The best binary parser I had was in the Practical Common Lisp book in the MP3 chapter. I was able to use it to reverse engineer several custom formats used to stitch files including FoxPro db format I had no idea existed.

I've heard from a law student in China that the law is a tool to control the masses. Assuming that is true, ignoring the law is simply taking things under control and bribery is the cost of doing business.

>I've heard from a law student in China that the law is a tool to control the masses. //

How is that different to other countries? In the UK, for example, the Tory party have been enacting laws to make it difficult to legally protest.

Because in most western nations the government itself is bound by laws. There’s a huge philosophical difference between the way Chinese view law and we do.

It depends on how the lawmakers see it and how far the enforcers are willing to go.

Not everyone is willing to shoot lead into a large gathering of people the less of them the better.

If you're lucky the judges will overturn the law and keep their jobs.

It's not - we're mostly better than China but the crimes our governments commit against us are of the same type.

They steal our freedom and profits via taxes. Taxes in China are not even that high for european standard, but they do infringe more on their citizens liberty.

On the other side, western societies are doing more of that too, between covid, gdpr, and the incoming cyber resiliance act

If you agree with "ignorantia juris non excusat" then student from China is right. Our governments adds tons of new laws every year and only few remove. We have about 2 millions laws, rules and regulations (Czechia). And we still believe that we live in free society.

Vacancy tax is insane idea. What is stopping a bunch of crooks scaring away your renters until you sell them a house you intended to hand over to your children?

What does this "bunch of crooks" look like while they are scaring people away? Seriously, I want to know a valid scenario where this happens. It sounds more insane to plan around that being the expectation than a vacancy tax.

There is an implication that they clap for whomever they think they are supposed to clap for in your statement. I have doubts that is a good thing.

If he "had" to fight for Germans he would be in Wehrmacht. Not in Waffen SS that was the tip of the spear of Nazi ideology.

Organized crime during prohibition was there because there was demand and someone willing to risk it for money. Demand for cheaper (stolen) goods was always there and the risk was significantly lowered so a lot of thieves took that opportunity to make some money.

Whether someone chooses the path of crime out of desperation depends on one's culture.

If the crime organization has an hierarchy then it might be easier to take out the leaders.

Isn't that grounds for a lawsuit?

You would think so, but maybe not in the USA ?!?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37527060

Almost every company internally works as command economy. I doubt that it can scale any more than that.

Isn't there a tax policy where investors have to pay a tax when they sell shares? Therefore incentivizing them to keep investing in companies promising long-term stable growth (aka Amazon) over other companies with various growth strategies?

In other words, your stock investment better be worth it or get taxed if you change your mind. This tax policy introduces positive feedback loop that makes big companies like Amazon bigger. Not sure how profound this component is, people trade stocks all the time.

I think they described the incentive perfectly. We tax short term investments higher than longer term ones to incentivize the holding of them longer.

Who decides whether there is need for a receptionist that watches TV all day and occasionally yells at teenagers smoking in the hall? How is such job compensated? How do you measure consequences if such job disappears?