Of course education could help about this and other psychologically manipulative tactics by corps but such kind of education is heavily frowned upon for being seeing as anti-capitalist and (more propagandistic) as un-american, so there is zero of such kind of education.
Thankfully, for most people on Earth, the prospect of seeming "Un-American" is not relevant. It's also not a problem to argue against free-market economies - see Austria's second biggest city (Graz), which has an elected mayor from the communist party.
Education doesn’t help here, what are you talking about?!
Educated people can read as many books as they want about manipulation and still be susceptible to it. The manipulation works on a much deeper emotional level. We can’t change who we are, no matter how much education we get.
Being told by a brand “you’re fat” hurts no matter how many papers you’ve read or published and “you’re still thin and beautiful and desirable!” feels amazing.
In the same way an adult is responsable for "picking" the religion they believe in, the one that it was imposed upon them by their parents during their childhood.
Viewing this thread, and the back and forth of it, I need to say something.
Advertising sucks in this thread too.
By that I mean, people are not speaking plainly, and it is almost ingrained into our societies now. We "sell" our position in a discussion, a debate.
For example, regulation does curtail freedom. Completely.
However, lack of regulation can harm people. Significantly.
Thus, regulation does not give people more freedom, it can however reduce harm.
In democratic nations, often judges will weigh these two things, when determining if a regulation passes the muster. In my country, we have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and often judges will determine if a challenged regulation is of sufficient, required public good, whilst not overtly reducing freedom of the individual.
This is a mature conversation.
Advertising is not.
A primary example I've seen in the US, is people calling immigrants "undocumented" on one side, and "criminals" on the other. This is, of course, a reduction in nuance, and designed to advertise a position merely with the words used. And it is a societal sickness.
An illegal alien is just that, and using that term confers no judgement, for it is simply fact.
There was a time when politics were not first and fore in terms of the use of language. The current trend to be "touchy feely" over use of language, and find great offense at the use of language, does nothing other than stop debate. Reduce discussion. Cause schism instead of collaboration.
>Thus, regulation does not give people more freedom, it can however reduce harm.
If there were no regulation against someone picking you up off the street and chaining you up in their basement, they would be more free in this scenario and you would be less free. You might be able to say regulation can curtail freedom and at the same time increase freedom.
>An illegal alien is just that, and using that term confers no judgement, for it is simply fact.
Well, it also has a connotation just like the other words. "Illegal" and "alien" both evoke meaning that goes beyond the specific condition, and that phrase was generally the predecessor of "criminals" in this example. Those who use different terms are also incentivized to convince others that their chosen word is the one that is most "simply fact" and not "touchy feely" language.
> Thus, regulation does not give people more freedom, it can however reduce harm.
When I say regulation is freedom, I'm borrowing from dialectics. The only way we figured out how to move forward is to leave something behind.
So when you see regulation, the absence of a given right, let's say to carry a deadly weapon in public, you have to see this is the tailend of the synthesis of a long debate, where we agreed that the risks of arming the population outweighs the benefits of self protection.
So regulation is freedom because freedom is choice, and to choose is to leave something behind. Regulation is just the manifestation of the consequences of that choice.
Completely fair, but I was responding to someone who doesn't think that it curtails freedom but that is the total opposite, you cannot be free if you are dead (except for a few niche philosophical definitions of the word), so human centric regulations like the asbestos ban are orthogonal to freedom, even if I admit in the strictest definition of the word yes, a regulation can curtail your freedom to harm yourself and hypothetically could curtail yourself from positive benefits as well.
But the thing is that statistically the likelihood they were discussing in good faith about this is near none, instead their way of speaking are telltales of a libertarian, where they have a almost religious believe that regulation is their biggest enemy and will never admit that the lack of it could harm or even kill them, I have wasted many many hours talking with such kind of people and don't aim to waste more arguing in good faith giving nuanced responses.
What counts as pornography? What counts as art? What counts as music? Please, yeah we know, we absolutely know categorization is hard, doesn't mean there is no benefit in having them and shaping them as we go.
"It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarrelled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now."
Now we just need AIs that can create agentic workflows, and then we create workflows that can create many of those AIs, just imagine the (billing) possibilities.
> Europe should stop tolerating these sabotages and go to war with Russia
Unnecessary. Just (a) pursue and seize its shadow fleet and (b) give Ukraine long-range weapons. (And radars so you can profile Russia's air defences.)
Russia is operating so comically outside its circle of competence, material constraints and international law that you don't even have to go kinetic to hurt it.
NATO could certainly rollover the Russian army in a conventional war, but that was just as true before the Ukrainian war. The idea that Russia is/was a serious threat is a convenient fiction: It helps maintain Russia's image as a superpower, and it provides a justification for the existence of NATO and the associated military industrial complex that supports it.
What is true however, is that Russia does possess a huge arsenal of nuclear and other weapons:
Despite Putin's posturing, Russia's never going to risk deploying them in a conflict with Ukraine. But in an actual war between NATO/Europe and Russia, with the regime facing an existential threat, then there's a very good chance they would. But even before it got to that point, the nature of the conflict itself would make nuclear escalation very likely. Both sides would be firing huge numbers of missiles, attempting to gain air superiority by wiping out the other's own missile launchers, radar bases, etc. With that many missiles flying, and stressed people and automated systems making split-second decisions, it's very likely that an error or miscalculation would result in an accidental nuclear strike, at which point it would be impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.
This of course assumes that you are not just delaying the inevitable and giving time for Russia to recover will just make the nuclear escalation worse when it happens (not if it happens)
Which is why we must never give Ukraine enough firepower to pose a threat to the Russian regime.
But that does not mean we can't arm them with long range stuff, just in fairly small quantities. A Tomahawk can't take down Russia. A Tomahawk a day raining down in areas away from the battle front--that can make Russia very much want to quit provoking them. Provide such weapons on the basis that the supply will be immediately cut off at status quo ante.
You know what, yeah, I will, in exchange for EU citizenship and it must be fully financed so we have available the best weaponry money can buy (and a written contract that has a big payout for my parents if I die in combat)
Only if you can’t fly to a neutral low-tax country and enjoy low tax and not being sent to war. But you do you, I do me.
(And of course, if they don’t have a problem with stealing over half of the fruits of your labor, do you really think they won’t send you to fight for them when the chips are down anyway?)
50% tax is absolutely not typical in the US as far as I know unless you can provide sources? I thought it was around 30% thanks to all the various schemes and deductions one can use?
I live in Bulgaria. My effective tax rate here is around 20%. Next destination is Dubai which is even lower, because again, if rich politican assholes’ kids are going there to live the good life, why not follow them in their grift?
(Would I recommend Bulgaria? Well the tech money you make is enough to live like a king and privately pay for all the services a government is supposed to provide… but then again it’s no different from the UK where I also had to pay for everything privately except I could barely afford it because I also had to burn 50% of my income on taxes with nothing in return, so from that perspective Bulgaria wins. Make of it what you will. Switzerland appears to be the only place with a functioning government and fair taxes, except the property Ponzi is reaching such breaking points that whatever you save on taxes is getting burnt immediately on rent, so you’re no better)
“Decent” in the form of hopefully not dying while you’re on the waiting list.
And bankruptcy is only a problem when you actually have significant assets, something not easy to acquire in western EU countries. If you’re the average under-30 western EU resident, bankruptcy won’t make a major difference in your lifestyle, it’ll be shit either way.
If you are spending an amount which rounds to zero on world-class healthcare, all of a sudden rent being even half your post-tax income (which would indicate you are living near the edge of your means, if not beyond) isn't so bad.
80k is 6.6k/month. That’s pre-tax, but for the benefit of the doubt let’s go with this figure instead of the post-tax.
Have you seen the prices of stuff nowadays? Whether energy, cars, technology or rent? 6.6k doesn’t go far at all anymore. Of course the post-tax is even lower.
> which would indicate you are living near the edge of your means
Real-estate being an investment means its price will adjust to extract maximum value. There’s an entire industry there that makes sure you can’t just work around this problem by adjusting your living standard or eating less Starbucks & avocado. Move to a farther away place? Well now you’re spending that rent reduction on transport instead. Move to a lower quality place? Well now you’re spending it on higher energy bills trying to keep the house warm. Willing to sacrifice all your social life and move in the middle of nowhere with ultra-cheap rent? Most roles are “hybrid” to prevent this very scenario, so can’t do that either.
>Have you seen the prices of stuff nowadays? Whether energy, cars, technology or rent? 6.6k doesn’t go far at all anymore. Of course the post-tax is even lower.
You said tax would be "over 50%". I disproved it. Stop moving the goalposts.
It made me feel like I'm talking with someone role-playing a therapist; it's just my worldview but if I want to talk about how something made feel I will talk about it but dislike to be directly inquired, is evident that this is way of thinking is more common in men than women of course.
There are a lot of ways to inflect this question. To ask it bare is usually not the best.
Note in the authors third approach they first validate the feelings and then ask for more details. That is a really great move. Tailoring that to the vibe of the situation is where it’s at. It really does work like a charm.
It definitely depends on rapport and how authentic someone is being. If someone asks me this and I know they genuinely care about me, I'd be happy to share. If there's less rapport, it will definitely feel like a person who can't read the room is trying some sort of social mind trick.
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