"The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it." - Jeff Bezos
Awesome article. As always, the things you mention off-handedly are almost always the most crucial. Your point about AI and advertising is so damn true that it hurts.
I posted this on Twitter earlier: "I'm using AI to automate my linkbuilding outreach. I've built DA80+ links from major websites (Today Show, Healthline, etc.) with essentially zero effort (small amounts of work required, basically 95% automated). If you aren't keeping up with AI you're going to get WRECKED."
A lot of those links are from legacy media outlets that have no idea how out of touch they are. Affiliate SEO is getting so easy for people who know what's up.
UBL concept is solid. I doubt anyone here would be even remotely communist/socialist so no idea who is getting annoyed at you guys for advocating for post robotics/AI support of people to get things like housing and food sorted.
Interesting tax thread. A lot of your tax proposals are actually in place in Australia. There are luxury car taxes and alcohol/tobacco have much higher tax rates. Food has 0% tax applied until it is turned in to a good (i.e. fresh beans: no tax, beans sold at a restaurant after being cooked: 10% tax). And housing is taxed by % of what the property is worth and only applies after your 1st home or if it is owned by a trust. No death/inheritance tax though.
The Scandinavian countries have heavy "sin tax" levels (alcohol, gasoline, tobacco, etc) and play around with green subsidies (electric cars, chargers, solar panels). Consumption goes on so it works (though smoking is down as an overall trend across decades). There are also basic subsidies for rental/living costs for the poor.
Did you read Piketty's Capitalism in the 21st Century book? Without passing judgement on his recommendations either way, it reasons a lot around very long-term effects of different tax, wealth, income, yield levels. If you have the patience to plow through it.
There's a business idea in there somewhere to offer Lifestyle-as-a-Service to the masses. Basic level is free (tax-financed, as you say), add-ons cost subscription/usage fees. Just wrap every SF startup aaS idea into a single lifestyle marketplace. Bundles to make choosing simple. Middle-class-as-a-Service. Imagine.
Mostly yes, in terms of tax revenue. Luxury Cars and second home/investment housing/land banking sales still going strong. The tax law passed easy ("a tax on the rich")
Tobacco tax is extremely high (packet of 25 cigarettes is nearly $50 AUDTT) to take pressure off the mostly free health care system. Alcohol is divided in 2 categories - spirits/beer and wine. Wine is taxed by the % of wholesale price (30%) and spirits/beer are taxed by strength of alcohol - lower alcohol, lower tax applied. This "Sin Tax" went through easily, as it was promised all tax was to go to healthcare (it hasn't). Personally it would be easier to apply a higher wholesale price, as the more expensive the bottle, the more you pay... Middle and Lower class still like a drink.
Unfortunately though, most tax collected just seems to feed the bureaucratic beast.
Potentially yes. But then interestingly also opens up the Tax department to more invasive data tracking - they already have access to bank accounts and apply income/expenditure algorithms to determine audits.
Previously, the church set the holidays (feast days)
Then it was the government
Now, corporate (google doodle)
I’m bringing this up because if the real players are the corporations, need to bring them in for UBI. If not, as you said, simply will change locations, lost tax revenue.
The tax proposals all dodge the central problem, which is that government bureaucrats and elected officials are incentivized to NOT solve those problems. Seems that problem needs to be solved first, which means lobbying. Gay rights groups were very effective at coordinated, grassroots lobbying to manage sweeping policy changes in the last decade across businesses, religion, government, education and culture. That's probably the most decentralized, modern business model to use.
The US pays farmers NOT to plant to keep food prices up. Slashing that would cut food prices (and probably finish off small farmers), but it would also increase the amount of land converted from natural areas back to monoculture. Would need to soft-land that somehow.
Alternatively, UBL could be done without government taxation, so long as you get a billionaire's buy-in (or willingness to give you an interest-free loan for $1B/gift you after his death). "Solving hunger" in the US is estimated to be $25 billion/year, which is ~$75/person on average. Start with one city for proof of concept. Choose a city of ~1 million, so rough estimate is $75 million/year to feed all the hungry there. A billion dollars invested at 7.5% annual return feeds the hungry in that city without touching the principal. Show proof of concept there, and then scale as you get buy-in from everyone who wants to be a part of 'ending hunger'. Get the idealists in the soup kitchens for free labor, religious orgs for space/labor, and get branded supplies from companies that want a tax write-off for advertising. Then branch into providing at least temporary housing. You have enough political power now to take over the local government. If you started in a low population state, you might even control a good chunk of state politics once you win the 1M city. That ensures government helps your cause, and you can use tax money more effectively to scale. You need a total 25x scale to solve the current hunger problems for the entire country. If hunger quadruples, you'd need 100x scale.
Religion seems to be the long-game to me for the masses. The masses need purpose, rules and meaning, at least enough to give them the semblance of busy-ness and some type of work to occupy their time, even if robots do everything better. If there's productivity out of their time, so much the better. I would start with something like Mormonism because it's a very practical and flexible religion, but still emphasizes works-righteousness. Caveat is there needs to be the right amount of hardship for the masses (too much you have a revolt, too little you have a revolt), and zeal needs to be carefully managed. Corruption also a major concern with religious orgs, but if set up right, the zealous help solve that problem for you, and/or you build it more decentralized.
To solve US hunger, my best idea is the billionaire one above. Do something like Howard Hughes Medical Institute (tax shelter for billionaires while they are alive, keep the cash when they're dead, invest it, and use proceeds to feed people) if you can't convince one to end hunger in one city while alive.
To solve the state issue in the US, need to raise up alternative power structures (religion or buying votes from feeding people) and/or take over the state. Grass-roots, relational organizing is my solution for taking over the state because it worked very well for gay rights. Focus on a few key policy changes and organize relentlessly towards the policy change and hit business, church, government ...everything. The key is figuring out which policy changes would best re-structure incentives for public officials and bureaucrats to solve problems instead of just get re-elected/maintain the status quo/take bribes.
Avoiding war/violent revolution question: how are women going to be split?
If you give men food, shelter and sleep but no cunt I don't see this working LT. Arguably, the food, shelter and sleep are all in order to reproduce/pass on genes, but you need cunt for that.
AI? VR? If yes, will masses eventually get fed-up/red-pilled from the robot cunt and revolt violently?
For turbos, look up a map showing polygamy percentage by country and notice if there is a correlation between shithole-ness and polygamy (hint: yes, big time). Further evidence: 2% of world pop. is polygamous and all major religions are mostly monogamous (even if poly. permitted)
Don't worry about it, sex robots and e-waifus will keep 90% of the men hooked in AR/VR. Less competition for 9 & 10, and they will still fight for 10% of the top.
Haven't thought about dating in a while, but we're already seeing people just get addicted to porn or they end up participating in degenerate hook up culture. That's less important compared to getting basic needs met to avoid a revolt
"Blew it on bizarre mansions" is a good story, designed to engage Story Mode in people's brains. Most people will accept anything if you can get them into Story Mode.
Did he use leverage and get wiped out that way? I could have believed that, but they don't even attempt to spin that story! Lazy liars are lame.
From the article: "valued at more than $25 million but sold at auction for a mere $5.72"
Even if we generalize that out, and he got $0.20 on the $1... does that mean he's "broke"? No!
Would an eccentric person that built "bizarre mansions" for shits and grins sell them just because the market bottomed? Hell no!
Another likely outcome is taxes on real estate; the boom will be seen as a potential grab opportunity by politicians. Will also be popular as seen to be pushing prices lower.
Land tax generally arises late in the cycle when other options are running out - effecitvely when economies go feudal which is really where we are going. Except this time instead of landowners its tech owners.
So property looks like an awful investment and a hot target for taxation. Can't get out of it once the law changes; illiquid and super risky.
this was also a great read, always look forward to the posts. When I read the article it 100% did not make sense...
Super curious here if anyone on here has a political background. Would love to know that these sort of things are being talked about or being ignored by the "leaders" in gov positions
Your proposal on Luxury taxes are pretty common outside of the US e.g. Subway tried to class their products as bread to pay the "essential" rate of VAT in Ireland, however, the court ruled that their products were cakes due to their sugar content and had to pay the higher "Luxury" rate of VAT.
I'd like to see sales taxes based around trademarks and patents: A t-shirt can be ~0% tax but a t-shirt with a Hugo Boss logo gets taxed at 20%
There's justice in this because part of the value of the logo is that you want everyone else to agree not to copy it. Members of the public are leaving money on the table by not printing their own Hugo Boss t-shirts, which increases the value of yours. Why shouldn't we be compensated for that?
You can apply the same thing to shops. Your local restaurant agreeing not to call itself McDonalds is giving the McDonalds company value. There's no problem in asking McDonalds to show gratitude for that.
I’ve always been a big fan of the FairTax. Never made much progress in the legislature. I like that it is sovereign individual fwd with a potential for a back door ubi.
Do away with income tax / Corp tax... favor high consumption tax / progressive property tax (depending upon zoning). Fine with some estate tax too but find those tricky with small businesses and illiquid assets.
Bigger problem is big corps / powers that be don’t want simple tax code. Want complex tax code they can manipulate. Gives competitive advantage.
Pols want complex tax code they can sell to the highest bidder.
"The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it." - Jeff Bezos
That's a surprisingly good quote
Brilliant.
Awesome article. As always, the things you mention off-handedly are almost always the most crucial. Your point about AI and advertising is so damn true that it hurts.
I posted this on Twitter earlier: "I'm using AI to automate my linkbuilding outreach. I've built DA80+ links from major websites (Today Show, Healthline, etc.) with essentially zero effort (small amounts of work required, basically 95% automated). If you aren't keeping up with AI you're going to get WRECKED."
A lot of those links are from legacy media outlets that have no idea how out of touch they are. Affiliate SEO is getting so easy for people who know what's up.
Kind of relevant to your comment:
When I was in school one of the smarter sayings I heard was be the automator not the automated.
That's a good way of looking at it.
What kind of software are you using for AI link building on such high DA website?
I'll be launching a Substack for SEO/affiliate red pills soon. I'll keep everyone posted on Twitter.
My experience has been you typically need to pay for guest posting on such high DA sites?
Or are you just asking for a link back to your site for an existing article already on their site.
Thanks.
I think the real question here is was he whackd.
UBL concept is solid. I doubt anyone here would be even remotely communist/socialist so no idea who is getting annoyed at you guys for advocating for post robotics/AI support of people to get things like housing and food sorted.
i thought so too. UBL is super solid
Interesting tax thread. A lot of your tax proposals are actually in place in Australia. There are luxury car taxes and alcohol/tobacco have much higher tax rates. Food has 0% tax applied until it is turned in to a good (i.e. fresh beans: no tax, beans sold at a restaurant after being cooked: 10% tax). And housing is taxed by % of what the property is worth and only applies after your 1st home or if it is owned by a trust. No death/inheritance tax though.
Has it worked though? If it hasn't will scrap it from ideas
The Scandinavian countries have heavy "sin tax" levels (alcohol, gasoline, tobacco, etc) and play around with green subsidies (electric cars, chargers, solar panels). Consumption goes on so it works (though smoking is down as an overall trend across decades). There are also basic subsidies for rental/living costs for the poor.
Did you read Piketty's Capitalism in the 21st Century book? Without passing judgement on his recommendations either way, it reasons a lot around very long-term effects of different tax, wealth, income, yield levels. If you have the patience to plow through it.
There's a business idea in there somewhere to offer Lifestyle-as-a-Service to the masses. Basic level is free (tax-financed, as you say), add-ons cost subscription/usage fees. Just wrap every SF startup aaS idea into a single lifestyle marketplace. Bundles to make choosing simple. Middle-class-as-a-Service. Imagine.
Mostly yes, in terms of tax revenue. Luxury Cars and second home/investment housing/land banking sales still going strong. The tax law passed easy ("a tax on the rich")
Tobacco tax is extremely high (packet of 25 cigarettes is nearly $50 AUDTT) to take pressure off the mostly free health care system. Alcohol is divided in 2 categories - spirits/beer and wine. Wine is taxed by the % of wholesale price (30%) and spirits/beer are taxed by strength of alcohol - lower alcohol, lower tax applied. This "Sin Tax" went through easily, as it was promised all tax was to go to healthcare (it hasn't). Personally it would be easier to apply a higher wholesale price, as the more expensive the bottle, the more you pay... Middle and Lower class still like a drink.
Unfortunately though, most tax collected just seems to feed the bureaucratic beast.
Good to know. So really integration with payment tracking (blcokchain) to prove where funds went would be huge
Potentially yes. But then interestingly also opens up the Tax department to more invasive data tracking - they already have access to bank accounts and apply income/expenditure algorithms to determine audits.
IMO:
1000yrs ago = church age
Few hundred years ago = gov. age
Present = corporate age
One example, holidays
Previously, the church set the holidays (feast days)
Then it was the government
Now, corporate (google doodle)
I’m bringing this up because if the real players are the corporations, need to bring them in for UBI. If not, as you said, simply will change locations, lost tax revenue.
How that looks, no idea.
B corporations? endowments giving grants?
The tax proposals all dodge the central problem, which is that government bureaucrats and elected officials are incentivized to NOT solve those problems. Seems that problem needs to be solved first, which means lobbying. Gay rights groups were very effective at coordinated, grassroots lobbying to manage sweeping policy changes in the last decade across businesses, religion, government, education and culture. That's probably the most decentralized, modern business model to use.
The US pays farmers NOT to plant to keep food prices up. Slashing that would cut food prices (and probably finish off small farmers), but it would also increase the amount of land converted from natural areas back to monoculture. Would need to soft-land that somehow.
Alternatively, UBL could be done without government taxation, so long as you get a billionaire's buy-in (or willingness to give you an interest-free loan for $1B/gift you after his death). "Solving hunger" in the US is estimated to be $25 billion/year, which is ~$75/person on average. Start with one city for proof of concept. Choose a city of ~1 million, so rough estimate is $75 million/year to feed all the hungry there. A billion dollars invested at 7.5% annual return feeds the hungry in that city without touching the principal. Show proof of concept there, and then scale as you get buy-in from everyone who wants to be a part of 'ending hunger'. Get the idealists in the soup kitchens for free labor, religious orgs for space/labor, and get branded supplies from companies that want a tax write-off for advertising. Then branch into providing at least temporary housing. You have enough political power now to take over the local government. If you started in a low population state, you might even control a good chunk of state politics once you win the 1M city. That ensures government helps your cause, and you can use tax money more effectively to scale. You need a total 25x scale to solve the current hunger problems for the entire country. If hunger quadruples, you'd need 100x scale.
Whats your solution? Not trolling, very serious, still don't have a good answer for a solution for masses and interested in hearing it!
Religion seems to be the long-game to me for the masses. The masses need purpose, rules and meaning, at least enough to give them the semblance of busy-ness and some type of work to occupy their time, even if robots do everything better. If there's productivity out of their time, so much the better. I would start with something like Mormonism because it's a very practical and flexible religion, but still emphasizes works-righteousness. Caveat is there needs to be the right amount of hardship for the masses (too much you have a revolt, too little you have a revolt), and zeal needs to be carefully managed. Corruption also a major concern with religious orgs, but if set up right, the zealous help solve that problem for you, and/or you build it more decentralized.
To solve US hunger, my best idea is the billionaire one above. Do something like Howard Hughes Medical Institute (tax shelter for billionaires while they are alive, keep the cash when they're dead, invest it, and use proceeds to feed people) if you can't convince one to end hunger in one city while alive.
To solve the state issue in the US, need to raise up alternative power structures (religion or buying votes from feeding people) and/or take over the state. Grass-roots, relational organizing is my solution for taking over the state because it worked very well for gay rights. Focus on a few key policy changes and organize relentlessly towards the policy change and hit business, church, government ...everything. The key is figuring out which policy changes would best re-structure incentives for public officials and bureaucrats to solve problems instead of just get re-elected/maintain the status quo/take bribes.
elites incentivized to solve it to a point. think bread and circuses, funded by debasing denarius
where can I sign up for that forex pls:D
Only 69 spots left! Hurry soon before the digital product is obsolete!
insert *shut and take my money* meme
Very interesting post, thanks.
I love that all the ideas that people think are 'communists' sounds fairly reasonnable (or actually already in place) to any european...
Hahaha! Saw what you did there
Avoiding war/violent revolution question: how are women going to be split?
If you give men food, shelter and sleep but no cunt I don't see this working LT. Arguably, the food, shelter and sleep are all in order to reproduce/pass on genes, but you need cunt for that.
AI? VR? If yes, will masses eventually get fed-up/red-pilled from the robot cunt and revolt violently?
For turbos, look up a map showing polygamy percentage by country and notice if there is a correlation between shithole-ness and polygamy (hint: yes, big time). Further evidence: 2% of world pop. is polygamous and all major religions are mostly monogamous (even if poly. permitted)
Don't worry about it, sex robots and e-waifus will keep 90% of the men hooked in AR/VR. Less competition for 9 & 10, and they will still fight for 10% of the top.
Haven't thought about dating in a while, but we're already seeing people just get addicted to porn or they end up participating in degenerate hook up culture. That's less important compared to getting basic needs met to avoid a revolt
"Blew it on bizarre mansions" is a good story, designed to engage Story Mode in people's brains. Most people will accept anything if you can get them into Story Mode.
Did he use leverage and get wiped out that way? I could have believed that, but they don't even attempt to spin that story! Lazy liars are lame.
From the article: "valued at more than $25 million but sold at auction for a mere $5.72"
Even if we generalize that out, and he got $0.20 on the $1... does that mean he's "broke"? No!
Would an eccentric person that built "bizarre mansions" for shits and grins sell them just because the market bottomed? Hell no!
Yes, using real estate makes it sound possible
Another likely outcome is taxes on real estate; the boom will be seen as a potential grab opportunity by politicians. Will also be popular as seen to be pushing prices lower.
Land tax generally arises late in the cycle when other options are running out - effecitvely when economies go feudal which is really where we are going. Except this time instead of landowners its tech owners.
So property looks like an awful investment and a hot target for taxation. Can't get out of it once the law changes; illiquid and super risky.
Yeah that is one major reason we went RE light immediately in 2021
this was also a great read, always look forward to the posts. When I read the article it 100% did not make sense...
Super curious here if anyone on here has a political background. Would love to know that these sort of things are being talked about or being ignored by the "leaders" in gov positions
Your proposal on Luxury taxes are pretty common outside of the US e.g. Subway tried to class their products as bread to pay the "essential" rate of VAT in Ireland, however, the court ruled that their products were cakes due to their sugar content and had to pay the higher "Luxury" rate of VAT.
I'd like to see sales taxes based around trademarks and patents: A t-shirt can be ~0% tax but a t-shirt with a Hugo Boss logo gets taxed at 20%
There's justice in this because part of the value of the logo is that you want everyone else to agree not to copy it. Members of the public are leaving money on the table by not printing their own Hugo Boss t-shirts, which increases the value of yours. Why shouldn't we be compensated for that?
You can apply the same thing to shops. Your local restaurant agreeing not to call itself McDonalds is giving the McDonalds company value. There's no problem in asking McDonalds to show gratitude for that.
I should be paid for wearing a shirt with a company logo visible.
I’ve always been a big fan of the FairTax. Never made much progress in the legislature. I like that it is sovereign individual fwd with a potential for a back door ubi.
Do away with income tax / Corp tax... favor high consumption tax / progressive property tax (depending upon zoning). Fine with some estate tax too but find those tricky with small businesses and illiquid assets.
Bigger problem is big corps / powers that be don’t want simple tax code. Want complex tax code they can manipulate. Gives competitive advantage.
Pols want complex tax code they can sell to the highest bidder.
Will look into this