[kwlug-disc] AI and social justice

[Chris Frey]

On Wed, May 27, 2026 at 12:03:20PM +0000, Mikalai Birukou via kwlug-disc wrote:
> This reminds me a pastor, you'll recognize the quote:
> 
> """
> 
> When I give bread to people, they call me saint.
> 
> When I ask why people don't have bread to eat, they call me communist.
> 
> """

That's funny, but I believe there are ways to ask that question
without being a communist.


> And, when one dwells in details of how to actually fix this, Gary's 
> simple moto is to the point, and in deep detailed/technical-in-social 
> sense: "Tax wealth, not work."
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jRnYfigc3I

Ahh, good old Gary.  The rich communist. :-)   (Yeah, another friendly
rant incoming... I should probably put these on my blog...)

I gave it a listen, and around the 13:00 mark his guest says to "be the
change you want to see", then recommending that people study economics
in order to promote tax policies to promote equality.  That's not quite
the change I want to see.  We already have enough people telling others
what to do.

I think the change we need is more people competing against the big
brands.  McDonalds apparently has a 44% operating margin:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MCD/key-statistics/
I'm told that in a competitive market it should be around 10%.  So why
does McDonalds have such a high percentage?  How?  And why are we not
creating competing businesses to eat McDonalds' lunch?  I'd love to
know the answers to this.

I want to see new entrepreneurs springing up in that 34% gap.
That's the change I'd love to see, and even be.

As for the rest of his argument, that the ultra wealthy owe to society
their fair share of taxes, I ask: do we really believe that siphoning
more money into government coffers, in order to dole it out to the
poor through various stingy methods, will cause prices to go down?  Won't
the wealthy just bake in the costs into the goods they sell from their
major brands?

But if society and government is fixed, in order to promote a multitude
of grassroots competitors to spring up, the large brand names will have
no choice but to lower their prices, which will help all of the poor.

To put this in practical terms, instead of taxing Elon Musk's current
wealth, we should recognize that a significant amount of Tesla's
battery and electric car tech was funded by government subsidy.
Now some of that was in loans that were paid back, but I don't believe
all of it was.  There is a precise calculation to do here.  But in the
end, that is technological advancement paid for by public funds, at least
in part.  I don't know about you, but I remember a time when such
copyrighted intellectual property became public domain.

Public funds?  Public tech, so everyone can build their own Tesla.

The wealth tax doesn't go far enough, and like most communist solutions,
doesn't fix the core problem.

$0.02,
- Chris