Millions of years ago, single-celled organisms decided to start communicating. They ended up creating humans.
Those single-celled organisms which decided, for whatever reasons, not to communicate with other cells? They're still single cells, and are essentially insignificant.
What does this say about those humans who decide, for whatever reasons, not to communicate with other humans?
The Internet really is the "infrastructure" of the new organism, just like our nerve pathways and blood streams were the infrastructure required in order for us to come to be.
(I realize this has little to do with the "corporate isolates" that were mentioned in the book; as the company I work for has grown, I've found that it's just not as much fun going to those picnics and events. The people are different, many of them are strangers -- it's basically the same as going to a bar, just that we all have stock options. The above is more about being isolated from the most efficient communications channels.)
kevin805 wrote: Just because the computer outputs something physical doesn't make it any more intelligent. Now a computer that could learn to play a game well by reading a book on the subject -- that would be something.
Just because you output those words doesn't make you any more intelligent. How do I know you're not a bot?;-)
Seriously, I've just learned Perl and all in flash it came to me how to write a program to do my job for me. Literally! Which is great because it frees me up to write more scripts, to automate even more routine, grunt-work tasks -- freeing others up to do more creative work. Everyone's going to be happy with that!
I am convinced that we will soon be at, if we aren't already, the point where computers can be taught to do anything humans can do -- and do it better, 24 hours a day. The robot arms can be programmed to work the assembly line, medicine will be automated within the next few years (witness the "routine laser eye surgery" that's so popular now), and my "script" will be taught to do all the work that I currently do.
(I prefer program; it sounds less like "kiddies.")
I haven't looked at Python yet, but the forced indenting reminds me of CS101 and FORTRAN. I'm not saying it's a bad language, just that it touches on childhood feelings.;-)
pb said: Babelfish is a proxy; you can use it to load blocked sites by having altavista do the heavy lifting.
Oh. Thanks, hadn't thought of it like that.
Still doesn't make it right -- we need to translate. We have several Russians at our main site, and we also have locations around the world.
The point of having Internet access shouldn't be what not to use. I don't use my work phone to call 900 numbers; I don't need to be told not to.
If an employee is wasting company time looking at porn, blocking his access isn't going to improve his performance. You have an individual problem -- a problem that his manager should have the balls and training to deal with.
When management gets weak, they start putting the thumbscrews to the employees.
"Praise in public, punish in private." Words to live by. Also "Don't punish the group." Break either of those rules and you're not a good manager.
OK, I'm done bitching but typing the above has given my brain time to react. So here's my idea: Babelfish should have a "http://babelfish.altavista.com/cyberpatrol" area (and ".../netnanny", etc.), which has that software's settings in it. Then companies could open their firewall to that subtree of BabelFish, so their employees could translate without masturbating.
Even better, they could create "http://babelfish.altavista.com/microsoft", for example, to have a portal with Microsoft Human Resources-blessed NetNanny/CyberPatrol settings. And only that subtree would be accessible to Microsoft employees through the Microsoft firewall.
Logicnazi said: In fact in reference to CNN it seems bringing the world attention to the problem often alleves it. It attracts the notice of non-partisans whose only goal is to end the violence. For instance many of the US recent overseas milatary missions have been motivated by the moral outrage of viewers at home (think somalia). The peace process in northern ireland and in isreal has also no doubt been helped by US involvement which is a direct result of US citizens caring about peace in the region which is a result of being informed via CNN.
CNN is the nerves of the world. The US is the brain. US military are white blood cells.
People talk disparagingly about "the world's policemen," but I don't see it that way. Our cells banded together billions of years ago and ultimately decided to form humans because a human can be more effective than 75 trillion single-celled organisms.
And likewise, a planet that thinks will be much more effective than 6 billion individual thinking organisms.
The Internet is both our nerve cells and blood vessels at the same time -- it provides us with information, and with nanotechnology will be able to provide goods as well!
I can easily envision a future where email is seamlessly encrypted but To and From is recorded for all emails and anybody can be forced to hand over encyption keys given any hint of suspicion of criminal activity (like recieving an email from someone who received email from a person under investigation).
So here's what I'd do:
1. Run Mojo Nation (similar to Gnutella but you can earn money for your bandwidth, disk space, and cpu cycles; see here for details).
2. Since this splits everything up and encrypts it and sends it out, you don't need to be on-line for your partner to download it.
3. You can communicate through a secure channel what to search for, and your partner then searches and downloads it.
4. They communicate back through the same method.
It's like plucking a memo out of a tornado, scribbling something on it, and tossing it back. It's ether -- it's nothingness until it's put back together, then decrypted.
Quote: "Q: "How much does creation of GNOME Foundation affect KDE development?" A: "As much as the birth of the last baby polar bear at the Quebec City Zoo" (i.e., not at all)"
Instead, I would have answered with:
"We're now searching for corporate sponsors ourselves."
(Of course, not so directly -- subtlety (ambiguity?) is how you rise to the top.)
OK, let's take that a little further with a little game I like to play with overbearingly religious relatives:
They say we were created by God. Who's to say we're not a simulation inside a computer, and God is a grad student stealing time from his professor's machine?
See, we're almost to the point where we can simulate our environment completely, inside a computer: SimCity, Populous, SimEarth, The Sims; and on the virtual side, Quake III, Half-Life, etc. These are all stepping stones; one day we'll have both complete virtual reality and simulations so complex that the characters in the simulations will be fully alive.
Except they're trapped in a computer and can't get out, because they don't know that they're trapped. (Yes, I know, this screams Matrix, but you can ask my relatives -- I've been saying it for years. The Illuminatus Trilogy actually gave me the original idea: a very minor character said, "I've determined that we're living in a book, and I think I've found a way out." He was never heard from or spoken about again!)
Now, given that simulations such as this are possible, and computers are approaching the price of a cup of coffee, pretty soon we'll be able to run an almost infinite number of these simulations -- and we will.
So, given that there will be multitudes of these simulations, what are the chances that we're the first?
So we're this simulation running on some professor's computer, and the more cycles we take up (by working with smaller and smaller things, and by running multitudes of simulations inside these simulations!), the more of his computer we take up, until one day he swears at Microsoft and reboots.(*)
The Callback
So, if time is slowing down, then that simply means that we are using more processing power, ever since the universe began to evolve life. And since we're working with smaller and smaller things (and we can't seem to find "the smallest"!), we're using even more today.
Perhaps nanotechnology will be the death of us all.
How's that for a conspiracy theory?
Thing 1
(*) I usually end it with, "until one day he notices that the grad student is taking up too much of his computer, and tells him to shut it down." But I figured this audience would appreciate a slightly different version.;-)
Jim in Tokyo writes: Of course, I would then like it to FTP the show in DiVx format to my X-Drive, so I can watch it from my desk the next day, but from what I hear, that's 2-3 months away...)
I sent ReplayTV an email requesting them to add DivX support in one of their nightly downloads.
According to this link, DivX takes just 15% of the space that MPEG-2 takes (the format used for DVDs, my satellite, and my ReplayTV).
If they could just add the software codec, then it would turn my 20 hour player into a 133 hour player!
It would even be worth paying $100 extra for this download. Not that I'm asking them to charge me, just that I understand how the market works (nobody does something for nothing except college kids).;-)
There is much debate about whether this is actually useful. One simple way to check would be to change the human genome structure so it never mutates, and see whether human progress over the next million years is obstructed;-)
Actually, at this point in time with respect to technology, it won't matter one bit if we stop mutating.
Evolution has lost; the future belongs to engineering.
--
Re:Your Linux box offering the same services.
on
Hacking The Tivo
·
· Score: 1
Check out TV Guide. From here you can get listing for your cable, satellite, or broadcast TV channels.
It would be fairly simple to write an interface to this site which can be used with a software-based TIVO/ReplayTV.
Someone could create a plugin to do this for you -- when you start Netscape or IE, it checks each of your Favorites/Bookmarks. It does this in the background, so it doesn't interrupt what you want to do. If it finds a broken link, it moves it into a Broken Links folder and highlights the folder red so the next time you pull down the Bookmarks/Favorites menu, you'll see that something broke.
This is the least intrusive behavior -- it doesn't need to popup to let you know, because it won't be of concern to you until you actually want to go somewhere else. And by moving them into another folder, it gives you a chance to review them and find out where the right link is, if it's something you still care about. I'd pay money to see something like this developed.
The problem is, "one person one vote" is the equivalent of two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
There are always going to be more poor than rich. The system the way it's set up now rewards the poor with the rich's money.
No system in nature does this -- the weak are culled, not coddled.
What's my solution? I'd allow one vote per dollar in taxes paid. Note that this does not mean the rich get all the votes, as it's not based on your net worth -- he who puts more resources into the government has a larger say in how those resources are distributed. This is similar to shareholders in private companies, but with the provision that the shares you "purchase" in government disappear after you vote with them.
A wealthy individual or corporation may be able to sway policy for a while, but will soon run out of money if what they're trying to do runs against the natural order of things.
Why not give everyone a certain amount of moderator points per day? Then those who earn more will earn more per day instead.
Isn't that the point of a self-moderating system? To let all parts have a say?
Could have a text field that takes a number from -10 to 10 below each post, so as you're reading them, you can "comment" on the posts. This part should be free for all to use. People who earn more points get to add or subtract more, and use their points for the extra (above 10 or below -10).
Just an idea... Then people wouldn't have to post about not having moderator points. We should all have them!
(This was most likely a troll but I'll reply anyway.)
The ideas of capitalism and inheritance are not mutually exclusive. Or are you saying that people get to build their empire however they like while they're here, but when they die they have to give it all up?
What incentive would they then have to provide for their children, and their children's children? I'm not anti-freedom; I think you should have the freedom to do whatever you like with your own money, including giving it to your family, before or after you die.
I didn't say anything about monarchy, knights, or titles. All I said was let's make the system more efficient and reward recycling and reuse.
The FairTax has a provision for the poor and for essentials. No DoubleSpeak involved. See their site for the details.
The point being, those who want to purchase a luxury car can -- and those who want to be frugal and purchase a Honda Civic will get to keep more of their earnings. So it rewards efficiency, and puts the system in line with reality -- rather than the current system which rewards lying (and hoping you don't get audited).
I don't know about the rest of you, but I certainly prefer the carrot to the stick.
I'm not trolling, I'm putting my mouth where my money is -- I've already donated heavily to them in the hopes of keeping more of my IPO stock options.
with income tax, people are motivated to make more money, while with an expense tax they would motivated to buy less.
Actually, with an income tax people are motivated to hide their earnings.
With the FairTax, the only "collection points" for the IRS will be businesses -- you won't have to file a personal income tax, ever. This reduces the amount of work in collecting taxes by about 90%, which would make our government more efficient.
With an expense tax, people are motivated to make even more money -- because they know it won't be taken from them. And yes, they are motivated to spend less as well, but there's nothing wrong with that -- I'd much rather people learn to be frugal and support themselves than voting all my money to the government for programs to support them (which keep them dependent).
I'm not trolling. I've already given them lots of money, having made it at a startup and not wanting to lose it myself. This is the best answer I've found; rather than pointing out problems, try offering solutions.
Check out http://www.fairtax.org -- they're pushing for a sales tax on all new goods, and services (used goods won't be taxed). They'd eliminate the income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, and gift tax.
The benefits to most of the people reading this are huge. First of all, it's shifting the burden of taxation from income to expense. This is great -- if you waste less, you're "punished" less. Thus we have a system which rewards efficiency, and so recycling would be rewarded, not just something "we should do." (People rarely do something unless it's in their immediate best interest.)
In addition, many of us work for high-tech startups with stock options. Eliminating capital gains taxes gives you effectively 30% more of your millions, since most stock grants from startups prior to IPO are ridiculously low (i.e., buy it for $1 and sell it for $100, and you're taxed on 99% of your proceeds under today's system).
By eliminating capital gains, inheritance, and gift taxes, you can ensure that the wealth that you build throughout the trials and tribulations of your life is preserved for you and yours, not wasted on pork barrel projects in some other city or state that don't affect you at all (so why should you have to pay for it?).
I'm not affiliated with them in any way other than as a sponsor; I urge everyone who's already financially independent to donate (it's tax-deductible). If we can get this passed, then the return on your "investment" (in FairTax) will definitely be worth it.
An example: let's say you've got $100,000 in stock from employee options. If you sell it you'll pay something like $30,000. So donate $1,000 to FairTax, and when it passes you'll get an additional $29,000 when you sell! That's a 2900% return on your money.
ESR, CmdrTaco, Hemos: you've all got millions. You can have even more millions by helping this get passed.
Slashdot Mirror
Millions of years ago, single-celled organisms decided to start communicating. They ended up creating humans.
Those single-celled organisms which decided, for whatever reasons, not to communicate with other cells? They're still single cells, and are essentially insignificant.
What does this say about those humans who decide, for whatever reasons, not to communicate with other humans?
The Internet really is the "infrastructure" of the new organism, just like our nerve pathways and blood streams were the infrastructure required in order for us to come to be.
(I realize this has little to do with the "corporate isolates" that were mentioned in the book; as the company I work for has grown, I've found that it's just not as much fun going to those picnics and events. The people are different, many of them are strangers -- it's basically the same as going to a bar, just that we all have stock options. The above is more about being isolated from the most efficient communications channels.)
--
Just because you output those words doesn't make you any more intelligent. How do I know you're not a bot? ;-)
Seriously, I've just learned Perl and all in flash it came to me how to write a program to do my job for me. Literally! Which is great because it frees me up to write more scripts, to automate even more routine, grunt-work tasks -- freeing others up to do more creative work. Everyone's going to be happy with that!
I am convinced that we will soon be at, if we aren't already, the point where computers can be taught to do anything humans can do -- and do it better, 24 hours a day. The robot arms can be programmed to work the assembly line, medicine will be automated within the next few years (witness the "routine laser eye surgery" that's so popular now), and my "script" will be taught to do all the work that I currently do.
(I prefer program; it sounds less like "kiddies.")
I haven't looked at Python yet, but the forced indenting reminds me of CS101 and FORTRAN. I'm not saying it's a bad language, just that it touches on childhood feelings. ;-)
Thing 1
--
Oh. Thanks, hadn't thought of it like that.
Still doesn't make it right -- we need to translate. We have several Russians at our main site, and we also have locations around the world.
The point of having Internet access shouldn't be what not to use. I don't use my work phone to call 900 numbers; I don't need to be told not to.
If an employee is wasting company time looking at porn, blocking his access isn't going to improve his performance. You have an individual problem -- a problem that his manager should have the balls and training to deal with.
When management gets weak, they start putting the thumbscrews to the employees.
"Praise in public, punish in private." Words to live by. Also "Don't punish the group." Break either of those rules and you're not a good manager.
OK, I'm done bitching but typing the above has given my brain time to react. So here's my idea: Babelfish should have a "http://babelfish.altavista.com/cyberpatrol" area (and ".../netnanny", etc.), which has that software's settings in it. Then companies could open their firewall to that subtree of BabelFish, so their employees could translate without masturbating.
Even better, they could create "http://babelfish.altavista.com/microsoft", for example, to have a portal with Microsoft Human Resources-blessed NetNanny/CyberPatrol settings. And only that subtree would be accessible to Microsoft employees through the Microsoft firewall.
You have to turn political to get anything done.
--
CNN is the nerves of the world. The US is the brain. US military are white blood cells.
People talk disparagingly about "the world's policemen," but I don't see it that way. Our cells banded together billions of years ago and ultimately decided to form humans because a human can be more effective than 75 trillion single-celled organisms.
And likewise, a planet that thinks will be much more effective than 6 billion individual thinking organisms.
The Internet is both our nerve cells and blood vessels at the same time -- it provides us with information, and with nanotechnology will be able to provide goods as well!
Great time to be alive.
--
Here.
Enjoy the music!
--
I can easily envision a future where email is seamlessly encrypted but To and From is recorded for all emails and anybody can be forced to hand over encyption keys given any hint of suspicion of criminal activity (like recieving an email from someone who received email from a person under investigation).
So here's what I'd do:
1. Run Mojo Nation (similar to Gnutella but you can earn money for your bandwidth, disk space, and cpu cycles; see here for details).
2. Since this splits everything up and encrypts it and sends it out, you don't need to be on-line for your partner to download it.
3. You can communicate through a secure channel what to search for, and your partner then searches and downloads it.
4. They communicate back through the same method.
It's like plucking a memo out of a tornado, scribbling something on it, and tossing it back. It's ether -- it's nothingness until it's put back together, then decrypted.
It's two cans and invisible string!
--
That reminds me of my freshman english course: GFI (GI101, "Great Ideas").
Thing 1
--
Instead, I would have answered with:
"We're now searching for corporate sponsors ourselves."
(Of course, not so directly -- subtlety (ambiguity?) is how you rise to the top.)
Thing 1
--
Let me postulate a theory:
1. There was life on Mars. One of their largest structures, which only partially survived, was a face.
2. The Martians thought, "The danger from the sky will never hit us," and 200 million years ago they didn't see it coming.
3. The impact was so great, they all perished; so great, in fact, that it blew chunks of the planet into Earth's path.
4. The building blocks of life were contained in ... Nah, that's going too
far. ;-)
Nice conspiracy theory, even without 4. This tells me we need to devote more resources to our "eyes."
Thing 1
--
They say we were created by God. Who's to say we're not a simulation inside a computer, and God is a grad student stealing time from his professor's machine?
See, we're almost to the point where we can simulate our environment completely, inside a computer: SimCity, Populous, SimEarth, The Sims; and on the virtual side, Quake III, Half-Life, etc. These are all stepping stones; one day we'll have both complete virtual reality and simulations so complex that the characters in the simulations will be fully alive.
Except they're trapped in a computer and can't get out, because they don't know that they're trapped. (Yes, I know, this screams Matrix, but you can ask my relatives -- I've been saying it for years. The Illuminatus Trilogy actually gave me the original idea: a very minor character said, "I've determined that we're living in a book, and I think I've found a way out." He was never heard from or spoken about again!)
Now, given that simulations such as this are possible, and computers are approaching the price of a cup of coffee, pretty soon we'll be able to run an almost infinite number of these simulations -- and we will.
So, given that there will be multitudes of these simulations, what are the chances that we're the first?
So we're this simulation running on some professor's computer, and the more cycles we take up (by working with smaller and smaller things, and by running multitudes of simulations inside these simulations!), the more of his computer we take up, until one day he swears at Microsoft and reboots.(*)
The Callback
So, if time is slowing down, then that simply means that we are using more processing power, ever since the universe began to evolve life. And since we're working with smaller and smaller things (and we can't seem to find "the smallest"!), we're using even more today.
Perhaps nanotechnology will be the death of us all.
How's that for a conspiracy theory?
Thing 1
(*) I usually end it with, "until one day he notices that the grad student is taking up too much of his computer, and tells him to shut it down." But I figured this audience would appreciate a slightly different version. ;-)
--
Let me postulate a theory:
1. There was life on Mars. One of their largest structures, which only partially survived, was a face.
2. The Martians thought, "The danger from the sky will never hit us," and 200 million years ago they didn't see it coming.
3. The impact was so great, they all perished; so great, in fact, that it blew chunks of the planet into Earth's path.
4. The building blocks of life were contained in ... Nah, that's going too far. ;-)
Nice conspiracy theory, even without 4. This tells me we need to devote more resources to our "eyes."
Thing 1
--
I sent ReplayTV an email requesting them to add DivX support in one of their nightly downloads.
According to this link, DivX takes just 15% of the space that MPEG-2 takes (the format used for DVDs, my satellite, and my ReplayTV).
If they could just add the software codec, then it would turn my 20 hour player into a 133 hour player!
It would even be worth paying $100 extra for this download. Not that I'm asking them to charge me, just that I understand how the market works (nobody does something for nothing except college kids). ;-)
Thing 1
--
See here for the story:
IBM unveils $100 million research initiative to build world's fastest supercomputer
"Blue Gene" to tackle protein folding grand challenge
Thing 1
--
AC wrote:
;-)
There is much debate about whether this is actually useful. One simple way to check would be to change the human genome structure so it never mutates, and see whether human progress over the next million years is obstructed
Actually, at this point in time with respect to technology, it won't matter one bit if we stop mutating.
Evolution has lost; the future belongs to engineering.
--
Check out TV Guide. From here you can get listing for your cable, satellite, or broadcast TV channels.
It would be fairly simple to write an interface to this site which can be used with a software-based TIVO/ReplayTV.
--
Someone could create a plugin to do this for you -- when you start Netscape or IE, it checks each of your Favorites/Bookmarks. It does this in the background, so it doesn't interrupt what you want to do. If it finds a broken link, it moves it into a Broken Links folder and highlights the folder red so the next time you pull down the Bookmarks/Favorites menu, you'll see that something broke.
This is the least intrusive behavior -- it doesn't need to popup to let you know, because it won't be of concern to you until you actually want to go somewhere else. And by moving them into another folder, it gives you a chance to review them and find out where the right link is, if it's something you still care about. I'd pay money to see something like this developed.
--
Some sort of genetically engineered plant or algae would be more realistic for planetary alterations
;-)
Scientists recently genetically engineered plants to grow faster. It's all coming to a head -- I love the idea of "singularity", it scares the heck out of people, getting them to donate to Foresight.
--
My brain doesn't "charge" my feet for resources that my heart sends to my feet.
We're becoming a global organism. Get with the program.
--
Yes, you see, I'm for democracy, not moneycracy.
The problem is, "one person one vote" is the equivalent of two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
There are always going to be more poor than rich. The system the way it's set up now rewards the poor with the rich's money.
No system in nature does this -- the weak are culled, not coddled.
What's my solution? I'd allow one vote per dollar in taxes paid. Note that this does not mean the rich get all the votes, as it's not based on your net worth -- he who puts more resources into the government has a larger say in how those resources are distributed. This is similar to shareholders in private companies, but with the provision that the shares you "purchase" in government disappear after you vote with them.
A wealthy individual or corporation may be able to sway policy for a while, but will soon run out of money if what they're trying to do runs against the natural order of things.
--
Why not give everyone a certain amount of moderator points per day? Then those who earn more will earn more per day instead.
;-)
Isn't that the point of a self-moderating system? To let all parts have a say?
Could have a text field that takes a number from -10 to 10 below each post, so as you're reading them, you can "comment" on the posts. This part should be free for all to use. People who earn more points get to add or subtract more, and use their points for the extra (above 10 or below -10).
Just an idea... Then people wouldn't have to post about not having moderator points. We should all have them!
Hey, if they don't do it someone else will.
--
(This was most likely a troll but I'll reply anyway.)
The ideas of capitalism and inheritance are not mutually exclusive. Or are you saying that people get to build their empire however they like while they're here, but when they die they have to give it all up?
What incentive would they then have to provide for their children, and their children's children? I'm not anti-freedom; I think you should have the freedom to do whatever you like with your own money, including giving it to your family, before or after you die.
I didn't say anything about monarchy, knights, or titles. All I said was let's make the system more efficient and reward recycling and reuse.
You can get the details at their site.
--
The FairTax has a provision for the poor and for essentials. No DoubleSpeak involved. See their site for the details.
The point being, those who want to purchase a luxury car can -- and those who want to be frugal and purchase a Honda Civic will get to keep more of their earnings. So it rewards efficiency, and puts the system in line with reality -- rather than the current system which rewards lying (and hoping you don't get audited).
I don't know about the rest of you, but I certainly prefer the carrot to the stick.
I'm not trolling, I'm putting my mouth where my money is -- I've already donated heavily to them in the hopes of keeping more of my IPO stock options.
--
with income tax, people are motivated to make more money, while with an expense tax they would motivated to buy less.
Actually, with an income tax people are motivated to hide their earnings.
With the FairTax, the only "collection points" for the IRS will be businesses -- you won't have to file a personal income tax, ever. This reduces the amount of work in collecting taxes by about 90%, which would make our government more efficient.
With an expense tax, people are motivated to make even more money -- because they know it won't be taken from them. And yes, they are motivated to spend less as well, but there's nothing wrong with that -- I'd much rather people learn to be frugal and support themselves than voting all my money to the government for programs to support them (which keep them dependent).
I'm not trolling. I've already given them lots of money, having made it at a startup and not wanting to lose it myself. This is the best answer I've found; rather than pointing out problems, try offering solutions.
Thanks,
Thing 1
--
Check out http://www.fairtax.org -- they're pushing for a sales tax on all new goods, and services (used goods won't be taxed). They'd eliminate the income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, and gift tax.
The benefits to most of the people reading this are huge. First of all, it's shifting the burden of taxation from income to expense. This is great -- if you waste less, you're "punished" less. Thus we have a system which rewards efficiency, and so recycling would be rewarded, not just something "we should do." (People rarely do something unless it's in their immediate best interest.)
In addition, many of us work for high-tech startups with stock options. Eliminating capital gains taxes gives you effectively 30% more of your millions, since most stock grants from startups prior to IPO are ridiculously low (i.e., buy it for $1 and sell it for $100, and you're taxed on 99% of your proceeds under today's system).
By eliminating capital gains, inheritance, and gift taxes, you can ensure that the wealth that you build throughout the trials and tribulations of your life is preserved for you and yours, not wasted on pork barrel projects in some other city or state that don't affect you at all (so why should you have to pay for it?).
I'm not affiliated with them in any way other than as a sponsor; I urge everyone who's already financially independent to donate (it's tax-deductible). If we can get this passed, then the return on your "investment" (in FairTax) will definitely be worth it.
An example: let's say you've got $100,000 in stock from employee options. If you sell it you'll pay something like $30,000. So donate $1,000 to FairTax, and when it passes you'll get an additional $29,000 when you sell! That's a 2900% return on your money.
ESR, CmdrTaco, Hemos: you've all got millions. You can have even more millions by helping this get passed.
Thanks for listening,
Thing 1
--