I think your argument falls short when we consider the compulsion that drives most onto these metaphorical cattle trucks at rush hour in the first place.
The employment industry in our prevailing economic structure demands punctuality, often through crowded, uncomfortable and frankly, degrading means of transportation. This perceived "choice" is not a luxury but an enforced necessity, much like the bovine passenger being shipped off to slaughter, with the only distinction being, we humans "chose" this.
One could argue that the transportation network isn't able to offer comfortable and safe transit, yet it is more a matter of priorities than abilities. The ability to provide such transport exists, but the political and economic will, sadly is not in abundance.
Is it not curious that a society which can show empathy for the transportation of its livestock struggles to extend the same basic courtesy to its own kind? After all, are we not more than just cattle to the abattoir of capitalism?
> Also, spare batteries, including power banks, should not be recharged while on board the aircraft. Additionally, power banks should not be connected or providing power to a device while on board the aircraft.
You shouldn’t and, at least in Europe, any kind of spare battery is forbidden in checked luggage. You also shouldn’t use power banks at all during flight.
Well, Paypal has been around for longer and works across the world, which explains some of it.
But I question the accuracy of these stats - I would expect to see SEPA wires and direct debit being significant everywhere, Multibanco and MBWay[0] in Portugal, TWINT in Switzerland, giropay in Germany, etc
Also, even if they are accurate, they rank Joe's homemade soap shop the same as a major retailer, and don't consider how many customers actually use each payment method.
What customer information did you store with that provider? Just names and emails, or was there anything else that attackers may have been able to access?
Capital gains tax in Sweden is 30% and property tax is around 0.75% IIRC. I don't think they are that low - they're higher than most of Europe in fact.
And VAT is a double-edged sword... It's the only tax that essentially nobody can avoid, and thus the only tax that also applies to people who are already wealthy and could otherwise live their life without paying any tax.
I'm Portuguese and can confirm this works pretty well overall.
It's still too strict though - I got convicted of essentially "possession with intent to distribute" just for having ~15g of hashish when I was young and a regular smoker some 15 years ago (the legal limit is 5g). I only got a bit over a year probation and it never showed up on my record, but it was extremely unfair IMO and a traumatic experience - to this day I still have nightmares of being arrested and my home being searched every once in a while, and a big distrust for police and the justice system which will probably never go away.
Is that about the "virgin of EMACS" joke from, what, 15 years ago now? Sure, it was silly and I personally wouldn't have said something like that, but come on... This doesn't make someone an asshole.
Yeah, but it's much worse in Portugal, especially Lisbon. Here are some median home price to median income ratios for various cities (from Numbeo: https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/in/Lisbon and corresponding pages for other cities):
- Lisbon: 18.06
- Porto: 13.55
- Sydney: 9.09
- Melbourne: 7.05
- Vancouver: 12.62
- Toronto: 11.82
- San Francisco: 7.02
- Los Angeles: 7.47
- New York: 9.99
I'll just comment on the taxes, as someone who owns a business - yes, they are high. But not that much compared to the rest of Europe. I'm sure by now you're thinking "but other countries make a lot more money!!" - and that's exactly why taxes are high here. Our GDP is much lower, so if our tax rates were also lower, how would the government afford machines for hospitals, vehicles, fuel, and so on when all these things cost the same as elsewhere in Europe? The only thing that is significantly cheaper here is labor, after all...
Yes, things aren't good. But there's no easy solution either. I personally prefer to pay higher taxes than to compromise our public services further, or privatize them in a fuck-the-poor way.
We already tax vacant property up to 12 times the regular tax when located in high demand areas[1] which includes all of Lisbon municipality. It's definitely had some effect as you see a lot less vacant property, but it unfortunately doesn't fix everything.
Does anyone have any recommendations for legit companies that provide proxies from ASNs not marked as datacenter/proxy? I need some for web scraping, but all the ones I've found so far seem super shady...
Almost everyone on this earth likes boobs - those who have them and those who don't - so I reckon they (like me) just hate that the company uses sex and other scummy tactics to sell a crappy service to unsuspecting people, instead of making their service better.
Should people who wouldn't like to work for e.g. George Bush have pressured their companies to stop operating in the US? After all, they were effectively accepting and complying with things like secret courts that issued broad warrants and some questionable sanctions (e.g. Cuba), while paying taxes that funded indiscriminate wiretapping of people all over the world, invasions of other countries under false premises, CIA black sites, imprisonment and torture without due process in Guantánamo and so on.
Not saying bin Salman is any better (he's not) but my point is that things aren't so cut and dried, and ultimately companies are just going to do what is best for them even if it means accepting some shady stuff. If all workers were that strict about the morals of the companies they work for, most of us would be out of a job.
The employment industry in our prevailing economic structure demands punctuality, often through crowded, uncomfortable and frankly, degrading means of transportation. This perceived "choice" is not a luxury but an enforced necessity, much like the bovine passenger being shipped off to slaughter, with the only distinction being, we humans "chose" this.
One could argue that the transportation network isn't able to offer comfortable and safe transit, yet it is more a matter of priorities than abilities. The ability to provide such transport exists, but the political and economic will, sadly is not in abundance.
Is it not curious that a society which can show empathy for the transportation of its livestock struggles to extend the same basic courtesy to its own kind? After all, are we not more than just cattle to the abattoir of capitalism?