A two percent wealth tax is actually a better idea than a lot of people here seem to think.
If you have $100B, you’d have to pay $2B every year that you hold that much wealth, and you’ll have to pay it in cash.
This would produce a lot of annual recurring tax revenue, and it would incentivize billionaires to hoard less paper capital if they don’t want to constantly be forking over billions in taxes.
The tax is beneficial, and so is the way around the tax.
Popular rapper Toomaj Salehi wrote songs in support of the protest movement in Iran following the death of Jina Mahsa Amini in 2022. He has been in jail for over a year....
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m talking about people who single rap out or make it the butt of a tasteless joke.
If someone feels the need to joke that everyone who likes or makes rap should be executed, you really just need to take a look at the demographics that listen to or create rap music, and you get a distinct picture of what they don’t like about the rap community (spoiler: it isn’t the music).
And if you ask someone what they like to listen to, and they don’t give a real answer and single out rap as the only genre they dislike, they’re not actually telling you what they like or don’t like, they’re just taking a jab at part of Black culture for the sake of signalling their disapproval.
If you don’t like rap music aesthetically, it’s pretty easy to convey that without sounding like a racist by dismissing the entire genre as if the world would be a better place without it, because people notice when someone focuses their vitriol specifically at PoC cultural strongholds.
I personally don’t listen to much rap, and don’t consider it my style, but I’m sure has hell not going to insult it or the people who enjoy it, because I respect people’s aesthetic and cultural differences and don’t reflexive hate Blackness.
If you are for the death penalty when your emotions are high, you are for the death penalty period. People who are against the death penalty don’t go on the record in support of the death penalty, because it’s a principle, not something that you only stand for when it is convenient for you.
If the death of an animal is enough to make you flip, you’re probably going to side with most death sentences since they relate to the murder of human beings.
Someone could murder members of my family, and I would still be against the death penalty, because that’s who I am. You’re not going to hear me calling for anyone’s death, regardless of my emotional state, because I know that doesn’t solve anything, and it is bad for our society as a whole.
When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade - make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons, what am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life’s manager. Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons. Do you know who I am? I’m the man who’s gonna burn your house down! With the lemons. I’m going to to get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!
I think you might be confused, albeit by a poorly written Wikipedia article.
First of all, it isn’t clear what it is meant by “removing the waitlists and expanding access to all readers”. It doesn’t seem to mean uncapping loans without backing them with physical books. In fact, the part of the wiki you quoted is the first of two mentions of the word “waitlist”, a word that doesn’t appear in either of the sources cited for those sections.
IA’s attorney argued that the publishers had not offered empirical evidence of market harm in this case, focusing on the fact that when a library lends out a CDL scan, it does so in lieu of a physical book, “simulating the limitations of physical books.” This is due to CDL’s “owned to loaned” ratio requirement: a library can only loan out the number of CDL scans as it has physical books in its collection, and can only loan these scans out to one patron at a time.
And this:
Plaintiffs discussed what they see as massive financial harm stemming from IA’s CDL program, which they estimated to amount to “millions of dollars in licensing revenues.” Plaintiffs also emphasized that, were CDL “given the green light,” or upheld as a fair use, the plaintiffs would suffer even greater losses.
And this:
CDL is a longstanding and established practice, which has seen adoption and growth in libraries across the country while the ebook licensing market has continued to thrive.
So it seems easy for me to conclude, having checked Wikipedia’s sources, that the plaintiffs are challenging the Open Library CDL system itself, as a threat to their profits, even though IA was playing by the same rules as every other library system, and that IA losing this fight will be a major blow to libraries across the country:
The judge also questioned whether CDL actually could represent such a loss: the publishers’ argument rests on the premise that libraries loan out CDL scans in lieu of paying to license ebooks, and were CDL not permitted under the law, IA and other libraries would instead choose to pay licensing fees to lend out ebooks. The judge pointed out that the result might in fact be that libraries would choose not to lend digital copies of works out at all, or would instead lend out physical books, undercutting the lost licensing revenue argument.
Tl;Dr: Everything I said was correct, and the publishers want to establish precedent that definites physical books and ebooks and separately licensed so that libraries lend out fewer books, and/or have to pay more to loan out the same number of books that they currently do. They just chose IA as the first target hoping that smaller libraries will be forced into compliance should they win.
Also, someone who knows how to effectively edit Wikipedia articles needs to overhaul that page, because it seems intentionally written to make IA look like they did something much worse than they actually did.
Internet Watch Foundation has found a manual on dark web encouraging criminals to use software tools that remove clothing. The manipulated image could then be used against the child to blackmail them into sending more graphic content, the IWF said.
I mean, it would be nice if demand for sex was just pushing us towards AI VR waifus or something. Let the neckbeards put on a haptic suit and bang all the Evangelian characters or something. Kinda fucked that we’re going straight to fully-automated sexual exploitation of kids…
I wish we lived in a cool cyberpunk dystopia instead of the horror show that is present day reality.
I want to be happy that the IWF exists and is collecting data about this kind of thing. This is extremely difficult and important work.
But they are also lobbying to ban encryption, arguing that privacy only helps criminals.
Sorry, but if Facebook is too dangerous for kids, instead of banning encryption so the authorities can more easily catch child abusers, let’s just ban children from using Facebook before they fall victim to abuse.
Instagram is profiting from several ads that invite people to create nonconsensual nude images with AI image generation apps, once again showing that some of the most harmful applications of AI tools are not hidden on the dark corners of the internet, but are actively promoted to users by social media companies unable or...
How do you prove some anon on 4chan that posts nudes of someone else actually deepfaked it?
It’s either deepfaked, or revenge porn. Whichever charge sticks. If 4chan refuses to unmask anons posting illegal content, throw the book at 4chan. Way overdue anyway.
That’s kinda why I brought up specific key players and how I consider them complicit. If you don’t want AI to be blamed as a whole, you should want those key players to behave ethically, or they’ll poison public perception of AI as a whole.
The pedos out there are using AI to nudity pictures of real kids. That’s just going to drive up the demand for creep shots and child model photosets to exploit.
There may be a small percentage of offending pedophiles that switch to pure GenAI over pictures of real kids, but I don’t see GenAI ever playing a role in harm reduction given the harm it ultimately enables.
One of the current sickening trends is for a predator to convince a kid to send underwear or swimsuit pics, and then blackmail them into more hardcore photos with nudified versions of the original pics. They’re already seeing an influx of that kind of CSAM online, that involves abusing real kids on social media.
I just wish America was less puritanical and taught kids about sex and boundaries to protect them, and that we had a functioning mental healthcare system that directly helps people who experience inappropriate sexuality attractions like pedophilia before they go down these dark paths.
"We are going to put Satanic chaplains in Florida schools, nothing in the bill places limits on who can become a chaplain, and Ron DeSantis can not simply amend the Constitution limiting the religious liberty of some by proclamation from the podium. "
Yes, I am a member of the TST, and we are going to corrupt children in public schools with the help of Christians who have opened the door to us. They also want to corrupt the children, but we’re better at it, so we will win. Hail Satan!
Unless they want to close that door again and respect separation of church and state. If they did that our whole plan would be ruined. Under no circumstances should they do that…
New York appeals court overturns Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction from landmark #MeToo trial (apnews.com)
World’s billionaires should pay minimum 2% wealth tax, say G20 ministers (www.theguardian.com)
Brazil, Germany, Spain and South Africa sign motion for fairer tax system to deliver £250bn a year extra to fight poverty and climate crisis...
Goatse, like Michelangelo's David, should be an exception to normal rules of censorship, due to its status as part of our shared cultural heritage.
It must confuse English learners to hear phrases like, "I'm home", instead of "I am at home." We don't say I'm school, or I'm post office.
Aluminium drawback? Why US still uses so many plastic bottles?
Thoughts? I am currently trying to avoid using plastic packed drinks as much as possible due to it’s limited and finite recycle count
You think Linux is living a Renaissance with Gaming and New Non-Technical Users? (lemmy.ml)
Iran: Rapper Toomaj Salehi sentenced to death, says lawyer (www.dw.com)
Popular rapper Toomaj Salehi wrote songs in support of the protest movement in Iran following the death of Jina Mahsa Amini in 2022. He has been in jail for over a year....
Dolphin found dead on beach riddled with bullets, NOAA offers $20k reward to find killer (www.usatoday.com)
Senate passes TikTok ban bill, sending it to Biden, who has already committed to signing it (www.theverge.com)
Life gave me some lemons. What should I do?
Culinary and/or philosophical advice welcome
Trump attacks judge on Truth Social moments after gag order hearing (www.independent.co.uk)
There’s More to Copyright Than Financial Incentives, Internet Archive Argues in Court (torrentfreak.com)
Image...
Paedophiles create nude AI images of children to extort from them, says charity | Internet safety | The Guardian (www.theguardian.com)
Internet Watch Foundation has found a manual on dark web encouraging criminals to use software tools that remove clothing. The manipulated image could then be used against the child to blackmail them into sending more graphic content, the IWF said.
Instagram Advertises Nonconsensual AI Nude Apps (www.404media.co)
Instagram is profiting from several ads that invite people to create nonconsensual nude images with AI image generation apps, once again showing that some of the most harmful applications of AI tools are not hidden on the dark corners of the internet, but are actively promoted to users by social media companies unable or...