A decision of whether or not to destroy the dark night sky globally should be made at a societal level beforehand. Instead the path of maximum expected profit for a few people was taken instead of carefully considering the implications, alternatives, and mitigations.

Also, telescopes on the ground can be made much bigger and more powerful than in space, so even if some satellite profits were somehow (magically?) directed toward space telescopes, losing the night sky would be bad for science.

That is obviously false -- just ask any biker who is not a little kid or a billionaire.

Plus there is a bonus start-up opportunity to LLM-code an app that enables travelers to earn money while they wait in line at the airport.

? That does not at all match my experience with parks.

But besides that, I am not sure how it would support your argument.

Swamps are rich ecosystems with incredible natural beauty and diversity. Draining a swamp is extraordinarily bad in general, even if good for wealthy property developers.

Ironically, it seems that "drain the swamp" turns out to be an apt metaphor for what Trump and that gang have been doing, as promised.

However, a tax an unrealized gains would seem to greatly reduce or maybe kill the chance for the poor or middle class to use investments to save enough to retire early. That seems very unfair. I do not understand why such a tax should apply to anyone not well into the upper middle class range of wealth.

And trying to make clever calculated bets on individual stocks now has risk of having to sell everything and still not having enough to pay the taxes, if they were assessed during a temporary spike in price. Even holding an index fund during a market crash could mean ending up with nothing because of the tax on fictional gains.

I never once heard a reasonable explanation why policies only start to have an effect at the end of a year that is divisible by 4 or 8. It makes no sense if you think it through.

I would hope most people anywhere would see that as a bad thing, especially given the scams and harms that ads are pushing.

I am not sure the best way to improve things, but anyone should be able to live a normal day of life without being forced to see any advertisement.

People who manage to make a career in science usually follow a specific educational path that includes a phd and postdoctoral research. No one would claim it is completely fair because there are many things that can block or hide that path (family situation; life events; lack of encouragement from teachers; being born in the wrong country; etc.). However, the system does not otherwise care about your background in any meaningful way.

You should consider the dark implications that you may be pushing misinformation that could discourage people who are gifted or intellectually curious and motivated from trying to improve the world by doing science.

But that really has nothing to do with the original gripe about "day zero", which would generally mean getting into a masters or phd program, or perhaps an undergrad research project, where grades and standardized test scores get someone in the door -- social skills sufficient to hold a brief conversation about a science topic would be a nice bonus, but not really necessary.

Is there evidence?

It seems obvious that parents can increase or decrease the odds of someone starting a career in an "elite" field requiring advanced education like "Science", but I interpret your comment as suggesting that most scientists got their job by means of daddy donating to a university or some other silly fantasy.

I wonder how many of these apparent start-up scams turned out to have genuine value.

These and other types of "unskippable ads" violate my personal freedoms and should rejected by society.

netflix and youtube are cute examples of paying to get fewer ads, but you do not get very far without finding product placements or other types of ads in their videos.

> "Users should have choice & control."

Given that people currently are not able to choose to be free from advertisements in any practical way, even if abstaining from luxuries, some sort of severe regulation seems necessary.