The solution to economics

as annoying as ecmandu is, I agree with him on the following

we don’t we hear the wealthy boast about being the ones paying the highest taxes of all
you’d think that they’d throw this number around all over the media
“I paid x millions in tax this year! y% of my income!”

instead they keep their tax returns under lock and key
because they are scamming the people out of their taxes due in every possible way that they can

because fuck taxes

i can see this working in a sort of science fiction utopic flick, with a different species entirely, that evolved with those values built into their physiology. not us apes.

if i have to pay $300 for a pound of rice which costs $3 to my housekeeper, I’m going to pay her $10 to go buy me a pound of rice, and she is going to take it

Phoneutria,

I’ll take a backhanded compliment over nothing at all.

I did indeed start programming a simulation for this very purpose. My C++ skills ought to be adequate, though not long ago I found myself getting bogged down with the syntax of adapting certain functions to my needs and the whole thing was put on hold for a bit - it’s hard enough to structure and systematise a sufficiently complex simulation of a society as it is without adapting it to my model, but hopefully I’ll find myself able to resume my efforts in the near future. The effect should meet all of the above requirements - but who knows? Maybe it’ll all amount to nothing. I’m just offering a preview at this point to gauge the reactions of people who might be interested in such a project, and should simulated practice back up the theory I’ve glossed over, I’ll see about presenting it in a more official capacity.

Not quite my MO. I’m a little beyond having anything to prove at this point - I’ve already made several original breakthroughs across several fields, including theology (categorically disproving God), mathematics (disproving Cantor’s diagonal argument), philosophy (Experientialism) and now economics. You’re correctly identifying that I’m proud of my achievements, but my stating of their existence and quality is simple fact - I seek no personal acknowledgement nor to gain any sense of social worth, my pride is for me and contingent upon my successes rather than a general personality trait. From ye olde Zarathustra: “Man is something that is to be surpassed” - when I gather too much honey, I perform a “down-going” to serve like an alpha or beta test. That’s all this is, and I’m sure the style of my contributions and what I’m saying here can come across as pride or even arrogance - which is fine, I don’t mind how people think of me as a person, I just have an aesthetic preference for correcting things.

Yes, you do appear to be one of only a few so far who “has understood this thing”. You also offer some interesting insights reading “around” my solution in way I hadn’t begun to consider, and it’s not without interest that you see overlap with your Value Ontology. I’d say Phoneutria has also addressed some of the particulars, which is very welcome, in predictable stark contrast to this guy:

How do you think you are coming across here?

That you need to “guess” what my solution is, and that you guess very poorly, proves that you have failed to even begin to read anything I’ve written before deciding what to say about it. Your subsequent posts show that you’ve maybe made it as far as the first line.
Your immediate dismissal on these grounds alone indicates that you’ve already resolved to disagree regardless of what I have to offer, and your subsequent assertions confirm my initial suspicions that you intend to disagree merely on the grounds of arguments I’ve already heard from you ad nauseum.

What then is my motivation to engage with you when any possible discussion is already pre-determined? It’s not without irony that there is no possible freedom to any interaction with you.

I’ll keep a look out for any signs that you’ve attempted to open your mind and impartially consider what I’ve actually said, instead of simply taking the opportunity to reel off the usual pre-prepared sentiments - but we both know exactly where this is going to go.

With the housekeeping out of the way, onto some content:

I’m willing to grant Ecmandu’s cynical evaluation of the wealthy, even in its extreme form, and it would still overlook a certain subtlty that I briefly mentioned in an earlier post.

Let’s say that the wealthy really do have absolutely no interest whatsoever in publically declaring or even participating in any philanthropy - that’s not the only factor at play here. Maximum dedication to the “bottom line” of profits depends also on the appearance that there is more to it than that. This is what Zizek would refer to as “ideology”. He demonstrates this better than I can, with various often humorous examples, that cold hard material facts alone don’t complete the entire human picture - that in cultures all over the world we find the underlying mechanisms of society functioning only with a kind of narrative to mask it and make it palatable. It’s not the least charm of history that we can look back at all the quaint rituals and mythologies of the past from which we have now (mostly) grown too sophisticated to take seriously - instead adopting new ideologies that are yet to become noticed by the general public and then sufficiently questioned, as they always eventually will be. Philosophers tend to be at the forefront of such “progressions”, with pscyhologists close behind to ease the emotional transition. For example, we used to be professionally counselled for enjoying ourselves too much and now we are professionally counselled for not feeling we’re enjoying ourselves enough. Without ideology, sex would just be a biological chore consisting only of the mechanical actions to pragmatically achieve the continuation of the species - without all the flirtation, suggestive innuendos and suspense. It appears to be a psychological necessity for humans to unconsciously participate in ideology, which always takes the form of pretending that we’re all doing good, which currently involves the mutually agreed flattering perception that profits aren’t actually the only thing that matter to employers.

Apologies if you’re already familiar with ideology, but you see how this means that any potential cognitive dissonance that might result from doubting this ideology must be proven to be unfounded through token demonstrations of altruism like charity. It doesn’t take much to realise that if we were truly charitable, we’d fix the systems that afford us enough disposable income to give to charity in the first place, which are the same systems that result in the existence of those who need charity in the first place. But obviously that’d kinda fuck you over and who are these charity cases to deserve what we’ve worked hard to earn for ourselves anyway? Ideology. The wealthy need to believe they’re good people and we see everywhere the effects of market forces causing companies to present themselves as environmentally friendly (greenwashing) etc. - to maintain and hopefully increase their share of the market and competitive advantage.

All it takes is a few early adopters of my solution to try and grab some quick initial fame and recognition that they would otherwise not get, and the competition soon realises they are losing out relatively, making them feel the need to at least appear to give a shit whether or not they “really” do, and sign up to participate in contemporary ideology (and not incidentally reap the benefits of doing so).

It’s not as simple as “fuck taxes”, even if that’s how one really feels.
It’s obvious why companies all keep their tax records secret in just the way you explain - but it’s not so obvious why you’d want to stay off the radar by refusing to participate in my solution, which is entirely voluntary don’t forget.

Silhouette,

Your last reply made me realize that you think your system is so much better, that anyone who comes on board will immediately crush the competition.

Also, I disproved cantors diagonalization argument as well! I wonder if we have the same disproof. Mine is super simple! Just make new lists for all the diagonals! (Duh). Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to figure out!

It’s not even necessary for my system to be “so much better” than what we have, it is sufficient to merely introduce a new valuable way for people to derive competitive advantage that also happens to benefit society, and market forces do the rest.

Don’t worry, I’ve not forgotten - you tend to remind me of this every time I bring it up. I was just mentioning my achievements, feel free to list yours but your achievements won’t be on my list of achievements because they’re yours and not mine.

I seem to remember that we don’t have the same disproof - mine simply shows that his proof is only conditionally true dependent on the numeral system being used, and that it is false in e.g. unary. His diagonalisation method requires a list of sets such that the list is as long as the size of the sets (in order to make a square across which a diagonal set can be constructed). The possible length of the list of sets will always be equal to the numerical base being used to the power of the size of the sets, which for bases more than 1 will always mean a longer possible list than the size of the sets, leaving plenty of “other” combinations to be constructed from a list that’s only as long as the size of the sets. But since this isn’t always the case, depending on the base system used, his proof fails when it comes to number bases like unary.

I’ve suggested before that “new lists for all the diagonals” would presumably require extra dimensions than just the 2 used in Cantor’s argument, along which to construct these new lists - I think you agreed.

But back to the topic of the thread…

Yes, I always add much value when I consider an idea seriously, “lets see if I can make this kitty purr” is my general attitude when someone has put some work in something but it doesn’t quite run yet.
Not that Ive gotten it road-ready, to be fair. I merely handed you a set of tools to develop it.

You could really have something here. It depends entirely on whether you can make it into a model.

Note: considering that this porto-idea might very well not become a full fledged idea, Ill revert back to my default of a 20 percent flat yearly revenue tax on companies above a certain market cap and no private taxes.
Thats a simple idea, and it is guaranteed to work in the ways I think a society should work; it alleviates pressure from people in general and it is a big hurdle for companies on the road to hegemonic positions.
it creates lots of problems, but

(Side thread in this thread)

Fuck silhouette!! Ok, there’s the deal with math. Every fucking operation is a new dimension.

You cannot do unary without the space or enter bars. That’s 3 dimensions. Nothing can be done without 3 dimensions! My technique is just making a new list (actually) an infinite number of them (to subsume all possible diagonals from the first list). I’m still using 3 dimensional logic. end rant

NOW!!! About this thread!!! If you don’t have a system that defeats the competition, you’re going to have to force people to do it. Just like my system.

So then it becomes a matter of which system is best to force on people.

It runs, it just hasn’t “been run” yet - it’s road-ready to the extent that it could most certainly be driven, though “road-ready” presumably also entails knowledge of “how” to drive it and “how good” it would look being actually driven. To those ends, details still need to be ironed out.

The philosophy “around it” could of course be worth exploring, as you have begun to do and I have not (for which you “offer tools”) - but it’s not really my concern at the moment as I’m more interested in seeing it be driven first.

It already is a model, cohesive and clear in its foundations, just not a completed one with all the details worked out. That’s more what I’m interested in exploring at the moment.

It’s an interesting reflex to side with “the devil you know”, having been shown that “the grass is greener on the other side”. Of course the ultimate evaluation lies in real application, but consider that this is by default a rejection of anything new - unless you’re simply siding with caution preliminarily, subject to further evidence: “on the fence”, so to speak, but perhaps leaning more towards getting off on the side of the “tried and flawed” than “the new and potentially less flawed”. An entrepreneurial spirit, perhaps, is what’s needed to commit to exploring a “porto-idea” over a “full fledged idea”.

To briefly comment on your “default”, any “market caps” inherently divide society and create tension either side of the cut-off point: it’s arguable that your default creates a lack of incentive to want to progress beyond the “market cap” where suddenly a fifth of your earnings is taken away from you by threat of the force of law, making the higher bound of non-taxpayers considerably more rich than the lower bound of taxpayers, incentivising the lower bound of taxpayers to “earn less to earn more”. People will divide themselves into being clearly one or the other to avoid that awkward middle ground, and on a social level a stigma will be created dividing the “social contributors” from those who don’t contribute to society. To avoid all this, I believe tax systems often resort to only taxing revenue above the market cap at the higher rate, and taxing the revenue below that market cap at the lower rate, but this is why I side with a continuous function (the 80-20 curve) and completely avoid these issues altogether. Additionally, I apply my solution specifically to “expenditure” and not “revenue”, because I do not want to even go near any potential penalisation of working to create revenue. If anything, it’s “taking” from society for yourself that has grounds to be interfered with, but giving to society ought to be encouraged - and my solution allows this explicitly through the mechanism of creating a “disconnect in the continuous flow of currency around the whole economy”: allowing a temporary disjunct between the price paid and price received (ultimately fully accounted for by paying off the deficits with the surpluses with mathematical precision).

All of this, as well as the arguments I’ve made thus far - and more that I’ve so far neglected to mention - is why my solution is so more sophisticated than the comparatively much more blunt instruments of “tax this in this way, but don’t tax that in that way” which is the mental box within which the overwhelming majority tend to prefer to remain inside.

Yes, for lack of a better approach than using force, you’re going to have to either force people in some way like in your system, or simply throw out force altogether and do nothing - as in the much more simplistic Libertarian “laissez faire” anti-solution.

That’s why I resolved to create a better approach than either “using force” or “doing nothing”. Turn to the carrot - not the stick. Some sticks are better than others as you say, such as your “maximum wage” system, but my intention is to think outside of this “tax box” and instead explore the realm of incentives rather than duke it out in the seemingly endless fight over which is the “least bad” way to lessen iniquities. Ultimately that fight is always won by those in power in the same way: the negative effects are largely passed down to those with the least power, and those with the most power remain largely unaffected. The only way to resolve this is to come up with a mechanism that incentivises those in power to genuinely want to lessen iniquities, by tying this in with their self-interest (which was always all they were going to follow anyway) - with or without any of these impotent attempts to “tax them” that don’t providing any incentive for them to not simply decide “nah, not gonna do that” as they’ve always done so far.

That’s why I went ahead and solved economics.

people already voluntarily donate to charitable foundations and greenwash their businesses, for reputation

what am I missing?

I mean, quite a lot - but I find this kind of thinking and questioning really valuable, so thanks for pushing your point.

As in a previous post of yours, you mean to draw attention to the similarities between what we have already, and what I’m proposing - correct?
These similarities are entirely intentional, because it seems that if you propose to change too much, too many people balk and reject too easily. However the other side of the coin is that if too little changes, is the payoff worth the effort? No doubt this balance is the reason why so little ever does actually change, and it may even be the case that the two overlap with one another, making change only possible if it is forced through sufficiently stealthily. Let’s assume not for now.

The statement that “people already voluntarily donate to charitable foundations and greenwash their businesses, for reputation” is true, but owing to the breadth and simplicity of this abstraction, all the crucial detail that makes all the difference is glossed over and “missed”.
Which people, and how many of them voluntarily donate? How much do they donate, and to which charitable foundations? How much of their greenwashing is facade and how much is representative of their objective impact on wider society?

Using my solution, 9% of all people are donating to the entire 91% of everyone else. In return they earn an objective measure of exactly how much impact they’re having on wider society, that they have every incentive to maximise in order to compete with the rest of the 9% over how much revenue they can generate to maximise how much they can spend on their employees and capital investments, which is how they earn this incentivising measure. There is no cheating here, nor want nor desire to cheat, because the incentive is all in self-interest as well as altruistic - they even gain a very precise way to compete, which generates the kind of pressure that people at the very top thrive upon, which only motivates them further to generate more value than ever before. Where there’s incentive to hide tax records and overemphasise charity in our current system, there’s every incentive to show off for reputation using my solution, and an objective measure can’t be over or understated as to how much and how wide-reaching their charity really is. Everyone knows exactly where it’s going, which is directly towards the deficit incurred by the 91% that affords enhanced “equity of opportunity” for all of them by allowing them to pay less to enter into the competition themselves, and which rewards their frugality and cost-effectiveness in doing so. Lower spenders face less risk to be entrepreneurial, bolstering the Classical Liberal ideal of perfect competition, and the most successful voluntarily keep themselves in check, which naturally wards off monopoly and oligopoly. Market forces push material wealth towards the middle, from both ends, while still maintaining material inequality to aid in incentivising those who still want to succeed according to that measure, without impacting negatively on the pursuit of immaterial wealth that is now more free than ever before to reach now measurable and objectively comparable limits for all the most successful people to aim towards. Why do chess grandmasters still compete with each other to achieve ever higher Elo ratings?

Who would enforce this idea unless it were famous?

Democrats are controlled by the media.
People choose famous things.

Sil hold your horses there for a second - I spoke of something which has not been implemented yet, which I invented the idea of.
So no, no “devil you know”.Y ou correctly identify the (fertile, in my eyes) tension this idea produces tough.

And the grass had not been shown greener on the other side, thats the whole point. Your machine hasn’t been driven and I wasn’t thinking ‘around it’, I was honing in on application methods.

Thats not arguable, thats a fact.
So the amount is to set so that certain industries cant avoid it. The mathematics will be like, “large” but very straightforward.

The idea is that certain industries can not avoid growing beyond that market capitalization, such as car industries.
Its also thinkable to put a 10 percent tax on say, 2 million plus businesses and 10 percent on 20 million plus, divine the tension over two thresholds. Keep in mind my numbers are arbitrary estimates. Could turn out to be much lower or higher when calibrated to reality.

And, there has to be recognition for the services here great companies do the country, by paying taxes. They would essentially be heroes of the nation.

All this said, really do not wish to give the impression I have forgotten about your idea or dismiss it. Its a pretty fascinating idea and I want to see it developed. In absence of such development for now, I think my idea is, at this point, more pragmatic, and since I already had it, Ill work with it for now until you clarify your idea some more.

By the way at the philosophical and ontological backbone to my idea is the understanding that for people to owe money merely because they exist and provide for themselves is absolutely unjustifiable.
And that corporations such as those that employ massive manufacturing plants are entirely contingent upon a Society, so for them it is justified to have to contribute to that society.

To be born is not to be contingent upon society. Taxation by the state of a private persons existence is among the most grandiose idiocies humans are still working with.

This is part of the purpose of sharing my idea - things aren’t going to get famous without at first getting shared with a small number of people.
I’m starting cautiously in case someone can spot anything obvious that I’ve missed, and to expose me to the kinds of questions that people have when exposed to ideas like this. This better prepares me for sharing it to a larger number of people, in the hopes that it will go on to become famous “enough” to get chosen.

Yeah, of course the exact specifics of your default might not have been implemented yet (at least as far as we’re aware). I didn’t make it clear that I meant the general idea of “tax this and not that” is “the devil we know”, even if some different specific configuration of it hasn’t “been run” yet. The grass is greener without this devil, and my solution doesn’t show any signs of being anything but the greenest of greens. Fair enough that we need the practice to confirm the theory, and I am trying to withhold complacency - I’m just not trying that hard since there’s still no reason to.

By all means bring up your own ideas as a point of comparison - maybe even make your own thread to carry on discussion in more depth about it there, though I’m pretty sure if you did we’d just run into the usual right vs left impasses that we all know and love by now - I can think of several things to say about your last post. That’s just another reason why my solution here is so valuable - it transcends all that. No “large” mathematics required either, just an understanding of what an exponential function is, maybe how the specifical one I use works and why, but you don’t even really need to understand any of that except that it’s an 80-20 approximation - and that’s it.

Anyway, if I work out any of the few remaining details I’ll update things here and in the meanwhile answer questions and alleviate any concerns that anyone might have in the meantime.

In summary for those who haven’t understood your idea, which is everyone else:
Sils idea comes down to rich peoples money being worth relatively less, which despite everything means that is an implicit capital tax.
My idea simply means only corporations pay taxes, not humans.

Which naturally means less corporation forming and more medium sized businesses. It also means a lot for corporate culture, which will change from robber-baron instinct to world-building desires.
And it means a much smaller state.

S - its fine to just have these ideas out there, bots will harvest much of the semantics at all times. This is how AI is being developed, by developing algorithms that recognize operational concepts through syntactic density and “colouring” - so concepts are being recognized “from the outside” that is, without being understood. Much like animals are being selected by mates on outward characteristics and not based on understanding. The patience you put in your explanation as well as the postponing of explication, keeping the implications pure, is recognizable by such programs, just as such undisturbed and un-prodded unfolding behaviour is recognizable as representing value in the natural world.

Forgive me for my analysis here, no one has ever become better from my flattery (it seems quite lethal and perhaps thats why I do it) but yeah, it ties in with the evolution threads in a relevant way.

What is memetic fitness?
Which idea has the most of it?
Your idea may be the Neanderthal to my more pragmatic hominid of corporate tax; the Neanderthal had a brain which required lengthy operations to be completed before an action was taken.

Rich people’s money is worth the same as it always was to anyone selling to them. It’s also worth just as much to them when selling to others, if not more altogether, only it’s split between what’s exchangeable for surplus material things, and the immaterial and eternal measure of their life’s success, which is converted into better value for money for 10/11 of society who enabled them to become rich in the first place by being their “market” - perhaps on top of everything else lending to them a wholesome “altruistic” wealth if they’re not psychopaths.

Capital is not touched by tax or anything at all with my solution. The buying of further capital than what the already rich already have goes less far in the short term material sense, but due to the immaterial sense translating into a better reputation that they’re rewarded with for being more generous with their wealth, they attract ever more custom and revenue back to them, all the while accumulating immaterial “capital” that will never ever decrease or be compromised for all time regardless of any future market instability or other life changes. This affords them more security yet also rewards more spending and risk, and with material wealth paying off the deficit incurred by the 91% getting better value for money, small new businesses are enabled and the material wealth of people is attracted towards the middle where the medium sized businesses are - so my solution transforms any “robber-baron instinct” and “world-building desires” into the immaterial realm and away from having socially detrimental consequences on material wealth. No state required, except maybe for essential services for which the profit model isn’t suited, only with no tax required to fund it. For more of a surplus in price-paying than a deficit, to pay for such things, with my solution requires merely opening up the opportunity to accumulate an objective success score to more people. The 80-20 optimisation stays the same.

Corporations are cooperating humans - I reject this distinction.

Silhouette,

The ultra rich don’t give a shit about their reputations (because they’re ultra rich and don’t have to!) Most of them are autistic, narcissistic or sociopathic.

Even if they donate to charity, their businesses are sociopathic. And that’s being generous, because their donations are tax write offs or tax shelters. Most of them use that money to do non profits that act as think tanks or political activist corporations (lobbying for free) to support making more money.

Personally, I think your system is not viable.

I’ve already explained why this isn’t a problem.

But instead of repeating myself I’ll move things on to a detail that was bugging me: how exactly would the introduction of my solution play out for businesses?
Which successful business would voluntarily enter into a scenario where they might have to pay twice the price for everything by virtue of being the biggest spender?

The answer is that the solution doesn’t have to be adopted fully and wholeheartedly from the outset. The way it will start will be incredibly small - a petty insigificant purchase by an opportunistic up-coming company just to get pole position on the scoreboard for cheap publicity, maybe even to simply ironically display dominance, perhaps even mockingly. But this move won’t stand for long - another company could easily chip in a couple of extra dollars in a one-off purchase of a slightly more expensive item. Still pocket change at this point, but the competition to be the next leader will quickly snowball into elaborate displays of “Zahavian Signaling” that the biggest companies now have incentive to enter into. A company that is so successful, that it can afford to be the biggest spender, taking the material brunt of enduring the most costly position yet still remaining successful - is all the more impressive and objectively proves itself to be the best company to work for and to buy from. And all the while all this surplus spending goes towards new companies, and even medium-sized companies, being able to pay much less for what they need to enter into this race themselves. We tend towards perfect competition, monopolies are naturally curtailed, and all relying on the “worst” nature of companies that you can think of.

The same is just as plausible for individuals, with even the most impulsive of psychopaths playing chicken with each other to feed their narcissism by competing for the top spot. Again, relying on all the “worst” nature of humans that you can think of.

My solution is precisely the opposite of “not viable” - it’s all but guaranteed by Game Theory, even assuming the worst of people and companies - especially assuming this. It’s called the “Escalation of commitment”.

Silhouette,

Nobody in the top brackets gives a shit. Your theory is basically a scaled sales tax. Nobody who is calling the shots would go for that. They’re fine just how they are. This is why I stated to you that both of our systems would have to be forced, the question then becomes: which one works the best for everyone.