plutonicks

Its an interesting discussion no doubt. Sometimes easier to have a "dress code/standard" in an office as it sets an (externalised) baseline.

I think the key thing is balance, not everyone is comfortable to wear a 3-piece suit but also few people are comfortable working with people who ave poor hygiene (e.g. dont shower after the lunchtime gym)

I think as long as someone is clean and presentable (context dependent) then there shouldnt be an issue.

GDPR "hurt" tech companies, but hurt the big ones less than the small ones.

The big tech companies have increased market dominance so it seems like spirit of the law was actually to crush competition so that there fewer players for the EU to regulate

While true it is harder for companies to manipulate those 2 measures.

E.g. could Facebook run with 20 staff? Would Facebook and its shareholders be satisfied with 20m in annual revenue.

This scenario requires trade offs. My opinion is that monopoly, political and market dominance is a sub-optimal outcome

I think those 3 things are the complexity

Great arguments, the number of people in society lacking basic economic understanding is astounding.

Unfortunately the resources to resolve the issue are rival and limited.

This ultimately means that giving to the poor deprives another.

The question then becomes should the parents and children of parents who make more sustainable choices be forced to support the parents and children those who don't. This is generally the current state of our welfare system. Tax burden and impact is predominantly on the middle class.

The result is dysgenic, i.e. Better outcomes are punished, worse outcomes are rewarded.

Its also a classic trolley problem, and thus both action (wealth distribution) and inaction are immoral.

The next argument will be that we should lift everyone to a minimum standard. However this still fails the test above and fails to realise that wealth is unfortunately relative.

Couple that with the dead-weight loss of the tax system and you actually create a spiral of poverty that starts to consume all except the richest.

The caste system existed long before India was a colony

Interesting argument and its true that income taxes hurt production and producers.

My biggest challenge with the idea of governments printing the money they need is that there would be no accountability. It is reasonably apparent that governments are not accountable enough for their actions.

i.e. why would they only stop at what they need when they could print 1M and give it to everyone or people who vote for them. And when that 1M is worthless, print another 10M for everyone.

As imperfect as the tax system is there is still a theoretical trace of accountability. Budgets need to be paid through taxes, taxes impact people, people vote for governments, governments create budgets.

I think we need to move towards a system with MORE accountability, less wasteful spending and less deferred debt. Interestingly enough this probably means broadening the tax base, where both rich and poor pay more of the share of total tax. Only then will people have "buy in" to the government and the desire to hold them to account

I believe many people are really wanting improve their environmental impact and thus unfortunately carbon footprint is not a good enough proxy.

Water use and water pollution are just two factors that are probably more significant, and have a broader, faster impact on biodiversity.

For example: Growing 1 almond (a low emission nut) uses about a gallon of water.

Dairy cattle have a terrible impact on waterways with run-off and animal wallowing.

I've also seen prepay or discounts work well.

Such as a free pro account for life or 50% off platform fees

I like your idea too. Id expect that it would create a trusted beta group that has more buy in... How did it work out?

Part of the problem is that there are too many edge cases.

Consider when Steve jobs had a $1 salary but the rest was stock options. This tax would not apply in these instance, but should. Wed also find that it does apply when it shouldnt.

The biggest issue with any tax is the disproportionate impact on middle tier/s. The richest always find a way avoid it, and it doesnt target the poor.

Great article.

In a similar vein, I first started with react years ago and spent MANY hours even trying to get the libraries working together. Complete nightmare. I put it down for a year or 2 until it matured to a level of stability that allowed me to ship without hassle.

In contrast during that time I picked up some Angular work which, because it was opinionated, was very very quick to get something up and running.