In most countries that I am aware of, the tax rate becomes essentially flat at, or relatively close to, a median income.

If you tax people on a lower income at that same rate, then that is highly punitive and is likely to put people into poverty.

It's immediately advantageous for governments to set a "progressive" lower tax rate, to avoid paying the cost of resources dealing with poverty.

Aside from this, governments are continuing to tax people up to and approaching median incomes at the highest rate that they can bear.

It's only once you get significantly above median that the tax rate doesn't continue to be punitive - for example, in terms of young people being able to access security of housing.

I'd argue these [existing tax schemes] aren't therefore progressive at all. It's just a different mechanism to provide minimal/essential support to people in poverty.

I don't claim that these examples have the same history as music.

I assume you are not denying that they did push it - so, I want to ask in return: for what other reason did they (specifically Bolsonaro and Trump) push it in this way? Given that it was not backed by science.

I appreciate the reminder that a lot of pop music has a longer history as it developed from Black music styles. Thanks.

https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100

You can change the week yourself.

If you pick a few random weeks before 2000, you likely won't find this pattern that I identified, with the same artist in the Top 20 multiple times.

If that's not enough evidence then there is a Python web scraper: https://github.com/jocelyn-ong/data-science-projects/blob/ma...

Not "just" survival bias.

I think it's quite reasonable to take a position that there was more innovation and creativity in pop music in 1950-2000.

As the genre has matured, popular/commercially successful music has depended more and more on fewer and fewer producers.

Indeed, there are fewer commercially successful artists: the US Billboard Hot 100 Top 20 this week contains 3 tracks by Justin Bieber, 2 by the Weeknd, and 2 by Drake. That would have been unheard of.

This is less obvious than it might appear - the US has pushed to include DMCA-equivalent claims in international trade deals.

E.g. The proposed UK-US Free Trade Agreement explicitly includes negotiation around intellectual property rights: https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/Summary_of_U.S.-UK_Nego...

A little bit sub-optimal in terms of communicating that they wanted you to purchase the game: if they told you this was copy protection, you could have just got copies of the relevant materials instead.

The result for headlines of 65 chars - shared 50,000 more times than 60 chars or 70 chars - seems too incredible to occur at random and suggests instead that a popular news source has implemented a 65 chars policy.

[Edited to note: Yep. YouTube is dominant as the popular publisher in this review, and truncates headlines at 66 chars - that's what this article observes]

There is one route to revoke consent and another route to object to legitimate interest, and it doesn't seem that you can precisely follow both routes. I assume the second option does both, but it's not clear.

I've seen this same pattern in English also, so I'll include my translation:

Meer Opties (More Options) -> Gerechtvaardigd Belang (Legitimate Interest, small link on bottom left) -> Bezwaar Tegen Alles (Object to All) -> Opslaan en Afsluiten (Save and Close)

I look at the options that Citymapper gives and then have to recalculate the route, in my head, correcting for wrong decisions about where I'll have access to a bike.

(Yes, it'll be quicker if I cycle my own bike from my home to the nearest station. No, I won't be cycling a hire bike 111 minutes away from its closest docking port.)

Using web-searched estimates, the carbon cost of leaving this on constantly for a full year is approximately equivalent to the carbon cost of one single liter of petrol.

Someone with obscene wealth can be imprisoned and still buy a yacht - even incarceration has a much greater impact on a poor person.

As such, I'd rather fine them in proportion to their wealth.