″ Double prime = Inches, seconds, or second derivative

‴ Triple prime = Third derivative or specialized notation

And a diversion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditto_mark

Sorry for changing thread topic.

Cheers

The EU Ban on the Destruction of Unsold Clothing: https://transition-pathways.europa.eu/textiles/opinions/eu-b...

The USA is better at playing the zero-sum game of where to begin a business. Zero-sum because many businesses are winner-takes-all and the country that business starts-up in is the one that wins.

Business founders are greedy (almost by definition), and a country needs to think what marginally motivates a founder to keep on going (or to founding 2nd/3rd business).

Hate Meta, or even hate Zuckerberg, but the USA is winning export earnings from the rest of the world because of Meta (and likewise other billionaire companies).

On the third foot, I'm guessing Zuckerberg has other motivations than more dollars?

The game isn't equitable, and the wealth disparity is heinous, and perhaps even the products are despicable. However everyone in the USA is living off the back of that wealth coming into the country.

It is really noticable in New Zealand where top marginal rate is 39% and GST (sales tax) is 15%. Why work an hour to bring in in a dollar to NZ when you get less than 50 cents (after all the other taxes). Our left parties want to tax wealth at 50%+ (if 2% wealth tax and drawdown of 4% ). Invisible inflation makes the taxation much much higher.

A wealth tax of 1% sounds trivial, but it isn't when compared to risk-free returns after drawdowns.

Unfortunately most voters are not founders, so they don't understand marginal motivation. And voters don't understand who brings money into the country. Voters just want increasing amounts of money spent, and politicians cater to them.

If anyone here is a game mechanics designer, what do you most notice about the motivation of taxing wealth?

Sam parlayed working for YC into owning a significant holding of Reddit (and other companies?).

To me, he appears to be a successful parasite that selects the fattest hosts. There are plenty of people that laud VC culture.

Seems remarkably hopeful within a lose lose culture.

Negative incentives seem more likely: punishment for disloyalty.

The loyal just get rugpulled.

If you consistently fail (or give up) at the very last interview, there's something rather wrong.

Your median/average should be better.

I've always felt more kids makes for better adults.

Although I've just realized that I don't really have any friends from one-child families (and I myself have two siblings). Sampling bias, or just statistically normal for XGen?

I'm XGen and two dear friends are from 7 kid families (not due to religious reasons). I've always felt they had some maturity I lacked, eminating from having many siblings to get on with.

Does one have kids for them, or for oneself?

A big house is sold to people as an investment in future value (ⓐ).

More importantly a big house is often driven by a not-so-hidden desire to show off to others a massive status symbol (a tragic McMansion), and high status is also ⓐ.

Of course a big house can be ⓑ: but it is less common to see crazy money spent on large whims (assuming having enough wealth to be able to burn pointless dollars).

Sorry if I'm mansplaining - but I just don't understand why you'd say something so obvious, while implying something so disconnected.

A ⓑ house can have a high valuation. The thesis of the dichotomy is about intent, not about outcomes. And we often have mixed intents so it isn't as black&white as I stated it.

Looks like surgical costs are similar when adjusted for GDP. The USA system isn't more expensive in comparison with the NZ system.

Replacement is free on the NZ public health system, but I've seen the painful years of waiting, the majority in my experience have to endure. A critical situation like my solo-mum friend who needed hips replaced was grossly delayed: hellish years trying to bring up her young children.

Statistics are very different from outcomes.

ⓐ: A financial asset where you landlord yourself, always worrying about the valuation by others. Think rectiliniar greige.

ⓑ: Your home, lived in and modified to your wants and whimseys. Often over or under capitalized.

The first home we buy is usually a financial instrument type ⓐ.

If you can buck your initial programming/conditioning, you can get ⓑ with effort and luck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_New_Zealand_election_fund...

Perhaps funded by USA fundies. A million dollars is a lot of influence in New Zealand elections.

Exactly the point of the article: that power is many times what a streetlamp uses or can provide.

Your charging likely wouldn't work from a streetlamp.

> Are you from the past?

No need to be snarky. Read guidelines.

I had two brass taps stolen from outside my house and the thieves left the main water line in broken. Worth nothing - maybe it was kids? The plumber cost me plenty to fix it. The inconvenience cost me more. In another suburb I had my spare tire stolen: for the aluminium rim.

I was thinking of catalytic converter thefts: an industry of theft that was constructed around valuable untraceable metals. Fortunately I haven't seen that in my neighborhood.

I've been constructing my own fantasy that there is an emergent-trust-group-of-respectful-people where "nice things" are just normal.

Perhaps implies an opposite group of defective arseholes together?

Maybe aspirational but the idea is to just be reliably good and eventually others trust you and you become part of a trust network.

I've had it happen at the scale of individuals: once you've shown you're trustworthy and unselfish then many people seem to respond to that with goodness.

Most people can smell selfishness such as "manifestation" thinking. I find it difficult to be generous without intent of obligations. I believe it only works if you're genuinely good with no strings attached.

Kindness is easier.

I'm no fan of karma or religion or magical woowoo: even though ultimately the idea perhaps has the same roots as those.

It isn't reciprocation: that is transactional investment. Reciprocation definitely works fabulously well. However it has debts and credits, and I have some sort of unreasonable antipathy towards those both. We live in a transactional society, and many people inspect every action of others for their needy goals. Or people have their own currencies and balance sheets.

I try to frame the fantasy more rationally as an emergent behaviour of society as a response to defectors.

So far my main negative proof against the whole idea is that I've had life pretty good even though I have been normal levels of selfishness. I'm still working on how that fits in.

Meanwhile I'm giving the experiment a good go. I like to test against my own reality. Finding I'm wrong is usually valuable.

It's a poorly thought out fantasy. Too many reasons why it is broken: Like seeing givers enable takers, or selfish people winning good things.

(edited to make clearer)

Car chargers are high power.

For example https://electricbrighton.com/news/considerations-for-lamp-po... says charging times are 18 hours, which is hardly overnight.

Plus you couldn't do it anywhere where thieves steal copper. Car charging cables would quickly become a theft target.

You could just as equally say that governments are created by businesses and that governments feed by taxing corporations.

You can frame it either way to make an argument from either direction.

We mostly argue that businesses depend upon our government because reasons.

Crap and nonsense! Rewrite:

Once someone's survived to become a parent, there's a good chance the grandparents survived as well (assuming the norm is to breed ASAP).

Instead of blaming Congress, perhaps blame democracy.

Voters loath austerity, and they support spending.

Watch the experiment happening live in New Zealand elections. Our incumbant conservative party (National) is aiming for a budget at about 30% of GDP. Our progressive party (Labour) wants to increase taxes and increase spending to maybe 33% of GDP.

You can see if voters care about keeping spending in check, because it seems likely to be a central issue of campaigns. Although we have MMP voting so it isn't totally clear. Also note that I think most of our politicians would be seen as left-wing if looked at by anyone on the right.

Have you studied them in other countries? I suggest you inspect your assumptions by looking at what already happens.

Voters want infinite "free" healthcare from their politicians, so healthcare costs continuously increase. You have little recourse to say no to taxes.

In New Zealand ~17% of government expenditure was on health in 2000 and in 2026 it was ~22%.

In NZD it went from ~$10B to ~$40B (inflation and demographics are also an influence).

Privately paid also exists, but only ~1/3 the spending of public health. NZ government ACC spending is also huge.

Government ownership does not fix the problems you wishfully hope it might.

For anyone interested, they're referenced here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck