Sometimes I want to spend money on things that I think are morally right, but the credit card companies/paypal won't let me buy.
You can search for lists. I'm doing things that aren't even on most lists (things like buying medication - not drugs - at a discount). A good consumer will never be in that situation, they'll stick to the paths well traveled and stick to whatever laws they happen to think exist and apply to them (often without actually checking those laws or applying civil disobedience to laws they don't agree with).
An independent mind will sooner or later get into situations of wanting to do things that the established corporations don't want you to do and then you'll find out how little you can actually do with your corporate approved currency.
Yeah, that sounds cool and all, but somehow I ended up with a job that pays over $100K a year, that makes me work for about 3 hours a week from home and has been paying me for years to do that. And I'm pretty sure my manager knows that.
If I were to quit, I'd end up with another job that makes me work for 30+ hours a week, for the exact same salary. And that's just one example. I know many more like that.
Your supply and demand can't explain that, yet it is my daily reality in a capitalist society. Capitalism is just another lie we tell each other to make each other believe we live in a just world.
>somehow I ended up with a job that pays over $100K a year, that makes me work for about 3 hours a week from home and has been paying me for years to do that
That seems entirely consistent with the supply and demand explanation? If your employer thinks they're getting 100k worth of value from you, and that there's nobody that can do your job for cheaper, the fact that you wfh for 3hr/week doesn't affect the analysis.
>If I were to quit, I'd end up with another job that makes me work for 30+ hours a week, for the exact same salary.
That can partially be explained by the fact that labor is an illiquid market, caused by switching costs and lack of information. On the flip side, you might be able to get 500K working for MANGA if you grind leetcode/whiteboard prep.
Yeah, because the end result is people pointing to it as though it's some extraordinary change. My guess would be it was easier and they're lazy bureaucracy.
>All of this funny stuff is mostly people trying everything they can to get capital gains instead of income so they can pay a 25% tax rate instead of a 39% tax rate. When you're talking about billions of dollars - 14% is a lot of money.
0.1% doesn't pay 25%. That's well documented. I don't know what the effective rate is, but averaged out over multiple years it's probably somewhere around 5% and then another few % that's spent on avoidance (not taxes). Maybe 10% at most.
Just look up Bezos or Musk's tax return. Same with Buffett.
It took me about 10 years to really understand the enormous differences between my native culture and my current culture. And those differences are staggering. And they are both western.
You're assuming you can "see" the cultural differences.
Sometimes you can easily see it, but often it's really hard to figure out, because they are going to express themselves in edge cases that you have to run into, which takes time and then it takes time to run into enough of them to be able to see a pattern.
>but it was in the past two decades and got particularly ridiculous beginning around "28nm" up to now.
I wonder if that is some kind of cultural shift that is taking place that started around 2009, or if it's always been like this and I just never noticed.
BMW model numbers used to more or less accurately reflect engine sizes, not anymore, it's just numbers now.
2G, 3G, 4G used to mean something, not anymore.
I could add a remark about the federal reserve, but... I'll just stay away from that. Don't want to be too edgy/turn this into a political discussion (I just think it's interesting from a cultural perspective).
It's like we collectively decided that "it's just numbers, man."
>It's like we collectively decided that "it's just numbers, man."
People with no scruples realized it's easier/cheaper to confuse and persuade people something is better than actually producing something better and that conventional wisdom was wrong.
It's a lot easier to invest in propoganda that convinced improved perceived value than actual value. It's win-win, the consumer thinks they're happy and the producer doesn't have to deal with the mess of hurdles in reality to continue to make money. Conventional wisdom says people are smart and will see through your snake oil, meanwhile, empirical data says people will drink the snake oil if you tell them it's from the fountain of youth.
Waaaaay back in the day, the Electro Motive Division (EMD) of General Motors make railroad locomotive. They had the GP-20 with 2000 horsepower, and the SD-24 with 2400 HP. Then General Electric entered the business with the U-25, having 2500 HP. EMD's next model was the GP-30, with (ahem) 2250 HP. This was in 1961.
So, yeah. This is nothing new. Marketers gonna market.
What’s really disappointing is that we as a society chose to accept commercial prevarication. The fine print exception is sheer bullshit. Dishonest marketing should be treated the same as dishonest weights and measures.
2G was accurately labeled (in my experience), sure, but I remember when Verizon started relabeling their HSPA+ (3G) stuff as 4G in my hometown. Not even "4G LTE" (which allowed them to get away with it since it's not actually 4G), they just straight up called it 4G on my Motorola Droid Turbo. When I rooted it, I found out exactly what it was connected with and learned it was all a lie. (When I actually did experience real 4G, the speed difference was shocking.)
AT&T relabeled their 4G network as 5G fairly early on. [0] Then, Verizon decided to copy them. [1] But this wasn't a trend that started with 5G.
> >but it was in the past two decades and got particularly ridiculous beginning around "28nm" up to now.
> I wonder if that is some kind of cultural shift that is taking place that started around 2009, or if it's always been like this and I just never noticed.
> BMW model numbers used to more or less accurately reflect engine sizes, not anymore, it's just numbers now.
When was that and which number? Just looking at the 7 series (surely you didn't mean that number) the E32 build between 86 and 94 had engine sizes between 3 and 5 liters.
> 2G, 3G, 4G used to mean something, not anymore.
So what did the G mean? AFAIK it was generation, but that's a very vague term. Just look at human generations, people are born continously, so you could have two people who are the same age but technically a generation apart because one had very old parents and the other has very young parents/grandparents are they the same generation?
> I could add a remark about the federal reserve, but... I'll just stay away from that. Don't want to be too edgy/turn this into a political discussion (I just think it's interesting from a cultural perspective).
> It's like we collectively decided that "it's just numbers, man."
Just so you know... Here you can't say that slang word for cigarette either. Because that comment where you said it to me is "dead" and doesn't allow me to reply to you.
If that's not ironic, don't know what is.
I don't want to be paranoid, I don't want to be an activist. But I can't even talk to you normally anymore. I constantly have to worry if I'm allowed to say certain words, I have to check my accounts to see if I was shadowbanned and I have to do that on all platforms once in a while.
It's ridiculous. I don't even think any extreme thoughts and I can't even be left alone. Like.. Leave me alone, you know? The internet wasn't like this 10 years ago.
Sometimes I want to spend money on things that I think are morally right, but the credit card companies/paypal won't let me buy.
You can search for lists. I'm doing things that aren't even on most lists (things like buying medication - not drugs - at a discount). A good consumer will never be in that situation, they'll stick to the paths well traveled and stick to whatever laws they happen to think exist and apply to them (often without actually checking those laws or applying civil disobedience to laws they don't agree with).
An independent mind will sooner or later get into situations of wanting to do things that the established corporations don't want you to do and then you'll find out how little you can actually do with your corporate approved currency.