Setting aside all the flaws in the premise, and whatever flaws occurred in the study itself, the basic notion of "<something> outperforms federal judges" comes as no surprise; a rusty length of rebar is probably better at applying the law than most federal judges.
> Revolutions happen all the time. They all inevitably end up in the same place.
The optimistic take is that this phenomenon is a characteristic of the _emergence_ of an information age (through the agricultural and industrial ages), and will no longer be true of the internet-connected human.
I appreciate the sentiment, but what makes you think that the internet or technology at all can help with this? Judging by the state of the modern internet and WWW, technology seems to be making things worse, not better. The idealistic view of the 1990s that connecting the world would make us more compassionate, tolerant, and rational, hasn't panned out. I don't see a reason to still cling on to that idea.
In the traditional / academic sense of the word, it _is_ deflation. The repurposing of inflation/deflation to refer to consumer price action is much more recent.
Is there a strong correlation between higher taxes and decreasing wealth inequality?
The one part of your comment with which I certainly agree is:
> Note: I believe this would be the case even if the money was literally burnt/disappeated rather than being given to the government (not that I suggest that's what we do).
...except, I am perhaps prepared to suggest actually implementing such a system, at least as an experiment.
Removing spending power from places where it's concentrated seems to have obvious benefits, but giving it to the state (the entity in which political power is maximally concentrated, at least with respect to the legitimate initiation of violence) seems like it's moving the power dynamic in the wrong direction.
> Is there a strong correlation between higher taxes and decreasing wealth inequality?
A sufficiently strong progressive taxation regime would obviously have this effect, assuming you could actually enforce it. For example, if you taxed 99% of earnings above $10 million that would greatly reduce the wealth of the ultra-wealthy, even without taking into account how that money was redistributed.
That's obviously an extreme, and I'm not suggesting we do exactly that. But 80% tax rates were common as recently as the late 20th century, and coincidentally there were much lower rates of wealth inequality during this time.
Well I think we all understand the basic arithmetic; that's not what's in dispute.
The question is,
> even without taking into account how that money was redistributed.
...if you're taking money from people earning $11 million, and giving it instead of the military and prison industrial complexes, obviously you've concentrated, rather than diluting power.
I think there's a real question about how possible it is for a taxation regime to ever have a progressive effect inside the belly of empire.
> We really only practice it in one instance in modern democracy and that's jury duty,
...and even there, it's terribly corrupted. There are all kinds of bizarre ways that people are excluded from juries which bias the result. One commonly-cited example is that people who report moral objections to capital punishment are excluded from being empaneled on a federal jury, under the pretext that because capital punishment is legal under federal law, they'd be unable to carry out the gammut of their duties. Of course this has the convenient result of dramatically biasing juries in favor of the state.
There's also no commonly-implemented proof-of-randomness for selection. We're told that people are randomly selected and get a notice in the mail, but there's no public event where one can go and watch a number tumbler generate the entropy used to select names from the voter rolls, etc.
I just say "I believe in jury nullification and will use that power if necessary".
Easiest out from jury duty ever, and if the judge want's to be a bltch and force me on anyway, well, let's just say that if the law is immoral than the defendant is going to walk.
The last time I was called for jury duty someone said this during jury selection and we were all immediately dismissed and a new pool of jurors brought in.
I unironically want to be on the jury. It's the judges fault for refusing to let principled believers in nullification on. I'm unironically not trying to shrink civic duty.
Then be quiet and don't mention it, lol. EVERYWHERE one learns about jury nullification makes it clear not to mention it in the selection process if you're anywhere near interested in participating.
It's an extraprocedural consequence of how the system is designed to function, the same way the right to revolution is an extralegal option in the Union. Yeah, you can know it and apply it - but don't say it out loud if you want to show any semblance of virtuosity.
> Easiest out from jury duty ever, and if the judge want's to be a bltch and force me on anyway…
“Easiest out” is clearly you avoiding the responsibility. If you wanted to be on a jury you wouldn’t be talking about easy outs or the judge “forcing” you to be on the jury.
Well, and for grand juries in particular, you're told that (more or less) this will be your life for six months. I certainly opted out as best I could.
With a bunch of specific exceptions, violence is handled by the states, so it depends on the state in which it occurred. My best guess is that it's some kind of criminal offense in all 50.
Isn't use of the internet to facilitate crimes commonly cited as a reason for federal prosecution, on the grounds that all internet communications involve interstate commerce?
No, not that I am aware of. I'm not an expert on the topic, but it is my understanding that the majority of prosecuted crimes involving the Internet in the US are prosecuted in State courts, not Federal.
I wouldn't call myself an expert on this topic, but I think you're severely missing the point: virtually any case involving use of the internet can be federalized under the interstate commerce doctrine.
Everything can be federwlized under the interstate commerce doctrine. There was a case where a farmer grew his own plants (wheat, I think) to feed himself and his animals, in contravention of federal quotas. It was ruled the federal government has authority because growing wheat affects the wheat market, even if the wheat is never sold and never leaves the state.
Much like the SEC is the meta-regulator par excellence as humorously documented as 'everything is securities fraud' by Matt Levine, the Interstate Commerce clause is the hat from which all rabbits and powers of legislation of the Federal Government gets pulled from nowadays, for what does not touch upon interstate commerce in an economy such as ours?
They absolutely do, because packets regularly bounce across state boundaries even if I am just sending a message to my next door neighbor. For example, my phone service provider is headquartered in a different state, so using their network to send an SMS message automatically creates an interstate nexus. If a US attorney wants to take over a case for reasons of professional or political advancement the argument is trivially easy to make.
> Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything – and the federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.
> I'm surprised to see so little coverage of AI legislation news here tbh.
I think the reason is that most people don't believe, at least on sufficiently long times scales, that legacy states are likely to be able to shape AI (or for that matter, the internet). The legitimacy of the US state appears to be in a sort of free-fall, for example.
It takes a long time to fully (or even mostly) understand the various machinations of legislative action (let alone executive discretion, and then judicial interpretation), and in that time, regardless of what happens in various capitol buildings, the tests pass and the code runs - for better and for worse.
And even amidst a diversity of views/assessments of the future of the state, there seems to be near consensus regarding the underlying impetus: obviously humans and AI are distinct, and hearing the news from a human, particular a human with a strong web-of-trust connection in your local society, is massively more credible. What's not clear is whether states have a role to play in lending clarity to the situation, or whether that will happen of the internet's accord.
Obviously, in the scenario you describe, people will continue describe themselves as "anti-rapist" and everybody will understand that they mean that they are opposed to rape.
There is no "loose-knit ideology/movement" called "antifa" - there are groups like SDS and Don't Shoot PDX and a zillion others who describe themselves as "antifa", using it as an adjective. I'm aware of no person or organization who has attempted to proclaim that they are the one true antifa org.
I've read your comment twice, and I can't make heads or tails of what you're trying to say.
> If some CEO spoke unflatteringly of The Red Cross or Habitat For Humanity,
Those are organizations. "Antifa" is a descriptive term that many people and organizations use, whether they have connections to one another or not. What is the comparison you are trying to draw here?
> If Antifa’s record speaks for itself, then you don’t need to play these kinds of word games.
You are using the possessive here, "Antifa's", in a way that seems grammatically incorrect to me.
"Antifa" is usually an adjective, but sometimes a known, like "vegan" or "blonde". Saying "if blonde's record speaks for itself", it seems like obviously broken English.
Usually you'd use this phraseology to describe a person or organization, "Joe's record", "Nabisco's record", etc.
What is the entity or entities whose record(s) you are trying to describe?
>Those are organizations. "Antifa" is a descriptive term that many people and organizations use, whether they have connections to one another or not. What is the comparison you are trying to draw here?
How's this different than say how "alt right" is pejoratively used by the left?
It's very much the same thing, there is no single unifying "Alt-Right" central headquarters, subscription fees amd newsletter, just as there is no specific Antifa organisation, just many people and a few groups that self identify as being against facism.
On the AltRight side people might point to, say, Steven Miller and his Nazi adjacent statements, or to Nick Fuentes and the Groypers, or to Andrew Anglin and The Daily Stormer for more trad. Nazi views.
To be honest I'm not entirely sure what the leading antifa groups in central north america might be.
In terms of the silliness / uselessness, you're right that they're similar - nobody compares "The alt-right" to the Red Cross, as if they had an office and an accountant on staff.
But plenty of people will say that they are traditional conservatives, and say "I'm not alt-right". Virtually nobody describes their own political views by saying "I'm not anti-fascist."
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