This doesn't fit the narrative, but a lot of American states have lower effective property tax rates than European nations. There exceptions on both ends of this of course (like TX which is making up for a lack of income taxes).

People should look them up and compare European nations to major us cities and states. Europe ends up with not only higher income taxes, but also higher property taxes overall. And a completely insane financing method like having adjustable rate mortgages being normal, locked only for a period of 3 to 5 years before basically being forced to refinance. Little wonder that property ownership rates are generally so far below american ownership rates.

No system is perfect and people with means tend to find every flaw in them (and plant those flaws if they are wealthy enough). But people really need to remember that the grass is always greener because of all the manure.

Either way for California he wouldn't be affected because Californiamnproperty taxes are effectively snapshotted at time of purchase and grandfathered for people like him. If he truly bought or built 50 years ago and ows it outright then prop 13 has long capped what he pays decades ago.

People like him, in California, are subsidized by the modern generation who don't get capped by prop 13. And when he sells that house it's value gets assessed at current market value and full taxes are due from the buyer.

Put shortly, his story is likely bullshit if he's from California. And people without houses and salty about it need to do some research.

The wealthy often have near zero or net negative income. It's one reason why income taxes are optional for them but property taxes ultimately aren't.

No. Capital gains taxes are not taken from your residence.

...does anyone in this thread actually own a residence or at least conduct a basic level of research before forming strong opinions?

No, $40k/yr in property taxes is insane unless your parents own several mansions, even for Texas where the highest property tax rates are around 2.5%. Even if you tack on millages and bonds and other things there's no way it gets near that.

There's a lot of bad takes and clear misinformation from disaffected people in this thread. Stuff like this should be obvious.

That is extremely condescending toward H1B holders. And I'm not a proponent of the program.

Id challenge you to say that statement to an HB colleague and see how they take it.

TIL most people don't know that "apologists" means apologetics which does NOT mean "apologize." It means to defend something.

I'll take one of each, please.

I don't care what you say, the Apple store circa 2001 is iconic and definitely has that "lickability" factor that Jobs loved so much about the original OS X's Aqua UI.

When did code reviews become this weird?

Yeah, people defend Linus and other faces like MKBHD for one huge reason: Parasocial relationships.

Just look at all the conversation happening in this thread with people defending the figure of Linus (and others). Influencers, even tech influencers, make money because they can monetize those people.

And Linus appeals primarily to the folks who like thinking of themselves as the tech person in the family or at the office, but really they are no more technical than slotting a stick of RAM into a case on average.

So the argument boils down to it being due to bad parents rather than evil technology, yes?

That's not the main arguments being used to ban these devices and advocate for more radical plans. Removing access to these doesn't make someone a good parent. Kids turn to other methods.

And to an earlier point in another comment: guess which cohort has explosive growth in smoking at the moment? Not people our age. Teens and young adults of legal age. Gen Z, in particular, is a huge market for that industry now. Cigars and pipes in particular. Vapes are counted separately but are wildly popular.

Banning the sale of highly regulated goods where the state is the official and only legal seller of said good in many states is one thing. We are talking about the internet here, though. And cell phones. And computers. And tablets. May as well put TVs and connected devices on the list, and definitely console platforms.