My dad retired, he literally can't stay retired. He keeps getting calls to work.
You can't keep a good man down, the world needs people who can do stuff.
You can't keep a good man down, the world needs people who can do stuff.
I don't want to leave, but I think if the universal basic income passes I'll have to. The government already takes more of my money than I do and still had to double the national debt in just a few years. I think Canada under UBI turns into Zimbabwe and I'm already a trillionaire in Zimbabwe dollars I don't want to be a trillionaire in Canadian dollars... not that way.
Reminds me of a key saying in project management I always come back to: "A Project is something with a beginning, a middle, and an end."
Seems like a straightforward sentence, but for some people they want to keep expanding the scope of a project forever because when you're working on a project you get money and power over the project and when the project ends it's just normal operations after that.
One of the largest projects I ever worked on I had to go to management and say explicitly "Look, this document contains the scope of what this project sets out to do, and once we've done this, it's done and the project is over" because I could see it was going to become a forever project where daily operations were being pulled "into the project" and I'd be trapped in neverending scope creep.
Seems like a straightforward sentence, but for some people they want to keep expanding the scope of a project forever because when you're working on a project you get money and power over the project and when the project ends it's just normal operations after that.
One of the largest projects I ever worked on I had to go to management and say explicitly "Look, this document contains the scope of what this project sets out to do, and once we've done this, it's done and the project is over" because I could see it was going to become a forever project where daily operations were being pulled "into the project" and I'd be trapped in neverending scope creep.
The way you describe it reminds me of a line I wrote, something like "They want to save the world, they can't even save themselves" -- whereas civic activity would be personally acting in ways that may be effective, political activism as a subversion would be being grouped together into a bloc who will do what they're told whether it's beneficial to themselves in reality or not and whether it really has any personal effect on them as individuals because it's for some nebulous greater good.
Am I on the right path with this line of thinking?
Am I on the right path with this line of thinking?
I'm interested in what you're saying, could you elaborate a bit? What would you consider civic activity, and what would you consider political activism? And what are the consequences of the two being separate?
THIS GODFORSAKEN ABOMINATION OF BIRD AND BREAD IS OUR CONTRIBUTION TO GLOBAL CULTURE.
Not long ago, someone gave a bunch of scenarios of what is the most noble, and one of the options was of a nobleman going broke to ensure his people were fed, and I actually used that term to explain why it was, that a nobleman has the wealth and power of their title, and nobody under them will question it however they use that wealth and power, but explicitly choosing to properly use it to the benefit of your people while being harmed is extremely noble.
Our civilization isn't perfect, but it's got a lot going for it. In my view, if we don't do something to keep it cohesive as a whole then eventually another more powerful civilization will roll over us and all those things we have going for us will disappear. Stuff like noblesse oblige help social cohesion and I think we need desperately for more of that right now.
Our civilization isn't perfect, but it's got a lot going for it. In my view, if we don't do something to keep it cohesive as a whole then eventually another more powerful civilization will roll over us and all those things we have going for us will disappear. Stuff like noblesse oblige help social cohesion and I think we need desperately for more of that right now.
Just look to youtube for innumerable examples. (I have to admit I did the audio book of my book on youtube using AI deepfake of my own voice while I had covid, so I'm not stuck in traffic in this regard I am traffic, but the book is 100% human written)
I'll have to listen to some with my son. One of my goals as a father has been to expose him to as much music from around the world and throughout time as I can, this sounds right up my alley.
I hosted a map site for a while using openstreetmap. You start with the world, and you think you see everything, then you zoom in and start to see countries. Then you zoom in and start to see provinces. Then you zoom in and start to see cities. Then you zoom in and start to see streets. Then you zoom in and start to see buildings. And you can't keep zooming but there's stories in every building, every room, in corners of your own home you have no idea are even happening, and fractally microscopic worlds we can't even see could have someone spend their entire lives studying one particle, and it exists everywhere.
I feel the same way as I learn about things I didn't even know existed to know about. Like the two forms of classical music in India, and now a new little piece of its musical history.
I hosted a map site for a while using openstreetmap. You start with the world, and you think you see everything, then you zoom in and start to see countries. Then you zoom in and start to see provinces. Then you zoom in and start to see cities. Then you zoom in and start to see streets. Then you zoom in and start to see buildings. And you can't keep zooming but there's stories in every building, every room, in corners of your own home you have no idea are even happening, and fractally microscopic worlds we can't even see could have someone spend their entire lives studying one particle, and it exists everywhere.
I feel the same way as I learn about things I didn't even know existed to know about. Like the two forms of classical music in India, and now a new little piece of its musical history.
Unfortunately, often being a massive jerk is perfectly legal, especially in America which has a really powerful tradition of free speech.
Let me flip the question on its head: If it wasn't a millionaire or a billionaire and someone was talking shit about you, what recourse do you really have? Let's say you had a close friend, and you had a falling out and they start talking shit about you. Something really terrible, saying you did things that really were reprehensible. Really, except in some jurisdictions that have "fighting words" legislation, you can't even pop 'em in the jaw.
It's a situation where good people get hurt by jerks, and there's no good answer. If the person is poor and doesn't have liability insurance of any kind you can't even sue because you can't collect the judgement. And if you're poor you can't even sue unless you find a lawyer willing to work for a percentage of the proceeds and take nothing if you lose.
Which opens up a whole jug of access to justice issues and the fact that often whether you're found guilty of a crime or not or liable of a tort or not the process is the punishment... You can really see how in the past the solutions were built around communities dealing with stuff internally between all the people who know each other (with some help from their local religious faction as I understand it), the state is all blunt instrument and rakes that fail to pick up leaves.
All that being said though, I think in Japan (completely different legal system) there's specific laws against famous people using their platform to go after regular people, and I think that might be something the west in general would benefit from. Instead of special protections for those with larger platforms (including billionaires and politicians), provide special responsibilities to them to not do certain things with their stage. I'd have to think a lot more about it, but I feel like if it was properly structured and limited so it wasn't crippling it could be amenable to most people to have something like that. After all, freedom of speech isn't absolute, including defamation but also stuff like commercial speech.
Let me flip the question on its head: If it wasn't a millionaire or a billionaire and someone was talking shit about you, what recourse do you really have? Let's say you had a close friend, and you had a falling out and they start talking shit about you. Something really terrible, saying you did things that really were reprehensible. Really, except in some jurisdictions that have "fighting words" legislation, you can't even pop 'em in the jaw.
It's a situation where good people get hurt by jerks, and there's no good answer. If the person is poor and doesn't have liability insurance of any kind you can't even sue because you can't collect the judgement. And if you're poor you can't even sue unless you find a lawyer willing to work for a percentage of the proceeds and take nothing if you lose.
Which opens up a whole jug of access to justice issues and the fact that often whether you're found guilty of a crime or not or liable of a tort or not the process is the punishment... You can really see how in the past the solutions were built around communities dealing with stuff internally between all the people who know each other (with some help from their local religious faction as I understand it), the state is all blunt instrument and rakes that fail to pick up leaves.
All that being said though, I think in Japan (completely different legal system) there's specific laws against famous people using their platform to go after regular people, and I think that might be something the west in general would benefit from. Instead of special protections for those with larger platforms (including billionaires and politicians), provide special responsibilities to them to not do certain things with their stage. I'd have to think a lot more about it, but I feel like if it was properly structured and limited so it wasn't crippling it could be amenable to most people to have something like that. After all, freedom of speech isn't absolute, including defamation but also stuff like commercial speech.
There's a lot to unpack here...
Civil trials are not criminal trials, they require only preponderance of the evidence rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt so the question asked to the jury is fundamentally different than something you could lock someone up for.
For defamation, this is a tort, not a crime. The purpose of the lawsuit isn't to fine anyone (a fine would be paid to the government rather than the victim), it is to recover damage done by one party to another, and for the most part the thing courts can grant is money. The elements of defamation are 1. That a statement of fact is said by the person, 2. That statement is false, 3. If the individual is a public figure then the statement is known to be false or is made with a reckless disregard for the truth, 4. That the false statement of fact caused damages.
Typically, the purpose of suing someone is to make yourself whole, not to get the state to punish someone for you. Therefore, for a relative nobody who is claiming to have been lied about, there's going to be a limitation on the amount of damages that can be claimed, since 5 million dollars is already more money than most people will make in their lifetimes.
There is some additional money you can ask for based on stuff like "pain and suffering", but again that's not punishment for the person you're suing, it's just that you want to be made whole and the court can't undo your pain and suffering so you pay money in recompense.
There is also a thing known as punitive damages, which is more money given to the plaintiff who is suing to ensure the defendant doesn't commit the tort again. However, even this element starts to run up against constitutional constraints because excessive punitive damage awards can go beyond what's allowable under the law.
Don't take the Alex Jones defamation case as representative of how the process works, most people aren't on trial for accusing a bunch of dead kids of lying about being dead on national television and so it ended up with an exceptional outcome.
Regardless of the size of anyone's judgement against them in a civil case, it would be a massive injustice to jail anyone over it. That's not what the civil courts are for, that's not their job, that's not how they're set up, and if you jumped from a 51% preponderance of the evidence jury verdict to jailtime that would send a lot of innocent people to jail (and even the rich deserve to be free if you can't prove they did something beyond a reasonable doubt)
As an example of the differences between criminal trials and civil trials, O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of the criminal act of murder, but was found to be liable to pay damages to the family in the wrongful death. There was enough found to pay a sum of money, but not enough to deprive O.J. of his rights by jailing him.
Another good example of the difference between criminal and civil proceedings is that the person sued may never even have to pay for the judgement in a civil case -- Insurance may not pay a criminal fine, but it can pay a civil judgement, so it's entirely possible that despite losing the lawsuit, a person who was successfully sued may never personally pay a penny. In fact, a regular homeowner may have a million dollar judgement against them but be protected by the liability insurance portion of their home owners insurance. This really doubles down on the fact that the purpose of a civil case is to make the plaintiff whole, rather than to specifically punish the defendant.
Your heart is in the right place with wanting to make sure punishments for millionaires and billionaires are calibrated such that they are actually painful in ways comparable to a poor person convicted of the same crime, but the facts in this matter are not aligned with that particular cause.
Anyway, I'm sorry... I'm always with the walls of text....
Civil trials are not criminal trials, they require only preponderance of the evidence rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt so the question asked to the jury is fundamentally different than something you could lock someone up for.
For defamation, this is a tort, not a crime. The purpose of the lawsuit isn't to fine anyone (a fine would be paid to the government rather than the victim), it is to recover damage done by one party to another, and for the most part the thing courts can grant is money. The elements of defamation are 1. That a statement of fact is said by the person, 2. That statement is false, 3. If the individual is a public figure then the statement is known to be false or is made with a reckless disregard for the truth, 4. That the false statement of fact caused damages.
Typically, the purpose of suing someone is to make yourself whole, not to get the state to punish someone for you. Therefore, for a relative nobody who is claiming to have been lied about, there's going to be a limitation on the amount of damages that can be claimed, since 5 million dollars is already more money than most people will make in their lifetimes.
There is some additional money you can ask for based on stuff like "pain and suffering", but again that's not punishment for the person you're suing, it's just that you want to be made whole and the court can't undo your pain and suffering so you pay money in recompense.
There is also a thing known as punitive damages, which is more money given to the plaintiff who is suing to ensure the defendant doesn't commit the tort again. However, even this element starts to run up against constitutional constraints because excessive punitive damage awards can go beyond what's allowable under the law.
Don't take the Alex Jones defamation case as representative of how the process works, most people aren't on trial for accusing a bunch of dead kids of lying about being dead on national television and so it ended up with an exceptional outcome.
Regardless of the size of anyone's judgement against them in a civil case, it would be a massive injustice to jail anyone over it. That's not what the civil courts are for, that's not their job, that's not how they're set up, and if you jumped from a 51% preponderance of the evidence jury verdict to jailtime that would send a lot of innocent people to jail (and even the rich deserve to be free if you can't prove they did something beyond a reasonable doubt)
As an example of the differences between criminal trials and civil trials, O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of the criminal act of murder, but was found to be liable to pay damages to the family in the wrongful death. There was enough found to pay a sum of money, but not enough to deprive O.J. of his rights by jailing him.
Another good example of the difference between criminal and civil proceedings is that the person sued may never even have to pay for the judgement in a civil case -- Insurance may not pay a criminal fine, but it can pay a civil judgement, so it's entirely possible that despite losing the lawsuit, a person who was successfully sued may never personally pay a penny. In fact, a regular homeowner may have a million dollar judgement against them but be protected by the liability insurance portion of their home owners insurance. This really doubles down on the fact that the purpose of a civil case is to make the plaintiff whole, rather than to specifically punish the defendant.
Your heart is in the right place with wanting to make sure punishments for millionaires and billionaires are calibrated such that they are actually painful in ways comparable to a poor person convicted of the same crime, but the facts in this matter are not aligned with that particular cause.
Anyway, I'm sorry... I'm always with the walls of text....
"Communism is Soviet Power + Electrification of the Whole Country"
I remember a long time ago reading that word "Electrification" as part of propaganda, since it's just such an unusual word it stuck with me.
It struck me recently how odd it is that we're in a process of electrification right now.
Odd, eh?
I remember a long time ago reading that word "Electrification" as part of propaganda, since it's just such an unusual word it stuck with me.
It struck me recently how odd it is that we're in a process of electrification right now.
Odd, eh?
But this isn't an indictment, and it isn't a fine.
It's a pair of civil cases. Anyone can sue anyone in America.
It's a pair of civil cases. Anyone can sue anyone in America.
Wasn't that a finding in a civil suit being referenced in another civil suit?
Seems to me that we should definitely not make it allowable to lock up people who lose a civil lawsuit against you. That would immediately get abused badly to have the rich lock up the poor.
Seems to me that we should definitely not make it allowable to lock up people who lose a civil lawsuit against you. That would immediately get abused badly to have the rich lock up the poor.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/tesla-charging-nightmare-in-chicago-car-graveyards-reportedly-emerge-amid-extreme-arctic-chill/ar-AA1n3zqI
Yeah, that's sorta what I expected...
Yeah, that's sorta what I expected...
