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> The American Revolution was rare in that it didn't need to happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proc

> The American Revolution was rare in that it didn't need to happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_Rebellion Interestingly y'all Americans pay much more tax now than you did to England back in the day. Turns out King George was right, and it was just about changing who the tax was paid to.

nathan_compton 8mo ago
Not really a secret. The slogan was "No taxation without representation" not "no taxation." The degree to which legislation in the US is bought by big companies and rarely reflects democratic desires we may be in another "no taxation without representation" era.
- autoexec 8mo ago
  Even if the needs of the American people weren't being ignored over the wishes of corporations and the ultra-wealthy in terms of numbers alone we have less representation than ever before because the number of people who are supposed to represent us hasn't kept up with the growing population.
  - throwaway85825 8mo ago
    America ended in 1861 when the era of political bargains transitioned to the era of the government and the subjects.
    - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
      with 20/20 hindsight it would have been a whole lot better to throw a Constitutional Convention rather than have a civil war. It had already intentionally been forgotten how well that worked the first time.
      - throwaway85825 8mo ago
        But without a war you'd be expected to preserve the republic and then how could you concentrate power for yourself.
      - nathan_compton 8mo ago
        Throw a constitutional conventions so that the slave owners could get their votes in (not the slaves, of course, though the owners should get to vote FOR them). I understand that the civil war was about a lot of things, but the precipitating issue was slavery. Slavers should be obliterated by war if they aren't willing to give up their slaves unconditionally.
        fuzzfactor 8mo ago
        I know what you mean but there were so many other possible outcomes that would have resulted in banishment of slavery from North America just as well. If the southern agricultural states didn't want to be with the free states in the Union any more anyway, it might have been the only opportunity to withdraw without a war. Individually, without a confederacy, which instead quickly amounted to a large vengeful adversary where there didn't have to be. It would have been a tough decision for each state to make, under non-emergency conditions, whether they wanted to remain with the country that possessed Wall Street or not. After all it was Wall Street companies who were often financing the plantations to begin with, before stock traders escalated to funding the slave trade once its human cargo became more lucrative than most. As it turned out, besides all the death & destruction suffered by all states, Washington itself went into such deep debt to Wall Street in order to fully vanquish the Confederate States, that it set the stage for untenable "permanent" debt where the lenders never got paid back real well for so many decades. Wall Street has possessed Washington ever since. Otherwise there would never have been a FED as we know it.
        throwaway85825 8mo ago
        Slavery destroyed the roman republic just like it destroyed the American republic. Slavery and republican government are fundamentally incompatible because it devalues the labor and vote of the citizen. Instead of ending slavery the civil war simply made everyone a slave to the government. No longer did the government need to compromise, they could simply do whatever they wished by force. Today millions of new wage slaves flood into the country to further devalue the citizens labor and vote.
- _DeadFred_ 8mo ago
  We need to change it to 'no representation without taxation' and ban lobbyists for any industry/company/interest that doesn't pay an equal percentage of their income as the average 'taxed on labor' American.
  - gosub100 8mo ago
    No, lobbying should be banned even if they pay tax. The only way corporations should have access to representation is by having their role formally defined by an amendment to the Constitution. As in, this government is formed by citizens who have these rights, and corporations that have these rights. Make it official and open, not the subversive manipulation where we act like they aren't there.
- mikestorrent 8mo ago
  Do you feel represented?
UltraSane 8mo ago
Back then most taxes went to Britain.
- simonjgreen 8mo ago
  Now they go to Bezos Where there’s an opportunity to be the 1%, folks will find a way to be the 1%
- mikestorrent 8mo ago
  What's the difference? Render unto Caesar, right?
pear01 8mo ago
It's also rare to just "discover" an entire continent that is basically free for the taking since Europeans annihilated native populations through disease and technological superiority. Much of what makes America unique is tied to this essentially once in a generation event that will never happen again on this planet, a contingent confluence of Earth's parallel geographic and biological evolution... it's fairly easy to rebel or become a superpower when other powers have to contend with peer conflicts right on their borders. A break with England was inevitable why take orders from people an ocean away in the age of sail?
- BLKNSLVR 8mo ago
  That's one of the core plot points in The Mars Trilogy - Why take orders from people on another planet in the age of sub-light-speed space travel?
  - ABCLAW 8mo ago
    It's worse than that; within a few generations our linguistic and biological systems will begin to diverge under conditions with little cross-pollination and different selective pressures. We will become aliens in the sci-fi sense very rapidly if we attempt to create a foundation-like diaspora of settlements.
    - throwaway85825 8mo ago
      This sounds like lysenkoism.
      - ABCLAW 8mo ago
        I think the skepticism warrants more work than that. Darwin's finches are an entry-level concept to learn when learning about biochemistry and genetics. Separate planets would act to separate groups into distinct genetic populations which would then have different selection pressures put upon them. Even without selection pressure, genetic drift in both populations would result in differences compounding over time. Humans aren't the endpoint of evolution. Something will come after us, and if we're spread out on a ton of planets, there would need to be explicit counteracting forces (genetic modification, tremendous volumes of interstellar human travel, etc.) to make sure whatever comes after us is uniform among our interstellar backyard.
fuzzfactor 8mo ago
The US also got its own stock market.

nathan_compton 8mo ago

Not really a secret. The slogan was "No taxation without representation" not "no taxation." The degree to which legislation in the US is bought by big companies and rarely reflects democratic desires we may be in another "no taxation without representation" era.

autoexec 8mo ago
Even if the needs of the American people weren't being ignored over the wishes of corporations and the ultra-wealthy in terms of numbers alone we have less representation than ever before because the number of people who are supposed to represent us hasn't kept up with the growing population.
- throwaway85825 8mo ago
  America ended in 1861 when the era of political bargains transitioned to the era of the government and the subjects.
  - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
    with 20/20 hindsight it would have been a whole lot better to throw a Constitutional Convention rather than have a civil war. It had already intentionally been forgotten how well that worked the first time.
    - throwaway85825 8mo ago
      But without a war you'd be expected to preserve the republic and then how could you concentrate power for yourself.
    - nathan_compton 8mo ago
      Throw a constitutional conventions so that the slave owners could get their votes in (not the slaves, of course, though the owners should get to vote FOR them). I understand that the civil war was about a lot of things, but the precipitating issue was slavery. Slavers should be obliterated by war if they aren't willing to give up their slaves unconditionally.
      - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
        I know what you mean but there were so many other possible outcomes that would have resulted in banishment of slavery from North America just as well. If the southern agricultural states didn't want to be with the free states in the Union any more anyway, it might have been the only opportunity to withdraw without a war. Individually, without a confederacy, which instead quickly amounted to a large vengeful adversary where there didn't have to be. It would have been a tough decision for each state to make, under non-emergency conditions, whether they wanted to remain with the country that possessed Wall Street or not. After all it was Wall Street companies who were often financing the plantations to begin with, before stock traders escalated to funding the slave trade once its human cargo became more lucrative than most. As it turned out, besides all the death & destruction suffered by all states, Washington itself went into such deep debt to Wall Street in order to fully vanquish the Confederate States, that it set the stage for untenable "permanent" debt where the lenders never got paid back real well for so many decades. Wall Street has possessed Washington ever since. Otherwise there would never have been a FED as we know it.
      - throwaway85825 8mo ago
        Slavery destroyed the roman republic just like it destroyed the American republic. Slavery and republican government are fundamentally incompatible because it devalues the labor and vote of the citizen. Instead of ending slavery the civil war simply made everyone a slave to the government. No longer did the government need to compromise, they could simply do whatever they wished by force. Today millions of new wage slaves flood into the country to further devalue the citizens labor and vote.
_DeadFred_ 8mo ago
We need to change it to 'no representation without taxation' and ban lobbyists for any industry/company/interest that doesn't pay an equal percentage of their income as the average 'taxed on labor' American.
- gosub100 8mo ago
  No, lobbying should be banned even if they pay tax. The only way corporations should have access to representation is by having their role formally defined by an amendment to the Constitution. As in, this government is formed by citizens who have these rights, and corporations that have these rights. Make it official and open, not the subversive manipulation where we act like they aren't there.
mikestorrent 8mo ago
Do you feel represented?

UltraSane 8mo ago

Back then most taxes went to Britain.

simonjgreen 8mo ago
Now they go to Bezos Where there’s an opportunity to be the 1%, folks will find a way to be the 1%
mikestorrent 8mo ago
What's the difference? Render unto Caesar, right?

pear01 8mo ago

It's also rare to just "discover" an entire continent that is basically free for the taking since Europeans annihilated native populations through disease and technological superiority. Much of what makes America unique is tied to this essentially once in a generation event that will never happen again on this planet, a contingent confluence of Earth's parallel geographic and biological evolution... it's fairly easy to rebel or become a superpower when other powers have to contend with peer conflicts right on their borders. A break with England was inevitable why take orders from people an ocean away in the age of sail?

BLKNSLVR 8mo ago
That's one of the core plot points in The Mars Trilogy - Why take orders from people on another planet in the age of sub-light-speed space travel?
- ABCLAW 8mo ago
  It's worse than that; within a few generations our linguistic and biological systems will begin to diverge under conditions with little cross-pollination and different selective pressures. We will become aliens in the sci-fi sense very rapidly if we attempt to create a foundation-like diaspora of settlements.
  - throwaway85825 8mo ago
    This sounds like lysenkoism.
    - ABCLAW 8mo ago
      I think the skepticism warrants more work than that. Darwin's finches are an entry-level concept to learn when learning about biochemistry and genetics. Separate planets would act to separate groups into distinct genetic populations which would then have different selection pressures put upon them. Even without selection pressure, genetic drift in both populations would result in differences compounding over time. Humans aren't the endpoint of evolution. Something will come after us, and if we're spread out on a ton of planets, there would need to be explicit counteracting forces (genetic modification, tremendous volumes of interstellar human travel, etc.) to make sure whatever comes after us is uniform among our interstellar backyard.

fuzzfactor 8mo ago

The US also got its own stock market.