That’s not really true. The Ofcom representative said “not allowed” not “unable to”. Even if cocaine is legal in my country, I’m “not allowed” to sell it to British consumers by the power of the British authorities. The British authorities may not have legal authority in my jurisdiction but they can take action in their own, including issuing penalties and stopping my deliveries at the border.
If we want to base the argument on technical nuance, 4chan are sending their packets to the U.K. just as the cocaine dealer would be sending packets (of cocaine) to their buyers in the U.K.
They're replying to an externally-established connection. The packets they're sending are going to a local router.
If you posted cocaine from your cocaine-legal country to an address where it was illegal, and you followed all the regular customs labelling rules, I'm not sure you should be liable. And you shouldn't be extradited either. Even the UK demands that extradition offences would have been criminal had they been committed in the UK. Now I'm sure in practice, you'd find yourself in trouble immediately but I don't think it's fair.
The ramifications of laws like this is everyone needs to be Geo-IP check every request, adhere to every local law. It's not the Internet we signed up for.
I would strongly disagree with that, in the sense of the layer of communication that 4chan operate at. I would argue that 4chan aren't sending packets to the UK any more than I'm currently sending my keystrokes to wherever you are reading this from - these actions are performed at a different layer.
If the UK wants to block packets from across the pond, they should (but I hope they don't) do it via a Great Firewall, rather than expecting random foreign websites to do it for them.
I think (but am not sure) that there are long established postal laws in most territories about sending “obscene” material through the mail. I think this was used to prosecute pornography publishers in earlier times. BUT you needed to (a) intercept mail and (b) have a good reason and (c) get a warrant to open (interfere with) that mail.
Possessing pornography was a separate issue which may or may not be allowed. Typically (I think) authorities went after publishers not consumers - because they were easier targets to pin down.
Which would seem to imply that if you’re sending encrypted traffic at the request of a recipient the as a publisher of “obscene” material then unless you are delivering very clearly illegal content to a user then you should not prosecuted.
I haven’t got a single source for anything I’m saying, so I might be entirely wrong - I’m simply going off half-remembered barely-facts. So please do argue with me!
It's different, because you are willingly sending a reply to a known UK address.
In the website scenario, there are no physical addresses with a geographic component to them. The physical topology of the network is only known by the operators of the network. Only they know where the routers are physically located.
This means geoip blocking can only ever be done on a best effort basis. Actual blocking can only be done by the operators of the routers, which is why it is unreasonable to expect the website operator to be responsible for perfect compliance.
The user mails you a box with a note that says "1kg of 4chan packets pls", and a prepaid return label to an address local to you. You put the packets in the box and kick it down the street to its "destination". Job done as far as you know.
The place you sent the box then repacks it and mails it to the UK. Somehow the UK thinks that you and only you have broken the law.
1kg of packets is 100 exabytes over copper. That's a heck of an order.
Buyer beware: this calculation is based on several derivations of napkin maths with very fixed assumptions. It should be accurate to the nearest zettabyte.
Yes, it is. When you reply to an IP address, you don't magically punch a hole through the entire network to the user's physical location.
You send a packet to your ISP with an address on top. That packet physically travels to your nearest exchange and then the network figures out how to route it to the recipient's real location.
In addition, the recipient's IP address tells you nothing about who or where they are. It's fundamentally un-knowable from the sender's perspective, no matter what the UK wants you to think. IP addresses are not evidence of physical location.
When you receive a packet, there is no way to know where in the world it came from or where it wants to go. It's just a number. You can make guesses but it's still just reading tea leaves.
To believe that IP geolocation is in any way reliable is a gross misunderstanding of TCP/IP and networks in general.
The technical argument is that the routers that are physically located in the UK are passing the packets through, not the website operator.
This is the same as letting a delivery cross your borders, except the delivery vehicle here is permanent infrastructure, similar to a pipeline and it is purposefully set to be permissive and allow anything through.
Why are you suddenly pretending that there is no equivalent to the customs office in this scenario?
It's not like the website operator is sneakily smuggling cargo on a container ship. VPN usage is done UK citizens. The operator has already denied shipments to UK addresses in this scenario.
The destination of the packet where it is sent, just as a toy sent from the U.S. to a customer in the U.K. is sent to the U.K. rather than the local Fedex store.
It is easier than that: in Germany for example swastikas are forbidden. But they don't prosecute or fine web pages served in other countries. Or books for that matter. In some countries communist symbology is prohibited, yet they don't fine US web pages for having them. And don't forget the Great Firewall: China blocks pages, and get along with some webs to tune what they serve. But you can publish Tiananmen massacre images in your european hosted web, and they don't fine you: it is their problem to limit access, and they understand it.
Just to clarify for casual readers: there’s no blanket ban on swastikas in Germany. You can use it for satire or historical reasons. You’re going to find a lot of swastikas on the German Wikipedia for example.
France stopped Yahoo! from selling nazi memorabilia in France (because it's illegal to do that in France). This actually went through the US courts and they agreed, mostly [0].
It's kinda voluntary, though, there's no international agreement about this.
This isn't strictly true, major magazines like Der Spiegel can use it for 'satire' or some such nonsense, it's basically at the whim of those in power as CJ Hopkins learned, his satirical use resulted in him being perversely punished, but state aligned magazines get a pass.
Imagine this scenario, a major G7 country declares:
All bytes sent to a computer on their soil count as a transaction on their soil.
And the end client being on a VPN is not a defence UNLESS the website owner attempts to verify the user's identity.
Immediately have to pay local taxes, conform to local laws.
Unless you keep all your assets in the US and never fly abroad, our shady website operator is exposing them self to real risk of being snatched by police somewhere or having their assets seized.
The only thing stopping that from happening is the trade agreements the Americans have put in place, the very trade agreements everyone's now looking at and thinking 'what are these really worth?'.
Yeah, it's fantasy and it won't happend but it could.
The internet is not free, it runs on sufferance of a bunch of governments and some, like China, already lock it down.
The more America, who probably gains the most from it right now, plays with fire, the more risk something like this crazy scenario happens.
Another more plausible scenario is countries simply start repealing safe harbor laws. End of YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/etc. in those countries overnight.
This is basically a mutually assured destruction scenario.
The US is not going to let all US companies get fined out of retaliation, so there would be more retaliation from the US against the EU, and everyone else. In the end everyone loses, except for China, which as you mentioned is not stupid enough to play these games and decided to simply pick a lane.
China locks down the Internet and blocks foreign players (to varying levels of success). They don't reach overseas to prosecute foreign executives or fine Meta for not removing Party-critical content from Facebook. Of all the parties that could be involved in this censorship drama, China is somehow the most honest.
I know the tariffs are the bad thing of the moment (and they certainly are capricious), but I don't think you understand how much worse things can get.
You realize that the EU has had tariffs on US goods for a very long time right? I'm not saying tariffs are good, but its hypocritical to protest against behavior in which you are currently engaging.
> Another more plausible scenario is countries simply start repealing safe harbor laws.
It already happened via GDPR to some degree. CJEU ruled in December that platforms can qualify as controllers for personal data published in user-generated advertisement. The given reasoning was basically that the platform determined the means and the purposes of the processing.
Due to that they can be liable for article 82 damages.
> Didn't the US use this argument to prosecute and extradite the Mega founder?
The extradition has succeeded so far because it's based on acts that would have met a criminal bar in New Zealand, and deemed to have a high likelihood of being successfully prosecuted. Fraud, copyright infringement, etc.
The US has standing because many MegaUpload servers were in the US.
This is a fair argument since you are no longer operating exclusively in one country, but I'm pretty sure most CDNs let you block access to specific countries.
> But if a Brit comes to your country and buys cocaine from you, in person, you wouldn't expect to be convicted as a dealer in the UK.
No? All countries catch drug dealers from other countries all the time even for the crime that happened outside of their borders. Or do you really think El Chapo could vacation freely in Europe.
El Chapo was extradited and convicted for crimes actively committed in Mexico, then the US in relation to managing a multinational drug cartel. Murder, money laundering, more murder, smuggling, yet more murder, etc etc etc.
This seems significantly different to openly and honestly posting narcotics.
Howard Marx was arrested in Spain and extradited to the US on RICO charges by the DEA for something like this. It seemed like extraterritorial action by the US when I read about it.
LOL, classic. Everyone thinks they are the one being picked on. Plenty of people would argue that what you say here is actually the polar opposite of what happens on HN.
The people who think incest porn should be banned are loud and proud in their beliefs. They’ll put up posters, tell their MPs, respond to surveys, and appear in political debates.
The people who support incest porn are a lot less talkative.
As such our windsock government with no strong beliefs does what the survey says is most popular.
The people who think incest porn should be banned are loud and proud in their beliefs. They’ll put up posters, tell their MPs, respond to surveys, and appear in political debates.
The people who support incest porn are a lot less talkative.
I think there is an argument to made the pornography in general is harmful.
But to single out one single type of porn strikes me as... very odd. Maybe politicians can list, explicitly, all the other porn genres they find acceptable or agreeable to them, as a kind of compare and contrast exercise.
> So-called "barely legal" pornography and content depicting sexual relationships between step-relatives are set to be banned amid efforts to regulate intimate image sharing.
> Peers agreed by a majority of one to ban videos and images depicting relationships that would not be allowed in real life.
> They also agreed by 142 votes to 140, majority two, to bring intimate pictures and videos of adults pretending to be children in line with similar images of real children.
The same principles apply around the world. The U.S. recently invaded a sovereign nation and abducted its democratically elected leader because that leader was ostensibly involved in shipping cocaine to the U.S.
The only election for the president that matters is the electoral college. What the citizens are voting on is a referendum to choose the electors (and in some states it is not binding). You might try to argue that the referendum was rigged somehow, but rigging the electoral college voting is even less plausible.
Trump was talking about how Elon campaigned for him for a month in Pennsylvania and said he knows all about the voting counting machines in Pennsylvania.
Even if Musk did something in Pennsylvania, Trump still would have won the electoral college vote.
I think the good faith argument is that Musk confirmed they were secure so that the election wasn't stolen from Trump. But frankly Musk is too much of an idiot to steal an election or make sure it is secure so I don't know how to take it...
So what? The only reason the U.S. did this is because it can. What will the UK do when 4chan tells its online regulator to go suck a d***, send in James Bond?
This myth keeps getting repeated. It hasn't been true since 1949, when British subjects in the UK became Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies.
In 1983, the status of CUKC was renamed to British citizen (for those CUKCs resident in or closely connected with the UK: the situation in the remaining colonies was more complicated). At the same time, the status of British subject was officially restricted to those few British subjects who didn't qualify for citizenship of the UK or of any other Commonwealth country in 1949, and who were formerly known as "British subjects without citizenship".
So we are officially and legally citizens, not subjects.
I think I've heard something similar -- that subjects have duties while citizens have rights.
But of course, citizens typically also have duties -- commonly, the duty to take up arms to defend the state -- and subjects can legitimately expect a reciprocity of obligations from the sovereign (e.g. the enforcement of the "King's Peace"), which sounds quite a bit like rights to me.
(All of which is a verbose and not very coherent way of saying that I agree with you.)
Then somebody needs to let the government know, because the relevant 1981 act is "[a]n Act to make fresh provision about citizenship and nationality". In that 'British subjects' are a quite limited subset of citizens. Most British people are citizens, not subjects.
My (really limited) understanding is that 'British subject' was the status of people in the British empire. It's now reduced to just some people born pre-1949 in Ireland and India. They have many of the rights of citizens, and can become citizens via a simpler route than other non-nationals.
It depends. If it causes anxiety to someone, it is illegal. Pictures of drugs could fall into this category.
> Current law allows for restrictions on threatening or abusive words or behaviour intending or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress or cause a breach of the peace, sending another any article which is indecent or grossly offensive with an intent to cause distress or anxiety,
I don't wish to fall down the rabbit hole of trying to defend U.K. laws so I'll keep this short. You're being intellectually dishonest. That page does not back up your assertion. You have said "If it causes anxiety to someone, it is illegal" but the page says "intending or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress" which has a different meaning.
This is a meaningless standard since anyone can claim they were alarmed or distressed and there's no way to invalidate such a subjective claim. I can say I'm alarmed by your comment, does that mean it's valid for Ofcom to fine you?
Again, that's not what the law states. The law is not broken when someone is alarmed or distressed by a comment. The law is broken if you post something that is "likely or intending to" which is not judged by the victim. If you walk into a police station in England and tell them that this comment on Hacker News alarmed and distressed you, it doesn't matter, it is up to the legal system to judge my intent, i.e: whether my comment was "likely to" or "intending to" cause alarm and distress.
Whether you agree with the law or not, it is important to be accurate when discussing it. The U.S. vs. U.K. (not) free speech law discussion online so often seems to frame them as fundamentally different, but they are on the same spectrum. The go-to example of the limits of free speech in context of the U.S. legal system is "Shouting fire in a crowded theater". The U.K. laws are the same in principle but a little further along the spectrum.
That's a horrific law. Criticizing certain religions and institutions are likely to offend many people. Criticizing a politician or criminal or bureaucrat is quite likely to cause distress to them and their supporters.
> The go-to example of the limits of free speech in context of the U.S. legal system is "Shouting fire in a crowded theater". The U.K. laws are the same in principle but a little further along the spectrum.
They are completely different in principle. The principle in the US is preventing the inciting of violence or a situation that could cause physical injury to others. In the UK it has become about protecting feelings of people who could just choose to not read, listen, or get themselves worked up about it.
Like I said, it is a spectrum. You draw the line at physical violence, an entirely arbitrary line, whereas the U.K. goes further and continues to emotional violence.
And before you argue that there is no such thing as emotional violence: do you agree that some emotional harm can be worse than some physical harm? I'd much rather be punched than subjected to the worst emotional trauma I've experienced in my life.
> In the UK it has become about protecting feelings of people who could just choose to not read, listen, or get themselves worked up about it.
I'm not going to defend U.K. laws but it is patently absurd to say something like this is in the context of a conversation about U.S. vs. U.K. free speech laws when the U.S. courts allow schools to ban certain books because of "protecting feelings of people who could just choose to not read, listen, or get themselves worked up about it". Heaven forbid a Florida student learns about homosexuality, won't anyone think of the parents?
> You draw the line at physical violence, an entirely arbitrary line, whereas the U.K. goes further and continues to emotional violence.
It must appear as a spectrum to you because you've been taken in by propaganda used by authoritarians and fundamentalists to justify using actual violence and censorship to crush dissent and criticism.
There is no such thing as emotional violence. It's hurt feelings. There is no "before" about it, and we don't need to agree on anything, you're just wrong.
> And before you argue that there is no such thing as emotional violence: do you agree that some emotional harm can be worse than some physical harm? I'd much rather be punched than subjected to the worst emotional trauma I've experienced in my life.
Non sequitur.
A society where people are reliant on the government to protect them from having their feelings hurt by hearing other people's opinions is not a good or sustainable one.
The other thing is that I guarantee you this is totally selectively enforced and prosecuted, which is a hallmark of these kinds of authoritarian laws. People whose thoughts and opinions are considered verboten or threatening to the regime I'm sure have little or no protection of their feelings and sensibilities when they are insulted by other people's opinions and comments.
> I'm not going to defend U.K. laws but it is patently absurd to say something like this is in the context of a conversation about U.S. vs. U.K. free speech laws when the U.S. courts allow schools to ban certain books because of "protecting feelings of people who could just choose to not read, listen, or get themselves worked up about it". Heaven forbid a Florida student learns about homosexuality, won't anyone think of the parents?
I don't know what point you are trying to make here or if you know what freedom of speech is. Government schools and government education bureaucrats developing policies about curriculum and teaching materials doesn't seem to offer useful commentary about freedom of speech, so I really don't know how to respond to your question.
Again, you're drawing an entirely arbitrary line between physical violence and "hurt feelings". You're reducing speech to just "other people's opinions" but as the U.S. courts have held many times, speech isn't just opinions.
> The other thing is that I guarantee you this is totally selectively enforced and prosecuted
Unlike all other laws? Tell me, who is more likely to end up on death row? To be prosecuted for drug possession? How much jail time is a rich white student likely to receive for rape compared to a poor black student? All laws are selectively enforced and prosecuted.
> I don't know what point you are trying to make here or if you know what freedom of speech is. Government schools and government education bureaucrats developing policies about curriculum and teaching materials doesn't seem to offer useful commentary about freedom of speech, so I really don't know how to respond to your question.
You don't understand that Florida schools banning books because they contain references to homosexuality is a free speech issue? Judge Carlos E. Mendoza in Penguin Random House v. Gibson said "The state’s prohibition of material that ‘describes sexual conduct’ is overbroad and unconstitutional.”. Unfortunately, many other judges did not rule the same way.
The point is that the "free speech" you lord over other countries is arbitrary, those who proclaim the U.S. to have true free speech and countries like the U.K. to be oppressive anti free speech regimes are delusional and have been conned by U.S. exceptionalism.
You can disagree with another county's choice to draw the line somewhere other than where the U.S. draws it but to proclaim the U.S. has real free speech that stands alone from other countries is lying to yourself. What, exactly, is unique about the U.S. free speech laws? That it is a constitutional amendment?
We could debate where the line should be, whether the U.K. or the U.S. has it right or wrong, but to argue that the U.K.'s laws are somehow distinct from the U.S. laws is nonsensical. I do not agree with where the U.K. draws the line. I also do not agree with where the U.S. draws the line.
> It must appear as a spectrum to you because you've been taken in by propaganda used by authoritarians and fundamentalists to justify using actual violence and censorship to crush dissent and criticism.
And for one last final point: how many protestors has the U.S. government killed this year? How many protestors have been killed by the U.K. government for protesting against government policy? I'm sure Renée Good and Alex Pretti and all the other murdered U.S. protestors are comforted in their graves by the glorious anti-authoritarian pro-dissent free speech laws that protected their dissent and protest so well.
> Again, you're drawing an entirely arbitrary line between physical violence and "hurt feelings". You're reducing speech to just "other people's opinions" but as the U.S. courts have held many times, speech isn't just opinions.
It's not an arbitrary line. It's the definition being discussed. It's not a "spectrum", it's not a "slope". The line drawn is the line.
> > The other thing is that I guarantee you this is totally selectively enforced and prosecuted
> Unlike all other laws?
In an authoritarian regime like the UK no doubt they also selectively enforce and prosecute other crimes, you're right about that. But absolutely the threshold to meet these kind of ludicrous statues is so arbitrary it's laughable, a bureaucrat or law enforcement agent for the state can just make things up as they go really.
> I don't know what point you are trying to make here or if you know what freedom of speech is. Government schools and government education bureaucrats developing policies about curriculum and teaching materials doesn't seem to offer useful commentary about freedom of speech, so I really don't know how to respond to your question.
> You don't understand that Florida schools banning books because they contain references to homosexuality is a free speech issue? Judge Carlos E. Mendoza in Penguin Random House v. Gibson said "The state’s prohibition of material that ‘describes sexual conduct’ is overbroad and unconstitutional.”. Unfortunately, many other judges did not rule the same way.
I don't think government agents and lawmakers setting curriculum and teaching materials for government schools is a freedom of speech issue, no.
> The point is that the "free speech" you lord over other countries is arbitrary, those who proclaim the U.S. to have true free speech and countries like the U.K. to be oppressive anti free speech regimes are delusional and have been conned by U.S. exceptionalism.
Just repeating that it's arbitrary doesn't make your case, sadly.
> You can disagree with another county's choice to draw the line somewhere other than where the U.S. draws it but to proclaim the U.S. has real free speech that stands alone from other countries is lying to yourself. What, exactly, is unique about the U.S. free speech laws? That it is a constitutional amendment?
I don't know about unique, but I know the state can not easily intimidate, bully, censor, and prosecute you for posting your thoughts online under the pretense that it might hurt peoples' feelings. Unlike the UK, for example.
> We could debate where the line should be, whether the U.K. or the U.S. has it right or wrong, but to argue that the U.K.'s laws are somehow distinct from the U.S. laws is nonsensical. I do not agree with where the U.K. draws the line. I also do not agree with where the U.S. draws the line.
Why are the British so angry when confronted by the fact that they do not have freedom of speech, then in the next sentence go on to talk about how great it is their government protects their feelings from being hurt by hearing what other people in their country (and even around the world) think? It's bizarre. It's a phrase that has long been understood around the world to be American style freedom of speech, i.e., that the state should not have the power to censor or prosecute its people for speech. UK does not have it.
"You can say what you want as long as the government does not decide it might offend somebody" is not freedom of speech. If that is what you think freedom of speech is, then North Korea and Pakistan have it.
Simply bizarre.
> And for one last final point: how many protestors has the U.S. government killed this year? How many protestors have been killed by the U.K. government for protesting against government policy? I'm sure Renée Good and Alex Pretti and all the other murdered U.S. protestors are comforted in their graves by the glorious anti-authoritarian pro-dissent free speech laws that protected their dissent and protest so well.
This isn't an argument because my claim isn't that US is not authoritarian nor that it never violates the rights of its citizens.
A more relevant question would be, how many people have the countries arrested and prosecuted for what they have said or written? And the answer for USA quite well might be non-zero because all governments are by nature corrupt and power-hungry and will violate the rights of their citizens to maintain the power of their regime, as is obviously the case in the UK. The US government is not fundamentally different in that regard, but the staggering difference in the rate of such cases shows that in the US it has been much more difficult for the government to do this.
The US government is still authoritarian and thirsts to take rights from its citizens, and has -- rights to privacy/unreasonable search/seizure, rights to arms, have been flagrantly violated. So has freedom of speech for that matter as leaks like the Twitter files have exposed, but at least for now those cases are still considered wrongdoing by the government and the people often have recourse with government courts, which is why I would say it still generally has freedom of speech.
The UK simply doesn't. It doesn't even pretend it does (except to just claiming freedom of speech means something it doesn't).
That’s the trick. Don’t live anywhere. Every other country taxes based on residency rather than citizenship. If you’re not a U.S. citizen you can just wander around the world living tax free regardless of your income. Don’t stay anywhere long enough to become a tax resident.
Sorry but that's been a meme and a house of cards since the Common Reporting Standard.
The fact is that the country whereever you carry any legal activity will require you to prove you're taxed elsewhere not to tax you in place.
To carry out economic activity you'll need a presence, if it's a company it's corporate tax, if you're freelance you'll need a registered address.
Most banks will freeze you without a TIN and and address.
Plus the whole can of worms of the centre of vital interests or source-based taxation systems.
In the moment you input an address in the financial system, the tax administration will know, and they will knock your door for any significant income, plus arrears, pulling one of the cards from your house, and it's not going to be pretty.
Picking a random country: Italy. Please explain under what legislation or mechanism an Italian citizen who spends 3 months in Japan, 3 months in South Korea, 3 months in the U.S., 3 months in Norway and then repeats the loop for the rest of their life would owe any taxes to any tax authority?
Almost every country except the United States only taxes their residents, not citizens. Almost every country follows the typical 180 day rule for tax residency.
Funny pick, because Italy is very strict on this. To stop being considered a tax resident in Italy you need to deregister from your municipality and register in the AIRE (Anagrafe degli Italiani Residenti all'Estero). But for the AIRE to accept your application on the Italian consulate in any of those countries you need to provide proof of permanent residence (address, work contract, company ownership, etc). If you don't do that, you're still considered resident of Italy for tax purposes, if you do it, congrats you're tax resident elsewhere. Registering in the AIRE is mandatory if you move, btw.
If you add the legislative decree 209/2023 article 1 that modifies the tax code and sets the basis for the centre of vital interests, it complicates things even further for the "permanent traveler" for simply having a family or ever having been long term resident in a country.
Let's pretend my random country generator didn't pick the worst possible example. I should have chosen a country I am familiar with. Let's take Germany. A German tax resident can de-register at any time, so long as they are leaving the country, without first establishing tax residency elsewhere.
In Germany, unregistering doesn't require registration elsewhere, but it doesn't mean you stop being tax resident.
If you regularly return to Germany and generally to the same place there (i.e. family, friends), and you're not tax resident elsewhere, the tax administration will consider it your habitual abode. And, you guessed it, under the German Fiscal Code (Abgabenordnung), you are a tax resident if you have a domicile or habitual abode in Germany.
Plus, under Extended Limited Tax Liability (Erweiterte beschränkte Steuerpflicht), any significant economic presence in Germany (assets, German clients, participation in a company, bank accounts) will pull you into the tax jurisdiciton for 10 years, not only as permanent traveler but also if you move to a low-tax country.
So while different, it's similarly difficult. It's technically possible but you have to leave Germany and basically cut all ties, difficult if you're German.
If you're not German, you can completely escape the claws of the German fisc with relative ease. But if you're say Spanish, Hacienda will consider you tax resident in Spain even if you never ever lived in Spain (i.e. born abroad). There's all sort of sticky tax rules in numerous countries: you're tax resident until you prove you're tax resident elsewhere, the aforementioned nationality fallback, essential ties rules, the "domicile" concept (i.e. where you intend to live until you die).
Plus, and I reiterate, the difficulty in obtaining a simple bank account without a TIN and proof of address in most countries.
I'm sure there are corner cases with exotic nationalities and carefully selected tax jurisdictions with lax "tax residency" tests to rotate along, and numerous nomads fly under the radar for various reasons (illegally of course), but I assure you it's way more complicated than "lol just don't be American/Eritrean and travel all the time", plus tax laws constantly change, and not to leave you more loopholes.
> Plus, under Extended Limited Tax Liability [...] bank accounts [...] Plus, and I reiterate, the difficulty in obtaining a simple bank account without a TIN and proof of address in most countries.
You're doing what so many people who make this argument do. You're taking an extreme example that laws have been crafted to tackle and using it to represent the norm. A normal German citizen with a normal amount of money leaving Germany to become a nomad and travel the world, never establishing tax residency in any other country, will not need to open a bank account anywhere else, nor will they be subject to Extended Limited Tax Liability which is designed to capture tax from people who try to terminate their tax residency before realizing substantial gains on local assets. Completely irrelevant to almost every person on earth.
My original assertion is that unless you are American (or, apparently, Italian) the normal person can up sticks one day and wander the world, and so long as they never establish tax residency anywhere, they will be living an entirely legal tax free[1] life. Of course doing so requires giving up the things humans need, like stability, so it is a terrible life for most, but the point is, it is legal and easy.
> [...] and numerous nomads fly under the radar for various reasons (illegally of course), but I assure you it's way more complicated than "lol just don't be American/Eritrean and travel all the time"
"illegally of course" again, false. There is no universal tax law that we are all subject to. The Common Reporting Standard is intended to combat tax evasion. A person who does not have tax residency is not engaging in tax evasion, they are just a person without tax residency.
Rather than speak in theory and hypotheticals, can you point to any real world examples of someone being charged / tried / accused of tax evasion because they didn't have tax residency?
> plus tax laws constantly change, and not to leave you more loopholes.
Why are you framing it as a loophole? Not having tax residency isn't a loophole, just as not having a car isn't a loophole for a drivers license.
Despite my argument, I am pro taxation. Taxation is needed to support society. We pay taxes to contribute to the society we are a part of. Taxation isn't punitive. But if someone opts out of being a part of a society, if they choose to wander the world, without the benefits of having a home and community, why would they be expected to pay taxes? And to who? Tax residency is a good system, a fair system.
[1] tax free is a bad term anyway because tourists pay consumption taxes but we're talking about income taxes
> A normal German citizen with a normal amount of money leaving Germany to become a nomad and travel the world, never establishing tax residency in any other country, will not need to open a bank account anywhere else
That will make you tax resident in Germany as all of your financial interests are in Germany. It's not an extreme example at all, it's the basic case to catch.
>My original assertion is that unless you are American (or, apparently, Italian) the normal person can up sticks one day and wander the world, and so long as they never establish tax residency anywhere,
Or Spanish. Or Belgian. Or French. Or Germany. Or basically any OECD country, and most non-OECD ones.
>they will be living an entirely legal tax free[1] life.
Legal as long as they don't generate any income, and even then, wealth taxes could kick in.
>Of course doing so requires giving up the things humans need, like stability, so it is a terrible life for most, but the point is, it is legal and easy.
It's really not easy at all to do legally, but at least we agree it's difficult to do emotionally.
>"illegally of course" again, false. There is no universal tax law that we are all subject to.
That's the fun part: virtually all OECD tax laws are universal.
>The Common Reporting Standard is intended to combat tax evasion. A person who does not have tax residency is not engaging in tax evasion, they are just a person without tax residency.
That's sovereign citizen tier of delusional. Plus I proved again and again that tax residence isn't bound to only where you are/live, at all, for over a decade, for any developed country and most developing ones.
>Rather than speak in theory and hypotheticals, can you point to any real world examples of someone being charged / tried / accused of tax evasion because they didn't have tax residency?
She played the "I didn't stay anywhere for too long lol" card because she was touring most of the time, and she was slammed by the Spanish fisc on the basis of her centre of vital interests.
Literally most rock/pop stars would be living tax free if what you said was true, unfortunately for them it's not the case.
You won't find many high profile cases because the people who make money use expensive tax advisors who tell them not to do what you suggest, but since you're familiar with Germany, here's another: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/oct/25/germany.tennis
> Why are you framing it as a loophole? Not having tax residency isn't a loophole, just as not having a car isn't a loophole for a drivers license.
Not having a tax residency prevents you from legally doing business pretty much anywhere where it's worth doing business. I have to ask for a work visa in some countries I visit because of work even if there's a tourist visa-free regime for me, I literally am not allowed to do any work there. Would they notice? Probably not. But what happens if they do? That I and most importantly my company are in deep shit.
Shortage of labor, high cost of labor and red tape are all consequences rather than causes. The cause is cultural. Property is the asset in much of the world and the value of property depends on limited supply. There's a disincentive to build more property, especially if you are a politician courting property owning voters.
In the U.K. people are indoctrinated from birth to believe that you work hard to save your money to buy a house and the value goes up so that you can retire with a valuable asset. Flooding the country with new property would completely upend that foundational part of U.K. culture.
If the governments of European countries wanted more property to be built, they could make it happen. The problem is, there is no appetite, they're walking a very fine line: more property must be built but property values cannot go down.
China is an extreme example (and has quality issues) but they have been building more than 10 million new homes per year for a long time, and now have tens of million of vacant homes that nobody wants to buy. That's a nightmare outcome for most Europeans who plan to retire on the value of their home.
The U.S. is fairly unique among western economies in that investing in the stock market has been a normal part of wealth building for the hoi polloi and while homes are important assets, they're not everything. In Europe, investing in the stock market is still novel, property is still the asset.
Even if that were true, our bodies were designed in a different era. Long before factory farming and antibiotics, long before curing and flavorings. Yes, high quality meat can be healthy but how many people are eating high quality meat?
If you want to criticize Beyond Meat for being processed goop, you must compare it to the meat regular people are eating every day… which is also processed goop but with added antibiotics and disease. The average American consumer would be much healthier if they immediately swapped all of their meat consumption with plant-based alternatives.
Since when have vegans used dog meat in a xenophobic way? The entire point of the dog meat comparison is to highlight that meat consumption is cultural and that other cultures eat animals we consider to not be food even though they are an animal that has equivalent intelligence to animals we do eat.
Dogs are the perfect example, not because of xenophobia, but because they are such a plain example of hypocrisy that can be refuted on every point.
Vegans are constantly using dog meat in a xenophobic way, presenting it as an absurd choice that is meant to demonstrate the supposed depravity of meat eaters, even though it's wholly a cultural preference. Enough of this Motte and Bailey crap.
Of course xenophobia is nothing new to most internet veganists, their whole thing is being intolerant to the culture of billions of people around the world, so a little additional intolerance to a few Asian countries (and a few Swiss people) probably seems like no biggie.
That's patently absurd. For almost every vegan, Veganism is predicated on the belief that all animal lives should be treated equally, that there is no difference between livestock and pets except cultural!
Saying that dog meat is an example of "depravity of meat eaters" makes no sense because the "depravity of meat eaters" is demonstrable... with any meat? That's the entire point of veganism! If a vegan believes that meat eaters are depraved, they believe they are depraved whether they eat cats, dogs, cows or pigs.
You may find some xenophobic people who are vegans but what you're much more likely to find is meat eaters who think that eating dog meat in Wuhan is depraved while eating pigs in New York is totally acceptable. Who do you think is signing the "end dog meat" petitions? Western meat eaters!
I have personally never met a vegan in person or online who thought that dog meat was more depraved than pig meat. The go to argument that vegans make is that pigs and dogs are of equivalent intelligence, that you could raise a pig as you raise a dog and have the same bond. Framing the dog meat argument as xenophobic makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and requires either a wilful ignorance or... I don't know. I cannot even understand how you contorted yourself into believing this.
Vegans are constantly using dog meat in a xenophobic way
You apparently have never heard or seen the fairly widespread 'the only difference is your perception' line of vegan merchandise which uses dog meat it in the opposite way: it calls out the hypocrisy of all meat-but-not-dog people. Not of a select group of people eating dog meat.
This seems off to me... Curious why you are so avidly against veganism? Most of them are not doing any harm to others, would you be against a charity that aimed to reduce harm to children?
Beyond Meat aren't unique, there are dozens of brands offering the same product. Tens of millions of people eat these type of products. Any (or most) burger-serving restaurant in Europe will have a Beyond Meat or equivalent on the menu. They're not always advertised as vegan (because of preparation and extras) but these fake burgers are very popular, for many reasons.
At the time it was a unique product. My alternatives reminded me more of basically black-bean patties than beef. Then impossible meat did it better, industry decided there was money in this direction, and now there’s “or equivalent” everywhere.
That's a really good point. Maybe in part because Beyond had a highly visible IPO they became the poster child for the success or failure of meat alternatives but in reality their story is pretty much just their own story.
In my part of the world, a burger is a type of sandwhich, and the definition doesn't require meat. So it's a burger whether it contains beef, fish, chicken, a vegan patty, a large slice of tomato, or whatever.
What part of the world, and how recently? Sure a burger is a sandwich, likely being a spin off of Hamburg steak.
Given all sandwiches, what in your part of the world makes a sandwich a burger? I think for many of us it's a ground patty. If said patty isn't meat, yes we might say that is fake as in an imitation of the original. It's not a negative thing.
> What part of the world, and how recently? Sure a burger is a sandwich, likely being a spin off of Hamburg steak.
The 95.8% of the world population that isn't in the US. This is simple to deduce because everywhere else calls "a piece of fried chicken in a burger bun" a "chicken _burger_". Only the US calls it a "chicken sandwich". Some of Canada might now use the latter through US influence - any Canadians here?
KFC is a representative example, they call them "KFC chicken sandwich" only in the US, "burgers" effectively everywhere else.
I suspect Commonwealth or Asia. Is your definition of sandwich cold things between sliced bread and burger hot things in a bun?
A piece of hot chicken between bread in Italy would likely be a panino, france a sandwich, spain a bocadillo, Portugal sandes, Japan a sando, mexico a torta, Argentina a sanguche.
I think you overestimate how many people use burger for things that don't refer to the American concept. A lot of cultures have hot sandwiches and thus (ham)burger is often distinctly the American concept of a ground beef patty. Where this breaks down outside of the Commonwealth is often from cultures without things in bread that got exposed to the generic burger via fast food chain terminology. Not surprising there.
What are you even arguing about? KFC and McD uses "Burger" everywhere outside of NA. There's nothing left to discuss besides that, it shows that indeed the rest of the world all calls it a burger even though it's not a ground meat patty. Good luck finding a country outside of NA where they call their chicken burgers a "chicken sandwich".
> Is your definition of sandwich cold things between sliced bread and burger hot things in a bun?
I disagree with the idea that it's "not the moment for plant-based meat". Beyond Meat has a fantastic product that does very well in lots of markets. The problem is that Beyond Meat the company was valued as some sort of once in a generation radical reimagining of the way we eat. Beyond Meat's product is not going to change the world, it's just a good product.
If Beyond Meat had grown organically, instead of raising hundreds of millions of dollars, it would be a great company doing great things today. Instead, it has failed to live up to the unrealistic expectations that were set for it. Beyond Meat is no different than any of the other zirpicorns.
Yup, the product is fine, but there's a reason all the other brands in the freezer aisle aren't raising hundreds of millions of dollars at 100x multiples. Burgers don't scale like smartphone apps.
Here's a comparison - Tyson Foods, best known for their frozen meat, had a revenue of $54.44 billion last year. Their current market cap is $21.77 billion.
Beyond Meat reported an annual revenue of $87.9 million in their 2018 S-1, and post-IPO reached a peak market cap of $14.1 billion.
I feel like AI and "tech" has normalised billions way too much. So even as millions are really a lot we don't even think about those anymore... Crazy crazy world.
I think that 'real product' (as opposed to software) companies would actually benefit more from raising capital from equity instead of 'bootstrapping', because of the taxes on retained earnings, which have a disproportionate impact on capital-intensive business. That said, I agree that the P/E multiple on Impossible and Beyond were best described by the descriptors in their respective names...
The way the market has moved away from valuing "just a good product" (and, by extension, "just a good service", "just a good business", and "just a good employee") is one of the factors destroying life as the developed world has known it for 80 years.
I guess I think of the investors as more representative of "The Market" than the traditional entities (producers, consumers) - which is the whole problem.
I have the opposite reaction. Beyond Meat is not a good product. It tastes gross.
It's not as good as the meat it's comparing itself against, and it's not as good as the vegetarian options also available in the store, and it's more expensive than either.
Anytime can "be the moment" for plant-based meat if the product technology was there, but it's not.
> it's not as good as the vegetarian options also available in the store
I've tried the beyond burgers, they were alright taste wise, but yeah there's many other options for a protein source.
Beyond Meat was never going to convince people to eat less meat by substituting it for fake burgers and steaks. For people that already eat vegetarian there already tastier sources of protein. Lentils, beans, quinoa, chickpeas, mushrooms, nuts & seeds, etc. All of those have much more flexibility with how you can incorporate them into dishes than a fake slab of "meat."
> more expensive than either.
This is a political problem. In the US animal agriculture receives far more funding than plant-based protein. Without government subsidies, a pound of ground beef would cost closer to $30-$40. We've historically defined food security int he US as "meat and dairy," two of the things we really need to consume less of because of environmental impacts.
But yeah, Beyond Meat wasn't going to get us there. We need real political changes, not fake meat.
I disagree, I enjoy beyond and impossible beef and their sausage. I'll often (though not always) opt for it while out because I think it tastes close enough to the real deal and doesn't have the ethical concerns of real meat. I am not vegetarian or vegan, though I do sympathize with their point of view. If bean burgers actually tasted good I might occasionally get those but they're gross
> If bean burgers actually tasted good I might occasionally get those but they're gross
Bean burgers are actually delicious depending on the brand and how you dress them up. It doesn't taste like a smash burger, but if you get a brand that grills up nice and crispy and pair it with a nice spicy mayo, it's legitimately a good burger.
Also, don't sleep on the humble Boca burger which has existed for decades. It's not as good looking as Beyond Beef but I would argue it's better tasting.
Every time I've tried a bean burger, including the boca burger it's always been immensely disappointing. Other people love them, and that's fine, but bean burgers are more burger adjacent than burger substitute. It's a different thing with a different flavor profile, even if it's shaped and styled like a hamburger. Beyond meat though, it's a burger substitute. Tasted so close to real meat that unless it's been undercooked or over salted it's hard to tell a difference.
I feel this way as well. There was a moment in time several years ago where I would see the alt-meat burgers in restaurants and so I would order them from time-to-time because they tasted fine and it didn't kill a cow. Now I hardly see it available, or, if I do, it costs extra.
I think part of the reason they've disappeared from menus is they were setup to fail. Often times the only option for it was just a basic hamburger. Place might have a dozen types of hamburgers but the alt_meat was only an option for the most boring basic cheeseburger
I’m ~97% vegetarian but there are a few foods for which traditional vegetarian alternatives are rubbish. One of these is the burger: you either get some odd veg/potato base pattie, a large grilled mushroom, or halloumi. The meat substitute burgers aren’t close to real beef burgers, but they’re far tastier than other vegetarian options.
I really want to know why restaurants keep thinking this is a good alternative. I've never had one that wasn't just a mess to eat, and it's weirdly common to have people think it contains a significant amount of protein. However, I'm very happy with most veg patties, and would love halloumi as an option over Beyond any day.
Many non-vegetarian restaurants don't seem to care about the vegetarian options, and just offer almost default options. It's probably down to the attitude of the chef - similarly to how you can sometimes tell whether the chef is a 'sweet' lover or not, by the relative quality of the main courses vs. the desserts.
I first noticed this years ago when eating out with a (my first?) vegetarian friend in a variety of (omnivorous) restaurants and gastropubs. The number of times he'd have to choose the goats' cheese tart became a running joke.
This is where beyond is doing so well because their burgers really are a lot closer to the real thing.
They're a lot better than a crappy low quality beef burger even, like a McDonald's patty. Not quite as good as a real steakhouse burger, but kinda in between. There's another brand that's about as good, impossible burger. Probably a bit better even but I've never tried them side by side.
The soy and potato varieties yes they're way worse than even McDonald's. They're not even trying to simulate a real burger, just the idea of 'some fried gunk on a bun'. But yeah no.
+1 Burger King has the impossible whopper and it's definitely better than the McDo smash patties (big mac, mcdouble, cheeseburger etc). Obviously different restaurants, so not really making the comparison at the store, but speaking to the levels of conparison.
> Lentils, beans, quinoa, chickpeas, mushrooms, nuts & seeds, etc. All of those have much more flexibility
With that flexibility comes inconvenience. With fake meat burgers or sausages I just have to whack the oven on and boil some veg to go alongside. That's family dinner. With lentils I have to s
think more about how to make it tasty for everyone.
I know that there's a lot of reasons for this, but at least in my area, the Beyond Meat products are considerably more expensive than actual animal meat.
I'm sure that's due to depressing subsidies or economies of scale, but regardless of the reason it's kind of hard for me to justify buying something that will taste like a "not-quite-as-good-as-the-thing-half-the-price" burger.
They are pretty good, don't get me wrong, it's just something that I have trouble purchasing.
You know, I am actually having trouble substantiating that.
I was just parroting what I heard but doing a search I found a bunch of posts claiming that subsidies don’t actually affect the price that much, and I cannot find a primary source for the $30/pound figure I have always heard.
100%, a product can't be just good and succeed now. Market's expect something to be "the next thing" or become a failure.
Also, price is always going to be an issue. The US spends billions and billions of dollars supporting the meat industry. The fact meat is cheap is a political choice, which makes direct plant based substitutes a tough financial proposition.
As a vegetarian that regularly uses plant-based substitutes: I'm super reluctant to believe a market for a product like Beyond ever existed. Between Beyond and Impossible they've got this weird chimera market, especially the latter, with their too-realistic product. If meaters cared they'd switch, there wasn't really a whole lot of fence sitting I don't think—not in reality. I think people were pretty well committed. I also think the sympathetic market of vegetarians and vegans didn't find the premise of these too-realistic products especially thrilling. And I don't think that's a huge market in the first place, at least not in a large portion of the US.
Then you factor in the costs and it's Beyond insanity.
And frankly I don't know if Beyond was doing anything legitimately novel. Impossible was over-engineering their burger to the extent that I wouldn't eat one from any restaurant because I couldn't tell whether it was be'f or beef. Beyond just seemed to be nu-gardein which I'll grant you—it's a Monsanto subsidiary—but the product is palettable, consistent, and available almost universally and has been as long as I've been on the diet, 12 years.
I think there was a fallacy that suddenly the whole of the general public would rush to stop eating meat and would accept a meat-like substitute; and that vegetarians craved something that tasted like meat.
This of course was completely false, but far too many people let themselves get caught up in hype instead of reason.
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I remember having an excellent veggie burger at a bar, and then when I went back a year later, it was replaced by Beyond or Impossible, and the bar tender was pretty open about how it was gross but their distributor pushed it on them. That of course pissed off the vegetarians who didn't like meat and had no desire for a meat-like substitute.
I can think of reasons they would need to diversify or collapse that relate to regulatory capture of the FDA by the current U.S. administration. Better some business that maintains continuity through hostile times than to collapse and see their future evaporate.
Maybe it wasn't cooked properly? I think they're delicious too. And they taste pretty genuine to me (I do eat meat too).
The first time I ordered one I honestly thought they got the order wrong and gave me a real burger.
Even the texture inside, a little but redder and more rough really felt like a fresh ground beef burger.
Impossible are really good too, I've had both and to be honest I have trouble remembering which was which but I enjoyed them both. I wish they were easier to get here.
Could it be the sunk cost fallacy? He started out thinking he’d spend a few weeks, then a few months… and before long, he has been in there for years and so he must continue with the lie lest he have wasted years of his life.
Most employees at most businesses show up do as they are trained and then go home, because that is what is asked of them. Even those who might have the inclination to explore new technology often will not for fear of doing something wrong. And that creates a big market for training: a company wants their employees to use Claude so the employees must be trained.
Startups / technology companies that expect employees to be self-starters who can be set free to frolic amongst the problems are an aberration.
I suspect it’s much more about understanding user behavior, i.e: given more allowance off-peak, do users change when they use Claude? And from there, that will inform how plans are designed long term. If they discover that offering higher off-peak limits meaningfully changes how/when users interact with the service, they can use discounted off-peak plans to flatten usage. I would be very surprised if this promotion had anything to do with encouraging people to upgrade.
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