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---- Nous avons besoin d'un traduction français!
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....
(1) the 75% who are so altruistic 75% of the time are the BOTTOM 75% of society in economic terms. Their altruism may come about because of shared suffering / experience. If you know what it's like to be walked all over like you don't exist, you will be more likely to help others in your situation.
(2) the other 25%, the top 25% economically, are acting out of greed close to 100% of the time in their daily economic decisions.
And as we all know, the top 1% of the population hoards the vast vast majority of the world's wealth, so they are the greediest of all. ....
I agree, Pargat. 'The Atlantic' online version recently had an article about Peter Thiel, one of PayPal's founders and a billionaire. Here's a quote from the article in which we get a pretty good feel for Thiel's views on altruism:
Thiel feels that giving his billions away would be too much like admitting he had done something wrong to acquire them. The prevailing view in Europe, he said, and more and more in the United States, “is that philanthropy is something an evil person does.” It raises a question, he said: “What are you atoning for?”
Altruism is evil?? I wonder what Dilip's revolutionaries would do with people like Thiel? A 're-education' camp perhaps? A gulag?
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
I agree, Pargat. 'The Atlantic' online version recently had an article about Peter Thiel, one of PayPal's founders and a billionaire. Here's a quote from the article in which we get a pretty good feel for Thiel's views on altruism:
Thiel feels that giving his billions away would be too much like admitting he had done something wrong to acquire them. The prevailing view in Europe, he said, and more and more in the United States, “is that philanthropy is something an evil person does.” It raises a question, he said: “What are you atoning for?”
Altruism is evil?? I wonder what Dilip's revolutionaries would do with people like Thiel? A 're-education' camp perhaps? A gulag?
I wonder if Peter Thiel is one of those billionaires who is building one of those personal home bomb shelters Pargat mentioned. I have a solution for his lack of altruism, my billionaire wealth tax. All wealth in excess of $ 1,000,000,000 is taxed at 100%.
To paraphrase somebody (me forget who): if we can put one billionaire in space, why the hell can't we put them all there?
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
I wonder if Peter Thiel is one of those billionaires who is building one of those personal home bomb shelters Pargat mentioned. I have a solution for his lack of altruism, my billionaire wealth tax. All wealth in excess of $ 1,000,000,000 is taxed at 100%.
Looting is unbecoming.
Billionaires are extremely mobile. They will go where the local government will not confiscate their wealth and that principality will prosper. You should be more concerned with the precedent that such a looter policy would set. For example with some of the brilliant people in charge at the moment it is quite possible that a period of hyperinflation could render everyone billionaires and then you've gone and given the government license to take all of your money as well.That's pretty much what every socialist paradise eventually descends to.
The mentality that the government owns everything and are entitled to loot everything that someone else has inevitably leads to less wealth and more poverty. Your turn will come for confiscation. Is it fair that you have two weeks of underwear (assuming daily changes of underwear) and the homeless person has only what he's wearing? Nope! Lets take Bob's underwear and distribute them to the homeless.
Socialism inevitably leads to the consumption of zoo animals for protein, but sooner or later you run out of zoo animals and then you get to the point where "soylent green is people". The idiocy has never ever worked anywhere but foolish people keep thinking that it will work this time in this place because this time it will be pure socialism but it won't be. It is evil. It simply can't work. It can never be pure. It can never work because of human nature.
. . . .
(Socialism) is evil. It simply can't work. It can never be pure. It can never work because of human nature.
It is very interesting that both extreme left-wing politics and extreme right-wing politics can BOTH be shown to be unworkable due to one thing ... human nature, aka greed.
Does this mean that what the USA has had for many decades now, which is a constant cycling from very moderate right-wing to slightly less moderate left-wing politics, is actually the very best politics to have?
Many taxpayers complain that all politicians are the same .... and yes, as I recently pointed out to Dilip, Reagan, a moderate right-wing President who argued "government is the problem", actually INCREASED the size of the Federal workforce throughout his 8-years in office. Dilip argues it was all military, but no, 75% of it was non-military. So in effect Reagan was a Democrat. He certainly didn't cut the size of government.
In fact, none of the recent U.S. Presidents except Bill Clinton a moderate Democrat actually decreased the size of the federal government. This is why I say the left-wing part of the cycle is slightly less moderate than the right-wing shifts, with the Bill Clinton terms being the exception (because the internet dot-com boom allowed the shrinkage of the size of government without the worst effects). Once George W. got into office, there was the dot-com collapse and there was no more appetite to shrink the size of government.
All these government shutdown threats we are seeing lately, that get kicked down the road another 3 months or 6 months, are part of an awareness within the moderate right / left conglomerate that the size of government simply cannot be reduced without drastically bad economic consequences. It is this congealing of the moderate right and left that is leading to such discord within both Republican and Democratic parties as they deal with their extreme wings, but at least the extreme left is not calling for cuts to the size of government. Thus the fight within the Republican Party is much more severe and chaotic.
So the conglomerate fights the ultra-wealthy who are pushing the agenda to drastically cut government spending and size. Drastically bad economic consequences? Not for them, they have their bunkers! BRING IT ON! is the chorus from them.
We are in a perilous time where the ultra-wealthy may get their way and the world as we have known it for over a generation will suddenly collapse, as the title of this thread suggests.
I believe this IS the agenda of the ultra-wealthy. And I bet Dilip pushing his Libertarianism (pushing for the collapse of society) either has a bunker or really badly wants one.
I agree, Pargat. 'The Atlantic' online version recently had an article about Peter Thiel, one of PayPal's founders and a billionaire. Here's a quote from the article in which we get a pretty good feel for Thiel's views on altruism:
Thiel feels that giving his billions away would be too much like admitting he had done something wrong to acquire them. The prevailing view in Europe, he said, and more and more in the United States, “is that philanthropy is something an evil person does.” It raises a question, he said: “What are you atoning for?”
Altruism is evil?? I wonder what Dilip's revolutionaries would do with people like Thiel? A 're-education' camp perhaps? A gulag?
Lets take Bob's underwear and distribute them to the homeless.
This Thiel guy did more good for our society by developing and popularizing the use of PayPal, than he ever could by donating his billions!
And if we had a Libertarian society, he would not have become ultra-rich in the first place, because we would have scores of entrepreneurs developing variants of PayPal, making society even better in their small way...
As for the title of this thread, proliferation of nasty trolls incessantly barking nonsense is one way of achieving it...
Last edited by Dilip Panjwani; Saturday, 18th November, 2023, 08:43 AM.
This Thiel guy did more good for our society by developing and popularizing the use of PayPal, than he ever could by donating his billions!
And if we had a Libertarian society, he would not have become ultra-rich in the first place, because we would have scores of entrepreneurs developing variants of PayPal, making society even better in their small way...
As for the title of this thread, proliferation of nasty trolls incessantly barking nonsense is one way of achieving it...
Because of you, Dilip, I started some months ago to do a bit of reading on libertarianism. I'm not claiming to be educated; still a beginner. One thing that is clear to me is that Libertarianism, like any other political / socioeconomic 'ism' has many variants. Based on the above quote, you apparently support a variant where intellectual property rights aren't recognized. Am I interpreting your remarks correctly? A practical question: in your libertarian world, how would you raise the massive amounts of money required for drug research and development if you can't provide prospective investors with the confidence that any successful outcomes will be protected by patents/etc long enough for them to recoup and profit from their investment?
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
Because of you, Dilip, I started some months ago to do a bit of reading on libertarianism. I'm not claiming to be educated; still a beginner. One thing that is clear to me is that Libertarianism, like any other political / socioeconomic 'ism' has many variants. Based on the above quote, you apparently support a variant where intellectual property rights aren't recognized. Am I interpreting your remarks correctly? A practical question: in your libertarian world, how would you raise the massive amounts of money required for drug research and development if you can't provide prospective investors with the confidence that any successful outcomes will be protected by patents/etc long enough for them to recoup and profit from their investment?
Very good question, Peter. In reality almost all useful research is done by intellectuals at Universities, and that should be available to everyone, not just a few who manage to purchase it for a paltry amount of money. And the real researchers should be rewarded by public taxation...
Originally posted by Peter McKillop Because of you, Dilip, I started some months ago to do a bit of reading on libertarianism. I'm not claiming to be educated; still a beginner. One thing that is clear to me is that Libertarianism, like any other political / socioeconomic 'ism' has many variants. Based on the above quote, you apparently support a variant where intellectual property rights aren't recognized. Am I interpreting your remarks correctly? A practical question: in your libertarian world, how would you raise the massive amounts of money required for drug research and development if you can't provide prospective investors with the confidence that any successful outcomes will be protected by patents/etc long enough for them to recoup and profit from their investment?
Very good question, Peter. In reality almost all useful research is done by intellectuals at Universities, and that should be available to everyone, not just a few who manage to purchase it for a paltry amount of money. And the real researchers should be rewarded by public taxation...
Oh, this is a very good question, but asking for the definition of "fair competition" in the interpretation of Natural Law is a "stupid question". LOL
But Peter, don't be fooled by Dilip's oversimplifications. He is rather famous for them here in this thread and the other threads where he trolls for Libertarianism.
Peter, let me tell you something, just to give you some credentials. During the year of 2017, I worked as a contractor at Eli Lilly drug research offices in downtown Indianapolis, IN. I worked under their longtime PhD drug discovery Research Advisor, Dr. Ian Watson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-watson-b292819/). He worked with Eli Lilly for 23 years.
Here is my job description of the time I spent working as a contractor at Eli Lilly:
Worked with IT department within Lilly Research Labs (LRL). This department maintains a HPCC (High Performance Compute Cluster) with over 300 nodes where Lilly's research chemists run batch jobs for molecular modelling, including 3D renderings. I was tasked with taking a major piece of that software called GC3TK (Global Chemical Compute Cluster Tool Kit) which runs on Linux Red Hat only and is deployed in the U.S., Spain and China. I was to recommend upgrades for the software architecture and its performance. The software dated from 23 years ago until present day, is still being maintained by a small team including one of Eli Lilly's most senior Research Advisors Dr. Ian Watson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-watson-b292819/) who wrote most of the GC3TK code. It is a mixture of bash, Python and Ruby scripts (some Julia also) and C++ underneath it all. The C++ is mostly conformant to the C++14 standard. The current deployment model is a collection of over 700 separate binary executables, all run using the scripts and tested using ad hoc test scripts in which output of binaries are saved to file and then read from file by other binaries, meaning that performance is bad due to excessive disk writes / reads. Also the completeness and robustness of the tests is compromised with no dataflow documentation.
My recommendation was to change to a Continuous Integration model using Jenkins in which the separate binaries are as much as possible compiled into shared libraries, where each code module and library has a suite of automatic unit / regression tests (no longer ad hoc, to be fully documented by dataflow diagrams and use cases) and in which generated data is kept in RAM as much as possible (with disk writes on other CPU threads) to be passed on to other modules. This would drastically improve performance, plus allow for new flexibility and new workflows that were difficult to test with the separate binaries model.
I supplied all diagrams and documents to support the new architecture, and with the assistance of Dr. Watson, I also implemented a proof of concept using actual code modules in my own separate branch of the GIT repository. This work involved extensive reworking of existing makefiles along with modifying C++ code structure and design. Dr. Watson approved of my work and advised continuing along this path.
Unfortunately, Eli Lilly had just entered a tightening phase in which thousands of senior scientists were offered early retirement. Dr. Watson accepted this offer and as of the new year 2018 was no longer with Lilly, and my contract was not renewed into 2018. The actual implementation work was left to employees that are in the LRL department. My supervisor was completely happy with my recommendations and assured me they will be implemented in the coming years, and I received a robust and enthusiastic reference from both my supervisor and Dr. Ian Watson.
This isn't the only work I have done in the biotechnology field. I am actually quite experienced in the field of DNA biotechnology as well, although I am currently contemplating early retirement and am back in Canada doing some minor contract work from home.
Now, this doesn't make me an expert on drug discovery, not even close. But you can bet that I did extensive research on the industry, given that I expected to be working with Eli Lilly for at least 5 years (that changed due to factors outside of my control).
Now, here's an article from Fortune magazine in 2022 written by Howard Dean, former Democratic governor of Vermont. Yes, a former Democratic governor writing in of all things Fortune magazine!
It's not that lengthy an article, so I suggest you read it. But I draw your attention to this statement:
"No company would want to license a patented molecule from a university, and then spend hundreds of millions–or even billions–of dollars further developing it and testing it, if the federal government could simply snatch away the license on a whim."
Yes, you read that right. Pharma companies spend MILLIONS OR EVEN BILLIONS of dollars to take a patented molecule from a university research lab and develop a drug around it and then test that drug.
So Peter .... Dilip did NOT answer your question, except to give a pat political response meant to pacify you and send you away. His answer was totally ignorant and incorrect. Universities do NOT by and large develop and test drugs. If they do, it would be via FUNDING from private or public pharma companies, which means investors are involved.
Dilip, you still have to answer Peter's question. You put your foot in your mouth by saying it's a very good question! LOL
Last edited by Pargat Perrer; Sunday, 19th November, 2023, 08:41 AM.
Lets take Bob's underwear and distribute them to the homeless.
Vlad, that’s a bit creepy. You want to give my underwear to the homeless?
There are approximately 3 thousand billionaires globally. I don’t believe any of them are in my family or circle of friends, but I am sure many of them are warm and generous people. Research shows that most people are by nature generous, and that greed is more of a learned trait. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.
Ever since Reagan’s “government is the enemy” and “trickle-down economics”, bankers, lawyers, and accountants have been busy reducing taxes for the wealthy. Then globalization tipped the scales against government tax authorities, easy movement of wealth to more friendly tax jurisdictions, all legal and applauded by Wall Street. “Greed is good” I believe was the catch phrase. Who could resist?
So yes Vlad, at this time my billionaire tax is not feasible. I have acknowledged that in previous posts (in other threads). Perhaps it could be phased-in, but I wanted to introduce the concept of “enough is enough”, that there should be a point at which you focus on something other than just more money. Helping others, or just enjoying your wealth.
Taxation is not theft. This is a silly thing to say. Unless you want government to just print the money required, we should all acknowledge taxation is necessary to pay for government services. What is needed or desired is a different debate.
Let’s look more closely at my billionaire tax. It is literally “a billion $’s” from the socialist scheme you assign it. The tax is above and beyond all other taxes, but only affects those who have wealth exceeding $1,000,000,000.
If your wealth is $ 999,000,000 you pay zero. If your wealth is $ 1,000,000,001 you pay $1.
So, billionaires can keep a billion dollars forever. Earning say 5%, they have $ 50,000,000 spending money per year. Now if they spend only $ 49,999,900, there will be a tax bill of $100. But here is the genius part: buy underwear for that homeless guy and pay no tax.
Vlad, that’s a bit creepy. You want to give my underwear to the homeless?
If you were a farmer in Croatia, the Yugoslav state stole your kitchen table, your cow, your horse, your underwear, your clothes, anything that wasn't nailed down. Later they stole your farm and if you didn't get away fast enough they wanted to kill you. Sometimes they chased you all the way to Canada or the U.S. or Germany to kill you. They gave your farm to people who had no idea how to run your farm. They later threw them into prison because they couldn't pay the taxes demanded by the socialist paradise.
One billion dollars is not enough to launch SpaceX, or Tesla or Intel or Apple (in today's environment). It is best not covet thy neighbor's goods. There is a reason that it is right there in the ten commandments. If we are ever going to attract sponsorship for chess it will come from the billionaires or the companies they built. Lets tone down the Bernie Sanders and AOC silliness.
Do you rue the day you raised the topic of this thread (And then I got involved)??
Bob A
I must be getting old. I keep forgetting how pointless these arguments eventually get.
If you can't agree on the problem, how can you ever agree on the solution?
Oh well, lots of CFC work to keep me busy.
A dental emergency including lots of pain since Thursday has kept me at half speed.
The pain is beginning to subside.
Fun, fun - I go into the hospital tomorrow for a test whether my pacemaker is defective...........sigh..........sucks when the body parts are wearing out!
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