alvvayson @ alvvayson @lemmy.dbzer0.com

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2 yr. ago

Another reason to live in a blue state if you can.

There is nobody more entitled on this planet than the Orange man and his followers.

People really don't understand how much wealth is being siphoned off the middle class.

Our technology is advanced enough that we can provide everyone on the planet a very comfortable life. Basically a European middle class lifestyle, but with less meat and air travel than the average European has today.

The fact that we don't is because of greed.

Yeah, I was wondering how they are going to expel an EU citizen.

Germany, like really WTH is wrong with you.

They use those things when they want the world to know it was them. The number of countries with access to Polonium or Novichok is extremely limited, and both are very easy and obvious to detect in an autopsy.

When they don't want the world to know, they make it look like a suicide or accident, e.g. falling out of windows.

Sure, nice idea. I supported it back in 2008 or so.

But it will never get passed in any functioning democracy.

So better to figure out schemes that most people will actually support.

You are on the right track, but you have to be a bit more strategic.

Here is my proposal to get a LVT-like system with property owners embracing it and with less legal hurdles.

Keep the current system and make the minimal necessary changes.

E.g. if property tax is 0.6%, then make it 1.2% for houses that are vacant for a long period. This right there is a tax on speculation.

For undeveloped, derilict and/or underdeveloped lots, also double the property tax. E.g. if the property is worth less than 50% of the average property per area of land.

Now this extra revenue should flow directly to home owners and affordable housing.

For owner-occupied housing, make property tax up to half the average property tax deductible. E.g. if the average property tax is 6K, then two adults owning a home together with an 8K bill could deduct 6K from their tax.

For affordable rent, if the house is occupied, then half the property tax is given to the tenants.

All these figures are illustrative. Exact figures should be determined by good analysis.

Such a scheme would easily enjoy popular support and fix the housing crisis.

And it would kinda approximate the LVT, in the sense that it also provides similar corrections to the housing market that a LVT would have.

You could have made this same analysis in 2000 and it would be equally valid.

Yes, the business world is willing to pay big bucks to reduce labour costs and that business case is solid.

But we already see that success is not determined by the size of the model, but by the data and providing and processing that data in a smart way to the AI. And the companies that are successful in this area are model agnostic. They can, and will, switch to cheaper to run models that are good enough for their purposes.

So the dogma that whoever has the biggest model wins, just doesn't apply. AI is already hitting diminishing returns.

Once the investment money pumping the hype is gone, there will be a glut of capacity and a heavy price competition, which will drive down margins.

I will say that Israel is many times more evil than Hamas.

But Hamas definitely is evil, too.

They torture and kill Palestinians to maintain power. They had even smuggled a Yezidi slave girl into Gaza.

Of course, I do understand that they are resisting oppression. And that is justified. And I also know that a lot of the propaganda against them is false, such as the beheaded babies thing.

But there are enough credible reports of them doing really shady stuff.

And China basically has a monopoly on Siberia with the current arrangements.

Officially, yes.

Orban is just being Orban.

But Poland said they wouldn't arrest him either and the new German chancellor also said the same.

It's only genocide if you starve white kids.

Not in the US, but it would make more sense to spread it out over multiple years to avoid the tax.

I agree. Almost no one is pro-Hamas. They are definitely evil.

Still, doesn't justify starving kids, bombing kids and withholding medicine which forces doctors to amputate kids without anaesthesia.

Genocide is not just about numbers. If the Bosnian genocide qualifies as a genocide, then Gaza definitely qualifies too.

In my view, the Gaza genocide is also worse than the Holocaust in many respects. For one, most Germans didn't know about, or support, genocide, nor did the Nazi's have any kind of democratic mandate.

Whereas in the US and Israel, this is the first time a democracy is committing genocide with popular support.

By all accounts, China isn't killing Uyghurs, but re-educating them.

The Uyghur genocide is better described as a cultural genocide, not a real genocide.

It is still awful, still bad. But it doesn't involve large scale murder and it doesn't meet the criteria used to qualify as a legal genocide.

In contrast, the Gaza genocide is definitely a genocide, as was the trail of tears.

You don't 'need' Russia, but it's mutually beneficial to have them on your side.

Why would Russia risk alienating China?

In realpolitik, China is the more desirable partner than the USA.

To know how exactly it works, we'd need to know details that aren't public.

But just speculating, if the creditors value the combined xAI+X higher than just X, then there is room to transfer the loan to the new company and away from Tesla.

But whatever the details are, Elon isn't an idiot when it comes to money. He definitely has advisors who cooked up the optimal way to profit from the AI hype.

And the essence of that is that Tesla shareholders will be left holding the bag, while Elon utiizes X/xAI to capitalize on the hype.

Also, the tradition is the exact opposite as I understand.

In Finland they like to be alone and be left alone, so you don't just intrude on someone if they are in self-isolation.

I have only seen them online. I figure they are trolls or bots.

But I do think that China has a better human rights record than the US and Israel.

They are still evil in how they treat Uyghurs, Tibetans and democracy activists. They definitely use torture on dissidents.

But it's not that difficult to be better than slavery, genocide, war and colonialism. And the US and Israel also use torture.

So maybe I am the tankie that OP refers to.