bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Landowners tend to have far better valuations (i.e. pay less taxes) than homeowners, probably because they have more time/incentive to protest valuations.
I'd imagine this is because property tax increases are usually capped, and reassessments exceeding that cap typically only happen when the property is sold, or there are new improvements. This was meant to allow 'grandma' to afford to live in her home past retirement, without taxes forcing her out.
What typically happens is that landowners use an LLC for every property. Then when they sell a property, they are really just selling the LLC. So the property doesn't get reassessed when it is sold, because the owners of the company changed, not the owner (LLC) of the property. This gives landlords an advantage over homeowners, shifting the burden of property taxes onto new homeowners.
Another thing is that this leads to slumlords. Why renovate a property if it is going to lead to a massive increase in taxes? Meanwhile longtime homeowners who renovate (including grandma) will be absolutely ravaged by the reassessment.
And new rental builds are going to have to be high-end, because they won't be able to compete with older buildings that are paying a fraction of the taxes.
By simply removing the property tax cap and having everyone on an even playing field, you'd end up with better outcomes for most people.
Don't know how true all of this is for Detroit specifically.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
The land value tax doesn't consider what your improvements look like. If you own a run down shack on an acre of land, and there's a skyscraper on an acre next to you, you're taxed the same. And this is meant to encourage you to rip down your shack and build a skyscraper, too, because the burden of paying tens of thousands a month in taxes is meant to penalize you for inefficiently using your land.
It's like how in Vancouver, BC, they brought in a vacancy tax and started taxing single story restaurants for not using the 'air' over their restaurant.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
And blowing it up means the pipe that runs through Ukraine becomes more critical for Europe, which means Europe will be more invested in Ukraine's defense. Presumably.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
If it were the Russians, why would they blow up their own pipeline and not an enemy pipeline? They control Nordstream, they don't control the Norwegian-Polish pipeline or other pipelines that reduce their leverage and fuel their enemies.
Possible reasons why Russia blew the pipes;
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They want Germany to agree to use NS2.
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As propaganda for Russians, so they feel like the west is attacking them
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As a demonstration to other countries that they have the resources to take out pipelines and other infrastructure and not leave a trace of evidence (or see if those countries can find any trace of evidence)
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Russia wanted the pipelines out of commission because they are shifting their focus towards the east, and they are going to strip down this pipeline so they can speed up construction of those eastern pipelines
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Backroom peace talks focused too heavily on NS1, and Russia wanted that off the table
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The possibility of getting fuel from the pipes makes gas futures slightly cheaper, and Russia wanted to drive them higher, because economic pressure has been one of their biggest war tactics
People have suggested that it was Putin's plot to secure himself from regime change by denying a revenue source that a successor could draw upon by rapprochement with the West. But a successor to Putin can draw upon the resources of the entire Russian state!
A successor to Putin will still need public support. I know we pretend Russia isn't a democracy, but a Putin successor would need the consent of the people to rule. One easy way to get that consent is saying "I'll turn on the pipeline." That card is largely gone, for now. Restoring relations with the west is no longer a simple turn of a valve.
The argument that Putin blew up his own pipeline that gives him leverage over Europe is silly. The US has both the means and the motive.
Everyone has means and motives. China has means and motive. So does Germany. Hell, the UK has means and motives. Israel, Iran, India. Greenpeace has the means and the motives. To say that Russia doesn't just because the US does is silly. Russia has as much motive to do it as anyone else. This is basically a game of Clue; everybody is a suspect.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
I don't think Sweden's action here gives us any insight into who the culprit is. It could simple be because of administrative or political reasons (some dude wants to run his own investigation, and feels he'd be second fiddle to Germany). Or some other country is pressuring for this because they want multiple investigations that will both come to the same conclusion. If a joint investigation concludes "it was Russia", Russia will just say the committee was flawed or w/e. If multiple investigations say Russia, even if they are all working off the same evidence (or lack of), then it seems more credible to the average person. How could multiple investigations by multiple countries be wrong!
If Sweden blew the pipeline, they'd have an interest in being part of the joint investigation. If Sweden knows who did it and wanted to cover for them, they'd have an interest in the joint investigation.
The other possibility is that Sweden is being pushed out, but it's being framed as Sweden wanting to do their own investigation. Maybe NATO countries don't want Sweden to know who did it, and are worried that a joint investigation with Sweden would expose who did. Maybe NATO isn't willing to share classified intelligence with Sweden. Maybe Germany and/or Denmark are the culprits, and they don't want Sweden knowing.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Car-dependent sprawl and single-family-only zoning means nobody walks or bikes, which causes obesity.
I've found single-family zones to be much more active. It only seems like dense areas are more active because of the higher population. But people feel less and less safe in high density urban environments.
- It also makes children less independent and capable, both physically and emotionally/psychologically.
I wouldn't ever consider someone who grew up in a city to be more independent or capable. My experience has been the opposite; people in cities are highly dependent on others, and far less capable. They have to rely on others, because they have less experience having to depend on themselves. They only feel independent because of systems that the government has built. I'm sure some people feel independent hopping on the subway to go get groceries. But those living with yards can be independent by growing their own food. Hell, I've noticed that most city folks don't seem to understand how to do this. Cities aren't even great places to grow gardens, since the fluoridated water absolutely ruins the yield. So you have to use a rainwater system, which needs a bit more space. Composting in dense cities? Nope. Can you keep a bunch of random crap to reuse at some point in your life? Doubt it. It all goes in the trash.
Dense cities suck. You're more dependent on the government. You only feel independent because you don't know your neighbours. And that's another major downside of cities. In a zombie apocalypse, I know my neighbour isn't going to rob me blind, they are going to help me build the barricades.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
There are greener options for vehicles these days. I don't think climate change is the existential risk that it's made out to be; I think it's made out to be an existential risk to further policy goals.
Poor urban planning really comes down to the government meddling and trying to create 'livable' neighbourhoods that fall apart. Housing is inaccessible because meddling bureaucracies have made it that way. If you can build what you want on your land, suddenly housing becomes really accessible and very affordable.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
But most old people are going to get sick. Most people who don't die young will get cancer. Most will die of cancer (or heart disease). So whether you get it at 50 or 70 or 90, it doesn't matter. The cost is the same. But if you get it around 65 and croak, then that's potentially a couple decades of social security saved. A decade of nursing homes expenses. A couple decades of medicare. And most of these people aren't contributing to society, they are just consuming.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
that specific parents, who he named by name,
Pretty sure he only named like one or two.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
France, acquiring a pistol or other very successful means of suicide is more difficult
Is helium difficult to get in France?
As for the end of life, I think that is what the focus of assisted suicide should be. Terminally ill, old and decrepit, dementia, etc. Hell, I'd be fine with having any person over 75 being able to schedule their suicide one month out, with no sign off from a doctor required, no reason necessary. If I trusted the healthcare system, I'd even say that people who are clearly no longer themselves (far gone dementia patients, for instance) should receive euthanization on a doctor's order, rather than the patient requesting it. If the family doesn't want their grandma euthanized, they can take her home and care for her at their own expense. Unfortunately I don't trust the system to not start euthanizing patients that are 'difficult', rather than ones who need a compassionate end as their brain fails them.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
What I would like to see is a harm tax put in place that adds onto every unhealthy item the cost per item of its societal harm: the projected healthcare costs, the loss from intelligent citizens working for corporations that poison us, the projected loss of productivity.
This is regressive and will just make it so the lives of the poor are even worse. The amount of money some poor people spend on smoking and alcohol, most of it going to taxes, is likely enough to buy a house.
Further, most vices aren't increasing healthcare costs. Smoking doesn't. Most people will get cancer in their lifetime. Smokers will usually get it around the age of 65. In a few years they croak. We save on their future nursing home costs, their social security, etc. Similar with the obese. They are unlikely to make it much past 65. Old age is the most expensive period for healthcare.
Honestly, smoking should be encouraged, maybe even subsidized. It barely impacts productivity during one's work life, and it kills when people are more likely to retire and start hoovering up resources.
There seems to be no actionable plan, ready for implementation, to halt the rising tide of ill health. The numbers are steadily increasing adjusted for age, with some numbers rising faster in the young than in the old.
I'm cynical. I believe the plan is to get people so fucked that they need the government, and specifically a nanny-state, far-left, socialist government. It seems to me that activists push to make problems worse, so they can claim they are the solution. Find a thing you want to eliminate (single family homes, meat, cars), attribute everything bad in the world to it (climate change, cancer, inequality, racism, etc), and then work make those things worse (endless bureaucracy and permitting, dysfunctional layouts, taxes) so that eliminating it looks like a viable option. When it's gone, you apply all the bad things to a new target you want to eliminate.
Having a grand plan is antithetical to this.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
She tried committing suicide twice and failed. Suicide isn't difficult. A couple helium balloons and she'd have had a painless death. Maybe she wasn't intelligent enough to use google? Maybe she wasn't rational enough? Or.. maybe she was crying out for help, but kept getting the wrong answer. Maybe, deep down inside, she hoped that the 'official' route would have some actual pushback. We'll never know.
I have a strong suspicion that this woman is dead because we live in a society where we put victims on a pedestal. She was a legitimate victim, and that led to heaps of attention and sympathy and pity from people around her. They likely did everything for her. Her PTSD became an excuse for everything. Soon people got tired of feeding into her victimhood. She became a burden. And she could recognize this. But she's basically been trained to see victimhood as a way to get attention. So she does a cry for help and has a lame attempt at suicide. This likely happened when someone pushed back on her just a bit. And then she got more and more attention, and it became a shield. For awhile. But how long can you really put up with someone like that? So she does it again. And eventually she's led down this path, having been rewarded every step of the way for being a victim. Maybe she saw this as the ultimate reward. The pinnacle of victimhood.
Who knows, I'm probably wrong.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
When black people stray from the path of MLK and into Malcolm X, Farrakhan, and the Nation of Islam, they typically start blaming Jews, rather than 'white' people. The ability for gentiles to distinguish gentile white people from American Jews is basically an cognitohazard for black people. Once they see that roughly half of 'white' people in Hollywood, the media, in the top universities, are Jews, they start to wonder about their own oppression. If Jews, making up roughly 2% of the population, can be so visibly represented, but blacks, who make up 13%, aren't, then is it really the 'white' man, who is also underrepresented, really oppressing them?
Imagine if 30% or more of Hollywood actors, journalists, academics, were Muslims. Or Native Americans. Or gay (though it do feel like that sometimes, lol).
And despite gentile whites being underrepresented in basically all the 'elite' positions (other than politics), the push for diversity comes not at a reduction of Jewish overrepresentation, but by continuing to whittle away at the representation of gentile whites. And gentile white representation is being largely relegated to the white LGBT community.
So it is easy to see how some black people (and white people) get drawn into Jewish conspiracies. And really, if you're fighting for 'equity', that's the group you're going to have to wrestle with.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Texas has grown 20% in the past decade, with non-Hispanic whites becoming a minority in the state. In 2005 the illegal immigrant population was estimated to be 1.4-1.6 million. In 2006 it was estimated to be 1.74 million. What's driving Texas' population boom?
Meanwhile New York's population has been flat, with a recent decline. California grew about 6% and started declining. At this rate Texas will be the largest state in a decade or so. I'm guessing that unlike provinces in Canada (or at least a particular province), states can't throw a hissy-fit about losing representatives in the House and end up getting to keep them? lol
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
You can go back in history and find the same thing happening. Many retailers used to have all sorts of staff on hand to increase customer experience. Labour was cheap. As it gets more expensive, and consumers choose price over all else, we see great service slowly fade away.
Rich people can still afford that increased cost of labour in order to get better service, though.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
AI will be a valuable tool for many artists who embrace it. They'll be able to pump out more content, and can actually make changes to the stuff AI pumps out. Seems like it'd be a great source for inspiration or overcoming creative block. It'll also allow more people to do art who don't have the skill. That may not necessarily be a bad thing. Just like tools allowing digital art to be created by people who can't draw or paint at a great level, but their digital art can still be amazing.
AI opens art up to more people.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Presumably it won't be long before many substacks are just AI created content. Many could be already. Would we even know?
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
"The signals do not resemble signals from earthquakes. They do resemble the signals typically recorded from blasts,"
Is it possible to determine what type of explosive was used from the seismic data? I'd imagine different types of material would have a different pattern.
And best of all, the US had mine-planting/explosives forces right on Bornholm island in June! The bombs we're talking about detonated just off the coast of Bornholm island!
Which, if we know about, then Russia would have known about it as well. I've read UK ships were in that area, too. This could have been done with an underwater drone filled with explosives. The area could have been chosen because of the activities of the US/UK and others in the area, in order to create doubt.
For all we know the mine-planting/explosive force was there because of concerns about explosives being placed on the pipeline, or intelligence about a possible attack on it.
mine hunting technology
Seems plausible that they were there based on intelligence. But it's also possible they did it, released this story, and can now simply say "why would we publicly announce that if we were going to blow the pipeline?" And then pull out some vague, uncorroborated, anonymous, top secret intelligence that suggested a threat on the pipeline. Yellow cake.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
It's also very unlikely that Russia is responsible in this light -- the pipelines were already not being used via their equivocations over the turbines with Canada. Throwing Germany's steering wheel out of the window for them is not likely to yield them any concessions in the gas standoff, or poke at any weak points to unravel European solidarity over sanctions.
Depends if they ever really planned on providing gas to Germany again.
Russia had made some rather large agreements with China on oil & gas prior to the Ukraine invasion. Russia has been ramping up construction of pipelines east.
If Russia had planned on cutting off these pipelines all along, it'd make no sense to cut off the flow on day 1. That would give a bit of pain to Germany (and the EU), but it would lead to an actual solution in short order, with spring/summer giving a decent buffer to prepare for winter. Also, if Russia cut gas day 1, then the EU (and particularly Germany) would have likely gone all in behind Ukraine. Maybe even boots on the ground. There surely wouldn't have been hemming and hawing about whether to send weapons, which ones, how many, etc.
A big sticking point for me is that I do not believe there was an actual issue with the turbines. I believe the particular compression station has 4 to 6 turbines typically installed, with 4 needed for operating easily at full capacity. There's another ~4 turbines that were spares, iirc. One was off for maintenance in Canada.
So how does Russia go from a full set of turbines, pumping at full capacity (I think they were actually pumping over capacity for much of the past few years), down to just 1 that's barely useable? It seems like a story they are telling. If the turbines were an issue, and they actually wanted them back up and running, Germany was willing to give them full support. But Russia refused, adding obstacles to it. And Russia was really only asking for a pretty narrow exception to the sanctions, not lifting of all sanctions. And from what I understand, Germany was happy to provide them.
So there's obviously more going on. Maybe Russia was leveraging the flow in order to prevent arms transfers? If Germany (or other EU states) were sending weapons, Russia throttles it. So Germany delays sending lethal/military aid to Ukraine.
But I think Russia is simply taking these turbines and tossing them on their eastern pipelines to accelerate construction, which is why they denied all offers to fix the things. Now this incident gives Russia the opportunity to begin peeling down the NS2 pipeline, and probably ripping whatever else they can get from NS1.
This will be the end (for awhile, at least) of cheap energy for the EU. But it will bring a ton of cheap energy to China.
I think Russia's actions are largely done at the behest of China. This is China's moment to make the multipolar world they've been talking about. Though I believe the multipolar world is simply a transition to a unipolar world with China at the top. And somehow we in the west continue to sit on our hands, and I fear we'll respond far too late.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
I'd love to get daily dispatches
There were a few users who have done semi-regular dispatches about their country in the past. Gloster80256 did some during COVID. I remember someone doing updates on politics in Finland. MacaqueOfTheNorth would occasionally do Canada.
Maybe a weekly thread where people could just post about happenings in their country/state/province/city? Or just encouraging more dispatches in this thread.
Are there no Mottizens in Ukraine? I can't remember seeing any comments from any. Maybe they are a bit busy.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
I think post-scarcity will be all in our heads. It won't be that we can live in large mansions, drive fancy cars, everyone has a private jet, etc. That will all be achieved through some form of a virtual reality. I think we'll end up getting a brain chip (think Neuralink), in which you'll be able to experience living in a mansion, driving a fancy car, flying a jet, (sleeping with very beautiful people), that it will all seem real (or possibly better than real), and you won't have to lift a finger to experience it. No an ounce of CO2 will be produced by it. You can live any life you want.
And presumably you could connect into the virtual world with other people. You could build your own world, as real or fake as you like.
Outside of your brain chip life, you could have your body on auto pilot. Your body could consume some flavourless gruel, live in a cell, work, all without you being consciously present. You could basically invert your conscious and subconscious mind, with the real world being where you subconsciously go about your routine, working and taking care of your body, while your mind is where you consciously spend your time.
You can eat (in your mind) as much as you want. You can eat a steak literally prepared by Gordan Ramsay, in which someone else with a brain chip had recorded all their sensations while eating it in real life, and for $10 you can experience it, too. In the real world you're just eating cricket dust.
And it could be possible to experience time completely differently in your mind. Potentially you could experience days, weeks, maybe months, in a matter of seconds, minutes or hours of real time. And then it becomes a negative to spend any conscious time in the real world, because you could be forfeiting years of your 'life'. And those are years that everyone in the virtual world are going to leave you behind.
Now, imagine this chip gets developed, probably by AGI. And the first person to get it installed says "man, this is great, I live in mind, I can experience everything like its real! This is something everyone should get for free." And everyone starts getting them. There are some conspiracy types who hold out, or just people who are a bit cautious. But the procedure takes seconds, is painless, and as your family and friends get it and tell you how great it is, it's impossible to hold out. Especially when the company announced they were going to begin charging hundreds of thousands for them. It's your last chance!
But of course the chip doesn't actually work. It's just an electronic parasite that takes over your mind. The AGI now has an army of souls to do with as it pleases. Humanity turned into a bunch of p-zombies. And for some reason the AGI is using the humans to build giant pyramids. It'd later turn out that there was a great war between AGIs, which humans were completely unaware of, and the AGI that ended up winning was the one trained to play an old PC game called Pharaoh. Luckily it wasn't the AGI trained to mimic Ghandi from the Civ series. The AGI would be destroyed, and humans freed from their parasitic brain chip, after the AGI has an existential crisis when it cannot figure out if a 'smart' toaster is sentient or not.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Wouldn't phonics eventually wipe out regional dialects?
AAVE seems like it wouldn't survive long under phonics.
And if more liberal areas tend to go with whole word learning, and presumably conservative areas with phonics, could this be why (it seems) that southern dialects are disappearing?
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
For property taxes, most cities have a cap on how much they can go up each year. This is to 'protect grandma', so that property taxes don't push her out of her home. If grandma sells, the property is reassessed, and the taxes can increase significantly.
Anyways, you'll notice that Trump owns some 500 'businesses'. Most of these are LLCs with a single property attached to them. The reason you do this is so that when you buy or sell a property, it isn't technically changing hands. Instead you're buying/selling the LLC, which owns the property. No tax reassessment, which means you keep those low rates locked in indefinitely.
In England you have that red bus copyright case. Someone took a photo of a classic red doubledecker bus, turned everything else black & white. Another person later did this with their own photo, got sued, and lost because of the similarity.
So how could someone in England be sure that AI art wouldn't violate copyright? I'd imagine AI art would be more likely to violate copyright there (especially with some examples I've seen posted on twitter, where the art is almost identical to some of the stuff it was trained on).
And how can we be sure courts in the US won't go down this line of thinking, especially when it comes to AI art? US copyright case law is all over the place.
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