I like your post a lot, in that you're describing how this doesn't say anything about anyone's chances really. However...

> but also with poor people abusing their democratic powers to unjustly take from others that which they have not earned

How would they abuse their democratic powers? It's their decision to vote either way. So who says that's unjust? Certainly it's not abusing their democratic powers.

Abusing of power happens on the other end of the spectrum, especially in the US thanks to citizens united.... Surely all those super PAC dollars don't buy any influence... As a result, the voice of a single rich person might be stronger than a whole quintile of the population. So chances are that they are unjustly given things that aren't theirs (i.e. advantageous contracts, laws that help them etcetera).

I hold, i guess as a basic principle, that tyranny of the majority is an unjust failure case of democratic systems.

Fully agree Citizen's united has resulted in legalized corruption. But 2 wrongs do not make a right, ethically.

There's nothing unjust about a rich person getting superior results through access to better resources though. Eg hiring a better tax accountant or financial advisor.

Why should the tax code be structured in a way that a rich person can pay less in taxes than a poorer person or someone who cant access such expertise? Is it just that a rich person can buy admission for their dumbass kid to a prestigious university too?

Please, tell us all about how they deserve preferential treatment and its right that shit always flows downhill, never uphill, that for those to whom much has been given, less will be expected

While you might be talking about the exceptional cases where rich are paying a lower marginal rate than 1%-er W2 earners, for the basic tax brackets the more you earn you exponentially pay more than those who earn less.

Fair tax is either Flat tax (We all pay 10% of our income) and user pays (You want infrastructure for your business? then pay for it).

Look, Warren Buffet should not pay less tax than his secretary. That is corruption of the tax code. Lets start with that. Also the nonsense where ultrarich can live off ultra low interest credit that effectively allows them to pay no or little income tax

Fully agree he should not pay less tax % than his secretary, however I also would contend he should not pay more either. that is if his secretary is paying 20% so should he.

I do think he should pay more absolute tax than his secretary... 20% of billions is lots more than 20% of $100k .

What I'm talking about is progressive tax rates where the % goes up the more you make. I do not think Warren buffet should pay 25% of billions just because his income has more zeros than his secretary's .

To the extent that people might say "Yeah but he uses more roads than the rest of us!", IMO that should be covered by user pays to tie the cost to the user. Gas tax is one such way this can be done. Business taxes are a bit crude but also could work.

Counter argument being that this seems to indicate you can do whatever as long as you're innovating?

Isn’t that the tech industry motto?

And the motto of every neoliberal governments where being accused of Luddism is political death.

And who pays for those miles of fiber? That one customer, because he chose to live there?

I assume you understand that it that's the case, Starlink is a much better option as it won't cost them 5 figures upfront

For European governments that have their email and such running with Microsoft, it's quite the signal when individuals lose their email because the US doesn't like them. See international criminal court.

> we have an (ever growing) list of forbidden clauses that even when written and signed by consumer are null and void

I'm pretty sure that's true almost everywhere. Law beats contract. The real question is how strong the laws are. In the US not so much because of small government and stuff, especially in red states.

The law matters very little when enforcing it in court often means a multiyear lawsuit against an opponent which employs an army of attorneys, has effectively unlimited amounts of money, will likely cost you ruinious sums of money, and for an outcome that's far from guaranteed.

You can do that too. You can show up, represent yourself and pay a few hundred dollar court fee, while the big company has to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend themselves from you. You'll probably lose the case if you don't have a lawyer, but in a place like the US, you don't have to pay the other side's legal fees unless the case is frivolous (which it won't be).

>The law matters very little when enforcing it in court often means a multiyear lawsuit against an opponent which employs an army of attorneys, has effectively unlimited amounts of money, will likely cost you ruinious sums of money, and for an outcome that's far from guaranteed.

Or when you can't even enforce anything in court as you've already given up your right to spend all your money suing, as binding arbitration is the required and only mechanism to "resolve disputes." To make it extra fair, the corporation pays the arbitration firm for their "objective" decisions and not you.

What could go wrong?

Has it actually happened that someone went to court and the court told them no, you have to do binding arbitration? Or is it just something they put in the contract to scare you? Has anyone argued they didn't actually agree to what the country thinks they agreed to? You could start by just saying no, you didn't agree to that, and the company will have to prove you did.

In the Gamer's Nexus video, he gets drunk before accepting the terms so that it isn't legal consent. A drunk person can't enter a contract.

>Has it actually happened that someone went to court and the court told them no, you have to do binding arbitration? Or is it just something they put in the contract to scare you? Has anyone argued they didn't actually agree to what the country thinks they agreed to? You could start by just saying no, you didn't agree to that, and the company will have to prove you did.

Yes[0]. For over 100 years.

Next question?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitration_case_law_in_the_Un...

The US is not small government at all. It’s one of the largest governments in the world. It just exists almost exclusively to serve billionaires.

It’s “small government” when it comes to protecting your individual rights, and full flock powered ai surveillance state when someone has an abortion.

I obviously didn't invent that term. And in large part you're right that it means deregulation so companies can do whatever

An out of county police officer, in general, can't conduct a traffic stop? There's a few exceptions but none of those seem to apply?

London is not a financial center?

Uh? By what metric?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Financial_Centres_Index

Just to be a pedant, 18.5 % in the US and same in Canada so 37%.

I wouldn't call that almost half, it used to be about half before the move (NY at 31.3, 19.7 in Canada).

For Europe the choices are, foreign actor A or foreign actor B.

I don't think the current US administration has shown themselves to be less hostile than China...

I'm not saying the scrutiny on US models is unwarranted. I'm saying that open-weight models are the perfect trojan horse, so giving those models a pass on that same level of scrutiny (irrespective of provenance) is just begging to be pwned.