ulyssessword

Karma: 91

ulyssessword 18 Feb 2025 6:59 UTC
8 points
7
in reply to: Ariel’s comment on: Born on Third Base: The Case for Inheriting Nothing and Building Everything
At the point of death, presumably, the person whose labour is seized does not exist. I think that’s a good point to consider, since I also estimate that a significant amount of resistance to the idea of no inheritance assumes the dead person’s will is a moral factor after their death.
Yes, I make that assumption. I believe I’m in very good company there, with both the general public and (many, but not all) decision theories/moral systems recognizing agreements that carry on past death. Why would you think otherwise?
I also don’t agree that you’re effectively limiting people’s power of affecting causes they care about to what the government would do with the money, since people have other causes they care about besides their offspring, even if to a lesser degree, and...
I’m not quite sure what this post’s hypothetical is supposed to be, but sure. Let’s say that charitable donations are fully exempt from the tax.
People don’t care about charity to any substantial extent. Donation rates are around 4%, whereas raising a child averages 15%ish per child for nearly half of a parent’s career, never mind the non-financial investments in their wellbeing. It’s not a complete restriction on giving, but it cuts out the most important one in many peoples’ lives.
Allowing for charitable donations as an alternative to simple taxation does shift the needle a bit but not enough to substantially alter the argument IMO.
… are free to spend their money while alive to advance those.
No, they absolutely are not. Spending your money before your death is heavily constrained by uncertainty. The chance of sudden unexpected death between 20-64 totals about 1.5% (calculated from here), and the anti-loophole protections would catch more. Even outside of the worst-case scenarios, you will always die before a sufficiently-optimistic estimate (and if you aren’t optimistic enough? Have fun living out your last days while completely broke, I guess.)
A relevant point I don’t have an opinion on is whether the offsprings of a person are better stewards of that person’s former wealth than the government.
To be clear, I was talking about the parents being good stewards by managing the wealth for the benefit of future generations (i.e. Bob, and perhaps his kids). I have opinions about how effective the government would be compared to the children, but those differences pale in comparison to tearing everything down to get the last drop of value out before you die and lose it all.

ulyssessword 18 Feb 2025 1:53 UTC
48 points
37
on: Born on Third Base: The Case for Inheriting Nothing and Building Everything
Inheritance is not about the children.
You ask whose labour is seized by a 100% death tax? The parents’ labour. That’s obvious enough that I feel I must be missing something. What was your (presumably?) rhetorical question supposed to make me consider?
Inheritance is a way to get people to contribute towards prosperity for the future of the human race...by convincing them to contribute towards the prosperity of Bob, their beloved son. Maybe you don’t need a personal connection to take selfless actions, but that’s not universal: I bet that a 100% death tax world would have a lot more golf courses and cruise ships funded by reverse mortgages and premature sales of family businesses.
A low inheritance tax tells people that they can have a direct impact on a cause they care about (usually their children) after their death. A 100% death tax tells people that they can have as much of an impact as typical government funding on the causes the government spends money on.
I know which one would motivate me to be a better steward of my wealth.

ulyssessword 5 Sep 2024 6:00 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: bhauth’s comment on: on Science Beakers and DDT
Key paragraph:
The A-12 “practically spawned its own industrial base” (CIA 2012), and over the course of the program thousands of machinists, mechanics, fabricators, and other personnel were trained in how to work with titanium efficiently. As Lockheed gained production experience with titanium, it issued reports to the Air Force and to its vendors on production methods, and “set up training classes for machinists, a complete research facility for developing tools and procedures, and issued research contracts to competent outside vendors to develop improved equipment” (Johnson 1970).
The 1952 symposium is clearly a precursor to its 1959-1964 production and development, and the 1966 one is drawing from the experiences of the industrial base it created.
EDIT: and more directly:
What can we learn from the story of titanium?
For one, titanium is a government research success story. Titanium metal was essentially willed into existence by the US government, which searched for a promising production process, successfully scaled it up when it found one, and performed much of the initial research on titanium’s material properties, potential alloys, and manufacturing methods. Nearly all early demand for titanium was for government aerospace projects, and when the nascent industry struggled, the government stepped in to subsidize production. As a result, titanium achieved a level of production in 10 years that took aluminum and magnesium nearly 30.

ulyssessword 5 Sep 2024 4:58 UTC
13 points
0
on: on Science Beakers and DDT
I think you’re overstating your case on Science Beakers. Take the example of titanium, as described here. In short, what happened was:
1. Basic research happened, leading to small-scale production and basic knowledge of its properties.
2. People (including the US government) started spending science beakers on the Titanium tech node.
3. Through experience and research, they learned stuff like the fact that cadmium-coated wrenches are bad.
4. Now, we can effectively work titanium.
If it wasn’t for the A-12 project (and its precursors and successors), then we simply wouldn’t be able to build things out of titanium. No reasonable amount of non-titanium background research would get an engineer to check their marking pen for chloride-based inks or discover osseointegration.
I haven’t looked into supersonic flight technology, but I’d be shocked if they discovered nothing new from the design and operation of the Concorde.

ulyssessword 16 Jul 2024 4:43 UTC
6 points
4
on: Why People in Poverty Make Bad Decisions
What are the interactive elements? I didn’t see any, so I’m curious what the “full experience” was supposed to be.

ulyssessword 22 Sep 2023 6:00 UTC
7 points
2
on: Contra Kevin Dorst’s Rational Polarization
I’d like to take Kevin’s $0.02 in the coin-flipping word search.
First, I’ll buy a prediction contract that I will flip Heads. This will cost $0.50 for a $1 payout.
Second, I’ll buy the right to a futures contract: After the word is revealed and his search is complete, I will be given a prediction contract which pays $1 if Tails is revealed. If his expected posterior for Heads is 0.52 then the futures contract would have a value of $0.48.
In aggregate, I’ve paid $0.98 for a guaranteed $1.00 return.

ulyssessword 7 Nov 2022 10:25 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: Sable’s comment on: Word-Distance vs Idea-Distance: The Case for Lanoitaring
The eutectic and eutectoid points are quite similar ideas: both are about a homogeneous material that changes into a mixture of two solid phases as it cools. However, eutectic goes from a liquid to a pair of solid phases (liquid iron into the austenite and cementite phases in the example above), while eutectoid goes from one solid phase to two (austenite into ferrite and cementite).
If you wanted to use the same word for both points, then you’d need some other way of disambiguating them. Maybe the “austenite easy transition point” and “liquid easy transition point”?

ulyssessword 6 Nov 2022 17:30 UTC
1 point
0
on: Word-Distance vs Idea-Distance: The Case for Lanoitaring
I don’t think that giving similar-meaning words similar labels is a good idea. In one class, I had to struggle to distinguish between:
- hypoeutectoid (“less than well-melting-ish”, such as steel with 0.022%-0.76% carbon)
- hypereutectoid (“more than well-melting-ish”, such as steel with 0.76%-2.14% carbon)
- hypoeutectic (“less than well-melting”, such as cast iron with 2.14%-4.30% carbon)
- hypereutectic (“more than well-melting”, such as cast iron with >4.30% carbon)
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutectic_system#Eutectoid for more details)
Although hypo- and hyper- don’t conform to your system (they have opposite meanings but similar sounds), -oid and -ic do, and it causes confusion and misunderstanding.

ulyssessword 15 Jul 2022 6:07 UTC
13 points
0
on: Upcoming heatwave: advice
Re: dehumidifiers
A standalone dehumidifier will heat the air more than sweating can cool it. You can see that from conservation of energy and thermodynamics: evaporating water (eg. when you sweat) absorbs heat , and condensing water (eg. in a dehumidifier) releases an equal amount. You also need to pay a bit of extra energy to run the machine and to overcome entropy.
Using an air conditioner to dehumidify doesn’t have that same problem, as it vents the heat outside.