hsitz

32 ms·

301.
by hsitz 11y ago
"Sure, but I'd happily take 10% of a billion versus taking home 90% of $40k without shedding too many tears." What does this have to do with anything? Yes, there's a difference between marginal rates and overall rates.
302.
by hsitz 11y ago
Well, then, "God damn, 90% marginal tax rate!" For ultra-high income people, say making ten times the income where 90% rate kicks in (or around $10M in 2013 dollars annually in this historical data) the marginal tax rate can end
303.
by hsitz 11y ago
I'm certainly not singling out U.S., or Europe as "culpable offenders". The U.S. is my society, so I know it better and I feel its societal obligations more strongly. As you point out, the Western countries were simply the
304.
by hsitz 11y ago
You seem to think "reflecting on its past" is one of the advances that came with Western civilization. Not sure what "modern western ethnomasochism" is, but I imagine it goes along hand-in-glove with "reflecting on
305.
by hsitz 11y ago
Good question. Someone else pointed out that _all_ societies have benefited from destroying the environment. I get the feeling they were pointing this out to argue that "we" (modern day Americans) don't really need to feel
306.
by hsitz 11y ago
This comment is symptomatic of a lot of modern-day problems, especially in U.S. "We" are a society, a community. "You" don't exist alone. You couldn't exist without the benefits from human societies you live
307.
by hsitz 11y ago
I am a lawyer -- or used to be one -- and your understanding is consistent with mine. I think some people are confused and think there's something shady going on, because they think Zuckerberg is getting some tax benefit from gifting
308.
by hsitz 11y ago
Oh, yes, that's a good list, and I agree almost entirely. I wrote the post you're responding to, and I'm basically a digital convert. Just this year I got rid of thousands of physical books that I'd accumulated over la
309.
by hsitz 11y ago
It's not just about how a single page looks. Even assuming that a nice backlit AMOLED is preferable to ink on paper in good light (which I'm not sure is true), physical books have pages that are easily turned, quick random access
310.
by hsitz 11y ago
College admissions are hardly the only arena where affirmative action operates. And of course it's not an ideal solution, but it's at least a start. Where are you from? Quite possibly your country also has some similar sorts of
311.
by hsitz 11y ago
The question would be whether open-sourcing now might lead to higher profits over the long term than remaining closed-source until some later date. In the case you suggest, it could be that once the open source replacement is as good --- o
312.
by hsitz 11y ago
Not really. Taking a lower-paying job not only avoids taxes, it lowers your income (both pre-tax and after-tax). With charitable giving you can avoid taxes but still retain exactly the same after-tax income (assuming that you were going to
313.
by hsitz 11y ago
I understand Stallman's dislike of SaaSS in [2], but I fail to see how it meets any definition of rent-seeking. People who provide SaaSS are using economies of scale to offer services that are desirable to some, because they're o
314.
by hsitz 11y ago
Consensus of scientists studying a given subject may not "equal science", but it's basically how scientific facts are established. That's how science works. There are always at least a few skeptics and crackpots, can
315.
by hsitz 11y ago
Right, there is no problem, this is not controversial. The linked article that started this thread is suggesting that somehow Zuckerberg plans to get this tax-advantaged treatment by making gifts to an organization that is not actually cha
316.
by hsitz 11y ago
It's tax avoidance because if you hadn't gifted that $100 to charity then your taxable income would have been $100 higher and you would have paid higher taxes. You "avoided" paying tax on the amount that you gifted to c
317.
by hsitz 11y ago
You never end up with a net plus by giving to charity; you are always giving away money. This is because the amount of tax you avoid is always less than what you gift. For example, you may gift $100, which ends up reducing your tax bill b
318.
by hsitz 11y ago
Most charitable gifts are a form of tax avoidance (and _all_ of them potentially are if a person's income is such that it makes sense to take advantage of itemized deductions). People get receipts for charitable contributions precisel
319.
by hsitz 11y ago
There are probably a few different ways out there. Here's link to another add-on method that allows for drag and dropping of images directly from a Firefox web page into Org, code handles async downloading of image to local directory:
320.
by hsitz 11y ago
I think Org-mode (in Emacs) does something similar to what you want. Here's link to page with add-on function to add drag'n'drop images to Org files. The web page itself is what was exported from Org, although the export co
321.
by hsitz 11y ago
"Greek philosophy is heavily responsible for the misogynistic aspects of Christianity for instance, but during this period women had more legal freedoms and ability to exist independently and their rights actually became worse later on
322.
by hsitz 11y ago
Thanks, was thinking AD but for some reason BC came out.
323.
by hsitz 11y ago
A couple things. Simple outlining, to me, gets a big part of the mindmapping benefit, at least if you're often collapsing and expanding documents so you get big picture and drill down to smaller. Of course, outlining has basically a
324.
by hsitz 11y ago
The writings of Plato and Aristotle, in particular, are still widely read among the "well-educated" and continue to exert enormous influence on the world. It is perhaps true that they are not now important of the "normally e
325.
by hsitz 11y ago
Yeah, kind of undecidable, in similar way to nature vs. nurture debate. However, I would say that the case for scientific advancements being "in the air" and nearly inevitable is much stronger than, say, the inevitability of a pa
326.
by hsitz 11y ago
There is no shift. The question of whether individuals are primary influence on events or whether things are "in the air" and thus almost bound to happen (albeit caused by some individual or other) has been kicked around for at l
327.
by hsitz 11y ago
"32 downstream developers look at the demand for 20,000 units and investigate building 2000 units each. . . ." I don't think it works like this. Surely their investigation would turn up the existence of the 16 early mover de
328.
by hsitz 11y ago
Yes, should probably be downvoted. The fact that a small minority can profit greatly in a downturn has virtually nothing to do with the question of how best to grow the economy.
329.
by hsitz 11y ago
Thanks for the example of California. I expect there may be more. However, the main thing I wanted to point out in my post was OP's confusion, shared by many, regarding what entities are prohibited from infringing on constitutional r
330.
by hsitz 11y ago
You do realize that the U.S. Constitution only prohibits the _government_ from infringing on right to free speech? The Mozilla Foundation is not a governmental entity, thus they can take whatever actions they want when employee says someth

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