JasSmith

I literally quoted that exact passage. Did you read my comment before you replied or did you just rage post when your world view was threatened?

Foltz claims that she received a $92,000 annual salary while men with the same duties and qualifications received an annual salary of $115,000.

Foltz also claims that SpaceX uses different job titles for the same position as a way to pay women and minorities less than their white or male counterparts, TechCrunch reported.

This is an empty claim. She didn’t even have the same job titles as the people she was comparing herself against. There are a thousand reasons one person can be paid more than another. Often it’s just negotiating prowess. Often it’s the responsibility of the job title, and the risk and hours that entails. Often it’s tenure at the company, or social skills. Her claim amounts to, “pay me more because I have a vagina.” No.

Wikipedia is a good example but they actually employ designers and developers. I think the secret sauce is paying people to build great software. So a non-profit with donations could absolutely work.

Open license software will never beat paid software in the consumer space. I know that’s a controversial opinion, but it’s been proven a thousand times. There’s no way to beat the user experience of Reddit when they have a hundred experienced UX designers doing nothing but optimising for engagement. We think the overall experience is worse, which is why we’re here, but we are the minority. Lemmy still hasn’t figured out basic problems like what happens to the user experience when an instance defederates from another. The user had no control over that, but suddenly their subscribed communities have disappeared without notice or explanation. Now they have to find another instance to subscribe to, and they lose their entire Lemmy identity.

My colleagues are mostly from Eastern Europe.

Classifying democracies as dictatorships is histrionic in the extreme, and specious at best. It doesn’t even make sense. The concepts are antithetical.

It turns out it’s every time as we’re seeing with late-stage capitalism.

I’m sorry I don’t understand what you’re arguing. Are you claiming that all Western nations are authoritarian? I emphatically disagree.

There are definitely people advocating for actual communism. Social programs in a democracy are worlds away from communism. We have universal healthcare in Europe without communism.

How many times has capitalism become dictatorships or fascists?

A handful of times. Most capitalist nations are not authoritarian. Purely by the numbers, it has a much better track record. Of course, “it’s not real capitalism/communism” always derails this discussion.

I think you outline why communism inevitably fails. Marx advocated for violent revolution to overthrow the “bourgeois” democracy. The moment democracy is gone, the strong take and retain power. This is why, no matter the system, democracy must be the bottom line. It ensures that power is distributed. It’s not perfect, but it’s much better than the alternatives.

If communism becomes authoritarian every time it is attempted, I don’t see the practical distinction.

If communism devolves into authoritarianism every time it is attempted, I don’t see the practical distinction.

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I’ve never met anyone who hates communism more than the colleagues of mine who grew up under communism. Their neighbours disappeared for saying the wrong things. They were hungry and cold as children every day. Sometimes they didn’t have any shoes. They weren’t allowed to leave their country for holidays. They couldn’t afford it, even if they were allowed. They couldn’t study what they wanted. Their entire educational system was political propaganda. Freedom of religion didn’t exist.

It always amazes me how the most vocal proponents of communism come from the most sheltered, most privileged people alive who would retch from learning about the atrocities committed in the name of communism. If they only spent a few minutes on Google.

The other reply is correct regarding the macro effects of the practise. The more immediate issue is that it allows shareholders to avoid paying dividend taxes. So they can effectively defer paying taxes until they realise any capital gains. This is a huge benefit, as the present value of money is worth much more than the future value of money. However there is an even larger benefit in the U.S. Dependents can inherit stocks at the current price and avoid paying any capital gains tax. This is called the “stepped-up basis.” It’s an insane tax loophole. Together stock buy-backs and the stepped-up basis allow the ultra wealthy to pay little to no tax, ever. They take out perpetual loans to pay for living expenses, guaranteed against their holdings.

I agree. I could live with it if it were merely a way to defer taxes, but the U.S. has something called the stepped-up basis. This allows people to inherit stocks without paying tax on the capital gains. The wealthy can live their whole lives without paying any tax. Both stock buy-backs and the stepped-up basis severely undermine the stock market and tax system.

I don’t use Spotify, but no one forces artists to list their music on Spotify. They can choose list on any platform they like. FYI Spotify does in fact pay artists. Just less than Bandcamp. Streaming is why I don’t pirate anymore. If I had to go back to paying $30 for an album I’d be a pirate again. So artists can take some of my money, or none of it.

I don’t pirate music or games because there are reasonable platforms and pricing models which make pirating more hassle than it’s worth. Shows and movies, on the other hand, are an absolute shitshow to purchase legally.

• Outrageous pricing.

• Declining quality. Especially writing. See Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, and Foundation.

• Content is often unavailable to purchase. See Disney vault.

• Competing streaming services. I’d have to subscribe to six services to access the shows I like.

• Content disappears from services with little notice.

• Studios and platforms have been removing and modifying older content for political reasons.

It’s like they’re trying to make the experience as bad as possible. So fuck ‘em. Thank you Sonarr and Radarr.

At 18 we let people vote on the direction of the entire nation. We let them buy houses and go into debt for life. We let them die in war for their country. Most places in the world let them drink and get married. Of all of these rights, the absolute least of them is the right to fuck whichever other adult they choose. I cannot understand the utter insanity of thinking one is responsible enough to vote but not have sex. If you don’t think they’re responsible enough to have sex then they’re sure as shit not responsible enough to everything else.

18 year olds are adults. It’s time we stop infantilising them. People used to get married much younger than even that. If they want to fuck an older person, more power to them.

I think this is the biggest risk. 19 year olds often change a lot before they’re ready to settle down. If OP is looking for a long term relationship it’s more risky.

I also don’t have an issue with paying for default placement. The suit is much broader than that. Google’s anticompetitive conduct has included:

• Acquiring Competitors: Engaging in a pattern of acquisitions to obtain control over key digital advertising tools used by website publishers to sell advertising space;

• Forcing Adoption of Google’s Tools: Locking in website publishers to its newly-acquired tools by restricting its unique, must-have advertiser demand to its ad exchange, and in turn, conditioning effective real-time access to its ad exchange on the use of its publisher ad server;

• Distorting Auction Competition: Limiting real-time bidding on publisher inventory to its ad exchange, and impeding rival ad exchanges’ ability to compete on the same terms as Google’s ad exchange; and

• Auction Manipulation: Manipulating auction mechanics across several of its products to insulate Google from competition, deprive rivals of scale, and halt the rise of rival technologies.

More details: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-google-monopolizing-digital-advertising-technologies

They they settled another suit yesterday: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/06/states-google-settle-app-store-antitrust-case-00114176