The government is the majority of people. So the government very well can be against 49% of the people and it would still fit your definition.
If 100 people were about to embark on a journey on a ship, what makes you think 51 of them know who should run the ship if none of them have ever even been on a ship?
> I think they mean "taxation of the too rich" in that case.
Everyone wants taxes to go up on everyone making more than them, and for their own taxes to go down.
The problem is this is a collective negotiation, not a discussion about what to ask the genie for when we rub the lamp.
If the middle class wants to decrease their own taxes (which is the political issue that objectively affects them the most, and how they lose their power), then they are going to have to meet the wealthy half way.
Idealism is the enemy of the the common sense, rational, self-interested move.
> And needless to say, a non-functioning democracy is not a proof that the concept of democracy doesn't work.
Yes, democracy is a good idea precisely because imperfect implementations of it work well.
If it worked in theory and not in practice, then it wouldn't be a good idea.
Contrast it to communism, which is literally an info-hazard.
If you try to bring it in to existence, you won't achieve your goal, and the system you do create will be much worse for you.
Even if it works in theory, it's a bad idea because it doesn't work in practice.
There's no way that even the richest people in the world are "powerful" enough in that sense unless you're talking about literal royalty in resource-rich countries. Even Epstein's power was largely about his cronyism, not about directly expending his wealth.
I'm having difficulty parsing what you're saying in your first paragraph. What is it to 'meet the wealthy half way'? Did the ultra wealthy meet the middle class or the poor half way when they essentially ended their tax obligations and legalized mass influence buying in Citizens United? What's the 'half measure' that is going to rein all that back in?
No they did not. It's easier for a small number of people to coordinate, than a large number.
The wealthy have about as much power as the entire middle class, but can wield it better because they are more nimble.
That doesn't change the state of the negotiation, which is that cutting taxes for the middle class will also require cutting them for the wealthy.
If you optimize for your own personal notion of fairness, or retribution, you may very well fail to coordinate in your own self-interest.
I don't really want to cut taxes for the working/middle class though. I want to tax the everliving fuck out of the hyper-wealthy, to the point that they cease to exist. The money should go into providing goods and services for the working/middle class, but collecting that money and lighting it on fire (or parking assets in a sovereign wealth fund) is a superior option to doing nothing.
Neither democracy nor our position as a world power survived capitalism eating itself and everything else. We are down to single individuals holding more nominal wealth than whole continents.
Tax cuts for the ultra wealthy are routinely paired with tax cuts for the less wealthy, for the same reason that countries which tax the ultra wealthy a lot also tax the less wealthy a lot. Building support for taxation means convincing people that taxes are great and they should embrace the benefits of living in a society with lots of tax revenue to spend.
If you read the article, I believe it is more of a "we are studying it and there is a lot to do" than "drugs are good".
I think a very important part is:
> For example, I’m interested in the effects of THC versus CBD. We don't have any of that information in the UK Biobank. Most people in this study were using cannabis quite a while ago, and cannabis at that time looked very different from what’s available today. That context really matters. It’s a complex picture.
i see your point but think about it this way. A bowl or a joint holds a certain amount. People fill mostly the same amount and dont regulate it by thc content
> The official expressed concern that sensitive information — notably command data for European satellites — is unencrypted, because many were launched years ago without advanced onboard computers or encryption capabilities.
I think that the problem is that "open source" in itself is not volunteering.
Just like "masonry" is not volunteering, even though a mason could volunteer by building an orphanage pro bono. But when they build their own house, it's not volunteering.
I don't even think that being paid for building an orphanage counts as volunteering... does it?
I don't think that equating all open source work with volunteering makes sense.
Volunteering is defined by its charitable purpose for a public good, not by the specific skill used.
Let me try an analogy:
A chef who cooks a free meal for a homeless shelter is volunteering. That same chef publishing a recipe online or making a cooking tutorial is sharing knowledge, not volunteering. The act of 'cooking' or 'publishing' is neutral. It becomes volunteering only when the primary, direct, and organised purpose is to serve a charitable cause without expectation of personal gain.
Disclaimer: I have been consistently doing a lot of open source in the last 10 years. I would consider none of that as volunteering.
But the German word for it is "gemeinnützig" which loosely translates to "useful for the commons".
So also things like helping kids with their homework or giving people courses in your hackerspace, repaircafes, reading with others can fall into that.
So while maybe not all software that is open source also is automatically useful for the commons as it is now the definition is way too narrow. If you write software that helps one of the existing recognized causes it is openns source. If you write an open source photoshop or spend days working on software that keeps the world running you don't. But we need the latter people and supporting the former people makes the world a better place.
> So also things like helping kids with their homework or giving people courses in your hackerspace, repaircafes, reading with others can fall into that.
I'm guessing it doesn't count if you are being helped to help kids or give courses, does it? So not only it depends on what it is, it also depends on how it is done.
Open source in itself is not charitable, and many people get paid to contribute to open source projects.
My point is that I agree that some open source projects can count as volunteering, just like some masonry work. But I wouldn't say that "open source" should count as volunteering, just like for masonry.
> FOSS is gemeinnützig, even if the producers are paid.
That's exactly what I question. Let's say I develop an open source firmware specific to hardware I produce. It's not compatible with anything else, it's my proprietary hardware. The hardware is a tamagotchi (you wouldn't consider a tamagotchi "gemeinnützig", would you?). I use tivoisation, such that nobody can flash a different firmware than the one I write. Still the source code of that firmware is open source.
the problem here is where to draw the line. the thing is though, a perfect line can't be drawn. i can still read your code, and learn something from it. so there is some benefit.
the question is how do we measure benefit?
you could also imagine a project that could be of huge benefit, but nobody knows about it because just publishing it on my website or even on github is not enough.
so maybe benefit is the number of people downloading and using the code. few people would use your firmware, so the benefit would be small.
we are already facing this question with small libraries projects that many other projects depend on. which of these libraries deserve or need our support. if you can answer that question you can also decide if a project is of public benefit.
when it comes to officially recognizing projects, the cost of enforcement is also an issue.
it may be unfair that a project like this firmware gets recognized as being of public benefit, but it is also unfair to not recognize other projects that do need the recognition don't get it.
it is not reasonable to reject an idea just because you can construct examples that are not deserving and would exploit a loophole. just like we don't cancel social security benefits just because there are a few bad sheep that are unfairly taking advantage of it.
i find it really frustrating that every good idea is shot down just because some people could benefit unfairly.
That's exactly my point! It's not as simple as "it is open source, therefore it is gemeinnützig". It depends on the project.
Therefore it doesn't make sense to recognise "open source" as "volunteering". What makes sense is to consider "volunteering projects" as "volunteering projects", and the way one decides that is by looking at the project. Open source or not.
But I assume that's already how it works: to qualify as "volunteering", someone in charge has to look at your activity and confirm that it does, indeed, qualify.
> Sure, but can you be honest and admit that you don't have any of this yet? Just to take a simple thing like messaging, Europeans mainly use WhatsApp
Because it's very hard to compete against monopolies when there are network effects. What you can do is regulate them. The US government has been working very hard in the last decades to prevent that.
"regulate them" has mostly translated to "tax the most successful players in the form of non-compliance fees from byzantine EU regulatory structures".
I don't think the thing holding back Europe's tech market is that the US encourages allies to not allow backdooring proprietary software, or the cries that it's unfair that the US doesn't strangle their own tech market with equally burdensome regulation. The problem Europe's tech industry has faced is that the EU killed it in the crib with regulations, and now there's more fear of "what if there are bad side effects in being successful" than there is fear of never being successful.
Yes, it'd be great if there was a thriving market of mid-sized EU tech companies working in a well-regulated and consumer friendly market. There just isn't, though. I'm generally a fan of Doctorow, but the idea that the EU is just a few hackers reverse-engineering a new client for teams/youtube/whatsapp away from that world is hard for me to see.
Taxing the most "successful" players and burdening them with regulations is exactly what is needed (provided those most successful players are large enough in size and few enough in number). There is room for more nuance in regulations in the sense that they can scale up more gently as companies grow, but the regulations on megacorps like Facebook and Google should only become more brutal. The existence of those kinds of companies anywhere in the world is a threat to people everywhere.
> I don't think the thing holding back Europe's tech market is that the US encourages allies to not allow backdooring proprietary software
"Encouraging allies" is a pretty damn generous interpretation of it.
Regarding what's "holding back Europe's tech market", I think that Europe has a different culture. Not having big monopolies is a feature, not a bug. In that sense, the regulations don't fail.
But it is very difficult to compete with monopolies unless you become one and lock your position. If the regulations prevent that (and again, that's a feature), then it becomes impossible.
Trying an analogy:
If we impose strict animal welfare rules on our own chicken farmers, that's a feature. But if we then allow unlimited imports of cheaper chicken raised with no such rules, it becomes unfair to our farmers, doesn't it?
The US government has been working really hard on making sure that nobody can compete with the US Big Tech. See what Cory Doctorow has to say about this, for instance.
If you prevent monopolies, and your neighbour doesn't, and your neighbour bullies you when you try to prevent their monopolies... it's not an easy situation.
That's really not the issue. EU tech companies aren't getting big enough to the point where "potentially a monopoly" is even a problem, other than maybe Spotify.
Well it looks like Bill Gates had his wife for advice, and apparently his not following it played a part in ending his marriage.
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