regentbowerbird

You seem to believe getting taxed is a choice people make. However, on the one hand economists like Zucman and news stories like the Panama Papers have proven the ultra-wealthy and politicians ("economically useful people") pay way less tax than regular people. And on the other, basically most people disagree with at least some of the uses of taxation, such as a war spending in the US. In fact, sometimes people get taxed without getting any benefits at all in return, such as during government shutdowns.

I think this all calls into question your basic premise that "politics is downstream of what we humans want", ie that the state is an emanation of the collective will of the people, which it serves. The facts fit equally well, if not better, an interpretation in which the state is independent of society and seeks to extract resources from it. This is also consistent with the Weberian state conception in which the state starts as the "stationary bandit" that collects taxes from a village to protect it from other bandits.

Your conception of "economically useless people" is also incoherent. Economic science is about how to distribute rare resources to maximize utility. These people are no less able to work and no less able to benefit from utility and are therefore not "useless" from an economic standpoint. I think you would benefit from just using words like "rich & powerful" and "poor & weak" which if I understand correctly is what you actually mean.

Coding is solving puzzles creatively. When trying to achieve an overall goal, I get some easy problems that remind me how much I've improved since I started out, and some hard problems that are intellectually stimulating. Debugging, reading documentation or source code feels a bit like being a fictional detective running an investigation; plus I'm not just improving my understanding of the system but connecting with other humans through understanding their intent. And finally, I get to choose which solution to implement and how, therefore expressing myself and my own taste.

I come out of it intellectually stimulated, with a sense of achievement and improvement and increased understanding; with also a bit of human connection, and creativity. And of course I also get a working program, so I feel productive too.

If you don't understand this you never enjoyed programming per se. It's fine, people like different things. But I think you might be mistaken calling whatever your job is "coding" or "the trade" because I get the impression it just isn't.

If you consider only the product is relevant and not how it is made, then no it does not matter; or at least it doesn't matter as long as you don't personally attach any emotional qualities to products beyond their material qualities (unlike the vast majority of people).

But the comment you reply to explicitly points out the process is in fact relevant as it is itself a cultural artifact. You're not replying to their main point.

True. Let's post the URL to a popular website to add noise to the data.

Teen titans as reference xD stop it you're killing me

Are you aware there are artistic styles beyond photorealism?

This is unreal, do you think people who face the choice between lifelong debt and the loss of a loved one really are comparable to people wanting a six pack? Do you think people really don't care about literal life and death situations?

I'd argue the fact a significant minority of US citizens are cheering on the assassination of healthcare executives (something that does not happen in countries with socialized healthcare systems) mean they are quite motivated for changes but can't find a political outlet for this motivation.

You just assert "no" to my suggestion that people don't pay for these things because they just don't value them enough to pay for them, which doesn't really move the conversation forward. There's loadsa stuff more important in life than youtube videos so it's unsurprising the conversion rate is low.

In some sense I agree but there is a fundamental difference. I pay for my groceries because I have the fundamental need for sustenance, and that requires land and toil. I have neither and therefore I pay someone else; but for me to survive it is necessary that _someone_ perform that work.

My need for websites is much less predominant and really I could live without. So of course I bounce when mildly interesting websites ask to host cookies on my browser or want me to create an account and enter my card details.

If one considers maximizing utility the goal of economic science, then this is in fact good, as it redirects me to more useful venues like doing chores I'd been putting off instead of mindlessly scrolling online. Some metrics such as GDP however might suffer.

People are willing to pay for things they value. Those people who "refuse to pay money for content" probably go to the cinema, perhaps purchase magazines, purchase drinks with friends, etc.

We should however make it easier to pay for content online; let's implement HTTP 402 and integrate it into the users' browser and internet bill to reduce friction. Who wants to create an account and enter their credit card details to read a single article or watch a single video?

Our culture values the act of buying things for social status (consumerism), and one of the main reasons for that is advertising.

You're assuming people would still have the same amount of money, but for most money is not a given, and people strive to earn money precisely because they want to buy the things they were advertised.

Without the social pressure to acquire things one doesn't need, it's very possible people might simply work less and use that time for other things.

The same could be said with all advertising and surveillance.

No one wants to be advertised to, but powerful lobbies argue that ending ads will lower consumption and thus harm the economy; and no politician wants to lower GDP.

No one wants to be spied on, but powerful lobbies argue tracking people allow better security; and no politician wants to be soft on crime and terrorism.

I disagree with your assessment, the poster is obviously disillusioned but they just detail their point of view. You can't just write off safety violation and toxic environment as "high-intensity work culture". You also just work in your own anti-union discourse without any basis in the actual text.

> The western companies aren't using the business as a strategic tool to destabilise the host country.

What is your source for this claim? Wouldn't companies destabilize the host country to facilitate their own business?

Western companies have been destabilizing local regimes for centuries at this point. Companies in general are a convenient way to mask state power that pays for itself. Many of these companies were established in former colonies as a direct replacement for explicitly colonial resource extraction.

Searching online for examples I find Glencore, TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, Chevron (among others) have all recently engaged in bribery or even supported violent political groups abroad to protect their own interests.

Alcohol concentrations over 20% kill yeast, so adding sugar to distilled spirits will not create more alcohol.

Possibly it's just a one time thing that was limited to just these companies.

Or possibly the incentives that led to this are still in place, and the current judicial climate is way more lenient towards big companies. Who's to say?

What happens when the companies band together to compress wages? Like what happened with the high-tech employee antitrust litigation.

Individual employees are far more numerous (therefore harder to coordinate) and have way shallower pockets than companies, so the negotiation power is always going to be lopsided.

> Well, I imagine more people kill themselves after reading Nietzsche.

Must be nice to base your world view on things you imagine.

Just curious, how are Europeans "milking the US on trade"?

> Group 2 will not fare well in the coming months.

If it's a matter of months then latecomers will be up to speed in months as well, which isn't really that long a time.

> see the unreal crap DOGE unearthed in the US for example

I'm surprised to see DOGE referenced as a source in jul 2025, are the savings from that particularly significant?

Only a fraction is actually accounted for: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4j33klz33o

DOGE staffer says "I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was.": https://www.npr.org/2025/06/02/nx-s1-5417994/former-doge-eng...

> The super-rich don't stay rich by just sitting on their money, they invest it.

The specific issue here is that revenue from capital is taxed less than revenue from labor, thus disproportionally impacting the poor & middle class.

Can you explain how taxing the rich even less will solve this issue?

Alright, but one of the central findings of software engineering of the 80s is that software engineering cannot be driven rigidly, unlike other engineering fields.. Such as railways.

Think about it, rail is an eminently standardized piece of infrastructure that has existed for more than a century and millions of kilometers have been laid out. Don't you think _some_ effort has gone into automating the process and making it predictable?

Here is a (french) example of laying up to 2km of continuously-welded rail a day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o97SB8c7Ezk

You only have to serve those requests if you distribute your changes yourself.

So presumably as a hardware company you'd be offering your hardware with your custom linux installed, and then people wanting to audit or hack the product they bought would request the code from you.

I'm comparing the stated goal of Israel (dehamasification) with denazification.

The allies' strategic bombing campaign was intended to destroy industry and infrastructure and was not aimed at any political group in particular, whereas Israel can and does target precise buildings associated with Hamas (see the "Lavender" program that provides bombing targets).

> That's not even what Israel is doing now

There's no real way to know since Israel does not allow journalists in Gaza, but the international court of justice found there was sufficient possibility that an investigation should be carried out. Are you so much better informed than them that you can be sure?

> You used to word indistinguishable, the other person used "deep". You are factually wrong since the ratio of Hamas to Gazan casualties does not represent random targeting even by the worst estimates.

True, I apologize for the misrepresentation; but reasoning is the same. At some point Hamas is too deeply ingrained in Gazawi society for Israel to perfectly excise it.

Hamas is the civilian government of Gaza and therefore includes firefighters, doctors, policemen, teachers. Israel does count them as members of Hamas and relies on statistical methods to select targets (ie you are on the same WhatsApp group as a member of Hamas, therefore you are likely to be a member, see the "Lavender" target selection program).

For a point of comparison, after Nazi Germany collapsed the Western allies had German civil servants fill questionnaires to assess their level of involvement; of 3.6 millions surveyed, just 1% were charged as "main culprits" (Hauptschuldige), whereas a third were designated as "followers" (Mitläufer), who basically contributed to the regime's crimes but nontheless got to keep their jobs after the war. I'd argue the allies were way too lenient on Germany, but the current Israeli approach (kill them all) is too extreme and will not work because its objectives are unrealistic.

> You also ignore the possibility of Hamas eventually giving up or some other diplomatic solution being reached.

I sure hope peace will be reached but Israel is waging a war without clear conditions of victory, leaving only total destruction of the enemy as their strategic objective. Think of the US trying to eliminate all the communist Vietnamese by compiling kill counts.

My impression is the war will end either when Gaza is drained of all of its population, or Israel tires of the war and reduces its stated objectives (probably this would involve a shift in government).

> We are a highly technical community, we should be able to debug the situation and find edge cases rather than trivialize it.

We can't solve everything with tech principles. Even in our field, probably the biggest thing separating a senior from a junior is humility and ability to connect with other people.

> Guess why they're keeping the Palestinians on a run: to ransack the entire place for weapons caches or Gaza Metro entrances.

Let's say Israel finds all caches and tunnels, while not disturbing the population of Gaza (besides blockade, forced displacement and destruction of their homes), and then lets the population back in. Israel cannot tell Hamas militants from civilians, so some measure of Hamas will survive the event -- indeed, it might even reinforce anti-Israeli sentiment. What then would stop these leftover Hamas members from rebuilding whatever smuggling routes and weapon caches they had?

> Again: it's not about revenge any more, it's about preventing the repeat of 2006-2023 aka constant terror from Qassam rockets and other terrorism.

According to OCHAOPT Israel suffered 138 casualties on its own territory (ie excluding Gaza and the West Bank) from Palestinian attacks from 2008 to the eve of October 7. Would you say the current Israeli response (which itself inflicts terror) has been proportionate? Where would you place the threshold where it would no longer be an acceptable response?

If I follow your logic:

- Israel has to eradicate Hamas as its existence is too much of a threat ("there is no alternative")

- Hamas has embedded itself in the civilian population in Gaza so that they are indistinguishable

- therefore, Israel must eliminate all Gazawis to guarantee its security

So.. Will Israel kill millions to avenge the deaths of thousands?

None of us live in an ideal vacuum and this word has been tainted by its use in nazi ideology. Whomever wrote that has a responsibility to know what the words they use mean.

The combination of symbols is not random either. For example: taken individually, I'm willing to believe we're talking about Kantian Weltanschauung, Nietzschean Übermenschen, Nordic runes, medieval wolfsangel, Roman salute, or east-Asian swastika. But if I notice several at once, I will become quite suspicious.

> compared this to researching on the internet, there are some good aspects, but more often than not, I end up reading an opinionated post by someone (no matter the topic, if you go deep enough, you will land on an opinionated factual telling).

ChatGPT is in fact opinionated, it has numerous political positions ("biases") and holds some subjects taboo. The difference is that a single actor chooses the political opinions of the model that goes on to interact with many more people than a single opinion piece might.