unwarlikeExtortion

Just as believing in a deity gives you a 50% chance of salvation.

It ain't plain if it's with butter

No need to cry!

Let me reiterate it - it's not inherently a bad idea.

The wheat tax wasn't inherently bad (well, other than taking food from the already-starving population, but that isn't the problem of the way the tax inherently works, but of how it is used): the main problem was: it was too successfull. The wheat tax was meant to provide the Church with bread. The church took 10% of every household's grown wheat and they got way too much, so the wheat spoiled. Then they switched to a monetary tax, since money doesn't spoil as easily, and they could use it for more stuff than just baking bread.

These two reasons are why the tax isn't used anymore. But, again, it's not inherently a bad idea.

This model can easily be adapted to work properly. Medical procedures aren't things that "spoil", and there's steady demand for them. It could also work for stuff like housing (anyone building a hotel or an apartment complex for-profit has to make, say, the same 10% for the government), and even retail (if stores had to give even 1 item for every 100 items sold to a public kithen, the kitchens would be overflowing nationwide).

Honestly, this is the way to go. The capitalists just don't want that. They'll be the first ones to point out how it was a feudal-era tax, how people weren't free, and how it wouldn't work in reality (when itsure as hell would). They'd say it isn't practical: foodstuffs spoil, for example - but we're not living in the Middle ages anymore - we have bookkeeping, abd the government could decide to "take" their "fair share" to the kitchen when the demand, well, demands.

The first option is very close to this, but the money is a problem. Once we achieve a near-moneyless, near-classless society where inflation isn't a concern, even that model would work. But, for now we'll have to stick to this, sincethis is implementable in the current society.

That's still a lot.

1. They know what videos you click (obviously)

2. They know when you click them

3. They know how much you watch each of the videos

4. They know how many times you click on the videos

5. Depending on the platform/client/browser/search engine implementation, they see what videos are shown to you before you click on them (thumbnail gets fetched, autoplay, pre-loading, etc.)

6. If someone sent you the link, they most likely know who's sent you the link (through a reference ID)

7. The person who's sent you this is probably logged in, so they know them by name, DoB, interests, etc. From here on out they can guess your own membership of certain statistical cohortsa bit better then through yourown clickinglinks alone.

And a host of other things - where you're located (IP address), what type of connection you're on (IP address + bandwidth), what type of device, what browser/client, etc.

This is just of the top of my head.

Don't mean to scare anyone with this, but it is inherently spooky at the very least.

Your idea is kind of sound, but it really depends on how you implement the "negative" money.

You can just choose not to pay off the public debt. That will, effectively, make you print infinite money, and we all know how much corpos like to use and very much abuse inflation. Your idea'd fall quick.

An alternative is to charge the provider for the service they're providing, or someone with deep pockets who could. This seems much sounder of a wax to go to me. For example, if someone is building a hotel with 500 rooms, say they have to build an additional 30 apartments meant to house a 4-member family. Or, say you keep the asinine US health insurance system, but for every procedure they charge, they have to make one for free. Who they give it to is chosen by the government. This is effectively a form of "negative" taxation. Shame it's basically a revive of the feudal-era "Wheat tax".

Dark mode can be recreated using extensions, although the colors most likely won't be as legible as "native support".

I don't see why a similar extrnsion couldn't change the timezones of clocks.

Additionally, I don't see why the server should bother with either (pragmatically) - Dark mode is just a CSS switch and timezones could be flagged to be "localized" by the browser. No need for extra bandwidth or computing power on the server end, and the overhead would be very low (a few more lines of CSS sent).

Of course, I know why they bother - Ad networks do a lot more than "just" show ads, and most websites also like to gobble any data they can.

Oh, nicotine is way worse. It may not harm your health directly, but addictiveness is exponentially worse.

Wikipedia: Caffeine - Dependence and Withdrawal: Moderately physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms may occur upon abstinence, with greater than 100 mg caffeine per day, although these symptoms last no longer than a day

Wikipedia: Nicotine withdrawal: Symptoms are usually strongest for the first few days and then dissipate over 2–4 weeks (...) In a minority of smokers, cravings may persist for years.

Edit: Left out the "Caffeine" in "Caffeine - Dependance and Withdrawal"

Edit to add: Caffeine withdrawal causes you to be annoyed for a day. Nicotine causes real, actual cravings (you know you need nicotine, whereas for caffeine you're just generally "moody" - most people don't feel "i need caffeine, now", and even if you do, chances are, if you run out of coffee and can't get it within less than a day, the "craving" just stops).

For some, many of whom I know, quitting nicotine is downright impossible due to the cravings. For quitting, toning down is key. Those that quit either relapse momentarily in times of stress (usually for about a week or so), or complain of very strong cravings every few weeks/months.

Additionally, nicotine isn't the only addictive compound in cigarettes, and from what I've heard, vaping, gum, etc. just isn't it for some - people also get addicted to cigatettes themselves.

Not to mention, vaping causes pneumothorax and all the other alternatives cause some harm as well, although much less than cigarettes proper.

Let's just settle on SI, Schrödiger intelligence.