iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Kyle

James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 14h

I'm taking my "Norway's wealth tax didn't reduce tax revenue" victory lap.

Whether imposing higher taxes on business owners adversely affects business activity by constraining investment and inducing capitalist flight is a central question in the ongoing debate on how to tax the ultra wealthy. To shed new light, I exploit a series of related Norwegian reforms during 2021–2024 that increased dividend tax rates, removed migration-related capital gains tax loopholes, and nearly doubled the effective marginal tax rate on business wealth. These reforms spurred international debate and, allegedly, an “exodus” of Norwegian billionaires (Financial Times, 2023). While I document clear effects on migration, these responses are concentrated among the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution and mostly confined to 2022 and 2023. My results indicate that at most 100 individuals left due to the reforms. I find no evidence of significant outmigration or reduced inflows of startup founders or inventors. I estimate that absent any outmigration, wealth tax revenues would have increased by 75% from 2021 to 2024. Reform-driven outmigration lowers the revenue gain to 71.5%. My findings further show that outmigrating owners’ firms remain economically active and do not reduce investment. In a broader set of analyses, I examine whether business outcomes are affected, regardless of whether owners outmigrate, since firms may reduce investment both due to liquidity constraints or distortions to owners’ savings decisions. I compare firms owned by Norwegian individuals subject to the wealth tax with firms owned by foreigners and other tax-exempt entities. By merging historical ownership data from Orbis with the Norwegian shareholder register, I perform these analyses on both Norwegian and foreign-domiciled firms. Across settings, I find no evidence that Norwegian-owned firms pay out more dividends or invest less after the reforms, nor is there any evidence that the reform induced more bankruptcies. ...

131157255

Reposted by Kyle

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 19h

New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854

Taxing Entrepreneurial Wealth: Evidence from
Norway, 2021-2025
Marius A. K. Ring
WORKING PAPER 35854|
DOl 10.3386/w35854
ISSUE DATE October 2026
Whether imposing higher taxes on business owners adversely affects business activity by constraining investment and inducing capitalist flight is a central question in the ongoing debate on how to tax the ultra wealthy. To shed new light, I exploit a series of related Norwegian reforms during 2021-2024 that increased dividend tax rates, removed migration-related capital gains tax loopholes, and nearly doubled the effective marginal tax rate on business wealth. These reforms spurred international debate and, allegedly, an "exodus" of Norwegian billionaires (Financial Times,
2023). While I document clear effects on migration, these responses are concentrated among the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution and mostly confined to 2022 and 2023. My results indicate that at most 100 individuals left due to the reforms. I find no evidence of significant outmigration or reduced inflows of startup founders or inventors. I estimate that absent any outmigration, wealth tax revenues would have increased by 75% from 2021 to 2024. Reform-driven outmigration lowers the revenue gain to 71.5%. My findings further show that outmigrating owners' firms remain economically active and do not reduce investment. In a broader set of analyses, I examine whether business outcomes are affected, regardless of whether owners outmigrate, since firms may reduce investment both due to liquidity constraints or distortions to owners' savings decisions. I compare firms owned by Norwegian individuals subject to the wealth tax with firms owned by foreigners and other tax-exempt entities. By merging historical ownership data from Orbis with the Norwegian shareholder register, I perform these analyses on both Norwegian and foreign-domiciled firms.
Across settings, I find no evidence that Norwegian-owned firms pay out more dividends or invest less after the reforms,…

9595264056

Reposted by Kyle

William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

At a certain point you gotta be willing to just say these are basically crazy people that nothing you can do will make happy, man. Like I’m sorry but if you’re protesting Mamdani over this people should just ignore you.

28977105

Reposted by Kyle

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

White supremacist cops take a minority citizen, drive him out to the woods as a threat, and leave him there. No, it's not Mississippi in the 1930s, why do you ask?

8636891440

Reposted by Kyle

Hemry, Local Bartender @bartenderhemry.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

It would be interesting to check back in with this guy in like a year or two to see what his thoughts are, given that he has his mom and her friend pouring poison in his ear about how pierre was a white-hating suicide bomber & bad waiter, & the other trucker is still complaining about immigrants

1460568

Reposted by Kyle

GOLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 04/10/2026

this is a well-reported piece with an awful lot written between the lines, and one of the things that jumps out at me is just how ill-informed these people are. the trucker, his partner, his mother — they can’t even agree *amongst themselves* on a shared understanding of events

19825144

Reposted by Kyle

Liam Dillon @liamjdillon.com · 02/10/2026

Years ago I interviewed Houston Mayor Annise Parker who told me one of the main reasons the city was able to cut homelessness by so much is she forced all the governments and nonprofits into a room and made them use the same data system. Meanwhile in LA www.latimes.com/california/s...

The agencies use different data systems, and even different Google spreadsheets, to produce their reports and often have different bureaus within them managing different housing programs.

For example, a senior director for Bass told the interviewers that the Inside Safe program uses an internal Google spreadsheet to manage its occupancy records and does not have access to the Homeless Management Information System, the countywide database that tracks street contacts with homeless people and housing placements

9549119

Reposted by Kyle

rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

this is exactly my opinion. there may be a superstrate of extremely difficult and unique safety problems around AI, but the substrate is simply that no one takes basic precautions seriously becasue they imagine (or pretend to imaigne) that it is futile, and basic precautions slow down launches.

14714122

Reposted by Kyle

Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

“Originalism is an incoherent doctrine. It allows you to prove anything. Thus what it amounts to is a ritual invocation of the Founders, gesturing at this or that piece of text, before delivering whatever conclusion was approved on Fox News the night before.” www.liberalcurrents.com/we-have-no-s...

liberalcurrents.com

We Have No Supreme Court

The philosophical incoherence of originalism prevents the Court from performing its core functions as a supreme court.

1223000781

Reposted by Kyle

mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo put her vision for the city like this: "A city where you can get let go of your child's hand"

4866149

Reposted by Kyle

Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Things Gavin Newsom has vetoed this week: -A ban on secretly recording people with smart glasses -A ban on ICE agents working for the state government -A ban on websites selling your data -A bill giving native tribes more say over water rights -A bill protecting transgender healthcare providers

297113214107

Reposted by Kyle

Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Pete is lost in terms of modern war. I use the example of this outgunned Ukrainian army officer who successfully terrorized a Russian unit for weeks because she "did the math." At the time, someone commented, "yeah, in combat, 'I did the math' beats 'I can do 100 pushups' every time."

Ukrainian female soldier: Okay, I said the idea is this: There is enough time to empty one full can of 32 grenades and be gone by the time the return mortar fire reaches us. I did the math.

2349871156

Reposted by Kyle

the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

we really need to start calling out these conservative christians for just straight up not believing in christianity. if you don’t believe christian teaching, nobody is forcing you to call yourself a christian! free yourself!

562003228

Reposted by Kyle

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026

I regret to inform you all that Bernie Sanders is in fact taking meetings with noted rationalist wacko Eliezer Yudkowsky over what AI regulations should look like. x.com/SenSanders/s...

Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders
Will Al become smarter than humans?
If so, is humanity in danger?
I went to Silicon Valley to ask some of the leading Al experts that question.
Here's what they had to say:
ERNIE ANDERS
02:19
The Als are much, much, much more powerful.
4:02 PM • Mar 4, 2026 • 1.3M Views
• 600
[1 463
3.1K
1.1K
Eliezer Yudkowsky
@ESYudkowsky • Mar 4
My thanks to Senator Sanders; as to other legislators on all sides of any political aisle, and to any human being on Earth who now stands

60940185

Reposted by Kyle

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026

Women trying to succeed in Silicon Valley AI and effective altruist spaces are reporting feeling serious social pressure to attend sex parties - where people have reported being sexually assaulted, like below. Events like Aella’s “Slutcon,” which is happening again this weekend.

Ann Pierce
@itsannpierce
20h
I am disheartened by this as well. I already lost a bunch of followers for agreeing with @tautologer, but it's saddening to see local nerdy women being caricatured as Karen-like outsiders and getting pushed out of the scene. This is exactly why you hear so few concrete, names-attached stories of sexual harrassment and assault. I'm told there is a history of discrediting these because the "slut normalization" thing is top priority and these stories get inconveniently in the way of spreading this ideology.
I got roped into attending last year's Saturday Slutcon party because so many local and out-of-town friends were there (to echo sentiments @tautologer expressed about "slut events becoming central to the larger scenes). Mostly I hung out with people I knew and that was great. But in the course of my 3-ish hours there, there were 2 times my "no" was not accepted by a man I didn't know, and I was physically pushing a huge guy off of me who was rubbing his penis on me, who continued to do it despite my physical force against him, and after I finally wriggled away from him, told him I wanted to dance alone etc., he came back and did it again.
This was scary and bad, but it didn't even cross my mind to report this because one of the other people who didn't accept my "no" earlier in the night was the bartender (an officially sanctioned authority at the event), and I knew the event was organized exclusively by women into CNC (who are vocal about how rapey behavior turns them on), so I figured this sort of thing would just get me laughed at. And anyway, I heard there were a lot of other incidents like it. Later though, someone encouraged me to report this story to the organizers, and despite my embarrassment I did, so *they know* that this and other incidents happened. This is why they cut the Saturday night party this year and created a larger training program for the flirt girls - *because* of things like this last year. Yet the narrative bein…

People who haven't been to Slutcon are saying "it's just group therapy," "it's just innocent flirting." But the environment is much like a sex party in that many people are nude, there is making out and sex acts happening out in the open. I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect that every nerdy girl who likes rationalist bloggers or is into EA/AI safety should automatically be comfortable with this! That if she's not, there's something wrong with her, we don't want her in our scenes, etc.
Not to mention, it's explictly an event *for men*, where men are the clients and the "flirt girls" are the product. Last year I overheard an exchange where a man felt "led on" by a flirt girl and was trying to get her punished/kicked out. (A dynamic that seems inevitable in this context!)
Anyway- it does sound like they've upped their consent education a lot this year, are more organized, and that's good! As I've told my friends who are attending: I hope they have fun!
I heard several accounts last year of women who had no problems and really enjoyed the event. That's great!
Just... can we live in reality about this? There are real reasons why male-female sexual dynamics are tricky.
Encouraging autistic men who can't yet read body language to go around asking to see womens' boobs is maybe a bit ill-advised. Maybe not everyone should be/identify as a slut; maybe it's not for everyone.
And yeah, filtering the Bay Area Al safety scene down to only women who are super comfy with this eliminates *most* women - including many of the really smart, nerdy, weird women who've been in the larger scenes for years. What a loss for humanity.
I absolutely understand why people with a minority sexuality would want to create belonging, would want to create spaces for people like themselves. But why do it like this/at this cost?

20743521113

Reposted by Kyle

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This is true. In 2016, I got into an argument with a gay man on a menswear forum. I've since made it my mission to make every man dress gay, thereby destroying his ability to tell who is actually gay and, ultimately, his chances of finding love. I built my social media following to achieve that goal

Someone on Twitter writes to me: "People should follow your advise if they want to look gay."

335154141292

Reposted by Kyle

lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 25/09/2026

"china is charging their cars in less time than it takes you to fill up your F-150" is the kind of banal jingoism i always assumed would get us finally kicking it up a notch on serious infrastructure buildout but we were a lot more directly addicted to gasoline in addition to racism than i thought

784367853

Reposted by Kyle

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

NYT has now independently corroborated all the major allegations against Susan Collins in the ProPublica report, including that investigators were prepared to move against her and then Trump intervened to shut it down. This put Trump in a position of exceptional and extortionate leverage over her.

nytimes.com

F.B.I. Shut Down Inquiry Into Top Ally of Senator Susan Collins

The inquiry was closed last year because senior bureau officials questioned the veracity of a campaign donor’s account, according to current and former officials.

24982253350

Reposted by Kyle

ProPublica @propublica.org · 22/09/2026

NEW: In late 2024, FBI investigators had enough evidence to launch a sweeping bribery probe that could ensnare top lawmakers, including Sen. Susan Collins. Then Trump was reelected and eviscerated the FBI and DOJ teams handling public corruption probes.

propublica.org

The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way

After the FBI caught a defense contractor’s CEO making illegal campaign contributions, it sought to launch a sweeping political bribery probe involving Collins and others. Then the second Trump admini...

13646332244

Reposted by Kyle

ProPublica @propublica.org · 22/09/2026

Sen. Susan Collins helped steer millions in federal defense contracts to Navatek, whose CEO illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign. The FBI sought to launch a probe and was eyeing Collins and other lawmakers. Then Trump gutted the unit in charge. THREAD 🧵

413114296095

Reposted by Kyle

Sen. Pumpkin Gogurt @ugarles.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Golden should be stripped of his committee assignments

202084228

Reposted by Kyle

Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Every time I bring something like this up on this site, people lose their shit in my mentions. I will say AGAIN that no one currently voting for Democrats knows that they will specifically do if they win except for some vague "hearings." THAT'S IT.

21830185

Reposted by Kyle

Jessica Ellis @baddestmamajama.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Nobody is going to want to hear this, but a real risk we face, no matter who is president next, is that they will see no need to restore the rights lost or the executive power stolen in the last 10 years.

7845671065

Reposted by Kyle

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The reason not to triangulate against trans people isn't that it's bad politics (although I believe it is) or unnecessary (although I believe it is). It's because YOU MUST NOT ABANDON THE VULNERABLE TO DEPRAVED PEOPLE WHO WILL DO THEM HARM. If we will, what's the point of anything else we do?

231461254

Reposted by Kyle

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 19/09/2026

remembering when a certain pundit challenged my “the administration is ideologically opposed to clean energy for gender reasons” with “i think they just want cheap energy”

583461464

Reposted by Kyle

George Pearkes @peark.es · 18/09/2026

These are all extremely common sense steps, and opposition to them can be used as a useful filter for bad actors in the space.

101059147

Reposted by Kyle

James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Republicans, in their infinite wisdom, left a big gambling loophole in the Medicaid work requirements. I'm no fan of the gambling industry, but if you are on Medicaid and struggling to deal with the work requirements, taking a $580 bet on both sides of an outcome is one way of getting around them.

401998531

Reposted by Kyle

lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

It's genuinely fascinating that the US president keeps announcing that he just flat out doesn't know what trade is, he legit doesn't appreciate the concept of exchange and instead views economic activity through the lens of a dragon attempting to maximise its gold hoard to sit upon.

883852597

Reposted by Kyle

Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The thing about trying not to pick a side is that the nazis *instantly recognize* which side you picked. They immediately identify you as an ally. They know exactly what side you're on. It doesn't fool the victims, it doesn't fool the Nazis, the only people it could possibly fool is centrists.

549921374

Reposted by Kyle

Matt Darling @besttrousers.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

"These billionaires’ total estimated wealth is $8.4 trillion...An enormous number, but it’s less than five percent of total U.S. household wealth. By comparison, households in the 90th to 99th percentile of wealth (from $2 million to $11.5 million) have total wealth of $63.2 trillion! "

2428459

Reposted by Kyle

Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Broke: The billionaire class is using culture war issues to divide the 99% Woke: The multi-millionaire class is blaming everything on billionaires to distract from their own role in reinforcing inequality

1044472

Reposted by Kyle

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 15/09/2026

The U.S. AI industry is being run by a batshit rationalist sex cult, and no, I am not being hyperbolic - they’re genuinely Like That:

Erin Redwing
@realizingerin
I went to an rationalist/EA Al doomer event last night with the goal of meeting someone who could calmly explain to me the argument for how they get to the conclusion that Al will kill everyone.
Because these are rationalists, I expected to find people who could lay out a serious extinction pathway, walk through the assumptions and intermediate steps, identify choke points where negative pathways could potentially be regulated, and entertain disagreement about where their assumptions might break down.
My experience was the exact opposite.
The people I spoke to seemed psychologically unable to entertain the possibility that their conclusion (that Al literally kills everyone, which was a point that many would not even budge on) might be wrong.
Their most extreme conclusion was treated as an axiom.
I had multiple people walk out of conversations with me when I questioned their inevitable extinction premise.
At one point during a panel, the moderator asked everyone in the audience who was still skeptical of Al doom to raise their hands. About half the room did. He then told all of the skeptics to leave the panel and go with one of the speakers, who would answer their questions separately. They filtered out all the skeptics, and continued the panel only with the subset who accepted their extreme position.
I genuinely felt like a heretic just for questioning whether superintelligent Al inevitably leads to the extinction of humanity, or entertaining the possibility that the future might actually turn out well.
That does not mean Al safety is fake. Obviously there are serious questions about rapidly advancing Al systems and what happens as they become much more capable. Those are exactly the conversations I went there hoping to have.
But what I encountered was an apocalyptic death cult. These people are not rational. They are deeply afraid, they reinforce that fear in one another, and they have become so emotionally committed to apocalypse

28860751589

Reposted by Kyle

Rosemary Mosco @rosemarymosco.com · 06/09/2026

I’m going to need everyone who’s reporting on AI psychosis and how it’s making people, especially men, come up with theories of everything to please talk with the scientists who have been getting multiple emails from “theory of everything” guys for decades

783698589

Reposted by Kyle

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

You know, I mostly avoid these 'look what crazy thing he said' posts but...legitimately this is a deranged rant. he seems to be confusing credit ratings with bond yields with the federal funds rate and thus imagining the fed can unilaterally lower the (yield) 'rate' the US borrows at (it can't).

1540653

Reposted by Kyle

Daniel Ahmad @zhugeex.com · 04/09/2026

It takes you 20 paragraphs to get to the part of the article where they admit that Mamdani isn't paying the influencers and the reason they are posting videos of the stuff Mamdani is doing is because people are interested in watching it.

The mayor’s office says that it does not pay the influencers. Still, their proximity and access to a figure as popular as Mr. Mamdani can help increase their own social media following and, by extension, potentially put them in a position to attract paid content sponsorships from commercial brands. Some influencers said that when they feature Mr. Mamdani, the videos get more likes and viewers watch longer.

14120733350

Reposted by Kyle

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

fun part if you ask me: higher ed institutions in secular democracies are the closest approximation of a 'marketplace of ideas' as you are likely to find this side of a global revolution and a lot of people who claim to like that idea do not seem to love its results

251755361

Reposted by Kyle

mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

it's insane they do this bend-over-backwards "critics say it raises questions" shit when the actual law just says "its illegal to put living people on currency"

14149671149

Reposted by Kyle

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Awful. Just awful. A promising young man, a high school honors grad who joined JROTC and dreamed of becoming a doctor, killed himself because of the Trump admin’s obsession with hurting Haitians and the humiliating shame of an ICE ankle monitor. His blood is on their hands.

A picture of a young black man, dressed in a light blue suit with a smart black bow tie, smiling as he is handed a diploma from a school official, a white man in his 40s-50s who is also smiling. Underneath is the caption “Pierre Damas Bel receives his high school diploma. (Family Photo/Instagram)”

Bel arrived in the United States in 2024 in order to reunite with his parents, who had fled Haiti three years before. The family was granted temporary protected status, purchased a home in Springfield and settled into life in the U.S. Bel dreamed of studying medicine and graduated high school last May with honors and as a proud member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), his father said. He was the eldest of three siblings and his family described him as smart and responsible.

542656989

Reposted by Kyle

mcc @dryad.technology · 01/09/2026

This is the single biggest physics discovery of my entire lifetime. Or something's wrong with one of the cables. One of the two

9961201239

Reposted by Kyle

rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

this is, by the way, expressly a decision of the policy team and not automated, as you may have been told

26882164

Reposted by Kyle

Meredith Conroy @meredithconroy.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I clipped this. It’s worth listening to in full. I’m thrilled Bouie brought up polls about maintained support for DEI from 2025. I’m looking at Pew polling about BLM from the same time frame and triple checked it because public support also hasnt declined to the degree some discourse would suggest

1853178

Reposted by Kyle

Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

What are we supposed to do, huh? Call bullshit, treat transparent bad faith as bad faith, shrug off low effort intimidation, and keep listing the centuries-old place name everyone uses instead of hopping to follow the ridiculous whims of one guy?!? Uh... yes. Yes. That is what you should do.

1654183

Reposted by Kyle

Micah @rincewind.run · 30/08/2026

there we go now make this a condition of your endorsement so every last presidential candidate commits to it before the south carolina primary

172414344

Reposted by Kyle

A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

“No, we stole that term from you Black folk. And now it’s ours, because we use it. We use it to mean that the concerns and perspectives of you Black folk are annoying or wrong or dangerous, as a way of ignoring and dismissing those concerns and perspectives. Like I’m doing now—does that make sense?”

443590768