Oddbean

@Curator of Mastodon.art fediblock :newt: @Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: Car dependency is keeping people not only poor but unhappy. I'm perfectly happy with a CO2 tax that is on the total cost neutral. Charge everyone for their emissions, distribute the money back equally. Where's my hate for the poor now? The rich pollute more.

@Caleb James DeLisle @9c8434d0 @Curator of Mastodon.art fediblock :newt: That's at least somewhat true for current France but you're saying this like it's an universal truism that cannot ever change or be false elsewhere in the world. And honestly, to me no taxes would be a pure wild-west-fiction where you'd definitely have barons doing bullshit on people pretty much like they do currently. Wealth limit on the other end is more where it should be.

The problem is that The Rich are more clever than you are, that's why they're rich. So when people come up with these "smart ideas" like a wealth tax - the rich are already way ahead of them, with lobbyists, accountants, lawyers, offshore residency, webs of offshore companies, and so on... They don't lose, if they did they wouldn't STAY being The Rich. You have to think about them like you think about an AI super-intelligence. You will not outmaneuver them, it's like thinking you'll beat Mohamed Ali in the ring, it's just not possible. But there are some ways that a government can make its country better by aligning its interests with those of the power elite, you see these strategies being played out in places like Switzerland and Singapore. https://pkteerium.xyz/media/d559a4305cd1bee51b37a05147df167353f564c0da3e1ac7af11432dfa8bf5da.png

@Caleb James DeLisle @9c8434d0 @Curator of Mastodon.art fediblock :newt: The Rich aren't particularly clever, I wish this myth would die as fast as Twitter is. They inherit money so much they literally can't spend it all away even if they would go gambling all the time with it, pay accountants to game taxes as much as possible but also just get away with stealing shit.

That is objectively not true. In my line of work I on occasion brush shoulders with people you might call "the elite" and I can tell you as a matter of fact they are Apex Predators. The dull with inheritance get wiped out on deals that go sideways and somebody ELSE ends up with their inheritance. The old families have another technique wherein they send their kids to elite boarding schools where they become close friends with super high IQ grade A mathematics kids - who they later go on to hire as their trusted servants. Ensuring that even if they're not the smartest guy in the room, one of their personal assistants is. Trying to win against the winners, you will lose, every single time.

@Caleb James DeLisle @Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: @Curator of Mastodon.art fediblock :newt: You don't necessarily have to "win". It's more important to make sure you don't have millions of people in your country who "lose", and to have solid institutions that keep it that way even in the presence of "winners" trying to change that. Good education, nutrition and transport for everyone goes a long way.

Like I said, Switzerland and Singapore are good examples of countries playing the game really well. Making it worthwhile for the rich to participate and have a stake in positive outcomes for the country. The USSR is probably the best example of Doing It Wrong. Pretty much every other country falls somewhere in between.

@Caleb James DeLisle @9c8434d0 @Curator of Mastodon.art fediblock :newt: > Ensuring that even if they're not the smartest guy in the room, one of their personal assistants is. You're basically repeating what I said. They don't need to be clever, they can just afford to hire clever people instead.

@Caleb James DeLisle @9c8434d0 @Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: it is much worse, in fact. Tax codes -- among other regulations -- are being weaponised in order to kill the competition. You can watch a perfect example of this in OpenAI who right after achieving a sizeable market share suddenly began demanding that the entire field must be regulated. Taxes are often used in the very same manner and fashion.

@Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: @9c8434d0 @Caleb James DeLisle recognising the right people for the job requires actual talent. Just look at the entire field of software development as an example of what happens when this talent is lacking.

@Curator of Mastodon.art fediblock :newt: @9c8434d0 @Caleb James DeLisle You're framing it like there's just shitty bosses/corporations, I'd say it's much worse than that. Industries like software-dev is hell because the economy valorises either quantity or vanity. Not quality or crafts. So for software dev you get entire teams of people producing the same kind of shit thousands of time, even though the devs themselves know it's crap.