I’m just saying that cars can be fun and acting like they aren’t won’t get us anywhere.

Planes can be fun, too. Yachts can be fun. A spaceship to the Moon can be fun. But demanding the government give you a bunch of money to fund your Blue Origin vanity project goes a bit beyond “having fun”.

people in this community act like cars are the bane of all evil

40k motor vehicle fatalities a year can take the blush off the rose.

I mean, the statement “those young women, or many of them” is already pretty objectifying.

It’s describing them. Objectifying would be closer to “Those hot pieces of ass” or something equivalent. Reducing the individual to component parts.

But I also question what he can mean.

People posting their pictures on blast and then getting angry because you looked at them can seem a bit hypocritical. It’s the low-key version of celebrities complaining about being famous.

Microsoft is one of the platforms raking in heaps of money from dumb companies trying to jump on the AI bandwagon.

True. But one of their biggest customers is OpenAI. A big part of Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI comes in the form of free access to its data centers (which cost money to run, thus costing Microsoft in the short term). By taking advantage of OpenAI’s non-profit status, Microsoft was able to write off a bunch of those losses early on as tax deductions.

But they’re still losses.

Other firms using Microsoft to jump on the AI bandwagon might help make up the difference. But that’s like saying “I’m only doing some of my own heroin, so I still come out ahead”. Given the current rate of return on AI investments, the only truly correct investment value is $0.

You aren’t accounting for the opportunity cost of the taxes paid in the initial investment year.

If you’re maxing out your contributions, it won’t matter, except in so far as what you can earn on taxed income outside of the IRA account. That’s going to be marginal relative to the contribution. And the compound returns inside the IRA make it meaningless.

What this means is Roth is the preferable savings method if you are in a lower marginal tax rate than you expect to be in retirement.

Unless you’re going straight into a white shoe law firm or extraordinary paying tech job after you graduate, that’s pretty much everyone. But even folks going into Fortune 500 companies typically start in the $60-80k/year range and climb up from there.

If the marginal tax rate was the same when you invest and retire then the difference between Roth and traditional would be nil.

The amount of money you have in the fund is going to be much larger.

Say I invest $5000/year up front and get a 10% return for 40 years. I’m looking at putting in $200,000 over that time and taking out $2.2M.

Assuming the tax rate is 25% for each of those years, I paid $50k in taxes to invest that initial $200k. But I get the $2.2M back tax-free.

If I put the $200k in tax-deferred, I have to pay $550k to get my balance out again.

Now, we can argue that I could put the $400/year in deferred taxes into a taxable savings account. And maybe we get clever by shielding that investment from taxation annually because we just shove it all in Microsoft or Berkshire B and let it ride. That nets me another $177k over 40 years, assuming the same rate of return (for which I’m still on the hook at 15% long term gains rate - so really only $150k).

The ROTH is $350k better. That’s the whole reason the fund exists. It’s another accounting gimmick to give wealthy people a stealth tax cut. Only suckers put their money in Trad IRAs.

I think it really comes down to your view on future tax rates.

Unless you’re banking on a 0% tax, the ROTH is hard to beat. Compound that by the Traditional IRA being taxed at the normal rate rather than the capital gains rate, and there’s very little reason to use it unless you’re really bullish on tax cuts in the long term.

Say weird some more.

It looks like you’re being forced to notice the contradictions at last.

They’re seeing a flood of new investment, but they’re also absorbing huge losses from within their AI divisions.

The profits they’re reaping are in other sectors.

That’s all you need to read.

The fact that you think this tells me you’re utterly insincere.

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They’re racking in a ton of investment case on AI. I’m sure there’s also a slew of government contracts that keep this beast afloat.

But in terms of real value added to the economy? This seems like its just another Wall Street bubble waiting to pop.

Finally, don’t act like cars can’t be fun.

I feel like we’re getting into 2A territory with comments like this.

Take your race car to the race track. But the idea that trillions of dollars of infrastructure need to be committed for the casual amusement of a few muscle car enthusiasts… It rings especially hollow after complaining about the small-dick jokes.

We won’t convince people to see our side by shitting on the things they enjoy.

Creating a wedge between a small group of clueless entitled nitwits and a large group of people with basic transportation needs is actually a great way to define the terms of debate in a manner that favors mass transit.

A hundred people smiling away on a train versus one very red-faced failson in a sports car is a winning campaign poster.

For profit… somehow.

She agreed that he was a criminal when asked.

Hasan then pivoted to complaining about Jill calling Biden and Netanyahu criminals, while asserting our sponsorship of Israel isn’t relevant to the question of war criminality.

It’s all the freedom of the high seas until AI gets mentioned.

The issue isn’t quite so much copyright as privatization. And the distinction between “freedom on the high seas” and “AI” gets into the idea of the long term ownership of media.

One of the problems I run into, as a consumer of media, is that I can purchase a piece of content and then discover the service or medium I purchased it on has gone defunct. Maybe its an old video game with a console that’s broken or no longer able to hook up to my TV. Maybe its a movie I bought on a streaming service that no longer exists. Maybe its personal content I’ve created that I’d like to transfer between devices or extend to other people. Maybe its a piece of media I don’t trust sending through the mail, so I’d prefer to transfer it digitally. Maybe its a piece of media I can’t buy, because no one is selling it anymore.

Under the Torrent model, I can give or get a copy of a piece of media I already own in a format that my current set of devices support. Like with a library.

Under the AI model, somebody else gets to try and extort licensing fees from me for a thing they never legally possessed to begin with.

I see a huge distinction between these two methods of data ownership and distribution.

I’m surprised ISPs haven’t found a way to start issuing fines and fees for alleged copyright violations.

Unless you’re in the early-'00s MLB.

Irrelevant.

That’s what Mehdi Hasan is asserting, which is weird when you consider how Netanyahu and Putin are allies.

Why keep putting up this defense of Netanyahu if you’re so focused on getting Jill to denounce Putin? Why does Israel become this backdoor by which you can tacitly trade weapons and fossil fuels internationally?

If you had read the interview, you would have known that.

Have you read the interview? You don’t seem to want to acknowledge anything Hasan has actually said.

Is now a bad time to point out that Netanyahu and Putin are allies?

Weird that Hasan would work so hard to defend Netanyahu.

I think it’d be easier to take yes for an answer if she said the word yes.

She said the word yes.