Algurnon

Aliexpress is not a cali company importing... Its a small foreign merchant in an opaque country exporting into Calif. All Calif sees is a parcel delivered. I don't see how Calif has any jurisdictional powers to assert audits on a small chinese merchant in china.

AliExpress collects the 10% calif local and state sales on my international order. What are the odds that extra 10% gets forwarded to Sacramento?

In a world drowning in self-interested promotional 'puffing," calling this cynicism is in itself cynical. I prefer to see what your referring to as HN's community hype-filter.

In post-ww2 Germany, they essentially adopted the policy of suppressing Nazi ideology and it was regarded as a good thing, thought every German except post-war Nazi holdouts. They came to find out its not all that much dif't in fx than shouting "fire! in a crowded theater. Not just those who went throught he war, but especially all those who were born afterwards. This here is just doing what Germany did except pre-emptively. Like Woody Guthrie's guitar. The 1st Amendment is a great step forward in democracy, but Rupert Murdoch has a ) day exploit on the constitution and pretending he doesn't = owned

Self driving cars will obsolete road rage just as machines can better administer lucre than avaricious humans. c.f. any or all of recorded history. Democracy is a very analog 18th century mechanism for collective resource allocation. Designed by candle light, its grossly obsolete in these times and could easily be replaced by an ERP type apparatus. It sounds like the start of a good Sci-Fi novel. As do any of the last 24 mos.