defertoreptar
Joined 9 years ago
Joined 9 years ago
Society does not "work better when gatekeepers decide what the truth is." That's especially the case when the "truth" is political, and people have ideological incentives to report what they see as the truth in a certain light. Instead, society works better when individuals are free to look at the evidence and think about it for themselves. This is because in this case, you're treating the members of that society with human dignity.
I don't think this has to do with why Twitter banned Trump.
> Iran’s leader has repeatedly shared tweets calling Israel a “deadly, cancerous growth” to be “uprooted and destroyed” — all going unchecked by Twitter.
> “The long-lasting virus of Zionism will be uprooted thanks to the determination and faith of the youth,” Khamenei wrote as recently as May.
That's from an article talking about how Twitter defends allowing Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a platform https://nypost.com/2020/07/29/twitter-defends-blocking-trump...
Clearly Twitter is ok with this kind of political speech, and even defends it.
No one said that. We can criticize companies for censorship with or without wanting government intervention.
It sounds like you're referring to the "maximum tax rate on long term gains." As I stated, I used the "effective capital gains tax rate," which is the average rate that is being taxed (long term cap gains tax is different than short term).
The periods aren't "cherry-picked." If you'd actually look at the plotted effective capital gains rate, you'd see a clear difference in tax policy in those three periods.
The "fuzzy subjective descriptors" are totally in line with the parent poster's: "long term tax policy."
Let's analyze three periods:
1953-1985: no significant trend in effective capital gains tax
1985-1996: upward trend and higher capital gains tax
1996-2020: downward trend
Now let's compare those periods to real median family income (which tracks to 1953). https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEFAINUSA672N
Annualized growth in real median income:
1953-1985: 1.8%
1985-1996: 0.8%
1996-2020: 2.0%
Real median income growth during lower capital gains tax policy was twice that of the period of higher capital gains tax policy.
Real median personal income went up almost 8% from the year before the tax cuts (2017) and 2019.
Regardless of the intentions of the one making the threat, if the threatened person knew with 100% certainty there was no real danger, then they would not feel fear. For example, if we receive an anonymous threat and then we learn that the person who made it was a 3rd grader on another continent. If we feel fear after receiving some seemingly empty threat, then it's because at least subconsciously we believe there is now some non-zero chance of facing danger.
My point was that it's not hypocritical for him to be upset about receiving online threats. It's the fact that people are making threats that's scary, not whether or not moderators are removing them.