I haven’t tried this, but regarding Isaac’s deer grievance, my understanding is you can buy online coyote pee and spray it around the edges of your property and that might keep the deer out?
Perhaps others know if this actually works, but maybe a fixable grievance
I recall Isaac defending Bari Weiss from people attacking her and painting her as doing similar work to what he's doing and not being a partisan hack.
How can we explain then CBS being in talks for a deal with Katie Miller whose podcast has no viewers? If that actually goes through, how can you make an honest case that the leaders involved aren't all just doing pay-to-play partisan hackery to please the current administration.
Isaac had a nice piece focused on all the Trump corruption. But the corruption money needs to come from somewhere. I could see an interesting story focused on how big tech or corporate media have been happy to participate in the corruption to further their financial interests
I previously requested that Isaac bring on people with different viewpoints regarding the Epstein story, and I appreciated that he did that.
So for the billionaire discussion, what if Tangle brought on:
Then people can hear both conversations and decide where their sympathies lie in terms of whether the system we’re living in is structured in a fair and just way.
And maybe that’s also how the conversations themselves could be framed. Not “are billionaires evil,” but whether a prosperous society is giving to and taking from people in a fair way.
If someone is struggling to afford housing, healthcare, or food for their kids, do we think that person is evil? Do we think they are taking more than their fair share from society? Or do we think they are just trying to get by in a system that is already hard for them? A lot of people are struggling right now. If we don’t think regular working people are evil or taking unfairly, then we should be willing to talk honestly about how the system treats them.
Regular working people often pay true tax rates around 20–30% when you include income and payroll taxes and compare taxes paid to what they actually earn. Meanwhile, according to ProPublica’s analysis of leaked IRS data, the 25 richest Americans paid a collective true tax rate of about 3.4% between 2014 and 2018. Warren Buffett’s was reportedly 0.1%, Jeff Bezos was under 1%, and Elon Musk was around 3%.
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-we-calculated-the-true-tax-rates-of-the-wealthiest
Extremely rich people can still exist. But should they legally pay a far lower true tax rate than regular working people? We can allow extreme wealth. We can let people keep enough that they couldn't spend it in a thousand lifetimes of pure luxury. Fine. The question is what happens beyond that, when wealth compounds so fast it couldn't be spent in a million lifetimes, and those additional gains are still taxed at a fraction of what a nurse or a teacher pays.
This isn't a radical idea. It's mostly about closing loopholes and making the system consistent. Kmele mentioned estate taxes, but the exemptions have expanded so much that most ultra-wealthy estates avoid them almost entirely. And during the communist hellscape known as the Ronald Reagan administration, top tax rates on the wealthy were dramatically higher than they are today.
Meanwhile, people are skipping medications and choosing between groceries and rent. So the smart question isn't the strawman are all billionaires evil? It's whether the system we've built actually reflects a fair bargain between what people contribute to society and what they take from it.
I think hearing from a billionaire and a struggling working person on this topic might really be in the spirit of Tangle.
I’m interested in the idea of a group tour that might have people around my age (I’m 34)
I’d be interested in a somewhat social group of people my age, but also not exactly interested in just hours of drinking every night. I don’t drink, happy to tag along to bars, but I did a intro travel tour before and I felt like we were missing potential sightseeing at the expense of people drinking
Also preferably I’d like a guide who actually has knowledge about the trip, vs just someone whose role is herding people together
Also happy to pay extra for actually premium experiences, but don’t need to pay extra for bad experiences
Intrepid has been good before, but also has more older people and groups so perhaps less social environment
Interested in people’s experiences with FTLO and Flash Pack, seen some pretty mixed reviews in threads, but was hoping to hear from people who have experience with groups like this
Thank you!