The ability to tax such new revenue streams is enticing for state and city officials dealing with post-pandemic economic upheaval, said Richard C. Auxier, principle policy associate with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a think tank.

brainworms

  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    I think one of the most glaring failures of the “if you don’t like (thing) don’t do (thing), simple” thought terminating cliches is gambling and the harm it does to people and everyone around those people.

    • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Seriously.

      Ok I didn’t gamble, believe it or not that doesn’t solve the problem of friends or family losing a bunch of money to their phone.

      It’s great advice if you start from the assumption “obviously i dont give a shit about anybody but me”

      Also weird how that train of thought isn’t applied to literally anything else.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        I think it’s consumerism, or “treat brain” as I call it locally. The old nazi death camp slogan “to each his/their own” is another version of that thought terminating cliche.

        The insistence that people aren’t connected, or that intersectional interactions don’t happen somewhere between a treat’s cultivation, manufacture, distribution, sale, and/or consumption has lead to a lot of easy cultural and ideological victories for capitalism lately. People can feel insulated and safe from feeling bad about their entertainment if they can contend that everything they spend money on is an enlightened informed democratic gesture that has no consequences outside of themselves.

        Gambling is just the most glaring example. I have family members that pulled everyone around them into ruin over their addiction to it. But To Each Their Own™!

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        Of all the treat defenders I’ve had to argue with over time, few are worse than the smoking apologists.

        Offline, in person, being told that I can’t “objectively prove” that any particular cigarette will cause lung cancer to a clearly addicted but in denial smoking enjoyer was always frustrating.

        One such person that I knew for decades died of lung cancer. In his mid-late thirties. And months before that, his doctor told him he had the overall vitals of a eighty year old man and to please stop smoking. He laughed it off, right in front of me… with a horridly rattly cough. desolate