan to shake you down on the regular and you're starting to doubt they can be counted on in a pinch.
Sure. As I said,
Please note: I am not saying threatening to do this is a good idea, necessarily.
Although, with that being said, I do suspect the US probably could delete-from-existence some European nations. The question of whether or not the US has leverage and whether or not it should use that leverage (or how it should use that leverage) are different in my mind.
Were they?
Did you read them? Some of the most interesting discussion revolved around the question of if the US should commit valuable military resources to reopen a trade route that largely does not influence US trade. Pretty interesting to see that the administration at least seems to be thinking about this (or at least some members, specifically Vance, seem to be).
Has Trump ever done anything to make you think 4D chess theories are plausible and not cope?
There are a number of good moves his administration made in their first term, I think. Whether or not that counts as "4D chess" is up to you, I guess. But the idea that the government acts based on secret information isn't, I don't think, proposing a novel theory of government action. "Secret Sauce Stuff" motivates government action all the time, from standing up Space Force to killing Qasem Soleimani to locking China out of the US power grid. One analogous example might be US actions against Huawei (which were undertaken under the Biden and Trump administrations). The US has targeted Huawei directly on the basis that they are a security concern, and certainly there are public reasons to think this, but I am sure FVEYS has Secret Sauce reasons as well.
Now, I'm not sure that's what's going on here. I don't think that Trump or his administration is above making mistakes. But look, when Trump says "I'll put massive tariffs on China if they go to war with Taiwan" and then less than a year later does this, amid some (perhaps overstated) warnings from the DoD that China is targeting 2027 as a kick-off date for military action against Taiwan and at least one unsubstantiated rumor that their timeline is even shorter, it does make me suspicious, yes. I think we should all be open to the possibility that the solution might be Just That Obvious even if we don't think that's the most likely alternative.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
48m ago
it really does seem like ardent lefties have to discard a lot of fundamental fairly obvious facts about baseline reality to maintain their ideological commitments.
Interesting.
Its definitely the one place where the average response doesn't drastically misinterpret a person's post and respond to the persons' hallucinated point rather than the plain words they said.
Your mileage may vary. I am routinely imputed views I don't hold. This forum is roughly equivalent to an above average political subreddit, just with the ideological inflection reversed.
People who want to colonize Mars really need to think smaller first.
They should start by trying to build pleasant domed habitats somewhere marginally habitable like northern Minnesota first.
Then a resort hotel near the peak of Mount Whitney where people can take in amazing views.
Thirdly I'd go for a resort hotel on Mount Foster in Antarctica.
Really if a comfortable enclave in Minnesota for remote tech workers isn't practical, I don't see how we're remotely ready to go to Mars.
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