I’m banned so I don’t know if anyone will see this, but I wanted to share more details on this capital gains tax. In Washington, income taxes are different based on income levels are unconstitutional. So you cannot have a capital gains tax that only applies to income levels above some threshold, like this one is. To get around that, Washington’s Democratic legislators started claiming that capital gains tax is an excise tax rather than an income tax, and therefore no longer subject to the constraints of the state’s constitution.
In every state and the federal level, capital gains are a form of income tax. This includes Washington state, where the department of revenue explicitly classified it as such in line with the common definition of this tax. However, the state’s Supreme Court has become highly activist over time, due to a long history of WA being a one-party blue state. And in one of the lawsuits against this unconstitutional tax, the state Supreme Court surprisingly agreed with the legislators in redefining capital gains tax as an excise tax instead of an income tax (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/wa-suprem...).
This tax is now being collected for the first time, and it is much larger in its collections than expected. Most of the money will go to K-12 schools, which is strange because school funding in WA has more than doubled in the last 10 years with little to show for it (see https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/states-...). Also, although school funding follows the student typically - meaning reduced enrollment at a public school leads to reduced funding - the first $500m of this tax will only go to public schools.
I expect this tax will see its thresholds reduced over time. Its initial proposal was to apply to any capital gains over $25K, not $250K. It was changed to the higher limit to give it a better chance of passing and sticking. But with the state Supreme Court redefining words and setting this precedent, the legislature is free to change the tax threshold and rate in the future.
This is what happened to me. I was shadowbanned or something like it for a comment made a few days earlier. The mod did tell me but I didn’t realize it because I would have needed to look through my comment history. I had no idea until another user pointed it out to me.
I’ll volunteer myself as an example, as I was recently shadow banned (or some variant of banned). My other comment in this discussion has some details. I don’t think I am particularly controversial but maybe you can share a different perspective.
> At the end of the day, it's just another form of censorship.
This is how I feel right now, since there doesn’t seem to be a good way to openly debate the policies (or dark patterns like shadow bans) once you become subject to actions taken under those policies. All you can do is appeal to the moderators by email. It’s something, but a private conversation isn’t the same as a community debate. And a community debate isn’t possible once you are silenced. I’m not sure what the right solution is.
In my case, someone called me a nitwit and my response to them was deemed engaging in a flamewar even though I was mostly just clarifying my earlier comment/stance (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30255599). And then upon further investigation from the moderator, I apparently didn’t have the right mix of topics I post on and was deemed to be engaging in ideological battle. It seems arbitrary to me because here are the topics I see in my recent comments:
Canada protest, climate change, Neil Young, biometric identity verification, a tool to contact representatives, the Olympics, MacBook Pros, Google Slides, GoFundMe (I had many comments on this one admittedly), search engine results, Delta airline policy, compensation trends, cars, Microsoft Teams, mathematics, Roku spyware, and rent increases.
So what is a well meaning user to do if they want to just engage on the stories most meaningful to them? Is it really a bad thing to post on topics that are controversial rather than straightforward? On the other hand, I am not sure what other community is better than HN, even if I dislike censorship. So maybe they’re doing something right and I’m on the wrong side of it after all.
To me, Spotify is a dumb pipe connecting listeners to content they want to hear. I use the phrase “dumb pipe” because the users don’t care about much of their features beyond that aspect (and there really aren’t many features). The libraries of alternative services also mostly overlap. Additionally, marginal attempts at exclusivity or editorialized content don’t change what they materially are, just like a telecom utility adding content businesses (like Verizon and Oath) doesn’t get to escape their status as a common carrier utility service.
I also didn’t ask that Neil Young be denied his first amendment rights, so you’re attacking a straw man. But I did point out that he is abusing his power (of celebrity) to try and silence political adversaries. Censorship is censorship. It doesn’t matter if it is brought on by the government or individuals with power or masses with collective power.
As for your patronizing tone telling me what to read - I’ve actually read some of those things you listed, for what it’s worth.
Many humans. Rich life (individual freedoms and high material quality of life). Low environmental impact. Pick two.
EDIT: this apparently is one of my most disliked comments. To clarify, my point is that we can’t have both unlimited population growth and a high quality of life without accepting environmental impacts. If a high population of people have to crowd into dense micro apartments and give up cars and face constant bans on things they like, then their environmental footprint may reduce but their quality of life will go down. On the other hand if population controls were instituted, then a high quality of life could be possible with a sustainable level of environmental impact.
Anything can be construed to be a safety issue. Spotify has no responsibility. It’s a dumb pipe and people can make up their own mind as to what to do with information they receive from content creators. If you think exchanging information is dangerous to the point that it requires censorship, then you’re arguing for authoritarianism and tyranny.
It’s not that a consumer can’t tell a business something - I would not advocate for that either. It’s that some people are preventing competing political voices from being heard. It’s that people with power (like Young) want to use their power to shut down others. I am not sure what you mean by “fascism via capitalism” but I don’t think the word “fascist” holds much meaning anyways, and hasn’t for a long time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_(insult)
I am surprised news outlets are still trying to give life to this manufactured crisis. Who cares what Neil Young thinks about any of this? Why are these celebrities put on a pedestal by news media and individuals? At best, Neil Young is a has-been whose music will soon be forgotten by newer generations that have long since moved on.
More importantly, Neil Young has shown himself to be for censorship and against the free exchange of ideas. His stance is fundamentally at odds with free societies that harbor enlightenment values. The problem is not Rogan or Ek, but Young and the new authoritarian pro-censorship/deplatforming political tribes, who abuse their voice and power to silence those who don’t share their ideology. That’s not the stance of reasonable people - that’s the stance of zealots, no different than religious zealots of a different era.
What I would like to see next is an investigation into why this process was considered at all and how the vendor was selected. I find this entire situation deeply suspicious, since MOST online services (including financial services) do not need this kind of invasive verification process and do not require interfacing with a random third-party. My cynical guess is that id.me has some connection (like via political donations) to those who had the power to effect this change.