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Sin Tax

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Re: Sin Tax

Unread postby mousepad » Thu 09 Jul 2020, 18:05:00

JuanP wrote:homes, have no mortgages, and many have a beach house and/or a farm or countryside place, too.


Probably not.
A random street view in montevideo, with metal bars in front of every window doesn't convince me that uruguay is the paradise you claim it to be.

free education, and free healthcare and medications?.


A quick search in montevideo showed numerous private clinics. It seems that the free healthcare is worth as much as you pay for and everybody who can afford it goes (and pays) in private clinics.

It's similar in mexico by the way, which also has free healthcare. But by the time you get to see a doctor you're already dead.
A 2 month waiting period when you're having a heart attack simply ain't that good, even if it's free.
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Re: Sin Tax

Unread postby REAL Green » Thu 09 Jul 2020, 19:35:50

mousepad wrote:A random street view in montevideo, with metal bars in front of every window doesn't convince me that uruguay is the paradise you claim it to be...A quick search in montevideo showed numerous private clinics. It seems that the free healthcare is worth as much as you pay for and everybody who can afford it goes (and pays) in private clinics.


Mouse Pad, If Uruguay is so wonderful I wonder why JuanP is not down there. Instead he is in Miami Beach whining about how awful the US is. Sounds like a personality disorder to me.
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Re: Sin Tax

Unread postby Ibon » Thu 09 Jul 2020, 21:31:26

Outcast_Searcher wrote:
I agree completely that the best way to reduce production would be a smaller work week. If you could get people to universally use the time productively instead of getting bored and doing massively stupid things with the time, the result could be fantastic. Can that happen in the US? The jury is still out.


Over consumption is directly related to overwork. Not primarily because you have more money to spend but rather because consumption becomes your compensation for being harnessed to work.

A 20 hour work week and 6 week paid vacation opens up a lot of time for creativity, education, time with friends and family, travel, being in nature, reading, gardening, playing sports, etc. etc. etc. This leads to less consumption because of greater well being.

Covid19 actually gave many Americans the very first large chunk of quality unstructured free time.

Maybe this has awakened an appetite for more?
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Re: Sin Tax

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Thu 09 Jul 2020, 22:41:26

Ibon wrote:Over consumption is directly related to overwork. Not primarily because you have more money to spend but rather because consumption becomes your compensation for being harnessed to work.

I guess it depends on one's personality. I was often so damn tired during intense work periods with LOTS of overtime that I would mostly just veg out in front of the TV, sleep, etc., and not take the energy to shop or want to mess with things. But certainly for lots of successful hard workers, consumption and status is no doubt part of their perceived reward.

Ibon wrote:A 20 hour work week and 6 week paid vacation opens up a lot of time for creativity, education, time with friends and family, travel, being in nature, reading, gardening, playing sports, etc. etc. etc. This leads to less consumption because of greater well being.

Covid19 actually gave many Americans the very first large chunk of quality unstructured free time.

Maybe this has awakened an appetite for more?

That's an interesting idea re more free time spurring a desire to have that continue. I suppose when (if) things get back to relative normalcy and the competing pulls of more stuff and more free time are both widely available, we'll get to see what happens.

It also might be that it will have a much bigger effect in more laid back places than the US.
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Re: Sin Tax

Unread postby JuanP » Fri 10 Jul 2020, 14:48:39

mousepad wrote:
JuanP wrote:homes, have no mortgages, and many have a beach house and/or a farm or countryside place, too.


Probably not.
A random street view in montevideo, with metal bars in front of every window doesn't convince me that uruguay is the paradise you claim it to be.

free education, and free healthcare and medications?.


A quick search in montevideo showed numerous private clinics. It seems that the free healthcare is worth as much as you pay for and everybody who can afford it goes (and pays) in private clinics.

It's similar in mexico by the way, which also has free healthcare. But by the time you get to see a doctor you're already dead.
A 2 month waiting period when you're having a heart attack simply ain't that good, even if it's free.


One random street view of one specific place is not representative of a nation in any way. I could show you millions of views of the United States that are worse than anything you could possibly find anywhere in Uruguay, and I am not exaggerating; I mean that literally. Unlike you, I actually know both countries very well. Have you ever been to Uruguay? Your comment proves you haven't. I never claimed Uruguay was a paradise, I never would.

Yes, there are private clinics in Uruguay, too, as I have already stated several times before on other threads on this website. Uruguay is NOTHING like Mexico in any way. I have actually travelled across Mexico, too. Have you ever been to Mexico? The USA and Mexico have a lot more in common than Uruguay and Mexico have. Only someone who doesn't know absolutely anything about the subject would make such a ridiculous claim; you just proved your total ignorance on the subject. Nobody waits two months for medical care in Uruguay when they are having a heart attack.

Your comment is full of falsehoods, inaccuracies, and lies, and doesn't contribute anything useful to the conversation. I would obviously be wasting my time if I continued this discussion, so as far as I am concerned you can keep your wrong, ignorant, inaccurate opinions.
Last edited by JuanP on Fri 10 Jul 2020, 16:12:48, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Sin Tax

Unread postby Subjectivist » Fri 10 Jul 2020, 15:29:46

Really I don't think it would be that difficult for the federal government to impose a porn tax on the internet. It would be a simple exercise to track what web addresses supply porn to consumers and bill the people who go to those sites with a very small transaction tax. Most of those sites are pay per view with a few exceptions and require visitors to log in a valid credit card. The feds could just automatically charge the credit cards with a IP tax of a few cents per visit.

Really all the work would be in setting up the system, after that the software would collect the tax automatically.

For those sites that are actually free, well no transaction is taking place as they are mostly just teaser sites advertising for a subscription service to get more "hard core" entertainment from paying customers.

It is sort of like the proposal that floats up every few years for an email transaction fee to be paid to the USPS because the emails are transmitted over federally funded communication networks, at least in part.
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Re: Sin Tax

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Fri 10 Jul 2020, 15:38:29

Sub - When subjects such as this pop up I'm always reminded of a line from an old comedian...Red Foxx. Asked if he believed in "free sex" he said no. But he did feel it should be reasonably priced.
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Re: Sin Tax

Unread postby kublikhan » Sat 11 Jul 2020, 09:08:36

Subjectivist wrote:Really I don't think it would be that difficult for the federal government to impose a porn tax on the internet. It would be a simple exercise to track what web addresses supply porn to consumers and bill the people who go to those sites with a very small transaction tax. Most of those sites are pay per view with a few exceptions and require visitors to log in a valid credit card. The feds could just automatically charge the credit cards with a IP tax of a few cents per visit.

Really all the work would be in setting up the system, after that the software would collect the tax automatically.

For those sites that are actually free, well no transaction is taking place as they are mostly just teaser sites advertising for a subscription service to get more "hard core" entertainment from paying customers.

It is sort of like the proposal that floats up every few years for an email transaction fee to be paid to the USPS because the emails are transmitted over federally funded communication networks, at least in part.
Actually nowadays most porn content is free. Going to be hard to tax someone who doesn't pony up credit card information.

A little over a decade after the founding of free porn sites like Pornhub and Youporn, the economics of the adult industry look quite a bit different. Porn consumption may be more popular, and more normalized, than ever, but even the most avid of porn fans are often unwilling to pay for the videos they enjoy.

Although porn companies are private and revenues aren’t publicly shared (a reality that makes it difficult to track how hard companies have been hit, financially), the past few decades have seen companies shutter, performer pay rates plummet, and major trade shows shrink in size — all indicators that suggest the money isn’t flowing in like it used to.
Free porn dominates the internet. Will we ever pay for it again?

So while the “porn industry” used to refer to big adult film studios, it’s now predominately MindGeek and its various tube sites.

The tube sites take over
As the free tubes increased in popularity, it begs the question: how does anyone make money when everything is free? One simple answer to that is that not everything is free. There are still plenty of sites that function off subscription fees, but they’re struggling to compete with free content.

So what about those free tubes? In the online business, clicks are king. Huge sites owned by MindGeek command a massive amount of traffic— like Pornhub that received 33.5 billion visitors in 2018. On any other website that offers free content to readers, they make money through advertisements.

What does this mean for us?
While MindGeek began with pirated videos from content creators, within the past few years it’s begun to purchase those videos. While that sounds like a positive move against piracy, their model has been called a “vampire ecosystem” because the tubes are the ones who benefit.

The producers create videos for the sole purpose of being uploaded to free sites and MindGeek makes a much higher return off of the ads that don’t direct to anyone involved in the video’s production. It’s a situation where the producer’s rates are kept low, but at the same time, they’d shrivel without the help of a tube.
Porn Tube Sites Are Free, So How Does The Porn Industry Make Money Today?
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Re: Sin Tax

Unread postby mousepad » Sat 11 Jul 2020, 10:47:38

JuanP wrote:
One random street view of one specific place is not representative of a nation in any way.
I could show you millions of views of the United States that are worse than anything you could possibly find anywhere in Uruguay, and I am not exaggerating; I mean that literally.


That is true. One sample is not enough. So I made a test. I randomly looked at 10 street view locations of montevideo and 10 street view locations of Chicago (I consider Chicago the fusion of a shit and a hell hole).
Of my random probing I found more streetviews of montevideo which made a shady impression.

I agree there are miserable places in the USA, but unless you know exactly where to look, it's hard to find them by chance. The well known towns of Camden or Gary come to mind. But even then you have to pick the street pretty carefully to find scary ones.

Unlike you, I actually know both countries very well. Have you ever been to Uruguay?

That's true. I hope to be able to go there sometimes. I once even inquired with the university in montevideo for a ph.d in engineering. My family didn't want to join me, so I dropped it. Maybe I should have forced them to go? I'm sure I would have loved the countryside, the city probably not so much.

Uruguay is NOTHING like Mexico in any way.

Same language, same religion, same style of concrete houses with bars in front of windows. It has a lot of similarities.

I have actually traveled across Mexico, too. Have you ever been to Mexico?

Yes. I've been to the rich tourist destinations as well as the poor mountain towns hardly accessible. I have family there. Pretty much subsistence farming in the mountains. It's a tough life. You wouldn't know anything about a tough life, would you? I hear you rich, coming from military junta who stole the money from the gents, and then had to exile to the US.

Your comment is full of falsehoods, inaccuracies, and lies, and doesn't contribute anything useful to the conversation. I would obviously be wasting my time if I continued this discussion, so as far as I am concerned you can keep your wrong, ignorant, inaccurate opinions.


You love Uruguay very much, I can tell. You go ballistic emotional on anything criticizing it.
You are a true latino. All emotions, little logic.
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Re: Sin Tax

Unread postby JuanP » Sat 11 Jul 2020, 12:45:47

Your comment is simply not worth replying to, Mousepad. Like I said, enjoy YOUR opinions.
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Re: Sin Tax

Unread postby mousepad » Sat 11 Jul 2020, 14:49:08

JuanP wrote:Your comment is simply not worth replying to, Mousepad. Like I said, enjoy YOUR opinions.


I have to admit, you made me curious again. I have to put visiting Uruguay back on my list.
I'm still looking for a place to retire eventually.
The US is getting unbearable obnoxious with its anti-european liberal leftism, europe is not far behind with similar issues.
And when I'm retired I'm too old for gun-slinging mexico, I prefer peace and quiet.

Maybe Uruguay is not a bad choice, especially since I know you're not there. :-)

But looking at the map uruguay seems to be consisting of montevideo, only. And I dont' like cities.
How's life in smaller towns? Are there any decent smaller towns (let's say max 50k inhabitants) suitable for retirement? You know, it needs to have stuff like public transportation, hospitals, restaurants, shops within walking distance.

Do you have honest opinion on this, but please without your standard Juancho exaggeration? Thanks.
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Re: Sin Tax

Unread postby JuanP » Sat 11 Jul 2020, 15:11:55

mousepad wrote:
JuanP wrote:Your comment is simply not worth replying to, Mousepad. Like I said, enjoy YOUR opinions.


I have to admit, you made me curious again. I have to put visiting Uruguay back on my list.
I'm still looking for a place to retire eventually.
The US is getting unbearable obnoxious with its anti-european liberal leftism, europe is not far behind with similar issues.
And when I'm retired I'm too old for gun-slinging mexico, I prefer peace and quiet.

Maybe Uruguay is not a bad choice, especially since I know you're not there. :-)

But looking at the map uruguay seems to be consisting of montevideo, only. And I dont' like cities.
How's life in smaller towns? Are there any decent smaller towns (let's say max 50k inhabitants) suitable for retirement? You know, it needs to have stuff like public transportation, hospitals, restaurants, shops within walking distance.

Do you have honest opinion on this, but please without your standard Juancho exaggeration? Thanks.


Many wealthy foreigners retire in Uruguay, but it is an expensive place to retire in as a foreigner. There are retirees from the USA, Canada, Western Europe, South Korea, Japan, the Arab countries, and many other places. If you have money to buy a farm, even if it's small, and like living in the country, then you might like that. It is definitely peaceful and quiet there, but it is too desolate for most people.

There are a handful of small cities in the countryside, but I haven't visited them in around 30 years and have no idea of what they are like today. But, the weather down there sucks. It is like Southern England, cold, wet, cloudy, misty, rainy, and/or foggy most of the time.

Based on your comment, I would say that a small hobby farm (say around 10-20 acres) or a house a few miles away from the coast, close to cities like Piriapolis, Punta del Este, or La Paloma would probably be the best choice for you. But, I would go there, rent for a year, and drive around and experience the place before making any investments because the lifestyle and culture may not be to your liking; some people love it and others hate it. It is a very personal decision. I, personally, never liked the culture, and I knew when I was five years old that I would emigrate as soon as I could, and my decision to emigrate had nothing to do with the dictatorship, which was over by the time I was 16.
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