davvolun

That depends on the structure.

There are no 1st Amendment issues with Amber Alerts or weather alerts pushed to my phone, for example. But if CNN or Fox News are allowed to post to this proposed service, now we've got a different animal.

And, if I may, I think the point is that is all well and good, but for reliability's sake, a publicly, not privately, controlled alternative to any of the above (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, etc.) should be carefully considered. Mastodon is perfectly set up to be a valuable ADDITIONAL option for local governments using Twitter -- that doesn't mean "stop posting to Twitter," it means "also post to Mastodon" and be certain that, whatever shortcomings that may have, it's not entirely susceptible to the whims of a billionaire. Similarly, are Facebook posts by local government failing to reach users because of some change Zuck made to The Algorithm? Maybe we need to start looking into effective alternatives. If not, then we don't.

> Governments should earn their taxes the same as a person should earn their income

So you're coming from the perspective that individual minimum wage is wrong, and applying that assumption everywhere. Thanks, but I absolutely disagree. I don't see a reason to discuss further when we're so far apart on our base assumptions of reality.

> This becomes a minimum wage for nations

Why is that a problem?

> removes the incentive to compete to be the home of corporate headquarters

No, it shifts the means of incentives. It's no longer a race to the bottom tax rate.

As I understand it, the problem with a border adjustment tax is implementation overhead; it would be expensive to audit. Noting that the IRS in the U.S. is not funded enough to investigate tax fraud as it is, this seems to be a major problem. You would also likely need foreign cooperation. There's no reason to believe a corporation headquartered in the U.S. needs to be truthful about their foreign revenue, and how would you know if they were without a foreign government's assistance.

The problem with implementing a world-wide minimum tax rate is organization, getting all countries to agree and stand by it. This is something the world has been engaged in doing for around 100 years now. We've had failures (League of Nations) and successes. There's no guarantee of success, but importantly, tax havens can be isolated if 130+ countries agree to do so, until they follow suit.

Basically, even if global minimum tax is not the optimal solution (which remains to be shown), it's better to have a sub-optimal solution that can be implemented than an optimal solution that's impossible.

Exactly, pensions were considerably more common in the 1960s also, but at the end of the day, I don't really care if my retirement is actually funded by a pension or a 401k or by stuffing dollar bills under my mattress, I want to know when I can retire and how comfortably I can live when I retire.

Yes, getting into the weeds is valuable, but here we're talking about the money in your bank at the end of the day, and that CEO salaries haven't changed much doesn't say anything.

Yes, a CEO should be making more money than the average employee. The debate is over how much -- why do CEOs get absolutely massive bonuses and golden parachutes and stock options and for employees it's expected that you put in the work in the hope of future recompense in terms of bonuses, promotions, etc.

As is nearly always the case with these types of conspiracy theories, never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

More charitably, you can explain most of these actions (maybe excepting Robinhood's actions) by the mods of these platforms and locations being roughly as surprised by things as Melvin Capital.

Right, wrong, or whatever, welcome to America.

What, today, is stopping a billionaire from parking nearly anywhere they like and then just paying the fine, over and over? Or, beyond that, the quality of civil or criminal defense you can expect to receive is directly correlated to how much you're willing to pay.

That's kind of the thing though.

> Signer agrees to become contract murderer unless pre-empted by local laws and regulations.

I'm over-exaggerating, and I get the value when it's prohibitively expensive to write a TOS when it's essentially impossible to pre-emptively vet the legality of all possible clauses internationally as laws constantly change. But if the clause I wrote is technically valid, then what's the point? Just write a short phrase saying "We're going to do whatever we like, unless it's prohibited by law. Accept? Y/N"

You're arguing "slippery slope."

The answer to any slippery slope argument, when asked "when does it stop" is to just choose a point to stop.

(And in the case of a representative Democracy like the U.S., the choice mechanism is well documented if imperfect)

You seriously don't think "we should decrease the number of people born with Down Syndrome" is a morally defensible position either?

I don't think "we should decrease the number of people born homosexual" is a morally defensible position, but decreasing incidence of Down Syndrome, or autism, or Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, are absolutely morally defensible positions, and in fact, are regularly done -- people everywhere socially discourage pregnant mothers from drinking alcohol, for example, and I don't think the discouraging third-parties are the ones who are in the wrong in that situation.

I think having a child AT ALL, regardless of any other concerns, is an individual decision that should be made by mature, capable adults. I don't think it's necessarily a "morally defensible position" to have a third kid when you're struggling to take care of the previous two just because you belong to a religion that thinks prophylactics are immoral, and I would never, for example, judge a potential parent who decided to terminate a pregnancy because they were told it is unlikely their child will be born alive, and even if it is, would be unlikely to live for long.

Unless you have better evidence than Keith Olbermann to back your statement, I think we're done here. I'm not going to go back and forth about Twitter followers as a valid metric for gauging public opinion on genocide...

"not allowed to exist at all" doesn't mean what you seem to think it does. Nothing you have said bears any more discussion.

Keith Olbermann, currently hosting on the mainstream news channel of YouTube (/s) after being evicted from actual mainstream news, is the opposite of strong evidence. Further:

> "The hate he has triggered, the Pandora’s box he has opened, they will not be so easily destroyed,” he said. “So, let us brace ourselves. The task is twofold: the terrorist Trump must be defeated, must be destroyed, must be devoured at the ballot box, and then he, and his enablers, and his supporters, and his collaborators, and the Mike Lees and the William Barrs, and the Sean Hannitys, and the Mike Pences, and the Rudy Gullianis and the Kyle Rittenhouses and the Amy Coney Barretts must be prosecuted and convicted and removed from our society while we try to rebuild it and to rebuild the world Trump has nearly destroyed by turning it over to a virus."

The implication "should not be allowed to exist" is very different from "prosecuted and convicted and removed from our society." So even taking a marginalized voice talking from his YouTube channel, arguing that the left believes the right "should not be allowed to exist" is a ridiculous stretch.

You need to read more than just the headlines.