Orthophenia

Probably not on your team

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@rorysutherland It's almost entirely a cost benefit thing.

Blackspots correlate strongly with areas where provision (construction and maintenance of masts) is most costly.

With the rise of city centre free WiFi, the problem costs orders of magnitude more to solve than it does in lost revenue.

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@BladeoftheS Nonsense claim.

All of these business pay corporate tax somewhere (most often in the US), and all of them pay other taxes in the UK when they employ, sell, distribute, operate data centres etc.

In 2025 Amazon paid about £1.3b and its sales generated a further £5b in VAT.

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@BladeoftheS Nonsense claim.

All of these business pay corporate tax somewhere (most often in the US), and all of them pay other taxes in the UK when they employ, sell, distribute, operate data centres etc.

In 2025 Amazon paid about £1.3b and its sales generated a further £5b in VAT.

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@Adrian_Hilton

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@NotFarLeftAtAll On the contrary.

There is no chance labour will allow a general election before 2029 after fourteen years in opposition.

Let the right fragment now, to coalesce around the preferred party when it actually matters. Choices are good.

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@xwanyex The problem is that we gave the job of imagining things to systems, then let the systems propagate themselves at the expense of the imagination.

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@mr_james_c Where do you even start to refute this drivel?

The credulous claim that poverty is flat, painting service cuts as the 'easy option', economically illiterate wealth tax values, the entitlement, the wish fulfillment, the total absence of chin?

It's just so infantile.

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Je vais partir du principe que tu es de bonne foi, parce que ton raisonnement est intuitif et que 90% des gens le partagent. Mais il repose sur trois erreurs factuelles, et ça vaut le coup de les regarder calmement.

Erreur 1 : la fortune d'Elon n'est pas un tas d'argent. C'est de la propriété d'usines, de fusées et de satellites. "Prendre la moitié de sa tune", concrètement, ça veut dire forcer la vente de la moitié de SpaceX et Tesla. L'argent ne sort pas d'un coffre, il sort des entreprises elles-mêmes, qui passent sous contrôle de fonds étrangers ou d'États. Tu ne redistribues pas du cash, tu démantèles un outil de production. C'est la différence entre récolter des pommes et découper le pommier.

Erreur 2 : "ça résout énormément de problèmes dans le monde". Cette expérience a déjà été tentée, en vrai. En 2021, le directeur du Programme Alimentaire Mondial de l'ONU a affirmé que 6 milliards de Musk pouvaient "résoudre la faim dans le monde". Réponse d'Elon : décrivez-moi exactement comment, comptabilité publique à l'appui, et je vends mes actions Tesla immédiatement. Le PAM a publié son plan. Verdict : ce n'était pas "résoudre la faim", c'était nourrir 42 millions de personnes pendant un an. Un an. Puis il faut re-payer, pour toujours. Le PAM avait d'ailleurs levé 8,4 milliards l'année précédente, et la faim était toujours là. Les ONG traitent les symptômes en boucle, jamais les causes, parce que leur financement dépend de l'existence du problème.

Erreur 3, la plus importante : tu cherches ce qui sort vraiment les gens de la pauvreté. Bonne nouvelle, on a la réponse, et elle est massive. En 1990, 36% de l'humanité vivait dans l'extrême pauvreté. Aujourd'hui, moins de 9%. Plus d'un milliard de personnes sorties de la misère en 30 ans. Par quoi ? Pas par la charité ni par l'aide internationale (plus de 1 000 milliards versés à l'Afrique en 60 ans pour un résultat à peu près nul). Par l'ouverture des marchés, l'industrialisation, le commerce. La Chine seule a sorti 800 millions de personnes de la pauvreté en abandonnant le collectivisme, pas en taxant ses entrepreneurs.

Donc fais le calcul complet. Option A : tu confisques 500 milliards, tu finances quelques années de programmes, l'argent est consommé, et tu as détruit la machine qui produisait les fusées, les voitures électriques et l'internet des zones rurales. Option B : tu laisses le meilleur allocateur de capital de sa génération réinvestir 100% de sa fortune dans des industries qui baissent les coûts pour tout le monde et emploient des centaines de milliers de personnes. L'option A soulage ta morale pendant 18 mois. L'option B sort des populations entières de la pauvreté pour toujours.

La pauvreté ne se redistribue pas. Elle se résout par la création. C'est contre-intuitif, c'est frustrant, mais c'est ce que disent 200 ans de données.

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@_simonchandler_ @PeterMcCormack I accept the fundamental point, but the wealthy don't redistribute, they transact. Transactions require at least one & normally very many, other parties. In other words, a market.

If they fail to offer attractive terms, there's no 'buyer', no transaction & the wealth's devalued.

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@Heccles94 Explain the practical mechanism by which a trillion dollars of assets could be used to solve even one of these problems.

Then show the framework in which these outweigh the problems said assets already solve.

Only then you might be able to make a moral case for why they should.

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@Ye_Olde_Holborn @afneil @HalfDHacker Characterising subsidies provided to one company (among many) by government policy (presumably in return for a national benefit) as 'handed over' to it's largest shareholder is a motivated oversimplification.

You're condemning state intervention, not a successful businessman.

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@_simonchandler_ @PeterMcCormack A billionaire is not a single actor.

They are the titular owner of assets made up in no small part of other actors, assets which are valued at that amount.

If the billionaire lacked the capability, this value would not emerge, since capital is only attracted to returns.

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@GavinBoby @elonmusk @AuronMacintyre That's a too generous to the intelligence of the powerful. The purpose of the system is what it does, the system doesn't need to know *why* it does that.

The root imperative is "protect boomers' wealth". All of these effects are emergent, unforeseen higher-order consequences.

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@KonstantinKisin Everyone who wants to comment on Henry Nowak's death and the ensuing discourse should be made to do so as a voiceover to the bodycam footage.

[Konstantin Kisin @KonstantinKisin]

Britain had a moment of silence for George Floyd. Our politicians kneeled en masse to show their outrage at his killing. "I can't breathe" became a slogan.

George Floyd died on the other side of the world. He wasn't British.

Henry Nowak *was* British and his treatment by the police was shocking and negligent in the extreme. Yet there is no minute of silence. There is no coordinated public campaign. There is no kneeling at sporting events.

And we all know why.

During the summer of BLM, some people said "All Lives Matter". This was treated as the highest form of racism and anyone who said this was immediately cancelled. Why? Because the people in charge don't actually think all lives matter in the same way.

They have created a racial hierarchy of victimhood where a career criminal who died through mistreatment by police in a foreign country with 0 evidence of racism like George Floyd is automatically sanctified because of the colour of his skin.

And Henry Nowak, a British man, one of ours, is automatically dismissed and ignored because of the colour of his.

This is the ugly fruit of so-called "anti-racism", an obsession with race that has created a two-tier society which treats people differently because of the colour of their skin.

This needs to stop.

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@Heccles94 Because you keep redefining poverty & import millions of people who will, at 'poverty' level in the UK, have greater wealth than they could have ever achieved in their 3rd world home.

You either know this, in which case you're dishonest, or you don't, in which case you're naive.

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@Zombielooville @BladeoftheS No absolutely, I shouldn't have to give a big business my burner email to get my cheap Pimm's. What's this country coming to?

[frances Barber @francesbarber13]

What a marvellous young woman. Brava . We’ll be alright .

[Orthophenia @Orthophenia]

@Heccles94 Hang on Harry, why would citizens be threatened by migrants?