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Tax cutoffs have this habit of drifting downward over time (the whole, "eventually you run out of other people's money" thing). See the original revenue act of 1913 (modern US income tax). At first it was 1% starting at today's equivalent of $93K and didn't go any higher until you made the equivalent of about $500K. And today, well, it's a little different.
New taxes are always pitched this way -- "oh it'll never affect you, just those rich people, what's your problem?"
There's no way the situation can stay like that forever. There will be regulation like there's regulation of TV, radio, press, etc.
Without regulation you don't get a libertarian utopia - you just get oligarchy.
Most libertarians aren't rational egoists, they are just naive losers oligarchs take advantage of to get more power.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/05/28/what-is-s...
https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/trump-and-section-230-what-know
This dude is a certified ghoul.
In May 2017, Wyden co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, Senate Bill 720, which made it a federal crime, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment,[88] for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if protesting actions by the Israeli government. The bill would make it legal for U.S. states to refuse to do business with contractors that engage in boycotts against Israel.[89] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Wyden#Israel
Here are his accomplishments: https://www.congress.gov/member/bernard-sanders/S000033?q=%7...
If you look at co-sponsored, its more of the same fluff. I'd say he's pretty ineffective.
"According to The New York Times, "Big legislation largely eludes Mr. Sanders because his ideas are usually far to the left of the majority of the Senate ... Mr. Sanders has largely found ways to press his agenda through appending small provisions to the larger bills of others."[146] During his time in the Senate, he had lower legislative effectiveness than the average senator, as measured by the number of sponsored bills that passed and successful amendments made.[147] Nevertheless, he has sponsored over 500 amendments to bills,[148] many of which became law."
I don't want to ban you because you clearly know a lot of things and have posted quite a few good things over the years. But your comments include so much name-calling, swipes, snark, and nastiness that you're not leaving much choice.
Here's one of many examples, on an unrelated topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41630774. That's a great comment, ruined by name-calling and personal attack. On the subject of cartoons of all things! There's no need to treat other people this way, or use the comment section to vent bile like that.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
I'm curious as to why you conclude that Democrats are better than Republicans in terms of IT liberty. Trump ended operation choke point, a program of essentially harassing banks into dropping certain customers [1]. De-banking is, in my opinion, one of the most important threats to "cyber liberties" since it's absolutely crucial for any business to survive. Individuals who are de-banked also find it incredibly difficult to survive: Plenty of services, including apartments and HOAs, do not accept non-electronic payments.
The censorship of "misinformation" (much of which later turned out to be true) also grew considerably under the 2020 administration, which did in fact reach out to social media companies to try and influence their decision making. One of the more salient examples was covered by HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41365868 To be clear, I'm not concerned about private companies autonomously deciding what to host. I take issue with the government coercing companies into making moderation decisions. This has huge potential for abuse, such as forcing the takedown of politically disadvantageous material.
Both Republicans and Democrats are in favor of getting rid of Section 230, but for essentially totally different reasons: Republicans seem to want to return to the precedence set by Cubby Inc. vs. CompuServe [2]. Democrats seem to want to narrowly repeal Section 230 to empower the government to dictate the contents of social media. Both are negative in my opinion, but the patter seems more insidious and prone to long term harm.
And to be clear, these issues are far, far from enough to get me to vote for Trump. I'm interested in hearing the counter-claim, that the Democrat party is better in terms of cyber liberties.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubby,_Inc._v._CompuServe_Inc.
Do you understand how you are the problem here?
Silicon Valley didn't care about politics until politicians started getting involved and attempting to impose censorship regimes, aggressive unrealized gains taxation, and killing crypto assets. Tech startups were find being ignored.
But as you illustrate, you can't ignore DC if it chooses not to ignore you. If people like you want to use the power of the state to "shatter" anyone you politically disagree with, well, of course the tech companies will hit back.
I just don't see this as "SO much better."