thr_w

I don't mind spitballing a bit here.

I'm definitely left-leaning economically. I also am very much in favor of giving developing nations a chance at competing with our economy.

However, I would go more or less the opposite direction of what you're suggesting. I support allowing American companies to produce jobs on foreign shores _provided those companies follow American labor laws_. I'm in favor of pro-labor regulation and I'm also in favor of free international trade, but not where the latter is at the expense of the former. A totally free world market would circumvent our protections at home.

All this to say, I wouldn't really call what you're suggesting a benefit by any view.

Agreed. This avoids the common argument against socialism removing incentives to success, while still providing social safety nets. Allow people to succeed, but when they do, tax them and regulate them to benefit the less fortunate members of society. The rich got rich in part because of the protections and services afforded them by our modern society. In having reaped a greater share of benefit, why should they not contribute a greater share of taxes?

There is a stark difference between socialism rooted in the above idea and socialism rooted in jealousy and vindictiveness toward the wealthy just because they're wealthy. We're not trying to punish the wealthy and we can still allow them to be very wealthy. But as the US currently stands, the wealthy could contribute much more while still having far greater quality of life than almost everyone else.

Yes, a very strange argument. The GP seemed to be calling for making US AI research less efficient because it's the sporting thing to do?

I'm not just throwing stones here. I'd welcome some clarification from GP.

Not a huge disagreement here, but I think Facebook is completely trivial to avoid, while Amazon is much less so.

I couldn't care less about Facebook. Yet, while I certainly could live without Amazon (or Whole Foods), their service is very nice and WF has things I can't buy at other grocery stores around me.

Is breaking them up really a priority? What benefit would that have that we couldn't achieve via properly taxing and regulating them in the first place?