I too would like to share my experience with both of you and see if there is still an opportunity to do something along these lines. Email me at mpesa@mlke.net
Re-distribution?? Ex-cuse-me?? These aren't YOUR cookies, you bum! Make your own cookies and THEN worry about re-distribution! When someone else has made the cookies, YOU DON'T GET A SAY in how they are distributed, do you get that?
Whether you like it or not, redistribution is the basis for most of the laws of my country (and certainly yours). It's not up to you or me, it's how the People think. In fact, that's what the OP is about.
It is besides the point to know which side I am. In fact, I've just said tax complexity squashes new enterprises. I've written an article about how an entrepreneur in France loses 70% of his income in tax-and-administrative-burden [1]. So guess whether I enjoy redistribution or not?
Just because the majority think they are entitled to the 1%'s wealth, does not make it so.
The French government might as well take 90% of that entrepreneur's wealth and "re-distribute" it to the so-called "People" (I call them "Sheep") and guess what? That one entrepreneur will still be wealthier than any of them and the "People" will still mumble. In other words, NOTHING will change.
Not almost. I will hoard THE entire pie and I will not feel ONE bit of shame about it, because it is MY PIE! You are the one who should be ashamed for wanting to steal from my pie just because you are incapable of baking your own.
> because it is MY PIE!
Not always. Most "pie" bakers either inherit their "pie" directly in terms of wealth or education or healthy upbringing from parents. The ones you call incapable of baking their own, probably did not have all the advantages that you did.
There's also the aphorism about standing on the shoulder of giants (or indeed standing on tax created infrastructure.) That applies to all "pie" bakers.
And you will still die poor and miserable, because try as you might YOU CAN NOT TAKE this which I have and you don't. You will just never have it and I always will.
Yes, let's do that! Here's a wake up call: I don't have access to any ingredients that everyone else doesn't also have access to!
Because it's not the ingredients. It's how I see them and what I do with them. You choose to cry all day long about scarcity and injustice. I choose to rejoice in the abundance and the unlimited opportunities given to me.
This is what makes me wealthy and you poor. Not the government. Not the political system. Not any form of justice or lack thereof. There is ULTIMATE justice in this world, ALWAYS. It is just as it should be.
I'm sorry, my previous comment was not an attempt at changing your functionalist, would-be-objectivist and elitist view of the world but just a veiled reference to space cookies because you seem to be high on something. Maybe it's a big white horse, who knows?
If it matters to you I'm not poor, at least according to HMRC it's quite the contrary.
That is incorrect. In the typical modern liberal democracy, the right to vote and other such forms of political expression is not tied to how much wealth one generates.
You're the new TempleOS. The only reason you haven't been hellbanned is that your particularly insanity, a weird Randian fantasy world, isn't inherently offensive.
Might makes right. If the rest of the world wants your cookies, then of course they can take it -- you'd either have to give it up or take a bullet to the head.
This is what you don't get, pal. The rest of the world may be able to get some of my cookies but they will NEVER have access to the COOKIE MACHINE because they are SHEEP. They just don't have it in them! Get it? You know what this means? It means I'll ALWAYS have my cookies and they will ALWAYS starve.
Who cares? They can just take your cookies and throw you aside, you yourself are not unique. There's always going to be a bunch of gullible saps willing to work hard that you can tax and take from -- it doesn't matter that they get your cookie machine, just that there's always a cookies to take.
I honestly don't understand why bitter, unaccomplished people believe that someone who creates wealth has an obligation to share that wealth with them. I believe that's commonly called "jealousy" and no, it doesn't give you a moral high ground, nor will it solve any of your problems and it will certainly not make you richer any time soon - quite the contrary, it ensures that you will remain miserable for the rest of your life.
This would all be true if we could easily identify who's creating wealth. Hint: it does not completely equal with individuals who receive the money in the end. Over the couple of thousand years societies realized this, that's why the societies try to smoothen things out a little. It is nice to think that we, technologists in our 20s, 30s have figured it all out because we read Atlas Shrugged once, but reality is slightly more complex. :)
(Disclaimer: I consider myself a libertarian, but I am already too old to think that a few simple rules could save the world.)
But it seems totally uncontroversial and obvious to me that some people will generate vastly more wealth than others. Like think back to your class in high school. Some people were intelligent and industrious and went on to have creative jobs. Some people did just enough to get passing grades and went on to have repetitive, non-creative jobs. Extrapolate this differential in productivity over their entire working lives, what would you expect to happen? You cannot easily identify who created any given piece of wealth, but you can conduct thought experiments like the above that tell you something about the wealth generating process. Of course, the nice thing is, all of society gets the benefit of improved technology and scientific knowledge, regardless of how much they contributed in that direction.
Also, if you want the opinion of your "trusted contacts" - TALK to them. That's not what Twitter is for. If you posted your question publicly, people assume you would appreciate an answer.
Twitter is one of those environments where there isn't a public/private binary - much like interacting with people in real life. If I'm sat at a bar talking to friends, there are some situations in which the intervention of a stranger would be appreciated, but it's few and far between. And if they're a salesperson? Forget it.
"Trying to have a private conversation with friends? Have some advertising shoved in your face! Don't like it? GTFO!"
No wonder Twitter is dying.
Anyway, I don't use Twitter much anymore, but have to agree with the OP. If I wanted the opinion of random strangers, I wouldn't go to Twitter, I'd just Google it.
"Someone" didn't send a pointer to a "possible solution", a business sent me an ad. When I ask something like that I want unbiased opinions, the example here would not be one.
No, businesses care far more about tricking you into giving them as much money as possible for something. It's you who needs to look around and see the real world. Very rare is a business that offers you the best option for you. And such business usually doesn't even need to do tricks to "generate leads".
Forget the corruption, crazy laws, favouritism and racketeering. The biggest problem you'll face doing business in Italy is the wide-spread, deep-rooted "it can wait" mentality that is really prevalent. No one can be bothered with anything. Be prepared to wait for months and months for trivial tasks that can be completed in 30 minutes. Be prepared for people to cancel meetings at the last minute, then set a new date and time just to miss that one too - repeat ad nauseam. Don't even try to explain the concept of a "deadline" to an Italian.
The worst part is you can't even hate them for this, because they're so friendly and likeable!
Other than that, it's a lovely country. Make your wealth elsewhere and go enjoy what Italy has to offer.
I couldn't agree more! Socialism and equality are among THE most dis-empowering and evil ideas to come out of humanity. Unfortunately, these ideas have taken over reason so completely that they are now universally hailed as virtues.
