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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: May 28th, 2024

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  • No, I’m well aware that it’s damaging and I’m not a proponent of the system. You would do well not to make assumptions. My problem is that the people that take power are rarely the ones who will use it with temperance. I see no way that the same laws used to penalize the accumulation of wealth wouldn’t be applied to dissidents regardless of class. Rather than having an oligarchy of private citizens, you’ll have an oligarchy of people with government powers. At least in the current system there’s a degree of separation. What’s needed is a way to strengthen the people, not to punish the wealthy. And I have some ideas for that, but I doubt any would be feasible.


  • hellofriend@lemmy.worldtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldLets test the theory
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    6 months ago

    See, what I don’t like about this is that if you have the power to confiscate a billionaire’s possessions for no other reason that they’re a billionaire, then there’s absolutely nothing stopping you from turning that power against anyone you don’t like. And I’m not talking “you” as in you specifically, or anyone with a sense of morality and ethics, but “you” as in the inevitable exploitative scum that would at some point hold that power.

    Now, if the confiscation is contingent on a billionaire commiting a crime then that’s another thing, but then the billionaire would actually have to commit a crime. And if you made tax law ironclad then sure, if they break the law then they should have their things confiscated in recompense. But that’s assuming that the trial wouldn’t be bogged down in court by a billionaire being able to throw money at the problem.


  • hellofriend@lemmy.worldtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldLets test the theory
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    6 months ago

    Anyone who would buy. Unless you’re sentimentally attached to something then I doubt you’d have a difficult time selling it. Billionaires own property as investment, not for use. Just sell it to another billionaire and buy property in a country more favourable to you. As for things like cars, collections, yachts, and other such mobile assets, just stick them on a container ship and unpack at your destination.












  • I wouldn’t call it worse than renewables. It’s a sidegrade from coal burning. Where I’m from, solar is non-viable 6 months of the year. Wind is theoretically viable year-round but in reality it’s less than that due to cold snaps and the intermittent nature of wind. And there’s no way that wind power alone could provide enough power even when running at 100%. There are no viable rivers here for hydro either. Geothermal is nigh impossible here as well. So without a reliable back-up power source, everyone here would be experiencing brown outs on a fully renewable system. Many wouldn’t receive power at all due to a significant rural population and the challenges inherent to it (and forcing people into cities is not a viable option). So the only options are fossil fuels and nuclear. Given that we’re killing everything with the former, I would much prefer we give the latter a go.



  • Look, friend: as much as I like nuclear energy and decentralization of the powder grid, per home reactors could never, ever work. For the simple reason that the majority of us filthy apes are complete idiots. Furthermore, nuclear works currently because it has oversight by educated, trained professionals in a setting where oversight can be effective. Even if you had some sort of travelling nuclear engineer that would check up on your garage reactor, if anything ever went wrong with it then the response time would be too long to adequately deal with the situation.

    The only way a distributed network of reactors could work is if it either had massive overhead or if literally everyone had training on the maintenance of a nuclear reactor. And this isn’t even mentioning the possibility of adverse weather events potentially damaging the reactor or how the waste would be dealt with.