Mudguard

I’m also skeptical that a wealth tax could be implemented well, but I’m curious about the current proposal. Unfortunately, I don’t have a subscription to lemonde, so I’m unable to read the portion of the op-ed that explained the details around implementation. Can you please copy and paste an excerpt on the implementation? Some of my concerns would be around the taxation of founders of startups, particularly at the pre-IPO stage, and taxation of founders of privately owned companies. Are these addressed in the op-ed?

I don't think this is as clear cut as you think. The copyright holder of the sculpture has the right to prevent derivative works. It's very possible that photographs of a sculpture would be considered a derivative work, and that you would need a license, for example, if you wanted to sell photos of the sculpture. It's also very likely that the sculptor has taken photos of their sculpture too, which would be another argument that other photos would be a derivative work.

well, presumably if they did adequate polling of the electorate they would have been able to see a change in the youth turnout from the past election, and that they were voting for Mamdani.

I would dock all the polling firms that missed the election by a big margin. It doesn't make it better that even reputable firms missed big. Just means that we shouldn't place much reliance on polling data in the mayoral race because it has been proven to be shit.

I wouldn't rely much on that early polling data. The firm that conducted it predicted in June that Cuomo was 17 points ahead of Mamdani, before he ended up losing. That's a really big miss. I wasn't paying attention to the race before, but now it's getting interesting.

The mayor of NYC race is pretty bizarre. Potentially 3 democrats are running in the general election, although the two corrupt ones will be running as independents. The Republican nominee is a long time anti-Trumper, and still appears to be anti-Trump even now. So who is Trump and his maga supporters supporting? Eric Adams, his new stooge? No one?

damn, you have an industrial grade backyard garden going. it looks like the tomato plants under the scrogs are suspended in air. is that to reduce pest problems? I gave up on my home garden due to a slug and snail infestation. this would solve that problem i think. are you growing determinate or indeterminate type tomato plants? single scrog probably sufficient for a bushy determinate tomato plant and other bushy plants, but vining type plants could probably use multiple levels of scrogs. I grew a lot of tomato and cucumber plants, and this setup would be amazing. probably out of my price range though as a hobby grower.

Congrats! I was wondering how things were going with your startup. You've come a long way from inventing a better way to grow weed. The turn to AI robotics for agriculture is really interesting.

I don't think everyone thought that the economy would collapse, so it wasn't a complete echo chamber on this subject. In the politics thread, I just posted to complain about Trump's idiocy. In the investments thread, Ran and others had some more reasonable takes. I didn't post much on the subject, but mentioned early on in the investments thread that I thought Trump would TACO out if countries would follow China's lead and tell Trump to go pound sand, and that the markets would quickly recover if this happened. on the broader point about this forum being an echo chamber, I do think it's true at least to some extent. there are very few pro trump posters here, and they don't post often. mcbigski is the only one that comes to mind right now. and it's not due to moderation or banning conservative posters. i suspect online forums have a natural tendency to self organize into echo chambers.

well, let's see if Trump can show restraint. I don't think he wants to be drawn into an extended war with Iran, but he might take this as a personal affront given his words to Iran over the weekend, and might feel the need to respond in force to protect his ego.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/ckg3rzj8emjt?page=2 well, good chance that they transported valuable materials and equipment out of fordow on these trucks, including any enriched uranium they hadn't already moved. not sure how easy it would be to track these trucks. they could send the trucks to a covered distribution hub, and then keep a stream of trucks going in and out to confuse tracking. if they have an underground transportation network, like a underground rail system, then it would make things even harder to track.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-858554 allegedly has a satellite image of fordow the day after the strike. looks like you can see some entry holes, but that's it. no way you can assess any damage to fordow from this image. need boots on the ground to determine anything.

I'm curious to see satellite imagery of fordow. it's hard for me to believe that you can confidently determine that fordow was completely destroyed based on this imagery. I don't think that this type of bomb leaves behind a big open crater. it detonates deep underground and some material is ejected from the tunnel it bored, but then I think the ground just collapses into the void created from the explosion. there won't be much to see except a depression in the ground near where the bomb hit. the bomb payload isn't that big so the ground depression won't be that big either.

it's also likely that Iran has moved a large amount of their highly enriched uranium to a more secure location. why would they keep it at a site that will likely be targeted by israel or the USA? without inspectors on the ground, we have no real idea where any of this material is now.

now we will see if the Republicans and maga folks advocating against war with Iran actually have a spine or get behind trump now that war is here. I assume virtually all will have a collective case of amnesia and back trump, but let's see.

where did you see trump claiming fordow was completely destroyed?

well, US bombed fordow. whether we can destroy it with the bunker busters is going to depend on how deep it really is. I've seen estimates from around 300 ft to half a mile. if it's half a mile, the bunker busters aren't going to work.

it's fake. that would be a big story if true, so the fact that no other news organization has reported this answers your question about whether it's fake or not.

damn, can't remember the last time they had an explosion like this on the ground. massive fireball. seems like it's one step forward two steps back recently for starship.

you bolded the part about outperforming reagan. in what way? none that matters. reagan won by a much larger margin in both the popular vote and electoral vote. it's not even close. honestly, the substack is just conspiracy nonsense that mirrors the bullshit trump spouted for years, but in favor of democrats. unsurprisingly, no proof presented of any significant amount of fraud. but trust us, there's a massive conspiracy.

I don't think it costs that much to develop a nuke nowadays. North Korea did it and their GDP is around 20 billion USD. Iran's GDP is around 400 billion. They also have plenty of enriched uranium to use as a starting point. I think it's now more of an engineering problem than a scientific one. Killing the scientists won't eliminate the knowledge they've gained because it should all have been well documented. It might stall further development, depending on who was killed and where they are in development, but it could very well have a negligible effect, or worse, end up hardening their resolve and accelerating their plans.

for Israel's long term safety and the stability of the region, I think this would be a big mistake. the constant oppression of hamas, which involved killing hundreds each year prior to the October attack, didn't result in a safer Israel. it led to the largest attack on israel in its history. and iran poses a potential danger that is magnitudes greater than hamas. going down this route has the potential to end in disaster. but maybe a war that lasts a year or two benefits netanyahu. it could help him get to the 2026 elections with a war against an alleged existential threat that of course only he can deal with. certainly can't put him on trial with a war going on...

you think they are just going to bomb them indefinitely for years on end like in Gaza?

there is no way to stop them from getting nukes unless you invade and occupy them. Israel's bombing campaign is not a serious attempt at preventing Iran from obtaining nukes given how close Iran is. so unless Israel follows up with an invasion, presumably with help from the US, which seems incredibly unlikely, the question is what is the actual goal.

Survivor stated that 30 seconds after takeoff he heard a loud noise and then the plane crashed. Primary cause of the crash is probably a technical failure of at least one of the engines. What caused the failure and whether the pilots had any hope to recover from it are still unknown.