Interestingly the paper they cite for more-constitutional alternatives to a wealth tax actually includes a wealth tax in its suite of options and argues in favor of the constitutionality of a wealth tax (p 25)
E: I should add it disagrees with the central argument that this would be a “direct tax” and mentions ways the wealth tax could itself be structured to give the Supreme Court less of a leg to stand on. Personally I’d rather run a candidate that would even bring this fight in the first place. Maybe if it’s on the news then the >99% of viewers will realize that the <1% are able to beat them down easily in any legal fight imaginable despite their incredible small numbers and harmful distribution preferences.
It's 2019 and we're all posters now. Even the leader of the free world is involved with the kind of online disputes that internet addicts were having in the 2000s on vBulletin sites. Congress has had hearing from people mad that their posts weren't getting enough traction. It's hilarious but I'm no longer surprised when I find out someone famous is as 'online' as me now.
So bees are important, quick google search reveal the bee is important for pollination. So can't one of the solution be find alternative way for pollination. Maybe even robotic bees? With the advancement of robotic technology, its not far fetched to think that this is possible right ?
Mankind will adapt to some extent and develop alternatives, e.g. hand pollination already happens in some cases now afaik.
There is even an entire group of technology optimists that e.g. think we might be able to break ground on another planet before the effects of us handling earth are realized.
In my opinion however, it will be tremendously hard to find working alternatives at the scale of feeding 8 billion people, across the entire world.
I also expect that the effects will cause issues faster than we can adapt. As such it would be much better to prevent the issue as much as possible than to try and find working alternatives under time pressure.
Once the effects start showing themselves and shortages become a reality, we will start seeing climate refugees, climate wars, etc etc.
But maybe we will succeed, maybe only 7.5 billion people die off and the rest can live another day up until the next mass extinction event.
Unfortunately there is no other method to bee pollination which can operate at the same scales or the same price.
It's like talking about alternatives to soil: There are alternatives to soil, but you can't just quickly replace all of the Earth's vast food producing farms with a technology alternative without serious consequences, and if soil stopped working overnight, billions of people would die.
Bees aren't disappearing overnight, but they are disappearing worryingly quickly. If it carries on, losing bees is a very serious issue for our food supply.
Well, without being funny and I'm sorry for the implied insult but I just don't know any other way to really put this, however bees (and other insects) being pollinators is something generally learned by the end of primary school, at least round where I grew up. Having to google that information is a massive red flag.
edit - please don't let this dissuade you from googling information on basic subjects. But also be aware that if you find yourself doing so, then you know very little on the subject and cannot at all rely on intuition.
Thats the question, its seem that the difficulty and cost of keeping bee alive is higher and higher, compare to inventing mechanical bee or using alternative method.
Well seeing as he talked extensively about Omar Mateen after that attack... yes. And the Canada Mosque shooter was a fan. And his quote about Muslims deserving to having their land occupied because they're uncivilized... and claiming during the run-up to the Iraq war that anti-war journalists should be tried for treason... I can go on.
I need to start collecting a list to turn this into a proper Thing but I feel like whenever there's a way to use technology for evil there's a Tel Aviv startup that cranks it to 11.
Seems highly unlikely to ever work, but why assume the technology is evil? If you could create a system that had a high accuracy of detecting terrorists, then that would be a good system, not an evil one.
I get your point that a system that claims to detect terrorists but only really detected Arabic people would be an evil one - but you're automatically calling the terrorist system evil without knowing if it really does detect terrorists or not.
As an extra hypothetical question, do you feel a system that could detect people who were really just about to commit terrorist attacks as good or evil? At a conceptual level, assume the system somehow scanned brain waves or some other truly difficult method.
Occam's razor. They are not 'scanning brain waves or some truly difficult method'. Not in this reality. You know it too. I didn't even have to suggest they built an Arab detector for you to bring it up ;)
I don't care about that hypothetical. Save it for your sci fi screenplay.
The author doesn't back up anything, quotes no theory on either side, no history or economic data. It contains killer anecdotes and gut feelings though - a ratio of about 100%-0% between navel gazing and chin scratching VS reading Marxist theory where people have, you know, talked about the thing you're talking about for over a century. It's particularly stunning that an essay on inequality does not mention the word "profit".
My favorite part is the killer anecdote that seals the deal at the end, which is basically the equivalent of "You dislike Wall St but you own an iPhone? Interesting". It may as well have been pulled from a boomer Facebook meme.
I think that being late to a rally against charter schools because you were busy trying to get your kid into a charter school is quite a bit more specific and powerful form of hypocrisy than the above meme.
It’s strong evidence to me of a deep hypocrisy in a way that deciding you’d prefer an iPhone over Android is not.
No it's collective action vs individual self interest. Or actual politics versus consumerism. Not the same thing at all and should not be confused. If you think a charter or private school is the best for your kid right now and for you then that's one thing. And what is best for other families and teachers in your community may be another. You can support them politically.
Also who gives a shit about the hypocrisy of protest attendees anyway? It has no bearing on the what is right.
> If you think a charter or private school is the best for your kid right now and for you then that's one thing.
If you think that, act on that, and simultaneously seek to deny that to others, I think you’re a hypocrite and adjust the coefficient of my caring about your opinion on the topic to zero or negative.
Deal, I'll consider your coefficient adjusted then.
But for my benefit, can I just confirm my suspicion that you sincerely don't understand the difference between politics & personal marketplace decisions? Because if so that's some VERY strong ideology you've got going on.
I understand the difference, but if you seek to get some good privately and prevent others from having access to that good by policy, I think that’s a dick move at a minimum.
Same issue as the uproar over a US politician going to Canada for an elective medical procedure after working against changes to the US system to make it more like the Canadian system.
> I think that being late to a rally against charter schools because you were busy trying to get your kid into a charter school is quite a bit more specific and powerful form of hypocrisy than the above meme.
I don't think it's hypocrisy at all; thinking that it is essential for your child under the present time policy regime because that regime harms all public school students, but particularly those who remain in traditional schools, in order to reward charter operators is not even slightly inconsistent with thinking the system should be reformed to eliminate that problem.
It's not hypocrisy any more than it is to be late for a protest against marijuana being criminalized because you are trying to negotiate a deal to get probation instead of jail time for marijuana possession.
In your MJ example, IMO it’s not hypocrisy because both of your actions are aligned. You are protesting MJ being criminalized (arguing for others’ sentences to be reduced/eliminated) while also arguing for your own sentence to be less severe.
If you view the system of public-subsidized charter schools as harming all students, but moreso those that remain in traditional public schools, the two situations are precisely analogous; you object to the policy that imposes the harm on a broad class while attempting to mitigate the harm you (or your dependent) experience given the existing policy.
Ok. While I don’t see them as precisely analogous, I now agree that they’re more similar than I first thought, provided you believe that all students are harmed by the presence of charter schools.
Thank you for taking the time to explain it again so it landed.
E: I should add it disagrees with the central argument that this would be a “direct tax” and mentions ways the wealth tax could itself be structured to give the Supreme Court less of a leg to stand on. Personally I’d rather run a candidate that would even bring this fight in the first place. Maybe if it’s on the news then the >99% of viewers will realize that the <1% are able to beat them down easily in any legal fight imaginable despite their incredible small numbers and harmful distribution preferences.