Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?

[Liliana Marie Prikler <liliana.prikler@gmail.com>]

Am Montag, dem 04.04.2022 um 08:00 +0000 schrieb Attila Lendvai:
> There's plenty of past examples of financing these things without the
> government collecting the necessary funds. also, these things are
> only a tiny fraction of the government's budget.
Name one.  If you want to appeal to charity, consider that charity has
not yet solved world hunger despite the fact that it'd be very possible
to do so.  Then again, neither have taxes, so there's more than just
that at play here, but generally speaking taxing the rich (or eating
them when they no longer want to be taxed) sounds like a better
solution than waiting for them to give up their fortunes willingly.

> 
> The vast majority of the taxes are not taken from the wealthy, but
> from the masses. the well-connected easily pays for the marginal cost
> of the tax consultants, lawyers, judges, offshore entities, and
> whatnot... and ultimately buy/corrupt the entire political system.
You complain about taxes, but have you considered that the largest
theft is in fact wage theft?  The state only takes a comparatively
small cut with respect to your boss or your landlord.

> and especially so for inflation, which is straight out a tax that
> siphons the purchasing power from people who hold cash equivalents
> (i.e. the poor), to the people who own assets (i.e. the wealthy)...
> who are also closer to the source of new money, and therefore spend
> it first on the market, when it has not yet elevated the prices. see
> the Cantillon effect:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cantillon#Monetary_theory
Apart from inflation not being a tax, you are right in that money tends
to concentrate around those who already have it.  If only there was
some 19th century German philosopher who described that in more
detail...

> which here reminds me of:
> 
> “In a just society, it is shameful to be poor. In a corrupt society,
> it is shameful to be rich.”
>         — Confucius (551–479 BC), 'The Analects', Chapter VIII,
> paraphrased
> 
> this is the original:
> 
> “When a country is well governed, poverty and a mean condition are
> things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill governed, riches and
> honor are things to be ashamed of.”
> %       — Confucius (551–479 BC), 'The Analects', Chapter VIII
> (邦有道貧且賤焉恥也，邦無道富且貴焉恥也。)
Perhaps this holds in societies that have not reached overproduction,
but what it should say in modern times, is that in a just society there
exists no poverty.

Even then, shame is a social construct largely indoctrinated into us by
the ruling class, so if you find yourself seeing poor people as
shameful, that is just capitalist propaganda doing its job.

In any case, bitcoin is the solution to none of those problems and a
major contributor towards climate change.  While there might be a
consensus among capitalist countries that bitcoin removes you, in
communist Guix we remove bitcoin.

Cheers