Daniel Pearson

Don’t take that ring from Sauron! He forged it all by himself so he deserves every molecule of it. I mean, as long as he acts responsibly, and why shouldn’t he? And even if he doesn’t, don’t destroy it! I’m sure someone like Galadriel or Gandalf would do so much good with it.

Bad incentives are indeed at the root of every social problem. Right now, the most destructive incentive is the false promise of unlimited individual profit.

Tax billionaires out of existence permanently!

Certainty and security are unattainable as an individual. But through the magic of amortization, they are highly attainable by a community. We should demand nothing less from our society.

“If we tax wealth, won’t all the billionaires leave?”

Good god, I hope so.

If you've ever wondered what you would have done during the Holocaust, you need wonder no more. You're doing it right now.

It's not just that rigged economic rules create wealth concentration. Wealth concentration also creates rigged economic rules. It's a vicious cycle.

I’m looking at you, America, Britain, Germany, France, South Africa, and so many others. But now especially Israel.

Any state that has engaged in genocide needs a mountain of evidence of its future practical value to justify its continued existence.

Every people (in the sense of ethnicity) has inherent moral value, and thus an inalienable right to exist. In contrast, no state has inherent moral value, only practical value contingent on it benefiting humans. Therefore, no state has an inherent right to exist.

Persons have moral value, while corporations do not. A society that sentences millions of actual humans to death and imprisonment for crimes that harm no one, while refusing to dissolve or otherwise meaningfully deter corporations that have harmed and killed millions of people, is evil.

The profit motive ruins everything unless it is curbed by the concept of enough: once you own enough, however we define “enough”, you may not accumulate any more.

Anyone who can should vote for Zohran Mamdani to be mayor of NYC, not only because of his excellent policies, but also because he's smoking hot. I need to see more gorgeous men with good-hearted morality when I take in the news.

Taxing concentrated wealth out of existence won’t solve all the world’s problems by itself. It will just remove the chains that are preventing us from solving those problems cooperatively.

One of my pet peeves is the use of the word “power” when what’s meant is power imbalance. That conflation is as wrong as conflating velocity with acceleration, force with energy, or wealth with income. Such mistakes can easily cause collapse when building anything real.

There are only two valid metrics of a good economy: total global wealth and low concentration of wealth ownership. War always diminishes the former and almost always worsens the latter.

Whenever you observe someone talking about freedom, try replacing every occurrence of the word “freedom” with “power”. Notice the sameness of technical meaning and the difference in connotation.

Racism is white supremacism. Patriarchy is male supremacism. Aristocracy is wealth supremacism. Meritocracy is aristocracy with better PR.

There are many kinds of supremacism, and they’re all evil.

We will stop needing the concept of femininity when men stop fearing and hating it.

The most important moral axis is egalitarianism versus supremacism. A society that distributes benefits to everyone as evenly as possible will always be morally superior to one that stratifies the distribution of goods.

Yes. Absolutely.

Yes! We need equitable distribution of income AND of wealth!

Remember that killing billionaires does no good: it just turns their heirs into billionaires. The only way to stop their tyranny is to tax them out of existence and distribute that wealth to eliminate poverty and privation.

There are two things that cause crime: the desperation that comes from having too little wealth, and the impunity that comes from having too much wealth.

“Oh no! A very bad person got into this position of immense power and is now doing very bad things!”

Maybe such an immense amount of power shouldn’t have been concentrated into the hands of any one person in the first place.

Economic justice is the same as geopolitical justice, and is necessary for geopolitical stability. Empires have always been the engine of all international oppression. The primary goal and function of any empire is to concentrate control of wealth as much as possible.

I can be flexible, as long as we all have chicken and dumplings when she comes.

What makes you think folks don’t want to listen to gender critical airheads being screamed at?

So there’s a theory that racism was cultivated (wittingly or not) by the wealthiest in society as a way to redirect anger away wealth disparity and onto scapegoats. I’m not saying this theory explains everything about racism and economic exploitation, but it does really tie the room together.

Prohibition 2.0 isn’t starting soon. It’s been here for decades, and is called The War on Drugs.