What people don't discuss about the taxation is that rich people will universally pundit, preach, undermine, subvert, and squirm out of any law to tax themselves more. If you are preaching more taxes thinking it will affect the politically well-connected, it will be unwound and castrated by the politically well-connected. Or just deflected into somebody else's responsibility.
In that case, someone else is going to be holding the bill that you might not have intended.
I hate discussion of percentages, because every percentage seems reasonable by itself. It's the summation of the percentages that politicians have no interest in discussing.
In fact, it should be a requirement of government to sum the percentages of federal,state,medicare,social security, sales, resort, fuel, local levies, internet sales into one effective percentage that a given citizen in a given city has to pay.
Has anyone calculated that number for themselves? I've been collecting all my transactions and taxes to figure out what percentage of my income actually goes to taxes.
> Restricting the rights of those with the power making the rules never works.
Why use fallacy in argument? It's poor rhetoric and easily ignorable because it's a fallacy.
> Its best to just accept a certain level of corruption so its at least out in the open.
Or maybe it's best to uncover and destroy corruption as swiftly as possible.
> It is and always will happen, in fact it's part of the very foundation of power structures and cannot ever be removed.
Such black and white statements ignore the chilling, strongly deterrent effect of taking-down high-social-status people. In today's world, we hardly see examples of well-connected people being broken and losing their social status by being found corrupt and losing assets. In fact, I would argue there is practically no other way to have an effect on corruption without symbolically and visibly ruining corrupt people.
> All laws will do is increase the layers of deceit making it even more difficult to see why bad things are happening.
Laws should be a means to uncover and punish corruption. If a law isn't serving that purpose, it should be re-written and remade to be effective. Like you point out, laws are constantly under attack by deceit, and it should be the people's obligation to craft laws that can be nimble and adaptive to deceptive attacks from deceptive erosion by corrupted politicians.
> I always think it is weird that so many people that don't work in government have this odd belief that government work should basically be a vow of poverty.
The annual salary of a US Senator is $174,000... you think that is poverty?
> To pretend that people pursuing positions of power would accept universally that they should be poor is to deny human nature, which never works.
This point you raise is an excellent point and should be the focus of government. It should be codified into law that "we cannot trust ourselves to be uncorruptible, therefore it is necessary for government to demonstrate exemplary denial-of-human-nature via sacrifice, service, and swearing of vow of poverty."
My words can't do this theme justice. It's much larger and existential than simple words. The strife of humanity is the two sides of the existential coin: on one side, you can dedicate yourself to collecting money as a demonstration of your worth/genetics/legacy/etc; on the other side, you can demonstrate your understanding of the moral failures of men and use wisdom to demonstrate your worth/genetics/legacy.
> The annual salary of a US Senator is $174,000... you think that is poverty?
DC is expensive, they have to maintain two households, and a lot of travel and eating out. That salary largely makes it the realm of the independently wealthy, or at least the well-off.
>The annual salary of a US Senator is $174,000... you think that is poverty?
You are proving my point. This cherry pick data point always comes up. One of the highest most powerful government jobs which there are a small fixed number of in existence, pays what is barely average for a mid career professional.
The overwhelming majority (state,city,county,federal) of elected positions pays closer to under <$45k a year (it might be less but thats close enough for discussion).Also remember there are far more non federal elected jobs out there. At these rates why would anyone with a logical brain go into politics unless they fully intend to manipulate the system to their own ends? Climbing the ladder till they reach something like senator where they can really stuff their pockets?
What is the email app equivalent to VoidTools 'Everything'. Blazingly fast with no wasteful focus on UI design concepts like ribbons, color palettes, etc. Just full effort to have the fastest search algorithm possible with async streaming of results to the UI and all efforts placed on searching/filtering/tagging,etc.
The Bat! is a Windows client that focused on those things to a large extent. However, the fact that RitLabs are based on Moldova gives me pause. It did have MAPI support, so it was somewhat workable in company situations which used Outlook.
Yeah, I think every programmer experiences the "I should write a language" moment when the solution to the problem is abstracted to be the language itself.
This might be a little over my head, but i'm not understanding how the balanced parenthesis is conveying anything other than the topology of the tree structure. Are we not accounting for the bits required for a pointer in memory to an object? Or simply the bits required to guarantee the uniqueness of a node in the tree?
I have the impression from reading history books that the workforce at the time of World War 2 was uniquely specialized and widely available. There were many machinists that had special knowledge and experience of how to run their lathes, presses, etc. This workforce was involved in the assembly line of passenger cars, so you had expert machinists involved in producing passenger cars which made expertise widely available. Because of their knowledge, they could easily pivot to an armored vehicle (for example).
In today's world the assembly line itself is derived from CAD, robot CNC machines, and the workforce is not specialized. The workforce consists of "assemblers" and machine operators, moreso than "machinists" or "machine designers"
This difference between workforces is a potentially profound difference.
Good points, although a nit that I'd characterize the workforce as more specialized today rather than less. Didn't the old-school machinists have more knowledge over the full range of production processes, vs a CAD drafter vs a Fanuc CNC operator, vs an assembler?
That said, I'd still say having one capability today still makes a far shorter path to convert from Civ-to-Mil output. I run a carbon-fiber composites shop that does everything from design through materials, CAD, CAM, moldmaking, forming with multiple technologies, CNC machining, and assembly. It would be a straightforward task to setup for new Mil products (and not just because we already do some Mil work), especially compared to not having it at all.
It's the same situation with Rust in the Linux kernel. People keep upvoting the outrage wanting more Rust, but if you look at any other non-kernel related Rust discourse it's just a giant mixed bag.
An ad interrupted my video today, it was Tom Hanks in a podcast talking about his prostate.
The ad was (not so obviously) AI generated; both an AI clone of his voice and an AI-generated face-swap/ lip replacement.
This seemed pretty surprising because it was fairly convincing. He looks like he is saying the dialog of the ad.
It's surprising because there's no way the creator of the ad got Hanks' approval to use his likeness; meanwhile Youtube is profiting by selling the ad. Seems illegal, yet i'm forced to watch the garbage.
The ad in general is part of a similar trend I've been seeing of these AI generated voices speaking fast about prostates or large eggplants (if you know what I mean) used with influencers' or podcasters' likenesses. I would never click on the garbage, and it's probably a scam anyway.
I just scratch my head wondering if this massive company realizes the garbage they are forcing into our lives.
At this point, if someone is not using UBlock and Revanced, it is 100% their fault. Megacorps has very clearly told us that they want ever profits even if it destroys lives, our planet and our future.
I have had premium on a family plan for almost as long as it has existed. It's great to add family members who use YouTube on their televisions giving them an ad-free experience without the shenanigans of setting up blockers at a network level.
I very much don't understand the opposition to paying for some of the services we use every day. I get not wanted to pay 15-20/month for something like Apple or Disney, if you only want to watch a single show/film. But people act like you are crazy for paying for YouTube or Twitch, meanwhile they lose countless hours experiencing the frustration of advertisements. It's common to find discussions online where people are both completely opposed to paying for YouTube, with no real justification for that position, and highly upset at having to watch ads. Same goes for Twitch, which is arguably worse as the ads interrupt live broadcasts.
I use adblock everywhere else, but I thoroughly enjoy not having to worry about it on the platforms I use the most. It's not a scam to pay for something you use and enjoy every day.
Why do you not see the issue with some of us not wanting to give fraudulent extorting thieves money? The previous comment was pretty clear and blatant in it's example of unethical immoral even illegal advertisement...and your only reply is why not pay to stop it!
What's next.... Pay this subscription or we will install malware?or break your windows?
If you watch YouTube with an ad blocker, you are still watching YouTube and not supporting a more ethical alternative. Sure, you are not giving YouTube any money, but you are still supporting their dominant position.
It’s not creators’ fault the platform does this. YouTube just isn’t going away anytime soon, whether we like that or not, so it makes plenty of sense to spend a bit and give those creators a little bit more revenue from my view. It also feels maybe a bit more ethical that the revenue generated from my view comes from my pocket, rather than a scammer’s stolen funds. Or, well, just declaring for yourself that creators don’t need to be paid. (Yes, there are alternative ways of paying creators like Patreon that you should also consider using, but you also aren’t going to subscribe to the Patreon of every channel you watch.)
I don't even care about any of that. I simply don't want to log into youtube because the recommendations inevitably turn to shit and I don't want to be stuck with them. The only sane way to use youtube is to never log in and nuke the session every week or so.
YouTube recommendations have worked very well for me. I listen to a lot of talks and if it weren't for the recommendations I wouldn't have discovered some very interesting talks or even areas. The only time the recommendations derail is when I have guests over and they login into my account (because that's the one always logged in on my roku). But that is expected. And it's easy to get rid of, by deleting the history in a custom date range, or simply by continuing to watch the kind of stuff I was watching earlier.
You can turn watch history off, and then you don’t get any recommendations at all - just the channels you subscribe to. YouTube doesn’t like it - and goes out of its way to make the apps feel a bit broken with out it, but I much prefer to curate my own list of channels without an algorithm trying to keep me watching longer than I mean to.
Right, I will reward youtube with my money when youtube creators don't feel like they are being chewed up by a machine for pennies and don't constantly have their businesses threatened from abhorrent things like "Showing footage from historical bad events" and "Saying fuck a few times".
I will pay youtube when they change the algorithm and system to not reward clickbait, not reward god awful thumbnails, not reward literal lies, not penalize a channel for a single poorly performing video, etc.
Look at how Disney, Prime, Netflix etc. are constantly jacking up their prices and introducing ads in paid tiers. There is zero reason why Google won't do the same.
Fair, but YouTube is imo one of those services that seems pretty fair about price increases. Disclaimer: pricing is regional, so I can only speak for the US pricing (as that’s what I personally dealt with).
It was $7.99 on launch in 2014 (as an early adopter price that they actually let people keep until 2024), $9.99 in 2016, to $11.99 in 2018 (for new subscribers only, you could still keep the old price if you were already paying), to $13.99 in 2024.
While the 2024 was rather steep, it imo doesn’t seem unreasonable (especially for the family plan that went from $17.99 to $22.99, which lets up to 5 people join with their own Goog accounts).
Sidenote: I personally don’t care in the slightest whether people decide to pay for this or just watch with ads or deal with adblockers (or other workarounds). But discussions of YT premium on HN have been a major eye opener for me, as they made me stop believing entirely in all the claims I see on HN in regards to “omg only if Facebook (or any other popular service that is free but makes money through ads) allowed a paid tier without ads, I would instantly pay, as this is an honest business model I support [followed by a large support of that opinion in replies]”. I always took them as genuine takes, but turns out that if even on HN that doesn’t end up holding true (given the discussion in this thread), it stands no chance among the general population.
As for me, I am glad that this option exists, simply because Youtube is one of those online services I peruse quite a lot, and not having to deal with their ads (or even thinking about them or being aware they exist) has been something I am glad to pay the amount they are asking for. Plus, I genuinely support the model of being able to pay a small amount instead of dealing with free-by-making-money-through-ads, especially for services that I spend a ton of time using.
Neither solutions are stopping what is an en-masse creation of fake AI auto-generated content that's impersonating famous celebrities. The example above was ads, but I'm seeing actual youtube videos that clearly mimick the name and likeness of famous people. With barely 2k views, yet they pop up on my feed.
E.g. names like: "Teylor Swift" or "Hilary Clinton". I.e. the difference between the name of the account and an actual real account name is literally 1 letter. You want to tell me that Youtube can auto-detect music playing in videos, and do advanced AI attribution of music to artists, etc... But it can't spawn a manual review process or flag if an account is created with 1 minor letter change?
This! There are SO MANY borderline nsfw ads on YouTube now. All with AI voices and deepfaked faces. Often the same exact script, but a different face and slightly varied stock footage mixed in.
A simple word filter for “this one simple trick” or “get your _ rock hard” could catch all of these ads. But I guess YouTube makes money off of it, so they have no real incentive to fix the problem.
I even recently got a gun ad with an AI voiceover. Advertising features such as how you “don’t need a license” and it’s “easy to sneak through security”.
Reported that one to YouTube a week ago. Not sure if the ad is still running, but the unlisted video is still up a week later, and it has 2 million views! (Some (all?) ads are just an unlisted video you can grab the id to.) There are multiple comments on it asking how it’s allowed, or saying how they reported it. (As well as a terrifyingly many, possibly bot comments, asking how to buy the item)
It’s breaking TOS in so many ways. There’s a transcript of the video. Videos that contain too many swear words get automatically marked as adult content or demonetized, but they seemingly allow anything in advertisements.
Most ads are less than a minute! If any human at YouTube glanced at the ad for even a second they could remove it and ban the account. Something which should happen before showing the ad to millions.
> I just scratch my head wondering if this massive company realizes the garbage they are forcing into our lives.
I know someone who works on the technical side of a national newspaper and he has been happy and encouraged me to continue when I pointed out scammy ads ("Japanese knives" and that sort of things).
Seems they don't vet ads individually but can take down ads they become aware of.
With Google however it seems to me money is all that matters.
Advertising like that occurs in an open marketplace where pretty much anyone can place a bid. Some publishers have vendors that help and can set up rules, private marketplaces, etc. but effectively anyone can advertise on your site by default.
> The ads lead users to a page on “thrivewithcuriosity.com,” where after confirming they are “40+” years old, they are shown a meandering and very explicit 40-minute long presentation about the miracle drug that is getting men including celebrities, strippers, and adult performers “rock hard.”
normalize the 40+ age check
> Notably, the ingredients do not include “midnight beetle powder,” which the long video pitching Prolong Power explains is the secret ingredient that gave the church bats their magnificent erections.
The article is from December 4th? Crazy that the ads are still running. I saw the same type of ad just a few days ago.
I get that it’s a cat and mouse game, and the advertisers are going to keep tweaking the ad and re-uploading it. But surely YouTube can detect literally any of the keywords. The ad I saw the other day still uses the same general script as what’s in the article.
Honestly, I really appreciate the bizarre, half-ass creativity that goes into these ads. I'm sad I missed this:
> The video takes viewers on a bizarre journey from a strip club in Texas to a fake Harvard urologist’s office to an abandoned church in Thailand where scientists discovered a species of bat with abnormally large and long-lasting erections. Along the way, deepfake videos of everyone from Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, and adult entertainment star Johnny Sins are made to say they have been quietly using this secret formula to last longer in bed. The video eventually concludes by offering viewers the opportunity to buy six bottles or 180 days-worth of Prolong Power at $49 per bottle.
Someone showed me a polished ad for some crypto thing, but when I looked at the code the ad wanted you to run it had a bunch of obfuscation that redirected everything you owned to a specific wallet address. I checked six weeks later and YouTube was still running the ad. The wallet had something on the order of $20m added to it in that time.
I now hate YouTube so much because of ads that I wonder which is WORSE for their company — watching the ads or paying for premium, just to take the option that gives them least benefit.
We can talk about what kinds of ads are appropriate but the right to use YouTube without paying either in money or time spent watching ads has never, will never, and does not currently exist.
This is a deeply interesting comment. Obviously, YouTube began and spent several years as an ad-free, subscription-free platform, so to state that no one has ever had the "right" to use YouTube without paying or watching ads is patently false. But why would someone make such statement? Are they too young to remember an ad-free YouTube? Do they have some vested interest in pushing the idea that the YT user experience has never been and never could be more consumer-friendly than it is? Has the state of political rhetoric in 2025 - the age of Applied Big Brother, where simply stating one's preferred history makes it "real" - trickled down to normal discourse?
Who knows? Anyway, I use an adblocker and Grayjay.
People can offer, graciously or not, you something for free.
They can then change their mind.
You are not entitled to it, you never had any “right” to it, and no force real or imagined in the universe will make that so.
I believe that payment in “exposure” is exploitative bullshit and many of my favorite video makers rely on revenue from YouTube as a not-insignificant portion of their income, so I pay.
Terms of Service say otherwise. Until the ads came in, users absolutely had a "right" to access YouTube's services for free. I'm sorry that you misspoke.
… but look! NEW HUE! We’re not diluting it either!
I could tolerate Mozilla’s annual pontifications on colour and shape, but YouTube is tone deaf. The design changes they are making aren’t going to shape or mitigate the harm the ads they host are bringing.
In that case, someone else is going to be holding the bill that you might not have intended.
I hate discussion of percentages, because every percentage seems reasonable by itself. It's the summation of the percentages that politicians have no interest in discussing.
In fact, it should be a requirement of government to sum the percentages of federal,state,medicare,social security, sales, resort, fuel, local levies, internet sales into one effective percentage that a given citizen in a given city has to pay.
Has anyone calculated that number for themselves? I've been collecting all my transactions and taxes to figure out what percentage of my income actually goes to taxes.
reply