I'm on a mini hubski break lately, life's been pretty busy and haven't had as much time to lurk. If anyone wants to pick up the book threads while I'm out go right ahead! In the meantime I'll still pop in occasionally :)

About 65%.

63.7% personal savings then another 1 - 2 % investing in charity and my community. Thats all my savings combined though, after tax and before tax 401k, hsa, and brokerage.

I'm down for hangouts! No car though.

It's not bad. It's a tool. There are bad ways to use it, sure. But there are plenty of pretty awesome applications beyond the realm of privacy. Rallying against the cloud seems very silly to me, like complaining about ovens or hammers.

I would do a couple days in Kyoto (half day in Nara) if you can. Or an overnight at an onsen, we went to this one and it was a highlight for most people.

in tokyo:

http://www.shinjuku-robot.com/pc/ - this is a must! skip the bento it's terrible

http://www.ghibli-museum.jp/en/ - get tickets in advance, like today

Golden Gai - A tiny neighborhood of bars the size of a large closet. Some only serve 3 people, but it's so you interact and get to know each other. one of my favorite parts of the trip. We made friends with a local who got us in to some of the friendlier bars - some do not allow people who speak english.

Picture from our favorite bar. I don't remember the name, it was 4:00am and I was not sober at all

Karaoke - it's worth it, definitely hit it up at least once. I actually found the place we went because it had this amazing giant toast thing

I would say maybe try different accommodations. Our first night we stayed at a capsule hotel, then a hostel, then a business hotel, then a ryokan. All were really unique experiences in their own way. And if you can stay near the Yamanote line because it will get you just about everywhere you need to go.

Edit: Forgot a super important one! Learn the kanji for shochu. Do not get it confused with sake! Very different beasts.

Staying in Tokyo the whole time or going anywhere else? I can suggest some places if you want. The $1 sippy sake from 7 - 11 make great gifts, i brought a ton back but I wish I'd grabbed more!

I highly recommend this podcast for you:

https://gimletmedia.com/episode/44-shine-on-you-crazy-goldman/

My issue with any sort of narcotics is that it makes you into a person with less control over yourself.

The psychonauts I know have way, way more control over themselves then just about anyone else I know. The ability to handle your brain radically changing normal function, and not only handle it but derive something of value, takes incredible strength of self and is not to be belittled.

but I feel like using drugs will rob me of the reasoning skills and the willpower I so treasure

Then don't. No one is making you. But if you aren't willing to take the risk you probably shouldn't pass judgement on those who do, because it's something you don't understand. Most worthwhile experiences in life come with risks, its your call if those risks are worth it for you.

Setting an arbitrary barrier on what you allow yourself to experience seems to me to limit personal growth, not advance it. You are going to change. You're reasoning and willpower are subjected to a million external influences anyway, hunger, tiredness, how much sunshine you've gotten. Who you are will be shaped by what you experience, like it or not. The only choice you have is what those experiences will be.

I feel like almost all of the anti-drug sentiment or fear comes from ignorance. If you think all drugs are bad, and all drug users are addicts, of course your going to be terrified when someone smokes weed around you (for example).

People who paint with broad strokes usually don't know enough or have enough experience to view with more shades of grey.

Better self education and public education would go a long way here. I will say not all drugs are dangerous, but some are. If you are going to experiment, plan ahead, and ffs test your shit. If you can afford drugs you can afford to do it safely.

What languages / tech are you going to be working on?

Have you read Eon by Greg Bear? It's a bit more modern homage to Rama. I loved it, I haven't given the original a try since I feel like it will be the same story but less fun. Hoping for someone who's read both to tell me if it's worth a shot.

https://hubski.com/tag?id=weeklybooksthread&time=all

Been going strong since I started, personal initiative is not the question :) Books take days to read while songs are a few minutes. If the average hubsker doesn't have anything new to add each week it might be better for me to space it out. I'd rather higher trafficked threads biweeekly then half the interest each week, mostly because I think its cool when people interact and discuss them together / support each other.

But one week doesn't make a pattern, I'll wait a bit before I switch it up. I'm also open to ideas if people have suggestions!

:(

Just one thing I want to set straight - Cap Hill was historically a business district (mostly car stuff). Then it was a ghetto, with poverty, crime, rampant drug use. Then it became a gay / artist / hipster area, then it became the brogrammer paradise it is today. The hipsters complaining about getting kicked out are are conveniently forgetting they kicked out the broke addicts to move in. Hipsters aren't victims, they are another step in the gentrification chain.

I'm not assuming that, like I said, if they don't invest they are losing money to inflation (which has a historic average of 3%). So the government will drive them to zero either way. Your money needs to grow over time.

I think these examples you gave are definite problems we would have to figure out if we implement something like this. But if France, Italy, and most nordic countries can, we probably can too. I also think its much, much more common for rich people to not pay taxes then I do for the cases you describe (someone overnight owning a 10 million dollar business without time to set up liquid reserves isn't showing up on my facebook feed that often). If we never implement systems because there are possible edge cases we wouldn't have taxes at all :)

Not usually. Invested wealth grows about 6% a year. Your 95 will likely be about 100.7 next year.

Yes you could theoretically tax someone into poverty, but since inflation is -3% a year that would happen to them anyway if they don't invest.

We can plan on taxing income every year, but we can only tax a dollar of wealth once, then it's not available in following years.

That doesn't make sense, why would that be the case? Wealth taxes can be yearly just like income tax.

Taxing that doesn't even come close to the tax burden we put on the middle class.

Lets explain it this way. Let's say I'm rich. I have 5 million in a trust that I live off of. Every year I draw down 3%, about 150,000, and that is what I live on for the year. At most and assuming my tax guy is a total idiot, I pay 15% capitol gains tax or about $22,500 for the year.

Now lets say I'm upper middle class and I earn that 150,000 in my job. I'm paying about 28% of that in taxes, even if I've managed to property caffeinate my tax guy. That's $42,000 for the year.

The burden of taxes for the person still working is much, much higher then the rich guy. Many wealthy people I know don't pay taxes as they are able to keep their reported income below 20k.

Edited for typos

So a big part of the reason I haven't gotten too into comics is I read fast. They seem so tiny and expensive for not a lot of story. Are these longer? Are there anthologies or something I can get that are the length of more traditional books? Or do you just buy like 5 at once? Do libraries have these?

I'll give it a go either way just wondering where to start.

Tax the rich doesn't have to mean income tax. We could tax wealth, for example. The average millionaire realizes less then 3% of their net worth every year. Taxing that doesn't even come close to the tax burden we put on the middle class.