>> ^jjw001:

so what happens when more than 1 super rich guy wants to come/leave around the same time?


They're just gonna have to request another bailout to build that second lift. Why should these people have to wait just so some poor assholes can keep their houses?

>> ^jjw001:

so what happens when more than 1 super rich guy wants to come/leave around the same time?


War.

so what happens when more than 1 super rich guy wants to come/leave around the same time?

>> ^KnivesOut:

I took my small family to DC a few weekends ago to visit the various Smithsonian museums, and I really fell in love with the Human Evolution exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. I would highly recommend anyone living on the east coast or travelling near there to visit, it's just extremely well presented and very accessible to everyone, both children and adults.
I was especially surprised at the end of our walk-through to see that the thing was funded by David H. Koch. It literally blew my mind, I guess just because of the nonsense that his sons have been up to for the past few election cycles. It seems to me that those two are responsible for funding so much ignorance, and yet their father funded this magnificent exhibition... I don't know, just weird.


Actually, David H. Koch is one of the two Koch brothers currently funding republican candidates. It wasn't his father who donated the exhibit, it was him. It does seem odd that a guy who has used his vast fortune to deny climate change also gives big donations to Nova and the National Museum of Natural History. I kind of doubt he's even dumb enough to sincerely be a climate change skeptic. I think he just cares more about being an ultra rich guy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Koch#Education

>> ^EvilDeathBee:

I'd like to know how rich the son is. If it's just a rich guy giving his father an expensive gift, that's nice and all, but if the son managed to make enough money to afford a single Ferrari, but instead of buying it for himself, chooses to give it to his father, well that's just beautiful.


It's possible he bought it for himself and let his dad drive it, or it was just a joke.

Nick Depalo.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4106741/

I'd like to know how rich the son is. If it's just a rich guy giving his father an expensive gift, that's nice and all, but if the son managed to make enough money to afford a single Ferrari, but instead of buying it for himself, chooses to give it to his father, well that's just beautiful.

@gorillaman understanding the subjective nature of value does not imply moral relativism, nor is it in any way detrimental to morality.

Morality is about choosing values, you can pick and choose all you like, it doesn't change the fact that values are subjective in the sense that they're not intrinsic to the object of value, they depend on the person/living being that assigns the value.

A baker does indeed value the bread he sells less than the money he wants in exchange for it, otherwise he would not see purpose in selling bread, he'd just hoard all his awesome bread to himself.

Differering circumstances are just one of the many things that may affect one's choice of values. You're not a fan of Lamborghinis, that can be for so many reasons. Maybe they're obvious to you, but your choice of values won't match that of a Lamborghini afficionado, or of a rich guy looking for a powerful status symbol. Who are you to consider your values any better than those of others when it comes to spending money?

I see that trade can be detrimental to a third party, but if there's no theft or destruction of someone else's actual property, treating that as a problem and trying to forcibly solve it by regulating or forbidding the trade is bound to cause more and bigger problems than the one you allegedly want to fix.

It's this lack of foresight that is so common among those who don't appreciate the evolving nature of freedom and competition.

Now you're saying you're not OK with "criminal" thoughts, but would you want to regulate thoughts? We can't directly mind control people, so can you even enforce that without infringing on freedom of expression? Do you think it's worth it to forcibly shape society's ideologies?

I proposed that ridiculous notion expecting you to repudiate it, I can at least appreciate the strong connection you make between personal and economic liberties. Too bad you apparently think we deserve neither.

Here's what I don't get in this argument... How does raising the income tax (taxing money taken home and spent on whatever you want) harm business investments and their economic benefits when any money spent on them are TAX DEDUCTIBLE? I would think that a higher income tax would encourage "some rich guy" to invest his money in his business rather than taking home the money and paying the higher tax.


To be clear: I'm not saying it's right (it's mostly not), I'm saying it's not self-evidently crazy. I.e. if you're going to argue against it, you should talk about why it's wrong, or - better yet - show empirical evidence against the idea. That would be a TED talk.

From JMZERO:

One possible source for that concentration is "some rich guy", and many businesses are indeed started that way. It's not crazy or wrong to say that over-taxing rich people could have economic harms through this kind of mechanism. It's a ridiculous false dichotomy to say that it's only the consumers that are the key to business development.


Here's what I don't get in this argument... How does raising the income tax (taxing money taken home and spent on whatever you want) harm business investments and their economic benefits when any money spent on them are TAX DEDUCTIBLE? I would think that a higher income tax would encourage "some rich guy" to invest his money in his business rather than taking home the money and paying the higher tax.

No?

Not just uninteresting, but unbalanced. Sometimes straight-up wrong. And the cliche (Earth centered universe) he pulls out at the beginning is so sad that I don't even know what to say. He isn't busting some consensus and challenging some sacred cow: he's adding nothing to a debate that is ongoing and nuanced.

On the actual subject: there's lots of jobs that are difficult to create. If everyone in your neighborhood wants an iPhone, Bob just can't start making them in his garage. It requires a concentration of capital to begin this kind of production.

One possible source for that concentration is "some rich guy", and many businesses are indeed started that way. It's not crazy or wrong to say that over-taxing rich people could have economic harms through this kind of mechanism. It's a ridiculous false dichotomy to say that it's only the consumers that are the key to business development.

Overall: I agree with the dude that the tax system in the US should be more progressive, but you can't just hand-wave away the other side of an argument. That difference is part of what distinguishes "a speech at a political rally" from "a speech at TED".

I sort of agree with TED assertion that the talk wasnt spectacular, and that it relied perhaps too much on truisms, and didnt really contribute with anything new, its basically a rich guy pleading to be taxed more.

That said, I dont understand the accusation that the talk is "Partisan". Clearly its only partisan in the context of current american politics. After all: either its true that tax breaks for the rich are creating jobs, or it isnt. What different political parties think of the matter, is irrelevant to the truth of the matter. For instance, if a global warming denier held a talk, he'd basically be pushing GOP policy, where as if someone from reality held a talk on global warming, some republicans would just accuse them of giving a "liberal hippie treehugger" talk.

As Stephen Colbert so aptly put it; "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

With TEDs logic, you could hardly give a talk on any issue relating to reality without being "partisan" then, especially when one party (Who Shall Not Be Named For Fear Of Partisanship, But Maybe You Can Guess) is half corporate propaganda tool and half superstitious, reality-denying, conspiracy-driven madhouse.

Its a bit like saying "The F-Word" really, you're technically not saying "Fuck" but we all fill in the blanks.

Thanks again, bud.
In reply to this comment by Barseps:
You got THAT one right

Promote
Quality.

>> ^Sepacore:

Exciting stuff. Hopefully the rich guys backing this will stay the course.

You got THAT one right

*Promote
*Quality.

>> ^Sepacore:

Exciting stuff. Hopefully the rich guys backing this will stay the course.

Exciting stuff. Hopefully the rich guys backing this will stay the course.

Haha, it might sound like that, but I didn't think about it at all until it came to this thread. And I believe I do just enjoy the show. We can't all be simple creatures who only scratch the surface of everything

>> ^Tokoki:

Sounds like you both spend way too much time thinking about this.
Just enjoy the show!
>> ^legacy0100:
Sounds like you've caught a serious case of the fandomitis.
I remember having a similar conversation with this guy from a group lunch. I brought up Modern Family and how it was getting popular, and he said that he couldn't stand watching Modern Family because they were all 'fake' and their acting made him feel uncomfortable. He said he couldn't quite put his finger on it, only that he kept saying that the actors were overreacting to the situations.
I told him I felt the same way about Portlandia and how I felt very uncomfortable when the actors were being very aggressive with their ultra-liberal agendas and stop watching whenever they were about to have another fit. This was ironic because the person who didn't like Modern Family absolutely loved Portlandia and had no problem watching it.
For the record, in my subjective opinion I felt that the person I was talking with was a very giddy person, like the personalities in Modern Family, while I sometimes can be an argumentative smart mouth when it comes to certain topics.
Perhaps we were seeing a little bit of ourselves in these shows, and it was making us uncomfortable? Weird, eh?
>> ^alien_concept:
>> ^VoodooV:
I both love and hate this show.
I hate how it reinforces all the shittiest stereotypes, the flamboyant gay couple, the straight couple with the man is the bumbling idiot and the woman who he is ridiculously lucky to have.
But yeah, it is a damned funny show.

I honestly don't think they write these characters stereotypically at all! That's why I find it so hilarious, you think you know what you're going to get then they play it out completely differently. Like they're a gay couple and they do gay flamboyant things, but one is ginger and one is fat and they're certainly not the perfect adoptive parents, they fuck it up all the time. And Phil and Claire, yeah she's way out of his league at first glance, but then you realise what a complete mentalist she is, and how she's wonderful but difficult to love if you weren't a husband who understands he's punching above his weight and also autistic so can let most of her quirks go. And then there's the old rich guy with the trophy wife and the precocious step kid. I can't even think of anything usual about that routine