US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6932

On February 21 2017 10:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:

2. Why is Milo so important to the conservative cause? What does he bring to the table, exactly? I rarely see him even talking about anything besides hating on groups of people.

On February 21 2017 07:30 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:


this always happens. heck see bill cosby. People will find something that nobody noticed and suddenly it will be a big deal. Pretty common. You can't vet everything a person says or does.

Robots should be taxed at the same level as the people they replace, to help fund better social services and education, according to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Governments rather than businesses need to take the lead on managing the robotics revolution and ensuring there's a plan to deal with the unemployed workers it creates over the next 20 years, Gates told Quartz.

"Right now, if a human worker does $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you'd think we'd tax the robot at a similar level," he said.

Also, with fewer people working, governments will have less income tax to spend at a time when it may need more money rather than less.

Gates argues that governments should raise taxes on robot capital to slow down adoption and provide the time needed to devise programs that create a net benefit from this excess labor. Besides a direct robot tax, he added that some taxes could come from profits made by labor-saving efficiency.

"You cross the threshold of job-replacement of certain activities all sort of at once. So, you know, warehouse work, driving, room cleanup, there's quite a few things that are meaningful job categories that, certainly in the next 20 years, being thoughtful about that extra supply is a net benefit. It's important to have the policies to go with that," Gates said.

"People should be figuring it out. It's really bad if people overall have more fear about what innovation is going to do than they have enthusiasm. That means they won't shape it for the positive things it can do. And, you know, taxation is certainly a better way to handle it than just banning some elements of it," he said.

Last week the European Parliament rejected a proposal to place a tax on robot owners to fund retraining of workers affected by robotic automation. Instead, it supported laws to regulate robot adoption and create liability for a robot's actions.

Gates' idea for a robot tax comes as some consider whether a universal basic income may be necessary in future, although questions remain about how to fund such a policy.

Elon Musk reckons there'll be few other options than to implement government-paid wages in response to the automation of work. Finland is currently running a basic income trial that guarantees €560 ($595) a month to 2,000 unemployed people for two years.

Gates sees his robot tax as a chance to improve services to the elderly, create smaller class sizes, and help kids with special needs, which are all tasks where humans still have an edge over machines.

"You know, all of those are things where human empathy and understanding are still very, very unique. And we still deal with an immense shortage of people to help out there," he said.

"So, if you can take the labor that used to do the thing automation replaces, and financially and training-wise and fulfillment-wise have that person go off and do these other things, then you're net ahead. But you can't just give up that income tax, because that's part of how you've been funding that level of human workers."

On February 21 2017 12:10 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Will never happen in this country.



Source

On February 21 2017 12:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


How do you tax a non-human, let alone a non-living thing? Especially if you're not paying them a salary anyway? Or does this mean that companies who get rid of human jobs in favor of robots should be taxed extra, as an incentive to think twice before cutting human jobs? It seems weird to word this as "Robots should be taxed". I'm immediately thinking Bender from Futurama lol.

On February 21 2017 10:42 Nyxisto wrote:


A 18 year old sleeping with a 14 year old might be a "path to sexual maturity". A 13 year old sleeping with a 28 old is statutory rape and the priest thing he threw in even hints at the fact that he things child abuse is for some reason a joke. It's worth to care about this because this stuff seems to be leaking into the mainstream American news-cycle and it definitely does not belong there.

On February 21 2017 12:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


How do you tax a non-human, let alone a non-living thing? Especially if you're not paying them a salary anyway? Or does this mean that companies who get rid of human jobs in favor of robots should be taxed extra, as an incentive to think twice before cutting human jobs? It seems weird to word this as "Robots should be taxed". I'm immediately thinking Bender from Futurama lol.

Jewish Community Centers were shaken by another wave of bomb threats, forcing evacuations in nine states Monday.

Eleven Jewish Community Centers received threatening calls Monday, said Marla Cohen, communications manager for JCCA, the Jewish Community Center Association.

Incidents were reported at Jewish Community Centers in St. Paul, Minnesota; Buffalo and Amherst, New York; Birmingham, Alabama; Houston; Cleveland, Ohio; Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin; Nashville; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Tampa, Florida; and Chicago.

Law enforcement officials were investigating the threats and, as of late Monday, centers were being reopened after explosive devices were not found.

For some of these organizations, it was not the first threat made in recent weeks. There have now been at least 67 incidents at 56 Jewish Community Centers in 27 states and one Canadian province since the start of 2017, Cohen told The Huffington Post.

Monday’s incidents are part a sharp rise in threats made against JCCs around the nation since Donald Trump began his presidential campaign, which was frequently criticized for winking at white nationalists and not forcefully condemning hate speech and extremism.

The far-right has become emboldened under Trump, and while the number of Americans who directly support hardened hate groups remains far lower than in earlier decades, the number of hate groups in America is rising, according to a recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate and extremism around the nation.

Heidi Beirich, director of the Intelligence Project at SPLC, said that this series of bomb threats since the new year is “unprecedented.”

“I’ve been working at SPLC since 1999. I’ve never seen a string of attacks like this that are targeting the same kind of institution in the same kind of way. This is new,” Beirich said.

She added that it remains unclear who is making these threats, if it’s one person or more, but it has rattled communities around the U.S.

“This threatens an entire community. It’s very scary,” Beirich said. “You’re terrorizing whole families and children. There are usually day care centers that serve an entire population in the area. These threats can make it impossible for those communities to function normally.”

Anti-Semitic hate crimes comprise the largest portion of religiously motivated attacks in the United States. But Trump has yet to address the issue. In news conferences last week, the president had multiple opportunities to address concerns over rising anti-Semitism, but each time he either downplayed or denied the rise. When a Jewish reporter asked Trump explicitly about the recent spike in bomb threats against JCCs, Trump cut him off, told him to sit down and told the reporter his question wasn’t fair and claimed to be the “least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.”

Deputy White House Press Secretary Lindsay Walters didn’t specifically address anti-Semitism, but did say in response to the latest bomb threats Monday, “Hatred and hate-motivated violence of any kind have no place in a country founded on the promise of individual freedom,” adding Trump has “made it abundantly clear that these actions are unacceptable.”

The Anti-Defamation League said it was “deeply disturbed” by the latest wave of bomb threats this week and issued bomb threat guidance for all Jewish institutions.

The U.S. military is "not in Iraq to seize anybody's oil", Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said, distancing himself from remarks by President Donald Trump, as he held talks with Iraqi leaders on Monday.

Mattis was the highest-ranking Trump administration official to visit Iraq since Trump irked Iraqis with a temporary ban on travel to the United States and for saying America should have seized Iraq's oil after toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003.

On February 21 2017 12:46 zlefin wrote:
I'm happy to have windmills save family farms. much preferable to massive welfare payments in the form of farm subsidies for failing businesses.

on robot taxing: wouldn't the money already be taxed anyways? I mean, if the owner/corporation earns money from the production of the robot, that would be taxed. so what about that doesn't work? or maybe it just does work. part of the thing is that the robot reduced the value of the work I suppose, so it's no longer worth the original $50k (as per the example number in the post a bit above). efficiency improvements change the valuation of work.

On February 21 2017 13:40 BlueBird. wrote:


We currently tax profits created from a worker for a company and the workers income. I'm assuming it's a bit more complicated than that but that is the way I understand it.

When you cut out the worker you now have an unemployed
Person further burdening the government and now you have higher corporate profits which are taxed but you have no income tax to tax and it likely doesn't balance out because of the former workers and their families needing your help now.

The net positive effect on the community from that company is now lessened in a sense, it could even be a burden if there are externalities on the community like air pollutants and the trade off of jobs goes away.

On February 21 2017 13:40 BlueBird. wrote:


We currently tax profits created from a worker for a company and the workers income. I'm assuming it's a bit more complicated than that but that is the way I understand it.

When you cut out the worker you now have an unemployed
Person further burdening the government and now you have higher corporate profits which are taxed but you have no income tax to tax and it likely doesn't balance out because of the former workers and their families needing your help now.

The net positive effect on the community from that company is now lessened in a sense, it could even be a burden if there are externalities on the community like air pollutants and the trade off of jobs goes away.

On February 21 2017 14:22 Gahlo wrote:

I'll buy that when America's internet isn't both a) shitty and b) reasonably priced for its quality. Because right now, it isn't. The companies don't care because they've all got a piece of the pie.