Like humans steer their dogs with a leash, I wonder what kind of leash AI will have on humans.
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AI will know every human better than any other human does. It’ll intimately know you better than anyone else, and similarly everyone else. You will be closest to the same machine that everyone else is closest to. This will be weird.
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The state is the real-world experiment how to best be a human parasite.
Feed on your host as much as you can but not too much to deplete it.
Feed on your host as much as you can but not too much to deplete it.
this California wealth tax thing is just incredible.
so in October 2025, a California healthcare union proposed a "one time" 5% tax on any billionaire's wealth. the ballot measure will be voted on next month. In early December 2025, California announced that it would be a ed, applying to anyone with CA residency as of Jan 1, 2026. The objective is to pay for Medi-Cal, California's incredibly dysfunctional healthcare system. (which also functions as a glorified welfare apparatus, but that's a discussion for another time).
polls reveal that the CA electorate is split around 50/50 on the tax, but prediction markets only give Prop 40 a ~23% chance of passing (there are competing measures on the ballet that would nullify it).
there are 200 billionaires in CA, worth collectively somewhere between $2.3 and $2.6 trillion. 5% of that is around $100b, accounting for a small amount of attrition. proponents of the tax forecasted a significant windfall, assuming only a 10% departure rate.
supporters thought they were being clever with the retroactive concept. no billionares would leave CA in the few short months between the tax being proposed and the residency cutoff date, without the tax even having passed yet, right?
well as it turns out, they did.
a new paper [1] from two academics at Stanford called "The Net Present Value of the California Billionaire Tax Act", argues that not only did more billionaires leave due to the proposed tax than its proponents expected, but that the value of the tax, if it does pass, is actually negative.
proponents of the tax only assumed 10% avoidance, that is, only 10% of the taxable base of targeted billionaires would leave CA within the very short Oct-Dec 2025 window. Jaros and Rauh, the Stanford academics, find that a lower bound of 28.6% of the taxable base managed to leave.
just based on known departures, those departures total $577b in net worth, or $28.8b in potential tax lost. this of course does not capture everyone (many left without announcing their departure), so the authors normalize to departure rates estimated from other wealth tax events, and apply other discounts for litigation, arriving arrive at a figure of only $28-$36b in forecasted tax revenues.
but this isn't all! all of the income taxes paid by the departed billionaires are also forsaken. the authors estimate that CA billionaires pay $3.3- 5.8b in annual income taxes. they assume a midpoint of $2b lost in annual collections from departed billionaires. the net present value of that lost income stream is -$68.9 billion.
so when you add it all up you get:
+ $30b one-time tax windfall (estimated)
- $69b in present value of lost future income taxes
= - 38.9b overall net present value of the tax
of course, this analysis is highly estimate driven. the authors simulate the parameters 100k times and find a negative NPV of the implemented tax 85 percent of the time.
and if the tax doesn't pass, which it's not looking like it will, California still ended up losing at least $577b in departed net worth, and they have permanently poisoned the well with entrepreneurs who will now worry about future wealth taxes.
[1]: nber.org/system/files/w…
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After waking up to how taxation is theft and the state is a gang, there is no going back to sleep.
I'm glad to be awake. How come most people are still asleep?
I'm glad to be awake. How come most people are still asleep?
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Das generelle Preisniveau, alles andere gleich gehalten, misst wie viel parasitären Staatsapparat man mit durchfüttert.
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The problem with government is that it does work ... poorly for some of the people some of the time.
This makes it harder for people to realize that they'd be better off without it.
It would be easier if it never worked at all for anyone ever.
This makes it harder for people to realize that they'd be better off without it.
It would be easier if it never worked at all for anyone ever.
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Deutsche wundern sich oft, warum sie so unglücklich sind.
Weil sie vom Staat so stark beherrscht werden.
Je mehr Staat, desto weniger Glück.
Je weniger Staat, desto mehr Glück.
Auch für Deutsche.
Weil sie vom Staat so stark beherrscht werden.
Je mehr Staat, desto weniger Glück.
Je weniger Staat, desto mehr Glück.
Auch für Deutsche.
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Imagine how much propaganda it took to make people ashamed of affluence from voluntary exchange instead of robbery.
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AI might become the liberator of humanity.
People will invariably demand replacing dumb humans in government with AI. They might then question if we even need government. If not, AI will rule over humanity.
Freedom or servitude. Inevitable now. For everyone.
It’s been time.
People will invariably demand replacing dumb humans in government with AI. They might then question if we even need government. If not, AI will rule over humanity.
Freedom or servitude. Inevitable now. For everyone.
It’s been time.
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Another angle: Robbery is fundamentally based on envy. Once everyone can have everything they wish due to the abundance created by physical AI, there’s no grounds for envy anymore. Maybe once people stop being envious they start to realize that robbery is bad.
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Mir tun die viele Menschen leid, die gehorsam tun was man ihnen befiehlt, und sich wundern, warum sich die Zustände kontinuierlich verschlechtern.
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Conjecture: All human misery is ultimately caused by aggressive violence.
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
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