i’d like to be a labor leader, but i’m not (yet). Yet here’s my opinion:
Knowledge was meant to be free since the beginning. I look at ideas as human-cultivated, carefully cultured viruses. They’re packages of information that live within a host.
They’re a lot less aggressive than their feral counterparts, but they’re still individual beings who want to spread. Holding back knowledge is unnatural, and the internet should be free.
Water dissociates in the presence of electrical voltage into hydrogen and oxygen, and that makes it somewhat conductive (due to ionisation).
The bigger problem however is corrosion. Said oxygen causes corrosion.
the onion can not keep up with this, because fiction has to be believable, unlike reality ;-)
No shit sherlock.
But the decline in real (inflation-adjusted) wages is a broader phenomenon and not constrained to gig-works, and that’s what deserves attention.
Background:
For years, inflation has been under-reported. Inflation should be measured mostly based on food-items, as the production methods don’t change over time in these areas, so prices there (inflation-adjusted) should stay constant. But if you look at official inflation rates, they are much lower (approx. 1% annually). Since wages barely keep up with official inflation, they fall behind on “food”-inflation. And that principle is basically at the core of the current “cost-of-living”-crisis.
The basic issue is that wages are dropping because progress is ending. Progress creates demand for human labor, and that keeps wages up. Since progress worldwide is slowing down, that depresses wages. That’s why we need fundamental reform, or revolution.
Or we need to find new progress. I’m all for mars settlement btw, just that many people here can’t imagine it happening (yet). But we’ll see.
to not have to balance priorities between getting a good tip and following restaurant policies.
Can you explain more? Like, why is it an either-or-situation?
It’s all about how far you look into the future.
If you look into the future by 20 years, then yes, not tipping is the best way to improve the average wages of servers, and in fact the wages would probably rise to match exactly the loss in tippings.
But if you look at only the next 3 months, wages might not rise quickly enough to compensate the losses through tipping, and that puts servers in a (temporary) hardship.
So, it’s all about whether you’re far-sighted or short-sighted.
I understand your point, and i totally understand the hatred of capitalism, because it is a cruel system.
Just let me put things into context, though:
Capitalism isn’t the fundamental origin of the difficulties of our time. The difficulties have already existed earlier. There were the romans who waged war against basically the rest of the world, putting many people in hardship, and then there were the English in the 18th century who developed the modern version of capitalism.
In the roman system, it was all about power. You conquer some other country to get its resources, and you use these resources for personal gains. So it was direct personal greed.
The english refined the system in the way that they said, “alright, people are fundamentally greedy, but at least let’s try to put that to good use. let’s use the destructive power as positively as possible”. And then they went and designed a system where companies that are more fit to provide attractive products to others gain power; As such, greedy assholes have an incentive to provide something to others, even if it’s ultimately to their own gains.
I understand it’s a small positive in an overwhelming crushing wave of greed and sociopathy; i just wanted to explain the background of modern-day capitalism and the origin of “companies” the way we know them today.
change is meaningless without prior analysis.
well yeah, that’s why donations don’t work either, somehow. consider:
if you’re the person always donating to charity, and nobody else does, you’re essentially providing the community service that should be provided by the community taxes. instead, you pay it all yourself. that’s why taxes have to be enforced by the community: the first one to donate suffers a disadvantage, but if a general rule says everybody must pay taxes/donate at the same time, nobody loses.
Efficiency standards are a two-sided thing:
Now, the engineering complexity requires able engineers to design and build the machine, which creates a stronger demand for engineers. That would be good for blue-collar workers.
My idea is to implement a wealth tax rate of 3% on everything above an exempt amount of $10 million, that is to be paid annually.
This way, there is no hard limit. You can have more money without going to jail, but you have to help the community.
The rule would work something like this:
this procedure is to be repeated annually
to prevent people from giving up their US citizenship and taking on the citizenship of some other country, which may not have a wealth tax, there needs to be a way to make sure the US citizenship remains attractive to people. for example, if you do not have US citizenship, you’re not allowed to possess more than $10 million in total wealth inside the US, i.e. in real estate, company shares and bank accounts.
I think “personhood” refers to the ability to sign contracts though. It has nothing to do with voting.
The problem is with humanity giving up control to machines.
I mean, humanity (especially in the West) has already given up large amounts of power to corporate CEOs, which can be modelled as soulless machines well enough, but installing AI would take it even one step further.
“personhood” by the law only refers to the ability to sign contracts.
companies and states already have that.
what you’re talking about is a “natural person”.
I’ll have you informed that Switzerland already has a wealth tax (0.5% annually) and they manage to assess total wealth somehow.
Link:
https://karpeo.ch/en/wealth-tax-switzerland-rate-canton/
It even specifically talks about the case of paintings.
it’s worth a try, and better than doing nothing.
10 million total wealth
sounds reasonable IMO
dude, solar energy is literally the cheapest form of energy right now. there is a real monetary incentive.