centrist "tax refactor” advocate. over the hill jock. cancer survivor. built @futureme as 20 year side hustle, sold in ‘21. product at 3x startups, amzn, msft.

Boston
Joined November 2007
my proposal for radically simple capital gains tax reform: 1. Generous *lifetime* exemption 2. Tax as income above that 3. Realization at death 4. Index basis to inflation 5. Eliminate now redundant complexity (AMT, Section 121, QSBS etc...) taxrefactor.substack.com/p/t…
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Matt Sly retweeted
Product idea: smoke detector that doesn’t start beeping LOUDLY in the middle of the night when its battery runs low.
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Matt Sly retweeted
Just looked at the Louisiana Ballot Initatives and there are TWO measures offering property tax relief for seniors on the ballot. Who is behind this? How much more generational theft do the Boomers plan on doing? Mandatory year of indentured servitude for college grads next?
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Matt Sly retweeted
Replying to @elonmusk
@elonmusk Elon, I want to tell you something as a Ukrainian. For years, many people in Ukraine admired and respected you. I was one of them. I personally saw you as a technological genius, a visionary, someone who was building the future while others were still living in the past. And that is exactly why your growing hostility toward Ukraine is so difficult for me to understand. Ukraine is not a perfect country. We have corruption, political failures, and many problems. Nobody denies that. But tell me, which country is perfect? Ukraine is also a country of incredibly talented engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, developers, artists, and ordinary hardworking people. We build world-class technology, innovate under impossible conditions, value education, and have repeatedly shown the world what courage, resilience, and human dignity look like. We are a country that voluntarily gave up the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances. We are a nation that stood up in 2014, during the Revolution of Dignity, because we refused to live under authoritarianism and Russian domination. We wanted freedom, democracy, and the right to choose our own future. And today, we are fighting for that same freedom. Every day, Ukrainian civilians are killed by Russian missiles, drones, and bombs. Children lose their parents. Parents bury their children. Entire cities are destroyed. Millions of lives have been shattered. These people are not dying because of Zelenskyy. They are not dying because of Ukrainian corruption. They are dying because Putin chose to invade another sovereign nation and continues to wage a war against its people, cities, culture, and identity. Yes, corruption must be fought. Yes, every dollar of international aid must be accounted for. Ukrainians themselves deserve transparency and justice more than anyone. But corruption does not justify invasion. Political failures do not justify bombing children. And no amount of criticism of Ukraine changes who crossed the border with an invading army. You seem to believe that giving up Donbas and Luhansk could bring peace. But why should we believe Putin would stop there? He already violated Ukraine's sovereignty after promising to respect it. He took Crimea in 2014. He fueled war in Donbas. And in 2022, he launched a full-scale invasion. What makes you think another territorial concession would finally satisfy him? History has shown us what happens when democracies believe they can secure lasting peace by rewarding an aggressor with someone else's land. We have seen this before, in Europe, in the years leading up to World War II. Peace built on surrender to a dictator is not necessarily peace. Sometimes it is simply an invitation to the next war. Elon, you are a man who talks about the future of humanity, about making civilization better, about taking humanity to Mars. But what kind of future are we building if we accept that powerful dictators can erase smaller nations simply because they have more weapons? Ukraine is not asking the world to pretend we are perfect. We are asking the world to recognize that we have the same right to exist, to be free, and to determine our future as Americans do. And one more thing: Ukrainians have never been your enemies. Many of us admired you, believed in your vision, and appreciated what Starlink made possible during the darkest days of this war. That is why your words hurt more than you might realize. You have enormous influence. Your voice can shape how millions of people understand this war. I still want to believe that the man who dreams of advancing humanity can recognize the humanity of people fighting simply to survive. It is not too late to stand on the right side of history. Not on Zelenskyy's side. Not on any politician's side. On the side of freedom. On the side of human life. On the side of a nation's right to exist. That is all we are asking for. 🇺🇦
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A lesson from history is that autocrats cannot adapt. They often come to power addressing real problems, but since they don’t listen to the people, stagnation is inevitable. The playbook is stale and they see compromise as weakness. So they turn to outrages and repression.
Hume: The president has been out campaigning vigorously, but I'm not sure it's making any difference and what difference it would make I'm not sure is helping.  In Texas, he is calling James Talarico “Tala-freak-o.” He is not a freak. You see him. He seems mild mannered and pleasant and not an unattractive candidate.  This cuddling up to Vladimir Putin at this moment… I don’t think that plays well. The American public can’t stand Putin. And this fiasco with the press secretary…
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NEW from me is a major Brookings Institution study, “The Progressive Case for Social Security and Medicare Reform." It argues that refusing to reform benefits would radically redistribute income *upwards* from working families to wealthier seniors. 🧵 brookings.edu/articles/the-p…
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Any single individual having this amount of influence in our elections does not lead to a healthy democracy. It doesn’t matter if they are supporting Democrats or Republicans. We need a serious effort at campaign finance reform and have to overturn the Citizens United decision.
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It’s kinda wild that it takes bombing data centers in Russia to eliminate bots on Twitter. Should be a much easier problem for Elon et al to solve compared to colonizing Mars and building AGI
When we started responding to Russia’s operation against our data centers, and when our strikes reached Yandex’s data centers, it suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social media platforms. A lot of people noticed it. There was less hate, less division, and fewer provocations. Because there were fewer bots. And it’s pretty clear where those bots were coming from – if they disappeared when Yandex went offline. This proves, again and again, that Europe is not the source of the problems. Europe is not the one making everything more difficult. Most importantly, we need people in America, every morning, when the day in Europe is already moving toward evening, to really see what is happening. To see the truth. From a speech at the Warsaw Security Forum. (3/3)
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If you hit enough Russian data centers, a ton of “American” Twitter accounts suddenly stop posting.
Unironically, this might be an effective strategy to plunge support for Trump, AfD and the likes.
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Congrats to the “conservatives” who have ushered in an era of: -A pro-Putin administration; -Superpower suicide; -Crony socialism; -live-streamed executions; -losing a war to Iran; -unprecedented corruption; -vindictive prosecutions; -A disastrous economy for the working class.
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changing from .ai to .si under trump is like putting your pronouns into your bio under biden
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When all this is over, @realDonaldTrump will be remembered as the greatest traitor to America in its history. Children in school will learn of his treachery as a warning to future generations. People will spit on the ground when they hear his name. His works will be torn down, one and all.
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The most powerful man in the world is missing something. This is truly just head-shakingly narcissistic. Not sure how even the cult members can defend this (except by the ever-popular “what about Biden?” Or “he’s just trolling Norway”) This is a deeply disturbed individual.
Trump just had a massive meltdown over losing the Nobel Peace Prize to South African anti-apartheid jurist Navi Pillay. Trump attacked Pillay, admitted he knows nothing about her, claimed he deserves EIGHT Nobel Peace Prizes, took credit for preventing wars around the world, and declared that the actual award is an “indelible stain on Norway” that “will never be forgotten.” What a sick and pathetic individual.
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Agree! Don’t listen to the haters!
It turns out DIGGER is a work of pure cinematic genius. Strongly recommend, 4+ stars. Don’t read anything about it or pay attention to anything anyone says, just go.
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👏 👏
Some thoughts on the California wealth tax:
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Matt Sly retweeted
Misspelling the name of your own country in a document about super intelligence is an impressive feat.
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Democrats have a generational opportunity to reestablish a relationship with rural voters betrayed by Trump. The formula is simple: Focus on solutions to cost of living issues, including healthcare. Commit to a secure border without inhumane deportations. Deprioritize divisive social issues. No new wars. A more careful approach on AI policy and new data centers. Care about working people.
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Matt Sly retweeted
Unfortunately for Republicans, the situation is very easy to describe: 1. Trump won a cost-of-living election 2. Then he publicly announced a plan to raise the price of imports 3. Then he even-more-publicly started a war that raised the price of gas 4. Meanwhile, he got rich on crypto scams, while engaging in downright Pynchonian misadventures with the reflecting pool and ballroom, which sent the unmistakeable signal that "I care more about random bullshit than America's money problems ... and also I'm not even good at executing on the random bullshit"
For the midterms, I think corruption/self-dealing is issue 1b behind cost of living as 1a. It's not just that people feel things are unaffordable for themselves, they think those in power are helping rich friends get richer. From our latest "America in Focus" focus group...
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Matt Sly retweeted
Obama is making exactly same argument I have been making: the problem isn’t AI in general, it’s agents with internet access. kudos for his being the first politician to get it.
🚨 OBAMA ON AI: "If we are thinking about AI just in terms of how do we cure cancer or get better energy, you can do that without having agentic AI and having it just roaming free in the internet. The reason you are doing that is because you have to market a product that people will pay money for. That’s a misalignment between what our society needs and the commercial imperatives that these companies are facing, not because necessarily they’re trying to do bad things, but because they’ve got to justify these valuations. So, that’s one more reason why it is really important for us to have a competent government and a serious bipartisan conversation around this issue, and we have to do it fast. And I would encourage voters to pay attention to this. If somebody does not have a serious plan for how to deal with this, then they’re not meeting the moment, and you should probably look for somebody else."
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Donald Trump is one of the most anti-American presidents we’ve ever had. He genuinely despises and resents the First Amendment and the fundamental principles of this country.
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