What natural right do these regulatory agencies (or group of thugs known as government) have to regulate free people who choose to associate freely? What they are doing is deeply immoral.
So, there is really no objective justification for the existence of US government, because its supposed purpose it to protect 'basic rights', such as life, liberty and pursuit of haaapineeess(i.e. ensure that subset of homo sapiens species can release endorphins, dopamine, anandamide...). Since rights don't exist, there is nothing to protect. It's kinda like paying security staff to protect non-existing house. BTW, contingent rights flow from natural rights and if those are illusory, then all rights and laws are not justifiable.
'Troll' seems to be a name for someone whose opinions you disagree with. Since internet is a huge echo chamber, any sign of contrary opinion is seen as trolling (like 'Are you serious?' or 'This guy must be trolling'). Calling someone a 'troll' is a psychological defense mechanism where a person is trying to use a label (i.e. do ad hominem) instead of rethinking their beliefs, which is hard to do.
An overused meme: "Trolling used to mean something" specifically, it meant baiting people into flamewars/arguments that the troll didn't necessarily agree with, but which provoked a response that gave them their fun. If we trust the author's opinion of their boyfriend, then he is probably doing just that, using hyperbole to troll people online.
You are an animal >... mammal >... species- homo sapiens sapiens-
Why do you think that being a member of a particular species somehow excludes you from a set of objects that can be poached, mainly animals? If lions are poached, then humans can be poached as well. Why would a bio-chemical process known as homo sapiens be more important(or sacred, if you want) than a bio-chemical process known as a lion and be excluded from something that can be applied to all animals?
Americans are living way above their means with rampant entitlement mentality. You see a lot of these paper-shuffling office jobs where nothing of value is produced; people studying worthless subjects(sociology, political science, gender studies etc.) plus there is an assumption that everyone needs to go to college; trades are looked down upon; push for $15/hour minimum wage; entitlement mentality with welfare etc.
You have very little of that in China + some other countries and that is their appeal.
I would say the opposite: too many people are stuck in the wage-slave mentality. To focus the best parts of your life on competing tooth and claw in a zero-sum game of finding employment, with the consequence of failing being homelessness and begging at the side of the road: that's such a waste.
Society has achieved the capacity to keep every single person healthy and safe, but selectively denies it in order to keep them motivated by the fear. Do you really think that's a giood thing?
I'm not advocating communism, I'm just saying that maybe it's time to step back and look at the bigger picture. It's not a sense of entitlement, it's trying to make human life a grander thing than just getting by.
Especially since, when that market is inevitably disrupted, all those workers are fucked.
Without a proper social safety net, diversification is hedging against downturns...
Besides, right now where I live, it's geologists and engineers that are unemployed. Supposedly 'safe' jobs.
And finally, if everyone piles into the same industry, it drives wages down, and you'll still have plenty of grads who are unable to get a job.
The problem in the end, is that, because a degree is the new HS diploma, everyone needs one, in any subject, and unemployment is the inability of the economy to absorb workers, it has nothing to do with those people choosing the 'wrong' degree anyway.
Any reasonable definition of the market includes the people making choices about what to study.
If people are buying whatever degrees, economics says that those people are buying a degree that they consider valuable. They are paying 'the market' price for the degrees, they can't be separated from it.
It's easy to observe that other actors place far less value on the degrees than the people buying them, but those people are not setting the market price for the degrees.
We should be careful when talking about market characteristics of the market for college degrees, at least in the US. It is one of the markets that is most heavily skewed by government subsidies.
The US approach to Government subsidies on the consumer side of privately supplied markets in college and health care mostly seems to accomplish raising the prices of college and healthcare as market providers raise prices to what the relatively hotter markets will bear.
Yeah, I think the structures that make buyers less price sensitive are a pretty terrible idea, but the government incentives/subsidies/etc don't change the fact that students are part of the market and are the ones setting prices (it just screws up the prices they set).
You mean you don't want to live in a world where you actually have to learn useful skills, so that you can trade with other people who have learned to do something you find useful?
I've already addressed that when I mentioned 'rampant entitlement mentality'. It's people thinking that others owe them something just because they happen to be members of homo sapiens species. Entitlement 101.
It's not a coincidence that most of the people studying philosophy, sociology, gender studies etc. are leftists, many even radicalized (e.g. anarcho-syndicalism in philosophy departments).
That's why the leftists need a powerful state. Since they are useless parasites, they have to make money by working in government or non-profit or government-inspired jobs.
No. You're being at the least inconsistent when you on the one hand claim that it's wrong to push for a higher minimum wage (because the free market should decide what low skill jobs are "worth") and on the other hand deride sociology and gender studies as worthless when people are willing to pay a lot of money for those courses. In other words, you're not a capitalist, you're just co-opting the language of capitalism to spout a particular brand of conservative moralism.
Where exactly did I write that it is (morally) wrong to push for a higher minimum wage? I am not writing that it is wrong to push for $15/hour. I'm writing on why American workers have a hard time competing with people in Asia or South America, many of whom work for $15/day. That's why, among other things, companies are leaving for Mexico or Vietnam.
Students are taking huge government-backed student loans, so that they can go to college and study sociology/gender studies(or some other worthless field) and then get a job in the government or non-profit. Do you see the circular nature of that?
My point is that most people(except some spoiled & stupid rich kids) who are studying sociology now would NOT do it in a truly free market environment, because:
a) There wouldn't be many government jobs or government-inspired jobs waiting for them.
b) 18 yo couldn't get student loans to study these subjects. Why? For the same reason homeless drug addicts aren't getting $10 million loans from banks. It's a bad investment for a bank to give unreliable people money. Likewise, sociology(or some other worthless field) majors couldn't get a loan, since their earning potential is very low.
c) No welfare. Since there wouldn't be welfare checks to fall back on, most people would think twice about what to study and their choice would not be sociology.
You seem to have intense negativity towards what you label "worthless fields." What is your definition of a non-worthless field? Not to mention, a lot of graduates in those fields end up working in other fields anyway (I've met a good amount of tech recruiters who were polisci or communications majors on LinkedIn). That seems to contradict your point of considering these people as inherently unreliable and unemployable.
> people are willing to pay a lot of money for those courses.
No, people are willing to have the government pay a lot of money for those courses, in the form of financial aid. People who actually have to pay for the courses themselves are far more likely to study something with actual practical value.
"Far more likely"? That's quite an assertion to make. Do you have a link? I'm genuinely curious. Also, as Apocryphon mentioned, "actual practical value" is a problematic phrase. If you mean "economic value" then just say that. But on the face of it, if you are applying for work for which the minimum qualification is a degree from an accredited college/university, then any course which gets you closer to fulfilling that qualification has some economic value.
> if you are applying for work for which the minimum qualification is a degree from an accredited college/university, then any course which gets you closer to fulfilling that qualification has some economic value.
This is true. But why is the minimum qualification a degree? For some jobs that qualification makes sense; but there are many for which it doesn't, yet it is still considered a minimum qualification. The assertion that this state of affairs is largely due to the fact that college degrees are subsidized--many people can get them without having to pay for them themselves--is certainly not original with me; economists have been making it for decades.
> people studying worthless subjects(sociology, political science, gender studies etc.)
College isn't trade school, its purpose isn't to study profitable subjects, its purpose is to produce well rounded well educated people, not to produce workers.
Sociology and political science, which you term useless, are exactly the sorts of study focused on the issues you are addressing in your complaint. They may not be valued by capital; do not confuse that with uselessness.
Why does it matter if sociology or political science are focused on what I wrote above? It's not like they're going to solve the problem of parasitic people with worthless degrees, since they are one of them. They won't eliminate entitlement mentality. They won't promote trades, because if they did, then why didn't they study trades if they're so great?
They won't do anything, except enrich themselves with high-paying parasitic office jobs in the government or some non-profit.
> You have very little of that in China + some other countries and that is their appeal.
China is busy building stuff that no one will use, it's the equivalent of paper-shuffling and is quite literally the product of a giant stimulus plan by the state:
I really don't get it! Could someone please explain this to me:
- Why do humans today work so hard so that some other members of homo sapiens species can inhabit another planet? Those creatures, you, everyone you know and the entire species will be gone. Why bother to do that or anything at all? What is the end game?
- Is the decision to care about humans going to Mars made by careful & rational consideration which resulted in conclusion that members of homo sapiens species should be on Mars and that there is an objective moral duty to do so? Why pick homo sapiens species instead of some other animal species? Is it objectively true that a bio-chemical process known as a homo sapiens has intrinsic value and that everyone should work to sustain it?
The human race is a race of explorers, and always has been. We will go to Mars because it is there.
And if you really feel that mankind is on the same level as every other animal on the planet, despite no other species having built skyscrapers, gone to the moon, or printed their language, then that's not even really a conversation worth having.
You are only saying that certain bio-chemical structures reshuffle atoms in a different way, which in most cases suits their survival. You're judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree. Also, you make it seem that there is an objective scale which measures 'levels' [of greatness, I assume]. But, there is no evidence that such a scale exists. You pick these arbitrary shuffling of molecules, like building skyscrapers or going to another rock[Mars], as great or progressive. That is the result of having an unjustified bias towards your own species. Many animals can do things humans can't do and vice versa. But, that is just a difference, not an objective superiority or inferiority.
Why do these discussions always end up turning into pseudo-philosophical nihilist pity parties?
We can define greatness however the fuck we want, because as far as we can tell we're the only self-replicating assemblage of molecules that knows or cares what greatness even means. So if, during whatever time we're not spending making more copies of ourselves, we decide we enjoy shuffling molecules into a particular arbitrary pattern, who the fuck is going to tell us that isn't greatness? When you ask why we should bother making copies of ourselves on a different pile of dirt than the one we're currently on, you might as well be asking why we should go on making copies of ourselves at all. There is no endgame. There is only doing interesting shit, doing boring shit, and death. I choose interesting shit.
I don't even know why people then write papers, do research or discuss things when they could call someone dummy or label what they are talking about as 'pseudo-X'. What is 'pseudo-philosophical' about the questions asked? It is your reply that is a diatribe devoid of any substance.
'We can define greatness however the fuck we want, because as far as we can tell we're the only self-replicating assemblage of molecules that knows or cares what greatness even means.'
Hmm, this is not cool. I sense emotional rage from the beginning. 'Greatness' or 'great' is actually well-defined. What you're writing is that many humans can use language. That's obvious. Fish can swim, birds can fly, some fungi inhabit radioactive space. It's all shuffling of particles.
'So if, during whatever time we're not spending making more copies of ourselves, we decide we enjoy shuffling molecules into a particular arbitrary pattern, who the fuck is going to tell us that isn't greatness?'
It's not greatness, because greatness cannot apply to almost everything. Imagine that every email you ever get is labeled as 'important'. Well, if every is important, then labeling it as such become useless and just clutters you subject line. Same with the word 'special'. If everyone is special, the no one is. These words, like greatness apply to minority of things or otherwise they become useless. So, since shuffling atoms is done all the time everywhere, labeling that as greatness makes no sense.
'When you ask why we should bother making copies of ourselves on a different pile of dirt than the one we're currently on, you might as well be asking why we should go on making copies of ourselves at all.'
Yes... and?
'There is no endgame. There is only doing interesting shit, doing boring shit, and death. I choose interesting shit.'
These 3 activities and events are also shuffling of particles. So, fundamentally, there is no distinction between them in the end. Since death requires the least amount of effort, it would be the best choice for creatures looking for an easy way out.
The human race is a race of explorers, and always has been.
I'm not convinced. The majority of humans are not explorers. The majority of humans like things to stay the same and like to keep doing what they've always done. The majority of humans throughout history die pretty much where they're born. Even today the majority of humans don't even move across their country. To say that humans are a race of explorers because a very small proportion of them are seems wrong.
I think that's quite an interesting conversation to have, personally. You, for example, assign a great deal of importance to things like building skyscrapers or going to the moon but given enough scale those activities are meaningless when compared to the other animals running around on this planet.
You made a great point. He puts building skyscrapers into a definition of greatness(an abstract term). But, why is that great and ants building they own habitats not great? They are small, so you can't expect them to build big habitats for humans.
Imagine saying that humans can't live and thrive in radioactive environment, like some fungi in Chernobyl do and therefore they are not great. Greatness means being able to live in radioactive environment.
Given that your comment is well constructed, you seem to be dismissed simply for not having the same point of view. I'll try to engage constructively.
------------------------------
If I read you correctly, you are raising two arguments:
1. what does an individual gains from participating in the project
2. objectively, why homo sapiens?
Regarding 2, I would say that there is not much to say aside from that we are not objective, and would prefer it if it was “us” who got to get to Mars.
I find point 1 much more interesting, especially what it says about society. Some individuals are very interested in the colonization of space, but not all are ready to directly work on it, and others are just uninterested.
However, having a structured government and a tax system allow us to make better use of individual skills, even that of those who are not directly interested in the project. Additionally, this is the kind of project where the ROI would be very long term and hard to estimate. Large scale coordination (governments and international institution) allow to make use of the "surplus workforce" that automatization is slowly making grow.
>Given that your comment is well constructed, you seem to be dismissed simply for not having the same point of view.
That's standard operating procedure around here.
What's really bad is that, unlike Reddit where anyone has the ability to down-mod, on here only people with high karma (over 1000) can down-mod, yet in my experience you're much more likely to be down-modded to oblivion here for having an unpopular viewpoint, whereas on Reddit you'll get both down-mods and up-mods and generally stay neutral.
So if you think about it, the set-up here reinforces the "hive-mind" dynamic: because only high-karma people have down-mod ability, people who are popular get modded up more, and down-mod people they disagree with, and this creates a feedback loop which silences any unpopular or dissenting opinions. Over on Reddit, even though people complain a lot about a hive-mind mentality, anyone can create an account there in seconds and then has the same up-mod and down-mod ability as anyone else, as long as they don't get restricted or banned by moderators, so it's far more democratic. (And if they do get banned, they can just create another account in 10 seconds...)
I do not feel like the hivemind effect is stronger on Hacker News than on e.g. /r/programming, and definitely lower than on default subreddits.
My main gripe about Reddit is the sheer amount of low-value comments, with repeated remarks, jokes and puns trumping constructed and sourced arguments. It is obviously hard to find a good compromise.
Well one thing you have to remember about Reddit is that every subreddit is basically a totally different forum, with different moderators, different rules to an extent, and a totally different crowd. The people who hang out on /r/Linux are not likely to be the same people who hang out on /r/Windows for instance, and there's plenty of subreddits that don't cater to tech crowds much at all. So what gets modded up or down will vary wildly from subreddit to subreddit.
But I definitely do feel the hivemind effect is greater here, at least in my personal experience (however I do not frequent /r/programming so I can't speak for that subreddit specifically). I constantly see posts down-modded here for no good reason, other than that someone doesn't like them because they go against the viewpoint of the elites here. I feel this is inevitable where you have a system where some people are "more equal" than others, as it is here. It might seem better in one way, with fewer "low-value comments" and jokes and memes and such, but it also turns into an echo chamber with misfits forced out.
>Why bother to do that or anything at all? What is the end game?
People want to leave their mark on the universe.
There's some solace in thinking about how after everyone you know and your entire species is gone, something may come across traces of your existence and give thought to who was responsible for it.
I'm referring more to when the Sun explodes and wipes out Earth or when universe goes cold, becomes inhabited by black holes, which will also be gone - a dead universe.
You are right and it's also much cheaper to form and maintain an LLC. I think that forming an LLC in Colorado is the cheapest option ~ $250 total costs. That is great if you're just bootstraping and don't know if the business is going to be successful. BTW, if you're not a US citizen + the business is providing services + you're the only owner (single member LLC), then there are NO TAX-paying requirements.
Also, the business might not succeed, so why waste all that time+money on creating a C Corp, which is even more expensive to dissolve? C Corps also have many more expensive legal requirements.
If the business is successful and you plan on getting VC money, convert it later to a C Corp.
> BTW, if you're not a US citizen + the business is providing services + you're the only owner (single member LLC), then there are NO TAX-paying requirements.
Does this mean no state-level tax-paying requirements, or no tax paying requirements at all?
In other words, for an overseas non-citizen sole-owner of a service-providing LLC formed in Colorado, are there no US taxes due at all?
That's right, you owe no US taxes. You don't have what is called "Effectively Connected Income", that is - you provide services from outside the US, not within the US. Since 'single-member LLC' is pass-through entity, that means the person is taxed (Not corporation) and you(person) are outside of the US and owe no US taxes at all.
However, you might owe taxes in your home country.
If you sell goods or there are co-founders, then you have to pay.
> However, you might owe taxes in your home country.
This line is key. You can't escape taxes, you can only change where you pay them (and therefore potentially how much you pay...)
The complication with setting up a business in the US is figuring out both what the IRS expects and what your country's tax agency expects. This varies both based on treaties with the US and based on local interpretation of US company structures. You have to be careful, or a few years later you could owe back taxes either to the IRS or your local tax authority, even if your only mistake was not filing the correct paperwork to say you didn't actually owe taxes.
A better way of saying you don't owe taxes is to say ... understand what taxes you owe, it could be $0. You still have to file, however, and you'll have to file both locally and abroad. :)
It varies state-to-state what constitutes "doing business," but just having a bank account usually doesn't qualify. Coming from harmonized tax laws, the US is an unexpectedly different place. But this is a step in the right direction!
EIN is free, obtained by phone if a foreign individual is setting up the company, or if you've already called, it appears you can use the website to set up an EIN for a local company so long as it's a subsidiary (even international) of a company with an existing EIN. Theoretically slashes $100 off the cost. ;-)
Registered agent... that's a tricky one. I saw this advice on Reddit: "Lots of small business law firms will serve as registered agents for free. Really the only purpose of the RA is to accept service if you get sued, and they figure you're most likely to hire the firm that's already looking at the complaint and forwarding it on to you."
Also some registered agents are national, e.g. Harbour Compliance, just one I found on Google. Here are others: http://registered-agents.credio.com/ (hmm, this website is less useful than I expected, remember to check off "All 50 states" or you'll be missing some...)
And the annual tax is if you're doing business in CA, even if you filed articles of organization in another state. Once you clear $250k it goes up to $1700!
