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speedboat commented on Bezos should put his billions in public libraries   wired.com/story/jeff-bezo... · Posted by u/steven
speedboat · 9 years ago
Libraries are great. They should be funded with taxes by society, not the whims of charity.

Raise taxes and on people like Bezos and Gates for the needs of society.

speedboat commented on Is Facebook a Structural Threat to Free Society?   truthhawk.com/is-facebook... · Posted by u/jonstokes
Pokepokalypse · 9 years ago
I've been thinking about this, and personally, I thought Twitter was done years ago. To me, it was just a media that was designed specifically to give a few well-privileged famous celebrities a way to spew their empty garbage to the masses. It's very much a one-way "popular kids" channel.

I thought that most people would find it boring and useless and abandon it. But I think it's done the opposite. It's fed into the tabloid-news impulse of the lowbrow class, and only become more popular.

The genius of FB is that when sub-groups of people piss each other off, they can just unfriend, block, and ban, and they're in a nice comfy bubble.

The next thing that comes along will probably be both of these. With better AI-generated/sourced content.

speedboat · 9 years ago
I just started using Twitter this past year. What you get out of Twitter really depends on who you follow, which is not obvious at all to get a hook into and find good accounts you'd value hearing from. I luckily found a few good ones, and you find more by being exposed to content they retweet. It has been a great boon to me because I found a few cogent tweeters of the kind of politics and analysis I like, who I would not have been exposed to otherwise. I feel like it has expanded my political awareness and given me a better informed commentary than I'd find elsewhere. Not just empty heads there. You also get some minor amount of conversational interaction with them and others, and real time commentary on unfolding current events, and some of the jokes that get retweeted are funny. It's easier to see the value of Twitter on the inside than from the outside and its gimmick of short messages.

A lot of content to shift through, so following too many is not so good, and no real way way to sort them into themed content or more favoured tweeters, is my issue.

speedboat commented on Should economists be more concerned about AI?   bankunderground.co.uk/201... · Posted by u/nickgrosvenor
massysett · 9 years ago
Gates is worth $76 billion. US population is over 300 million. So if we liberated Gates of every penny he has, there would be a one-time payment of less than $253 to every American.

The rich do not have enough money to pay for everyone else to be on the dole.

speedboat · 9 years ago
Would Bill Gates personally fund a UBI? No. The claim wasn't is Bill Gates rich enough to personally fund an American UBI. He would still see his taxes rise considerably and would fall within the tax net to fund a UBI. Those taxes would reach far down the income and wealth ladder, but as long as your UBI is below GDP per capita, it's feasible and a nation could fund it, if it so chose.
speedboat commented on Should economists be more concerned about AI?   bankunderground.co.uk/201... · Posted by u/nickgrosvenor
monk_e_boy · 9 years ago
Bill Gates said that no nation on earth is rich enough to afford basic income. It's a long way off.
speedboat · 9 years ago
Bill Gates just want doesn't want to pay more in taxes. That's what UBI requires: more taxes. Considerable tax increases, but there it is. Tax the economic beneficiaries of the economy and divest to everyone to bring the top and bottom closer to GDP per capita.

u/speedboat

KarmaCake day9March 2, 2017View Original