Regulations in Europe also seem to have had the, I'm assuming completely unintentional, side effect of completely cementing the positions of the top of society in place. And this is nothing new, this actually predates modern democracy in Europe. It's been that way for centuries. In Europe the only time to leave, or join, the ultra-rich is during wars.

That the EU doesn't have unicorns is not an accident of whatever rules you like or dislike, it's entirely by design.

The problem with the ultra-rich is not that it's hard to get there, but rather that it is possible. Nobody is personally worth billions, period. The fact that some individuals get there shows a flaw in the system.

The second thing that I wanted to say is that even though there are examples of originally not ultra-rich people becoming ultra-rich in the US (e.g. Zuckerberg and Besos), the likelihood of this happening is almost zero. Why is it that people keep hoping that it may happen to them? We should not build a system for a handful to become ultra-rich, but for most to live as well as possible.

The underlying emotionally driven question is what did they do to deserve it. For all of the faults of Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos, I don't think I've ever heard of them being called lazy. Someone else getting ahead when they don't deserve it is universal. We get told life isn't fair and just accept it but I don't think I'm alone in never actually accepting it. So unfairness matters.

Just leaving this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index

Amusingly enough, what the GP stated was true in 1910, but now the US is far more like pre-WW1 Europe in terms of distribution of wealth (c.f. Piketty's capital in the 21st century).

Social mobility index doesn’t really look at how easy it is to become very rich (I.e. get into the 1%). This is also explained in the methodology section of the article you linked.

I can already tell this index is complete BS as it has Sweden in the 4th place. The ceiling placed at around upper-middle class is made out of cement.

The right wing propagandist who photoshopped "I hate free speech" over Nancy Faeser standing at a Holocaust memorial and holding a sign with the Text: "We remember"? I guess it is kinda important to not ignore the context of the edited image, especially since Germany for good reasons is not including the rights of holocaust deniers and Nazis in their free speech.

Quite a singular case and it sparked a huge controversy on free speech in Germany, with most scholars and officials siding with the sentiment that what David Bendels did was disguisting, but probably covered by free speech to some degree.

Compared to the free speech violations (and the seemingly inconsequencial nature of the discussions after they happened) this is still just a singular case.

Also, purely from a conceptual standpoint I do not think that a free society has to tolerate every opinion of people who objctively seek to abolish it. If you have a significant fascist movement in your country your speech will have become less free, so limiting their speech before they do is an act of defending democracy and everybody who believes in it.

Just replace Nazis/fascists with radical islamists and check how free your speech really is.

Popper's paradox of tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Similarly, we should not tolerate the "free speech" of those that seek to silence others (e.g. fascists).

Popper said we should tolerate the intolerant as long as they aren't violent, so its the exact opposite of what you say.

In general intolerance just breeds more intolerance, people are much less tolerant today than 10 years ago due to the massive amount of intolerance towards intolerance that proliferated the past 10 years.

Violence is such a nebulous concept, though. There are forms of violence that aren't physical, even though the law typically only recognise those. Is publicly mocking people for having a different culture violence? Is calling for harm upon them? Is, through policy, causing harm to them violence? Is it violence if it's through willful inaction?

I think all the above are, although the trade-off line is somewhere above mockery.

Violence = actual illegal physical violence or (legal) credible threat of illegal physical violence by individuals, or legal state-authorized physical violence or seizure of assets (policy).

> Is publicly mocking people for having a different culture violence? no

> Is calling for harm upon them? maybe

> Is, through policy, causing harm to them violence? maybe

> Is it violence if it's through willful inaction? no

Yes and no.

Nowadays, there's a lot of violence that is predicated upon misinformation in social media platforms.

e.g. The Southport riots (UK) were fuelled by entirely fabricated and false information: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zshjs82

40 police officers were injured and 27 taken to hospital, so I would certainly classify that as violence. I don't think we should tolerate that level of misinformation designed to stir up racist hatred.

She wasn’t standing at a holocaust memorial. The original image had “We remember” as a slogan to remind of the holocaust.

Maybe your translator confused background with background story.

This is doctrine.

The same way you make sure your planes fly, your code is updated, and you improve your product - you pay attention to your regulators.

The SEC was defanged for years. The pendulum swung to low regulation, and lower taxes, leading to greater wealth concentration via asset purchases.

These are all rectifiable. At all levels. It just not going to happen if we are listening to zero information news sources and disengage with everything but rage.

China, famously unregulated country full of freedom.

How is this a mystery? What matters is whether the state provides funding for innovation. The market will never support a first moon landing. The market will not even support something like starlink, where the use is obvious. The US' technological advantage is the result of massive continuous state investment after WW2 and through the cold war. There were periods of such investment in Europe, but they have been over for decades now. The only places where some lasted during the cold war were the UK and France, and both of those are well and truly over. In the US they're only now dropping fast under Trump.

The CCP is providing absurd amounts of funding for commercial innovation. Not just money either. Everything from monetary stimulus, tax exemptions (and strategically forgiving outright tax evasion) even "honey traps" (hiring prostitutes to entrap foreigners, even long term), even kidnapping foreigners.