FreeSpeech

It extends beyond JS Twitter. Every second JS project website or repo reads like a tribal Twitter bio.

The more accessible the language, the more politicised.

Tech is already in the cloud. SF workers are already remote. The exit is already under way. The current situation is the definition of unsustainable.

It's intentional: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Billionaire-Sor...

It's unbelievable the amount of depravity a single DA can inflict. An unprecedented number of companies and workers are fleeing the city. San Francisco is set to become the next Detroit. What's your exit plan?

Bellingcat participated in a covert UK foreign-office funded program with the BBC to "weaken Russian": https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/20/reuters-bbc-uk-foreign-of...

Anyone suggesting Bellingcat is more reliable than Wikileaks is regurgitating establishment talking points.

Just as Al Jazeera is Qatari state propaganda, BBC is British state propaganda. You can pull the wool over your eyes and disagree, but they're all state backed narrative machines.

The BBC works directly with the UK Foreign Office to push propaganda to destabilise other countries: https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/20/reuters-bbc-uk-foreign-of...

Wait until you hear about SpaceX.

> But we're discussing voluntary taxation here

Income taxes are no more voluntary than consumption taxes.

> corporations (already masters at tax avoidance under coercive taxation) would never opt in

130 countries have already backed a global corporation tax rate.

> nor would consumers volunteer to pay more for goods and services when they could simply pay less.

They already do. A gallon of gas is $1.8 in Malaysia, $3.5 in America, and over $8 in the Netherlands.

> And since neither involves paying directly for a government service, there's nothing the government could deny in the absence of payment.

The good/service one is purchasing is the incentive itself.

Personal income taxes are only a recent phenomena, introduced to bolster war efforts. Nothing prevents a nation funding itself through corporate and consumption taxes alone.

Just as we more than make up for the cost of residents using public services with the money they spend on living costs.

Believable deep fakes, at least currently, cannot be created instantly. Blockchain guarantees whatever footage is on chain existed at the moment it was added and hasn't been tampered with since.

The vast majority of tourist taxes are minimal ($5-$50) and have no relation to duration (arrival/departure taxes).

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

Most residents of wealthy neighbourhoods would disagree, e.g. the wealthiest district of Atlanta is actively seeking secession: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/buckhead-secession-a...

We don't tax tourists to use any of those services. In most jurisdictions public roads are funded through fuel and registration levies.

Welcome to direct democracy. If a referendum doesn't represent the people, nothing does.

> why didn’t they tell us it was this simple?

Because it has an intangible effect on GDP. Our culture optimises for creating obedient worker drones who will capitulate to authority. Fostering empathy for others and leading children to a life of fulfilment conflicts with establishment incentives.

Has anyone used Copilot with a more succinct language? It appears to only automate boilerplate and rudimentary patterns, which while useful in repetitive low signal to noise ratio languages like React or Java, sounds less appealing if you're writing Clojure.

There is no reason censorship/moderation has to be done server-side. It can be done at the client level with subscribable mute/block lists.

Of course, this requires big tech to relinquish their power to shape worldwide discourse, which is unlikely to happen voluntarily.

False dichotomy. Would be best if they didn't make them in the first place through employing naive censorship heuristics.

You don't have to be an oracle, this discussion is happening a decade later.

There's an enormous difference between "not having bet on something" (inaction) and "selling an already acquired asset" (action).

How did Deng Xiaoping reform China from economic backwater into the powerhouse we have today? Deregulation, which birthed innovation.

Realise our predictions are fallible: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/08/us/glaciers-national-park...

No, innovation begets regulation. Deregulation fosters innovation.

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

It's coronation disguised as regulation. Casinos and fruit machines are moral, but crypto is not?