I think it would mostly balance out though, for individuals. Right now, their greed is boundless because they keep practically all profit made so nothing mitigates their desire for more, more, more.

But when they know they only get to keep 8% of what they make beyond a certain point, they won’t have as much motivation to keep squeezing more and more out of their customers (or whatever the money source is). As the tax rate increases with income, an equilibrium would be approached where they wouldn’t consider it worth the effort to keep pushing for more, knowing there’s a functional limit to just how much wealth they can accumulate after that point.

I agree with you that this only addresses part of the problem. Another important legislative step is to take back control over corporations and forbid monopolies again! We used to, but the antitrust and other laws controlling their growth and power have been effectivley dismantled and now we’re in a new gilded age.

Those two things could be implemented quickly, along with eliminating some of the more egregious tax loopholes. Then over time reform (or replace) the whole tax code (enormous task).

Law enforcement and other authorities are alarmed by the discovery, fearing that citizens or even worse, non-citizens, may take advantage of the new color to maintain their privacy while going about their daily activities. Since bleen cannot be photographed by cameras or represented digitally, people can foil the latest facial recognition technology by applying bleen-colored makeup or wearing bleen-tinted glasses. Protestors could also use bleen paint to make anti-government signs which can be read with the naked eye but not filmed or photographed, which could make them harder to prosecute.

These and other bleen-themed products are already being sold in niche markets online, and the bleen product industry is expected expand rapidly, reaching annual sales in the ten to twenty million dollar range by the second quarter of 2027. “We already have the infrastructure in place to produce glasses, clothing, window tinting, et cetera,” said one online retailer, who wished to remain anonymous. “The only thing limiting us for now is supply of the bleen dye itself, but it shouldn’t take long to ramp up production.”

Dick Small, CEO of WeCU Security, which surveils and tracks customers for retail businesses, said he is concerned about how quickly their equipment can be upgraded to deal with bleen. “It’s an ongoing technological battle between surveillance and privacy. Frankly, right now I don’t know how we’re going to solve this one.”

Yeah but taxing the hell out of them helps with lowering production of them. The highest bracket tax rates used to be >90%

Or a blackboard or whiteboard where they write the specials.

Why does anyone think there are still chances left?

edit: to clarify, I mean there are no more chances to “halt the erosion of US democracy”–it done eroded already. We’re starting over now. The only thing we don’t know yet is whether the coming elections will be free and fair. If they are, we can start rebuilding with a new movement to replace the old failed parties. If not, other steps will wind up being taken, one way or another.

They can afford to lose one GOP vote and still get this sleazeball confirmed. (or 2 if Fetterman pulls a Fetterman). Or maybe it’s 2 they can lose, but either way:

Because Collins’ Senate seat is the most in jeopardy, she is the one chosen to be allowed to vote against him. It’s all planned in advance. If they couldn’t afford to lose her vote, she would definitely vote for him.

Murkowski is putting on a show of thinking about voting No (as usual), but you can be sure she’ll vote ultimately yes (as usual).

Likewise the 2 repubs who had been holding him up in committee, Cornyn and Tillis, were always going to vote for him. They just wanted to put on a little show to pretend like maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t. Blanche’s “agreement” not to do the slush fund will only last about 5 minutes after his confirmation.

God I hate all this shit.

I don’t think the term ‘intelligence’ should be used for inanimate things. It implies the ability to reason. Swapping virtual for artificial doesn’t accomplish anything, it’s the word ‘intelligence’ that needs to be changed.

‘Self-improving algorithm’ or ‘self-tuning model’ or something along those lines would be better, since those terms make it clear that this is code being run, not an intelligence doing reasoning. “Self-tuning/improving” replaces the term “learning”; “algorithm” or “model” replaces the term “intelligence”.

I’m not saying those specific terms are what should be used, just that whatever is used needs to be clear that it’s not a reasoning or conscious entity but rather a set of computer instructions being run.

Exactly. Like it or not, “AI” now means generative AI shit, not machine learning. Much of the reason for that is the marketing hype by the broligarchs. So there’s no point trying to teach people a defunct distinction anymore. We’re going to have to have to come up with a good retronym if we want to talk about pre-LLM/genAI machine learning tech.

And remember when you learn emacs to also learn org-mode!

Sorry to interject with a different opinion but I think it would only be confusing for OP to take that advice about starting out with evil-mode, especially if they’ve never even used Vim before. Evil mode is fine for someone who has become used to Vim and wants to continue using its keybindings, but not for other emacs beginners.

IMO new users should learn emacs with its default keybindings, the way it was designed, to avoid confusion and get the most out of it and understand how it actually works. Then change any keybindings you don’t like to whatever you prefer. Then later if you want, experiment with things like modal editing by trying out Evil mode or meow or Xah flykeys, etc.

Same. We were out all day, no one knew where we were. No cell phones. Go home by dark for supper.

This makes absolutely no sense.

Note that this article doesn’t mention who the people they’re quoting voted for, or anything about their political views.

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Democialist Party

They were the crazies even before the maga crazies.

Wow, he looks pretty good for 85 and all the shit he’s been through. Compare that face to all the other >=75 year-olds in DC politics.

“Or maybe that’s just hopium.”

Pure unadulturated hopium.

And just what is “exactly what they want”? No one seems to know. How would calling or not calling a special election affect the Republican’s agenda? There’s no way a Democrat would be elected. So how is it to Repub’s advantage to hide his condition until Aug 3?

TIL, thanks