Create a monopoly tax that incentivises large companies to "right size". E.g., if the company is larger than X and has captured a market (like google with search) then tax all revenue above a threshold percentage of the market. For example, the market is $100B and the company makes $90B revenue, then tax away everything above $40B in revenue. This may take away the incentive of a large company to take too much market share and may encourage them to enable competitors. The parameters (company_size, marketshare_percentage, tax rate, etc.) may be adjusted to maximize performance
The 'market size' part seems squishy and game-able.
I've always liked the idea of revenue-neutral progressive taxes on corporate revenue. Tax economy of scale.
Ex.
Zero corporate taxes on the first 100k of revenue. For every order of magnitude above this revenue is taxed at ~1% more.
$1M in revunue -> 1%
$1B in revenue -> 4%
$100B in revenue -> 6%
Then reduce other corporate taxes to make it revenue neutral. In the most extreme case, the 1% figure or the curve could be tuned so that this is the only tax corporations pay.
This encourages companies to split: if your economy of scale isn't yielding enough to justify the tax, you could spin off multiple smaller companies that would each be more profitable. The capacity for corporations to do evil is directly proportional to concentration of power. Smaller companies won't be able to afford as many lobbyists, their threats to move their businesses will be less existential for municipalities and they'll get less-sweet sweetheart deals. Being "Too Big to Fail" is unsustainable and wasteful.
This would be a massive boon for competition. Small businesses would be easier to start. Businesses may choose to stop growing: if you're making a healthy profit, don't jeopardize your margin in a perpetual struggle to amass the most power, leaving room in the market for competitors to coexist and meaningfully compete on quality.
Rights can already taken away from people who are declared legally incompetent [1]. Similar procedures could be used to give rights to monkeys that can prove mental competence (e.g., are able to meaningfully communicate and show an understanding of money and property).
The default is for humans to have rights, and in extreme cases those rights can be taken away.
It's very, very rare for a human to have to prove mental competence for any reason. We let mentally incompetent people grocery shop and drive cars and vote, knowing full well they're a danger (or at least not a net benefit). Every town in every country contains well-known incompetent citizens.
What's the default for intelligent non-humans?
Does each one have to prove mental competence? At what level: that of an average human, or that of the lowest competent human?
Is the default to assume they are competent, and have all the rights and privileges of a human, or is the default to assume they aren't competent and don't have those rights?
Personally, it makes sense to me to err on the side of "any being who tells me plainly that they want a vote gets to vote".
A critique of most modern billionaires and millionaires is that they settle for ivory tower philanthropy throwing money around so they can chat with rich experts to figure out which other rich experts to give more money to. While good does come from this, it doesn't seem to make much progress in solving the underlying problems. For instance, how long has the Gates Foundation been involved with vaccines and pharmaceuticals and does it look like solutions are in within striking distance for the underlying issues?
As an example, a millionaire (who recently became a billionaire) decided on two areas where mankind needed dramatic improvement. Instead of ivory tower philanthropy, he started two different for-profit companies, one for each set of issues. Both companies have stuck around for more than 10 years and the issues they are tackling appear to have solutions within striking distance. A tangible difference has been made. If you didn't guess, the two companies are Tesla and SpaceX.
In contrast, it seems like the Gates Foundation is treading water with the issues it’s tackling. I could be wrong, but that is my perception.
As another example, an entrepreneur back in the day decided every desk needed a computer on it and used his for-profit company to make that goal a reality. That entrepreneur, of course, was Bill Gates himself.
Very few people have the R&D and engineering expertise, economic sense, and the money to lead a company to achieve world changing endeavors. Gates did it once. Musk has done it more than once.
Gates could start a pharmaceutical company, run it himself, learn the ins and outs, and reshape the industry along the way (if he could successfully learn the ins and outs). However, he does not appear to be willing to accept the risks involved in starting his own a pharmaceutical company and the problems of the pharmaceuticals industry remain unchanged.
> For instance, how long has the Gates Foundation been involved with vaccines and pharmaceuticals and does it look like solutions are in within striking distance for the underlying issues?
The Gates Foundation joined the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 2000, and has become the primary financial supporter of that body. The Gates Foundation has provided a total of $3.7B to the polio eradication cause.
You are free to do what you claim Gates should be doing. What give you the right to tell him what he should be should be doing with his time and money?
To be fair they said "could" not "should." And honestly, it's a great suggestion. I'd love to see what Gates and a team he assembled came up with (plus it'd just be fun to know there's another superstar entrepreneur out there working hard).
One can argue that the conduct is detrimental to the victim's interests and that the conduct constitutes common law fraud [1] because (1) the saboteur tells the victim "I like you", (2) the saboteur knows this is false or reckless, (3) the saboteur intends for the victim to leave the victim's current relationship, and (4) the victim left his or her current relationship.
I am not your lawyer. This is not legal advice. If your partner is actively sabotaging your relationship, it may not be a good idea to stay with that person.
[1] in Texas: In order to prove fraud, a plaintiff must show that (1) the defendant made a material representation that was false, (2) the defendant knew the representation was false or made it recklessly as a positive assertion without any knowledge of its truth, (3) the defendant intended to induce the plaintiff to act upon the representation, and (4) the plaintiff actually and justifiably relied on the representation, which caused the injury. Ernst & Young, L.L.P. v. Pac. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 51 S.W.3d 573, 577 (Tex. 2001).
I'd compare it more to the law of entrapment: You need to show that you did the action because it was an officer convincing you; the fact that you were convinced/talked into doing something is not enough. Which seems parallel to our case: The spouse in question was open to cheating; the fact that it was a detective (or fraudster) on the other side seems irrelevant.
But I see your point, it feels fraudulent since you prove one side is bad by doing something (possibly) equally as bad, but only one thing is regarded in court. Though it will probably look bad if it's found out.
> I am not your lawyer. This is not legal advice.
Me neither, but I think it's an interesting topic.
> If your partner is actively sabotaging your relationship, it may not be a good idea to stay with that person.
Of course. But that was the point all along, I guess ;)
This is awesome. What a concept, identifying the variables in the equations and providing diagrams to show the geometric meaning of the equations. Really wish wikipedia (or some sort of companion website) would similarly present an explanation of the practical meaning of variables and operators in the heavy math pages so that people with an understanding of algebra could understand the formulaic descriptions in addition to the qualitative descriptions after landing on a random page with heavy math.
Thanks for the feedback and I agree! I'm going to try to create guides for relativity and quantum mechanics. After I finish those, I'll keep expanding into general math topics, so hopefully those will help as well.
Also an FYI - I made a similar guide to linear algebra which you can also find here:
> Executive orders that deprive natural rights are unconstitutional and thus illegal.
This may be a reference to the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness [1] which may be protected by the 10th amendment to the US constitution [3] (reserving rights ... to the people) and the due process clauses [4] from the 5th and 14th amendments to the US constitution.
> Which right gives you the ability to operate your business during a pandemic?
Since "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" [4], the proper questions may instead be: What law gives government the power to close down businesses during a pandemic and was due process followed in the passage and execution of that law?
Arguably, the shelter in place orders may or may not be constitutional. Practically speaking, telling people to stay home for a few weeks using the threat of the shelter in place orders most likely helped the medical community get a grip on the situation, regardless of the constitutionality of those orders, which may explain the lack of resistance in passing those orders. However, at what point is "the cure ... worse than the disease" [5], i.e., at what point will the overall net net net effect of maintaining the shelter in place orders be worse than rescinding those orders?
One person's "abuse of power" is another's judicial activism [1].
MGM v. Grokster [2] effectively held that distribution for the purpose of encouraging illegal activity can create liability for that illegal activity. See MGM v. Grokster at 919.
Applied to your gun shop example, do gun shops distribute guns for the purpose of encouraging illegal activity? Proponents of MGM v. Grokster would say no and that this may be the very distinction that the court was trying to highlight. I.e., distribution for the purpose of illegal activity versus distribution for legal activity.
From this perspective, it seems Popcorn Time may not have learned from MGM v. Grokster. Specifically, highlighting and promoting the illegal uses of a product may incur liability for those illegal uses. It may not be a silver bullet, but highlighting only the legal uses of a product may reduce the chance of MGM v. Grokster from being used to create liability for a product that has both legal and illegal uses.
