Climate change could cause mass exodus by mid century

On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 5:11:22 PM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Tue, 20 Dec 2016 16:00:27 -0800 (PST), wrote:
On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 11:52:31 AM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Tue, 20 Dec 2016 03:05:24 -0800 (PST), wrote:

One leading example of a proposed consumption tax is the Fair Tax, which does not tax purchases up to the poverty line. You only pay tax on purchases in excess of the poverty line and everyone pays the same rate. Hence the name, FAIR Tax.

Why is paying the same rate fair?

Idiot.

In other words, you can't defend your opinion.

One can conclude that he is rude, but the conclusion you're making is
unwarranted. It may just be that he feels his conclusion doesn't *need*
defending.

After all, everyone paying the _same_ rate... that's treating everybody the
same, and that's the very definition of fairness!

I don't agree with his opinion, since while excluding purchases up to the
poverty line at least avoids taxing the necessities of life, if it's fair to
treat necessities differently by not taxing them, then why is it unfair to tax
the more extravagant luxuries at a higher rate as well?

Of course, it may be argued that the middle-class don't need special protection
from the rich the way the poor might need special protection.

To my mind, though, the greatest flaw of our current tax system is not that it
is not progressive enough in taxing the personal incomes of the rich. Instead,
it is how it taxes the *other* incomes of the rich...

Most countries tax the earnings of businesses *before* they are disbursed to
stockholders and the like. I suppose the idea is that the owner of a business
is still wealthy even if his wealth is in his business and not in his personal
bank account, home, and possessions; if only personal income were taxed, it
would be a loophole.

But corporate taxes are levied at a flat rate, since making them progressive
would be meaningless (divide by the number of stockholders to find the tax
bracket?) and in practice they're really *a disguised sales tax* paid by
consumers. Also, with a little bit of money disappearing at every transaction,
it turns government into a very destructive parasite on the economy - the same
stock of material goods, if exchanged more frequently between people, can lead
to a wealthier society (under certain conditions; this applies to some types of
goods and services and not others, of course).

John Savard

On Tuesday, 20 December 2016 19:12:13 UTC+1, Quadibloc wrote:
On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 9:26:00 AM UTC-7, Chris.B wrote:

Do fighter pilots need computers to fly their planes?
No, of course not!

Trust the Force, Luke.

Couldn't resist, particularly as I just watched Rogue One the other day...

John Savard

There, I knew you were a hard wired, biological machine following strict societal norms through deep learning at your mother's feet.

Now all we need is for the other 7 billion to accept you into their society as a fully fledged "consciousness" so you learn to drive as well as any human. ;-)

Interestingly[?] there is one hideously backward, medieval, desert country where self driving cars are very likely to be accepted.
And will be, long before ~50% of the human population obtains permission to do the same from the [snake] oil salesmen.
There's a certain irony that most of those "iAutos" will be battery driven or hybrids.
No doubt the same snake oil salesmen would prefer battery driven "iWomen" to the present 50%, biological, unruly "nuisances."
The Stepford Principle may soon become law in that technologically enlightened land.
Though there's absolutely no sign of much deep learning going on there yet. ;-)

wrote:
On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 3:27:53 AM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:
On Thursday, July 14, 2016 at 6:06:05 AM UTC-6, wrote:
On Wednesday, July 13, 2016 at 6:36:01 PM UTC-4, Razzmatazz wrote:

Consumption tax is highly regressive

That is not necessarily true at all. In fact, the more you buy the
more consumption tax you pay.

That makes it less regressive than a poll tax. But it is still worse than a
progressive income tax, which is presumably the standard of comparison being used.

One leading example of a proposed consumption tax is the Fair Tax, which
does not tax purchases up to the poverty line. You only pay tax on
purchases in excess of the poverty line and everyone pays the same rate.
Hence the name, FAIR Tax.





The rich don't have to buy things. They fly in private jets owned by their
companies. Are driven in cars owned by their companies. Live in mansions
owned by their companies.
No fair tax here. But you, as an honest citizen are paying their share.

On Tue, 20 Dec 2016 22:23:55 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

Why is paying the same rate fair?

Idiot.

In other words, you can't defend your opinion.

One can conclude that he is rude, but the conclusion you're making is
unwarranted. It may just be that he feels his conclusion doesn't *need*
defending.

Then he's simply stupid. If someone asks for an explanation of an
opinion, it's reasonable to provide one.

After all, everyone paying the _same_ rate... that's treating everybody the
same, and that's the very definition of fairness!

I disagree. In the case of taxation, I would argue that people with
more wealth derive more benefits from the government (at least, under
most systems), and therefore it's reasonable for them to pay a higher
rate. Or, another argument, as your wealth increases, the value of
money is reduced- a person with a million dollar salary might pay 20%
in tax and it would have less impact on his lifestyle than a person
who makes $20,000 would observe paying only 5%.

Of course, you need not agree with these views as a matter of
philosophy, but nobody should simply refuse to consider or discuss
them.

(I've cut off the remainder of your discussion because I don't have
the time to discuss it now. Part of what you say I agree with, part
not, but to be sure, I appreciate the fact that you state your
opinions and you support what you say intelligently. Unlike Snell, who
as usual simply refuses to engage in any discussion beyond stating
opinions at the sound bite level of sophistication.)

On Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 11:15:06 AM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Tue, 20 Dec 2016 22:23:55 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

Why is paying the same rate fair?

Idiot.

In other words, you can't defend your opinion.

One can conclude that he is rude, but the conclusion you're making is
unwarranted. It may just be that he feels his conclusion doesn't *need*
defending.

Then he's simply stupid. If someone asks for an explanation of an
opinion, it's reasonable to provide one.

You didn't attack my opinion, you agreed with it. No need to defend it in any case.



After all, everyone paying the _same_ rate... that's treating everybody the
same, and that's the very definition of fairness!

I disagree. In the case of taxation, I would argue that people with
more wealth derive more benefits from the government (at least, under
most systems),

No, governments derive benefits from people with wealth, even those who don't have much in the first place.


and therefore it's reasonable for them to pay a higher
rate. Or, another argument, as your wealth increases, the value of
money is reduced- a person with a million dollar salary might pay 20%
in tax and it would have less impact on his lifestyle than a person
who makes $20,000 would observe paying only 5%.

The wealthy mostly invest their money, not spend it on luxuries.



Of course, you need not agree with these views as a matter of
philosophy, but nobody should simply refuse to consider or discuss
them.

We can certainly ridicule your views. They certainly deserve it.


(I've cut off the remainder of your discussion because I don't have
the time to discuss it now. Part of what you say I agree with, part
not, but to be sure, I appreciate the fact that you state your
opinions and you support what you say intelligently.

That's more than can be said of you, peterson.

Unlike Snell, who
as usual simply refuses to engage in any discussion beyond stating
opinions at the sound bite level of sophistication.)

Projecting again, peterson?

On Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 6:19:01 AM UTC-5, Mike Collins wrote:
wrote:
On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 3:27:53 AM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:
On Thursday, July 14, 2016 at 6:06:05 AM UTC-6, wrote:
On Wednesday, July 13, 2016 at 6:36:01 PM UTC-4, Razzmatazz wrote:

Consumption tax is highly regressive

That is not necessarily true at all. In fact, the more you buy the
more consumption tax you pay.

That makes it less regressive than a poll tax. But it is still worse than a
progressive income tax, which is presumably the standard of comparison being used.

One leading example of a proposed consumption tax is the Fair Tax, which
does not tax purchases up to the poverty line. You only pay tax on
purchases in excess of the poverty line and everyone pays the same rate.
Hence the name, FAIR Tax.





The rich don't have to buy things. They fly in private jets owned by their
companies. Are driven in cars owned by their companies. Live in mansions
owned by their companies.

The tax still gets paid on the initial purchase of said items. If a company wishes to then offer those as perks to a CEO, so be it.

No fair tax here. But you, as an honest citizen are paying their share.

No, they would pay for new goods that they consume. If they consume more, they pay more.

On Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 1:23:57 AM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:
On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 5:11:22 PM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Tue, 20 Dec 2016 16:00:27 -0800 (PST), wrote:
On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 11:52:31 AM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Tue, 20 Dec 2016 03:05:24 -0800 (PST), wrote:

One leading example of a proposed consumption tax is the Fair Tax, which does not tax purchases up to the poverty line. You only pay tax on purchases in excess of the poverty line and everyone pays the same rate. Hence the name, FAIR Tax.

Why is paying the same rate fair?

Idiot.

In other words, you can't defend your opinion.

One can conclude that he is rude, but the conclusion you're making is
unwarranted. It may just be that he feels his conclusion doesn't *need*
defending.

After all, everyone paying the _same_ rate... that's treating everybody the
same, and that's the very definition of fairness!

I don't agree with his opinion, since while excluding purchases up to the
poverty line at least avoids taxing the necessities of life, if it's fair to
treat necessities differently by not taxing them, then why is it unfair to tax
the more extravagant luxuries at a higher rate as well?

One would need to define what one means by: Necessity, luxury, extravagant.

peterson cannot distinguish between needs and wants, inasmuch as he is a spoiled brat who never grew up.

A poor person could decide to buy a new telescope instead of a new coat. The coat might be seen as a need and the telescope a luxury, perhaps even an extravagant one.

On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 1:18:20 PM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:
On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 9:57:39 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

That is not the way these systems work. In reality, the car will
almost certainly be making decisions based on deep learning methods,
meaning that there will be no easily identifiable criteria, and
certainly not any provided by programmers.

Deep learning techniques would indeed be used for the things we don't know how
to "program" - how to *recognize* a human being, how to control a moving
vehicle, and so on and so forth.

But it would still have to be possible to control such a vehicle - to impart to
it a request to go to a given destination. One still needs to tell it *what it
is supposed to do*. Crashing into a wall instead of squashing the jelly-like
objects in front of it... would be done in service of those fundamental goals
which would have to be set for the vehicle explicitly, even though the skills
it uses *to* do these things would be achieved by deep learning rather than
programming in large part.

John Savard

peterson doesn't get that a machine can -only- do what some human has "told" it to do, directly or indirectly.

On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 1:28:03 PM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Tue, 20 Dec 2016 10:18:16 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 9:57:39 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

That is not the way these systems work. In reality, the car will
almost certainly be making decisions based on deep learning methods,
meaning that there will be no easily identifiable criteria, and
certainly not any provided by programmers.

Deep learning techniques would indeed be used for the things we don't know how
to "program" - how to *recognize* a human being, how to control a moving
vehicle, and so on and so forth.

But it would still have to be possible to control such a vehicle - to impart to
it a request to go to a given destination. One still needs to tell it *what it
is supposed to do*. Crashing into a wall instead of squashing the jelly-like
objects in front of it... would be done in service of those fundamental goals
which would have to be set for the vehicle explicitly, even though the skills
it uses *to* do these things would be achieved by deep learning rather than
programming in large part.

No, we don't tell it what to do (beyond the high level control of
providing a destination- no different than we do with a human driver).
We obviously provide rule classes,

Rule classes = word salad, peterson.

such as ethical guidelines, road
rules, etc. Again, no different from human drivers. But there still
isn't going to be a rule that requires a wall over a human, for
instance.

A choice still has to be made, but which human gets to make it?

The deep learning is going to result in complex and largely
unpredictable behaviors based on the actual experience of millions of
autonomous vehicles.

The machine isn't learning, that's just hype.

wrote:
On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 1:28:03 PM UTC-5, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Tue, 20 Dec 2016 10:18:16 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 9:57:39 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

That is not the way these systems work. In reality, the car will
almost certainly be making decisions based on deep learning methods,
meaning that there will be no easily identifiable criteria, and
certainly not any provided by programmers.

Deep learning techniques would indeed be used for the things we don't know how
to "program" - how to *recognize* a human being, how to control a moving
vehicle, and so on and so forth.

But it would still have to be possible to control such a vehicle - to impart to
it a request to go to a given destination. One still needs to tell it *what it
is supposed to do*. Crashing into a wall instead of squashing the jelly-like
objects in front of it... would be done in service of those fundamental goals
which would have to be set for the vehicle explicitly, even though the skills
it uses *to* do these things would be achieved by deep learning rather than
programming in large part.

No, we don't tell it what to do (beyond the high level control of
providing a destination- no different than we do with a human driver).
We obviously provide rule classes,

Rule classes = word salad, peterson.

"Word salad" = your phrase for thing you can't or won't understand.

such as ethical guidelines, road
rules, etc. Again, no different from human drivers. But there still
isn't going to be a rule that requires a wall over a human, for
instance.

A choice still has to be made, but which human gets to make it?

The deep learning is going to result in complex and largely
unpredictable behaviors based on the actual experience of millions of
autonomous vehicles.

The machine isn't learning, that's just hype.