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Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by highly concentrated power, limited political pluralism, and the suppression of dissent, often enforced by a charismatic leader or elite group .

A mandate is an authoritative command, order, or authorization to act, typically given by a higher authority, such as voters, a court, or a governing body .

So in the sense that a mandate is passed by government, and governments are sometimes authoritarian? If your logic is stronger than that you'll need to explain it to me. I'm not saying Asian countries are not authoritarian, I take no stance on that, I just genuinely don't understand how mandates imply authoritarianism.


Syncing them with electricity is easy. The hard part is preventing export to the grid which requires either a compatible smart meter that can communicate with your panels or a transformer clamp installed by an electrician. My understanding is some meters measure both directions equally so if you do end up exporting power you can conceivably increase your utility bill.

Why is preventing export hard? Just shut down production when the grid is down, which is how plug-in solar systems work.

You will still export when the grid is up if your solar generates more power than you use at any moment.

The grid doesn't need to be down, your solar just needs to produce more than you're using.

Why would you want to prevent export?

We just got rooftop solar in Canada. Our meter was old and had to be upgraded to bidirectional.

We were warned if we turned on the system before the meter upgrade the old meter would sum together power coming from the grid and power going into it from our solar and we would be billed for the combined.

So with some old meters you don’t want to put power into the grid.


Plug in solar must be zero export to bypass utility approval process.

Interesting, why? That is not the case where I live.

You must live in Europe. Not entirely sure but that's the way things are going in North America, as far as I know all the proposed legislation here is zero export. I guess one concern is local grid instability if too much power is generated this way. Also if for example you put a plug in solar on the same circuit as an appliance that uses its power then the breaker doesn't "see" this usage but it still heats up the wire just the same leading to fire risk, but not sure if this has ever been demonstrated or just theoretical. And also there's the old meters still around that don't measure bidirectionally, so those will just roll back or roll forward each way, neither desirable.

I don't interpret your statistic the same way you do and I don't think it backs your point. Some of the difference between that 11% and 33% you quote are due to the fact that gas is baseline cheaper in the US than China, and a mere denominator difference doesn't prove one more reliant than the other on gas when it goes up by a flat rate, which is how oil prices generally impact gas prices. Another factor you're failing to consider is the possibility that economic headwinds due to oil prices or any other factor really (you're trying to model an extremely complex system here and the war can affect these two economies in many other ways) impact Chinese demand for gas (driven by their mfg sector) more than American demand for gas (driven by broader factors) - maybe cargo price, currency, shift of demand from consumer to military, or who knows what are causing the things you see. I don't claim to have the answer, I am just saying your measure is totally insufficient to prove your point. You're correct that it's a global commodity that impacts everyone but most experts agree that it impacts east Asia more than the US.

I just want to point out one disagreement I had:

"Take desalination plants as an example. Yes Iran has those too but Iran also has significant snow melt as a source of water, Mountains, remember? Iran has ski resorts they have that much snow."

Iran is in a dire situation with its water supply. It used to rely on an ancient system of ancient Qanat wells that only provide a fixed amount of water that can't be overdrawn, but in their quest to be self sufficient in terms of food they have gone to groundwater instead. The Qanats haven't been maintained so their output has reduced, probably permanently to some extent, and the ground water table is running dry to the extent that they are considering moving their capital.


Source for the risk going up by 10x? Wild claim

The difference between microtransaction today and trash in the past is that the old games achieved success by not being trash. Yes trash existed but it was generally not successful and the market generally rewarded quality so the money and dev effort went into quality games. Today the money is made by gacha games so that's where the effort goes. Not the same imo.


There was plenty of movie tie-in shovelware that sold well. ET is obviously the infamous example, but this continued to go on into the 3D era. Sports games too. They aren't universally bad, but often they succeeded just because they have the official license. It's just like any kind of media, bad stuff can succeed because of deceptive marketing or slapping a familiar name on garbage.

This is all a vast oversimplification. There are obviously hundreds of games coming out every year without gacha mechanics.


I'm not familiar with the details of the situation but the tunnel is being used for transit either way right? If someone used to rely on busses in that tunnel aren't they vastly more likely to switch to whatever replacement is in the tunnel (rail?) than a car?


Global commodities are not competitive?


What commodity isn't ruled by intergovernmental agreements, a cartel, a monopsony or something else?

Please name just one.


Gold


Gold isn't really a commodity. It's mostly used and traded as an asset.


What is your source for the nitecore being higher capacity than the equivalently rated haribo? All primary sources I've seen so far indicate they are comparable at 70-75%


Because physical presence incurs costs to taxpayer funded infrastructure? Why should I be able to dodge taxes by working remotely abroad? Are you saying independently wealthy people should be able to roam around and freeload without paying tax to their resident nation?

In the US many people falsely believe illegal immigrants do exactly that, and that lie has contributed to a lot of outrage, so obviously people perceive the system you're proposing as unjust.


>>Because physical presence incurs costs to taxpayer funded infrastructure? Why should I be able to dodge taxes by working remotely abroad? Are you saying independently wealthy people should be able to roam around and freeload without paying tax to their resident nation?

Yeah so tax their presence: land, resources usage, consumption. If you insist on taxing their whole world wide revenue don't be surprised when someone living across multiple countries choose one that isn't yours and then you get 0 taxes.

I live across 4-5 countries spending a few months here and there. Fair system would tax me for my presence/consumption/resource usage accordingly. That tax might be progressive (bigger house taxed at higher rate, luxury consumption taxes at higher rate etc.) but shouldn't belong to one country if you care about fairness.


In the US most things are funded by income and payroll tax, the taxes you mention add up to about 30% of our budget so are not enough on their own. In addition I am unconvinced that it is even possible for consumption taxes to be progressive enough to make up for their inherent regressivity at high income levels. I do think it would be reasonable for the global tax to be prorated by time spent in the US though, which would solve your objection.


But illegal immigrants indeed does not pay taxes in the place of residence, why "falsely"?


> Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Most of that amount, $59.4 billion, was paid to the federal government while the remaining $37.3 billion was paid to state and local governments.

https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/


I get property and sales taxes, but how are they paying income tax? Shouldn’t they have a SSN for that?


They often use fake or stolen SSNs. That also means they're paying Social Security and Medicare taxes but will never collect those benefits.


Tax Identification Numbers are a separate ID number for people without SSNs. Loads of legal migrants don't have SSNs but still pay taxes as well.


But still, wouldn't you need some valid status to get one of those? I know from friends that had to get it for their child that they had to prove status if I remember correctly.


You do not need to prove any kind of status other than you are a foreigner and this is your identity. A foreign voter registration card, a foreign national ID card, or a USCIS-issued photo ID card can all be valid. It doesn't inherently mean you have the right to stay or work in the US.

That's a part of why there was a lot of hubub about ICE searching the IRS's databases for potential targets. There are a lot of people who are probably working in the US paying income taxes without authorization to stay or work in the US. The IRS generally doesn't care about your immigration status, it just cares about collecting taxes.


You can get a tax identification number without an SSN.

An illegal / undocumented worker working a standard W-2 paycheck job is going to have taxes withheld and sent in by the employer, even if they never file their own tax return.


It is not like that, usually immigrants live in grey arey keeping all contacts with govt to the minimum, the whole idea of hiring illegals is to avoid taxes. I know that from personal experience of being illegal immigrant in US of very close person.


Some might be using faked documents to get a 'legit' job, in which case the job will withhold and pay taxes like any other legal employee. That's what the report I linked to is showing.


Did you read the link above? The average immigrant pays $9000 in tax per year.


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