This might be educational: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/Optional.html

There are issues that the Optional class alleviates that are common enough to be documented: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/inspectopedia/ConditionalCanBeOptional.html (more detail is available at places like https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/blob/a2d32ec64ed0fb37c7cc97856aa94cce95b17ee5/java/java-impl/src/inspectionDescriptions/ConditionalCanBeOptional.html (I believe this information used to be visible with the "inspectopedia" URLs but I don't see that today))

On the other hand, it seems there are some features / situations that require null to be present: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Operators/Optional_chaining https://www.jetbrains.com/help/inspectopedia/OptionalToIf.html

I'd be surprised if someone born around or after 1995 would actually have to know this

Only 3.7 percent of CarMax sales nationwide are for manual cars

(YOU ARE AN ANCIENT TRADITION!) (YOU ARE AN ANCIENT GOD!)

@theminutehour

How do things work? I provided my perspective, partly so that I could refer to it later, so it would be enlightening to learn about yours.

I think the tax system in the USA is designed to reward people who form corporations and then get people employed. People who are employed don't have as much time to work on reforming institutions, so giving a tax break for employing people makes powerful people's lives easier. In order to keep this process revenue neutral, earned income is taxed instead of taxing business as much. After extracting money from people's labor (since labor is clearly necessary in order to create wealth), the remainder of budget needs is made up from whatever resources are easily available (which is currently the assets of rich people, since they have been given a lot of money to get people employed).

I've been told Hungary does, though I haven't heard much about it until recently: https://www.uscisguide.com/dual-citizenship/u-s-dual-citizenship-and-taxes-with-hungary/

I've also been told South Africa and Eritrea do, and I wouldn't be surprised if places like North Korea and Turkmenistan do too.

Somehow Hungary gets a score of 30/50 for taxation for 2024 from https://nomadcapitalist.com/nomad-passport-index/ (United States and South Africa and Eritrea get 10, North Korea and Turkmenistan get 20) but I'd be suspicious of anywhere with a lower rating than 30.

Wealth tax does not block economic growth, rather the opposite, because it forces wealth to be reinvested to not lose too much value.

Do you have a source for this? I see that "wealth taxes have failed in Europe", and it seems that places with a wealth tax were mostly in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264290303-4-en

One example that caught my attention is Belgium, which introduced an "annual tax on securities accounts", which suggests that they were taxing resources that were invested already.

I can imagine that it's possible for government spending to produce more economic growth than would have happened without taxation, but the entire point of money is to have a multitude of people working towards prosperity in ways that can't be predicted by state authorities, so if there are more taxes it seems likely that economic growth will be reduced.

Of course, an analysis would have to account for things like using resources from a wealth tax to make cheap/free healthcare available, which might then make people vastly more productive such that any negative effects of a wealth tax are neutralized. Also, providing an obviously higher quality of life might be worth some cost.

You clearly need a lesson in proportional taxation if you think people would have their personal property appropriated.

Is a car or shirt or house personal property? It seems things like that are seized in response to people not paying revenue services: https://home.treasury.gov/services/treasury-auctions https://www.treasury.gov/auctions/treasury/gp/index.html https://www.cwsmarketing.com/?p=36139 https://auctions.cwsmarketing.com/auctions/1-9DDP42/gp-dayton-nj-live-wsimulcast-august-21 https://auctions.cwsmarketing.com/lots/view/1-9DE12Y/wearing-apparel-riverside-ca

I do see that items had bids much higher than I'd expect, and they were being auctioned at the same time watches and jewellery and electric motorcycles and trailers, so I suspect any clothing was "luxury" in some way, or the auction was for more clothing than is documented with pictures.

I do not give a fuck about you placing your dignity in ownership of material assets, that is a you problem.

I reference "dignity" because it's part of "the unshakeable foundation of the Republic of Poland", and thinking about dignity seems like a good way to tell if something is a bad idea, and I probably wouldn't feel like I had more dignity than 1 month ago if I was having my car or house seized because I hadn't paid as much taxes as a revenue service thought I should. I expect that you will have more trouble implementing policies you like if you express that you're disregarding dignity.

The top 10% pay less income taxes as a fraction of their income than the bottom 10%.

I expect that this is true.

Really, we should remove the capitalist class because they will fight back to the detriment of everyone else.

I'm certainly for social change, and people with entrenched interests will probably try to hamper it. However, other people might not want to cooperate with you if you remind them of the Soviet Union, and I expect that saying "we should remove the capitalist class" will do that.

I do not give a fuck about the IRS. I am not an American. My country actually has a wealth tax.

If you don't care about the IRS, why are you talking about a wealth tax using English? I suspect that that the majority of people who speak English as well as you do are U.S. citizens, so I'd assume you were interested in speaking to U.S. citizens. Are you trying to talk to people in Europe / worldwide in a common language?

Who is the target audience for your messages? I'm interested in where/how you're focusing your efforts.

You are repeating misinformation and capitalist propaganda with little understanding of what you are saying. Have you even reflected on what “the economy” really is? If you are a trickle-down Reaganomics-follower, you might want to get your brain checked.

What misinformation am I repeating? I wouldn't have written a statement that I don't think is true, so I suggest you point out anything you think is incorrect and explain your perspective, and maybe share a URL for some more interesting sources.

Note: I originally pressed "Reply" too early by mistake, so I edited this text. Originally I had only written "Is a car or shirt or house personal property?" and one URL.

ICANN approves use of .internal domain for your network

FYI, I think that focusing on proportional representation electoral reform is the best way to increase respect to the inherent dignity of the person, and that to "choose a defining fight" is better than trying to focus on more than one thing.

I happen to be interested in tax policy, but I would prefer for the electoral system to improve before tax policies change.

See also !fairvote@lemmy.ca / https://sh.itjust.works/comment/12708609

I would probably be most upset if a program had its license changed to be "permissive" like the Expat License. I might accept making a reasonable number of contracts to provide a "proprietary" license that doesn't give any new person (or corporation) permission to distribute software, but a "permissive" license allows people to work against the Free Software Movement without any oversight.

That being said, I don't think I would be satisfied if a contract specified that "an OSI license" will be used: I would prefer for a specific license to be used rather than just one of a class of licenses. However, if an appropriate license is already being used, I wouldn't have to sign anything to protect myself!

In general, I'm probably against changing the license of any software: changing a license seems like a lot of work that can probably be better spent elsewhere, and I consider it to be unlikely that any GPL license will need to have a new version anytime soon (they might, and the v3 versions are clearly better to use than any preexisting version, but they might also change for the worse if the FSF changes for the worse), and the GNU AGPLv3 clearly reflects the present state of the art of licensing (so using any other license that is compatible with it would strike me as strange). If I actually had a reason to study any source code that wasn't available with the GNU AGPLv3 or the GNU GPLv3, I would probably be better off studying the requirements of people who use that software and making my own version with a license I prefer: that way I'd provide more certainty that my changes are available with an appropriate license.

Changing the license of existing projects is clearly useful sometimes, but adapting proprietary programs for use with more open systems hasn't been very useful to me so far. For example, I use LibreOffice rather than trying to get Microsoft Word to work with my computer.

There might be some people who argue that any influence of a GPL license will make their business model less profitable, but if that's the case we're already dealing with business, so I might as well receive my fair share of money and influence from the business (or withhold my participation entirely, if that would be less harmful).

Just to be clear, I'd avoid studying source code only available with the GNU Lesser GPL unless things change.

FYI, I’m discussing "studying" instead of "changing", since avoiding even looking at source code of questionable provenance might help protect me from accusations of plagiarism. If someone exploits a computer system to copy source code without permission and shares it with me, and then I make a similar program, the copyright holders whose program I copied might have a justified reason to complain. However, there is less chance of that if I study people's public messages or even compare the behavior of one program to another, and if I don't study a program, I probably can’t change it either.

I'll note that, despite what I've written,

• I don't actually scrutinize licenses of repositories very much: if I come up with a useful patch, I'm inclined to share it even if it's unclear what license will be used with it. However, I do scrutinize the license of programs I install (for example, I like that yast2 lets you see the license of packages before installing them), so I'm more likely to want to contribute to programs that are compatible with a GPL license.
• I have submitted a patch with text like "By submitting this I give permission to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of this contribution to any person obtaining a copy of this software" that was provided as a template.
• I wouldn't complain much if someone got paid $1,000,000 to distribute some software with the Expat License, since I can't fault them for taking care of themselves.

FYI, "nominal consideration" is very likely sufficient to establish a contract ("contracts in the United States have sometimes have had one party pass nominal amounts of consideration, typically citing $1"), and a contract is probably hard to neutralize in general due to things like mutual drafting clauses and savings clauses.

Wealth Tax

I am against any wealth tax. The revenue services for many governments are very focused on not blocking economic growth, and then periodically taking a reasonable amount of wealth.

In the end, only wealth can be taxed (things that aren't physical can't be seized and auctioned). However, I don't want to be forced to let someone into my house to calculate how much stuff I have.

In general, I think it’s more reasonable to monitor wealth moving (and more so if wealth moves between people) rather than to force people to cooperate with monitoring wealth staying in the same place. I don’t want someone checking up on whether I own the same stock certificates or gold bars each year; that seems like an insult to my dignity.

Enforcement Complications

Distribution

The top 10% as a whole pays 71.22%, while the bottom 50% of taxpayers account for only 2.89% of all income taxes.

I don't think that focusing on people who already pay a disproportionate amount of tax will be very helpful. Rapidly changing what is taxed (wealth vs income) would probably be harmful, as people will probably have trouble adapting to significantly different policies. For example, we'd probably hear about people who happen to have inherited expensive houses being unable to pay thousands of dollars for tax bills, after thinking that they wouldn't be affected by policy changes.

Avoidance

If there was a wealth tax and I was rich enough to spend a lot of time managing my money, I would just create a "charitable organization" that I and my family completely control, then have it pay people to do things I would want them to do anyway, and maybe even try to let the charity pay a high wage to its managers (such that I could be a manager and get the charity to pay for my yearly living expenses, directly or indirectly). I also might be able to get away with using a trust or charitable remainder trust to avoid being affected by a wealth tax.

I don't know the degree to which tax exempt organizations affect my life, but I do know that trusts have a relevant affect on my life, since they are often used to own land, specifically by landlords of housing and by people who own land that is worth a lot of money. How they are dealt with would probably have to significantly change in order to accommodate a wealth tax.

Inheritance Tax

I'm not sure I'm against inheritance tax, but it might be an unnecessary complication. Treating inheritance like a gift from one person to another at the moment of their death might make things easier for everyone. The policies regarding gifts are relatively clear: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/gift-tax https://www.irs.gov/faqs/capital-gains-losses-and-sale-of-home/property-basis-sale-of-home-etc/property-basis-sale-of-home-etc

However, having separate inheritance law might also make things less painful for some people. If my assets suddenly gained or lost a large amount of value just before I died, I wouldn't want that to justify taking more wealth from my heirs. Having a special way to value assets gained due to someone dying might be more reasonable than treating each receipt as a gift.

Maybe a more appropriate practice is to only engage with a Contributor License Agreement if the repository one contributes to is already available with the GNU AGPL or one is actually in control of some money the person one contracts with will gain due to one's changes. For example:

• Before I contribute to a project, I should make a copy of as many relevant repositories I'm able to and ensure each one is easy to redistribute, and only make changes to my copies. That way, I can continue distributing the improved software if a person I engage in a CLA with does something I don't like later, but they are still able to apply any change of mine to a repository that gets more attention (thus helping more people). Also, I might get money (as an employee) for doing this, which would prevent that money from being used against the Free Software Movement.
• If I were a board member, manager, or employee and someone engaged in a CLA with an entity I have influence over, I have a good chance to direct more money to support the Free Software Movement (or block dealing with a person where doing so would be harmful).

If I have already fixed a software issue, made it clear what license should be used with my change, and made it available to the public, I wouldn't necessarily be against engaging in a CLA (though I might ask to be paid to do so since I wouldn't normally go out of my way to manually sign things, and I do value my time).

FYI I can navigate to https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/why-microsoft-is-a-good-steward-for-github/ from https://drewdevault.com/2018/10/05/Dont-sign-a-CLA.html (using https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/gpl-as-the-best-licence-governance-and-philosophy/ for an intermediary step), so I'm a little suspicious about the author's thoughts on these matters. I also didn't find any useful information about the GNU Affero General Public License from the same author, and I consider the GNU AGPL to be important based on https://ploum.net/2024-07-01-opensource_sustainability.html and https://lemmy.world/post/16602135

It seems there was a pre-existing agreement to use the GNU GPL with Forgejo, and it seems to me that the GNU AGPL is not compatible with the GNU GPL.

There is more discussion about that around https://codeberg.org/forgejo/discussions/issues/201

I'm assuming that there has been some resistance to using the GNU AGPL with Forgejo (it seems the discussions about licenses has been contentious), and the GNU GPL seems to have been discussed much more than the GNU AGPL. It was probably overwhelmingly likely that we would get Forgejo with the GNU GPL rather than the GNU AGPL. I would have preferred that the GNU AGPL was used instead, but I'm not going to worry about it much since I probably can't change this situation for the better.

This URL might help you (I see it linked from the URL of this post): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

If it doesn't, I suggest looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Be_bold

https://giveupgithub.org/

https://giveupgithub.org/

*(char*)0 = 0; - What Does the C++ Programmer Intend With This Code? - JF Bastien - C++ on Sea 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFIqNZ8VbRY

This helped me: https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/what-should-you-eat/

An overarching question

You should probably discuss boundary setting with someone you trust. This situation might be only one part of a broader issue with your relationship with your parents, and you can probably make that relationship more beneficial and less detrimental.

Moving out

Once you are legally and financially able to, you could move out (or take action to improve your financial situation to make it more likely you'll be able to do so in the future). Distance can allow a relationship to change to your benefit. It seems that the majority of adults in the wealthiest countries don't live with their parents: http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5908feb9fcd8eb1e008b4681-1200/young-adults-living-at-home.png https://64.media.tumblr.com/42facc68776260a335473a2553bb7f59/410ac9df6d9c28a0-9f/s1280x1920/8be58d13087dc686c9edcab713f63fc4c538e99a.jpg

The law

Note that, unless you have another reason to not want to be around your parents, I doubt that involving a state institution (like child protective services, a police department, a prosecutor's office) in your relationship with your parents will be helpful. Knowing relevant laws is more useful to better understand what is socially accepted behavior, and to be able to know what public institutions are available to help you if you find yourself in a situation where they're likely to be helpful.

Also, consider whether it's appropriate to tell other people you know about this situation. If you do choose to discuss this with other people, I would follow an escalation procedure so that information doesn't need to spread farther than necessary (for example, tell friends first, then if you don't see improvement tell adults that live near you, then if you don't see improvement tell adults in positions of responsibility (like teachers), and so on).

Privacy

You could inform your parents that state institutions might become involved if they cause you to be recorded while in your bedroom without your consent:

in many places, it is indeed illegal to put cameras in your child's room without their knowledge or consent.

property owners face some limitations when attempting to install cameras throughout a rental property. All cameras must be visible; hidden or spy cameras are not permissible in a tenant’s residence. Similarly, CCTV cameras are forbidden in bathrooms, bedrooms, toilets, and other private areas throughout a rented unit.

These quotes are discussing cameras, but I expect the same laws and principles apply to audio recordings.

If you receive mail to an address and are an adult, I expect you have rights similar to that of a tenant.

Money

It seems your parents cannot force you to buy anything, and surely not an amazon echo. They may have a right to receive money you gained as a compensation for services (as wages) during minority for some reason, but otherwise what is yours is yours, and your parents should only use what is yours in order to promote your interests (like your health, security, and so on), and probably they should only do that when it's necessary (in situations where there is a clear and urgent need).

You may want to ensure you have deposited any money you have acquired into a bank account you own (so there is a record of how long you had it, so it would be more questionable if they tried to claim it isn't yours). It might also be useful to use a separate bank account to receive and account for wages (since it seems there are special exceptions for wages, so keeping clear records of what money is wages and what is not might be useful), and it might be useful to have a UTMA custodial account (like one described at https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/personal-finance/custodial-account-for-kids) (to enable making it even more clear what property has been transferred to you) (note that this does allow a custodian to use the property, but only for your benefit) (note you probably can't "transfer" money to yourself, so any money you already acquired should probably be managed without using a UTMA or UGMA account).

https://archive.is/OX7Y3

https://jakeukalane.github.io/archiving.html