Indeed. There is a hierarchy.

Commie blocks are better than tents.

But proper social housing is better than commie blocks.

And proper social housing mixed with middle class owner-occupied housing in the same neighborhoods and even within the same buildings is the best.

Perhaps, but he does have a point.

Boycotts, protests, press articles and just public opinion in general used to be powerful tools to influence companies and politicians.

But they have lost their effectiveness, because companies and politicians have figured out ways to make themselves immune to boycotts and protests.

They have engineered society to make us all dependent and confused.

It used to be, every product in the supermarket had a smallish company behind it, and that company was very sensitive to public opinion. There was always competition ready to steal market share.

Now all the brands are just labels for a few giant corporations. You simply can't boycott them. If one brand becomes the target of a boycott, a different brand from the same or another multinational will get the money, perhaps through a store brand.

People have the memory of a goldfish nowadays.

I was alive during the 2000 and 2008 market crashes, but also the 2020 non-crash.

It could be that Tesla really has cracked autonomous driving by summer, as Elon claims, and then they will recover a lot of market value.

But more realistically, as the saying goes, even a dead cat bounces.

Markets never go down in perfect lines. There are dead cat bounces along the way.

I consider myself someone who is always in search of truth.

When I realized evangelical Christianity has some hardcore lies and hypocrisy, I left it.

I did eventually find my way back to a more traditional version of Christianity that is interested in truth and love.

Honestly, I really don't understand why a populist left party doesn't pursue this.

No tax on income below $100K and no tax on wealth, property and inheritance below $1M.

Or choose some other figures.

It seems like it would be a slam dunk to get voter support.

Billions have already been spent on building chip fabs which will never be profitable.

Yes, China is doing the US taxpayer a solid by giving them an opportunity to prevent losing money on AI, but I think this administration is going to find a way to send those billions to silicon valley anyway.

Huh?

In most touristy places, Americans are actually desired as the best tourists because of their tipping culture.

When I talk to employees of hotels, bars and restaurants, they are often a little disappointed that I'm not an American.

I agree with this take.

AI will definitely make some white collar jobs way more productive, and thus change the nature of that work and reduce the number of people employed in those jobs.

A good example is translation, where translators are now mostly reviewing translated texts instead of translating from scratch.

This means the ability to read fast and take on the role of editor is what remains important in the remaining jobs for translators.

I remain pessimistic on the course this genocide is taking, but a UN resolution for peace that both the US and China voted for...

I didn't expect to see this happen any time soon.

After reading (3), I was going to suggest (4), but you did it yourself.

We should drastically raise property taxes and make them deductible from income taxes for owner-occupied housing up to a certain amount.

That would really put middle class home owners and starters in a competitive position compared to those who consume a lot of housing.

And this, in turn, will incentivize property developers to target the middle class

I can kinda support raising the ages for drugs, alcohol and tobacco to 19, 21 or even 25. Major human brain development is still ongoing until about 25. Or perhaps restricting the quantity they can buy.

We already see car rental companies restricting rentals to those ages and insurance companies having higher risk premiums.

And I would also put limits on things like gambling and credit card debt for those ages. And yes, stop student loans in totality.

But the idea that we are going to ban 30 and 40 year olds from consuming cigarettes is just laughable.

We are talking about the 90s though, not the 60s.