Rescis

Assuming you are asking for him to pay US Taxes:

The largest line item (29%) is supporting the least efficient 1st world healthcare system

The second largest item (23%) is supporting blowing up foreigners

The third item (13%) is just paying accrued interest from previous overspending

The fourth item (7.5%) is the first that may be considered humanitarian, unemployment.

The fifth item (6%) is us paying for thr psychological and physical trauma that blowing up foreign nationals causes our own veterans.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/interactive-data/taxday/2...

Keep in mind that the very modern, very well funded, and very well equipped US military has been fighting a bunch of dudes with rifles and IED's for the past several dozen years without conclusive victories or signs of the resistance slowing.

That US military is also neither attacking its own citizens it has filial and friendly ties with, nor attacking people who look and talk like it.

Modern armor and missiles don't accomplish much when the enemies main goal is to just live as they want to (instead of conquer territory or resources).

> Was adding the lanes a win for the city? The commuters? The environment?

It was a win for the local economy.

By allowing more people to drive to and from locations they please, you are allowing more people to work jobs they otherwise wouldn't be able to, and purchase goods and services they wouldn't otherwise.

I'm rarely a fan of government spending; but, roads, police, and firefighting are probably some of the least evil.

Why is that?

Atleast on mobile, I experience no paywall.

What system are you using?

I agree with your statements; however, I feel like your argument would be much stronger if you had sources for your claims that Marx has been disproven and deconstructed.

I'm currently about to enter my freshman year of College, and have been looking at majoring in Cognitive Science. What were your thoughts on it/it's applicability to the rest of your life?

What would you propose to be the explanation?

Presumably it was a normal occurence.

> How much beef do you have to feed the average banker per transaction?

How much banker do you need per transaction? With modern banking, most everything uses as few humans as possible (if not simply because they're slow).

> When compared to the enormous inefficiency of the global banking system, the energy consumed per transaction for crypto comes out far, far ahead.

Do you happen to have any sources for this? I wasn't able to find much after a quick google search.

> If you think the real solution is to change the way the world thinks about, and judges, everyone else then you're being remarkably naive.

This isn't a response, it's an insult. Two well educated, equally experienced people can come two two seperate conclusions, without one being "naive". Try and argue always assuming that the person your taking to is equally intelligent as you.

Regardless, treating the symptom (Search engines displaying old news stories) of the problem (people judging others irrationally), without treating the problem itself will only cause equally bad, if not worse, issues to pop up elsewhere. The vast majority of times a state censors information, it ends up being harmful far past what was initially intended (the red scare/McCarthyism, DMCA, FOSTA, SOPA/PIPA, etc).

I believe this comment neither adds to the discussion, nor brings up a valid point.

When people discuss anything, all parties should strive for intellectual honesty. As the grandparent post used a false example, then it helps all sides involved to correct that and prevent it from happening again.

By lowering the cost to manufacture a vehicle by reducing the artificial constraints imposed by environmental regulations, more people are able to purchase vehicles at a lower cost, leading to an overall higher standard of living for the poor who couldn't otherwise afford the aforementioned vehicle.

Is that wrong? Learning topics like computer science, which lack the ability to be generalized to other aspects of life, if and when there is not enough demand for it is worthless (in the sense that it has no value).

However, if companies desire a specific set of skills related to, but not exactly computer science (programming), it makes a lot of sense to create school focused on that particular subject — especially if they're willing to sponsor it. Further, it adds value to society as a whole, as by creating the goods/services people want cheaper, standard of living goes up.

Simply because they worked hard to get the degree doesn't mean that the degree is useful, or benefits society.

If there is currently an over saturation of bio-chemists in relation to the amount of jobs open, he cannot add anything to the greater food. From that, there is no reason that his degree/hard work should grant him personal benefits, as he would be taking more than he is giving. Very few people would argue that someone who does a bunch of worthless hard work (something like digging ditches and refilling them) deserves stuff, simply because it required a lot of effort, as what they are doing adds no value to society. Therefore, if the biochemist has a degree that took him a lot of time and work, but isn't needed, there is no reason he should get benefits just because he did work.

I believe the issue is people saying "hard work leads to success" fail to add on that "hard work leads to success, given that you are doing something valuable".

> But, America's love of excess capitalism means our tax code is needlessly complicated and pretty much insists on as many third party businesses to be involved as possible - every company you work for, plus anyone holding your securities, plus Intuit or some other tax preparer, and so forth.

I don't think it's fair calling this capitalism. Capitalism is the idea the the production of goods is controlled by private entities, whereas what you are talking about is a government over complicating/regulating an industry at the behest of a company. In a capitalist society, regulation is not a thing, whereas in the corporatist society I believe we live in, regulation harms the citizens through capture and reduction in effeciency.

1) I agree that free markets are not where most people earn there money, but to me it seems like that is something we should strive for by reducing and stopping interference in the market by government regulation.

2) Martin Shkreli is an interesting statement (assuming you are referring to his raising of drug prices, not what he was prosecuted for). I strongly believe that the only reason he was able to raise prices so exorbitantly is because of interference in the market place both on the grounds of copyright laws and the stringent drug testing that is required. If something like google were to suddenly start charging five thousand dollars to use the site, people would quickly move to a competitor (or, if there was no competitor, someone would create one). This is not possible in the drug industry due to government regulation, so although what he did was wrong, it is not something I think can be solved with more laws.

3) Sure, most people have inherited there money, but in a free market someone up the line most certainly earned it. Assuming you don't believe that there is something that makes one person more special than another, who is holding money is irrelevant to whether or not it is fairly earned.

> 1) They haven't

I'm a bit confused by this statement. In the vast majority of cases where an individual purchases something, they do it because they want it (food is purchased because the body desires food, phones are purchased because the brain likes communication and connectedness, medical care is purchased because people realize it helps them, etc). Therefore, for someone to have accumulated a large amount of profit, enough people must have decided that whatever they are offering is beneficial.

Simply put, if a person has a large amount of money earned through a truly free market, then they must have provided a benefit to society.

Now, this can be confused by things like regulation. Regulatory capture, corruption, and many other things can all force people to purchase things they do not desire or do not provide as much benefit as a different product, but this is not an issue that can be solved by more regulation or taxation. Instead, it is an issue with interference in the market which causes the inequalities that I would agree, very much do exist.

Epigenetics is the idea that genes can express themselves differently based on the environment they are put in.

It is how you can have the same genetic code in your brain as you skin, but the cells the genes are part of are completely different.

It's how you can have a hard drive with a ton of information on it, but choose to read only small portions at a time

> Free speech has its positive and negative consequences on stability and happiness; I do not want to fight free speech, I'm looking for ways to reduce the negative consequences. I'll protect your (and mine) right to rant about whatever you want, but I sure as hell would like the general policy discussion to involve less rants and more thoughtful cooperation.

I agree that free speech is an essential aspect of what makes us humans, and that it comes with both many positive and negatives.

In implementation of a plan to mitigate the negatives though, I much more support a private entity such as Reddit censoring whatever they wish, as if people believe it becomes to harsh they can simply leave. I'm paranoid that allowing an entity like the government (where constituents can't easily just leave) to get involved with it is good, as it allows for many conflicts of interest. These conflicts could be instances where the ruling party or minority parties push to label an opposing belief as more divisive, or where the ruling majority seeks to 'disincentivize' a minority or outside belief/religion by saying it is offensive to what they deem our values.

I feel like we should push for the civilization of speech to be a societal change, not a policy based change.

On a slightly different note, people have been saying that language and civil discourse have been going to hell for a very long time. George Orwell rather famously wrote an essay titled "Politics and the English Language" in the early-mid 20th century, wherein he detailed how society was moving towards using unclear and imprecise language to pander to the many without being forced to use falsifiable statements. Anthony Burgess wrote "A Clockwork Orange" in the 1960's where he highlights the main characters savagery in part by highlighting their usage of 'barbaric' dialect. William Langland wrote that “There is not a single modern schoolboy who can compose verses or write a decent letter.” in 1386. While civil and educated discourse is an important issue, people have been saying it will lead to the downfall of society for a very long time, but in many cases it is just changing and the entrenched powers dislike having to cope with that change.

From their technical methodology note[1], they require their data sources to account for "state capture" and the usage of "public office for private gain". Take that as you wish, and feel free to look further at their sources[2]; however, I'd assume from that statement that they do account for lobbying and donations.

The US is not unique. If you see something happening here, it is almost always happening in other western countries, and acting like we are the only to have a problem does a disservice to worldwide development.

[1] http://files.transparency.org/content/download/2183/13748/fi...

[2] http://files.transparency.org/content/download/2183/13748/fi...

Just as an FYI, that seems to be behind a paywall.

Its good to know my donations would have atleast some purpose.

> Whatever the fantasy system you have in mind that lacks this feature is, it's not capitalism, that name's already been taken for the system in which this is a central problem.

Anymore, the vast majority of times people say "capitalist system", I believe they mean "market economy". Because of this, although I would agree that the letter of what OP was false (capitalism [a term coined by Marx] does not include corporate/government corruption), his intent is true as soon as you replace "capitalism" with "market economy", and because of this, discrediting his point that people bash market economies based on the corruption that ought to be excluded from them seems intellectually disingenuous.

> And it's generally viewed as bad form for me to express such thoughts. And I don't understand that either.

What thoughts are you referencing here?

Generally it's suggested to keep a consistent identity on HN as it suggests more reasonable discourse when people understand their actions follow them. Discourse is fun, rational discourse with consistency is what makes this site amazing.

>And if they were working on changing the law, or explicitly appealing to justice, that might carry some water.

Google/corporations as whole regularly do spend their money on lobbying/political pursuits. This is rather often criticized however.

>Your moral remedy for this is to vote, not to steal

Are you conflating Google avoiding taxes as theft? If so, why is there a governmental right to corporate earnings, especially considering tax shelters are using legal loopholes?

Further, how is it morally correct for me to donate money to a government that I fundamentally disagree with, as by giving them money I am atleast financially supporting their acts?

> It's the reason why your grandfather's washing machine probably works 'till this day, while you have to fix your new one every year, and will probably replace it in five years.

Adjusting the cost of each product with inflation, things really are built like they used to be. Your grandfathers washing machine both cost far more than a current model* (again, adjusted for inflation), and all of the poorly built old washing machines broke and no on sees/thinks about them anymore.

* I am having trouble finding a source on washing machines specifically, however I'm assuming they followed the same trends as most commodities tracked by BLS: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?ap

As questionable as citing Reddit is, this post rather well encompasses what I am trying to get at: https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/4kn8ku/the_...

Continued economic growth at the increased rates that non-renewable energy sources provide, without the external disapproval/sanctions that come with them.