That was nice.

If you have bad calligraphy, practice. Won’t hurt you.

Weren’t those a thing to admire? Chicken scratches on the ground could be more readable.

I wasn’t making any sense of that. Thank you.

I don’t doubt you have a busy life. And that is not the subject at hand here.

What should concern us, collectively, is that we are constantly being pushed the notion that we do not have enough time and that tech is always the solution, when it is not.

I’m going to take a risk and say you write faster than you type and reaching for a pencil is quicker than launching a program.

Translation please!

Writing someone a letter is a very personal thing and you’re creating a memory. Something tangible, concrete, also weighs in on reality. Looking at a piece of paper with your handwrite makes you understand you’re commiting to something.

I’m a FOSS loon but the craze of making everything digital is absurd. I’ve listened to people criticizing others for using paper and a pencil to take down a memo, note or even journaling, when they can do it on their phone.

Is existing so dreadful nowadays? Does the notion of leaving proof of existence scares?

Above all, it is about the individual freedom.

Go back in history and you’ll see a pattern of regressive politics paired with heavy censorship, starting with anything sex or sexuality related and, by extension, anything potentially disturbing.

It is always sparked by a “well intentioned” desire to protect:the public from harmful creation which then pushes further and further into thought control. There have been attempts to ban and criminalize cursing.

Imagine being arrested for shouting an expletive out of hurting yourself or frustration.

I don’t consume porn. I think it is so banalized it has become uninteresting. But to have people persecuted because they want to make it is not something I want to see. And this feeling goes further when we enter the realm of personal affirmation, linked with LGBTQ+ issues and other individuals fighting for their rights.

And this is highly debateable but artistic creation must no be censored. The best censorship for artists and their work is indifference. It’s the best way to state that something is irrelevant.

Meanwhile, with all the persecution towards mature content (try replacing NSFW and porn with that expression), we get violence nearly glorified in almost all media and so called reality tv and other highly exploitative entertainment is normalized.

Leave the mature content creators be.

Electronic, e-ink, price tags.

Centrally linked to a shop back office workstation. You can turn the entire shop upside down twice a week and the actual work to change the tags would be negligible.

And for what it matters, lets assume a very large nation wide chain, like Target. The stock leaves their supply wharehouses unmarked, as it should. The cargo is then delivered to the stores, the tags printed (waste of paper), with full price, and the shelves restocked. Each store has to deal with their local taxation or absence of it.

It is not a very complex endeavour.

Agreed

Regardless. It had a better chance to it. And nowadays a bunch of countries with wildly varying cultures, completely different languages and a lot of unsolved baggage is doing it better.

If it was to be another group of independent nations, fine. But the moment federation is considered and considering the duress it had to take from the start, against a common enemy, true, organized union would be easier and simpler.

I risk computers can deal with the brunt of the work, if will to do so exists.

Tax harmonization is an ongoing struggle.

The Nederlands and Ireland have extremely low taxation rates for companies, which is causing many companies to move to these countries and effectively undercutting their country of origin. And now that I think about it, Luxembourg has the same issue.

But completely waving taxation is not legal, at any level.

I’m aware the american states could be considered countries. Unfortunately, the US being a somewhat more homogeneous country at its inception, never took the opportunity to create a good legal super structure. The end result is the conflicting federal and state level.

That is an entire level of idiocy and corruption by itself.

That is awful.

No prices? Things are getting worse.

I’m aware of that qwirk in your system. No such thing here. And I have a mortgage to pay.

No amount of cashback is enough to convince me to sign up to one.

Well… maybe 100%.

And I keep thinking my country’s tax system is weird.

No way! That is ridiculous. That is essentially equating to create tax havens inside your own country. What is stopping people from high taxation states to just go for a shopping spree on a non-taxation one? Or even a city or town? Nothing. It makes no sense.

My country has a mainland and two autonomous regions. All taxation is designed centrally. VAT, special taxes, income, private and corporate, vehicles, land, house, etc, everything is established centrally. The autonomous regions do have the freedom to fine tune the end % of tax but really nothing else. They can’t exempt a tax, just because.

Why would that be?