Or maybe 0 years. Or given the circumstances, even a negative amount of years since they are weakening the regulation in the advent of an emergency, which is where one would expect other rather urgent issues affecting life expectancy to rear their ugly heads. Is it somehow better to die of thirst or starve to death now than live with a slightly shorter lifespan maybe?

Aside from as the AC noted, a "chickenshit" answer, it's also an admission of surrender. After all, what Apple does is legal and hence, is the going rate. Your argument is self-defeating.

And what makes you think they haven't paid that back by orders of magnitude? This is one of those demonstrations of how stupid social ideas tend to be. We have here the creation of a debt that could be and technically was repaid easily. But you still consider it unpaid because that furthers your interests.

I think it ingratitude. Instead of being thankful that a bunch of hard working people helped a lot of people through Apple and its works, you're still holding over its head ridiculous social responsibility due to the meager efforts that society played in its creation.

You would have to have a significantly elevated risk of being exposed to radioactive iodine to justify it. Just working at a nuclear plant doesn't mean you have that risk.

And what does "not assuming" such things do for us? Not much in the absence of evidence.

What makes you think this is happening here? Instead, I see a bunch of governments acting in bizarre and harmful ways backed by some pretty crazy voters. Who's going to throw money into the economy just to have it destroyed by the next insane idea out of the US or EU?

It's an arbitrary map from a directly ordered set to a subset of possible human behaviors.

More likely we'd find that most people are all of the above, both sociopathic, and empathetic and trusting - just not necessarily to the same groups of people or at the same time.

You aren't adding much value for me either. But I see a lot of value in a "live and let live" policy where you don't interfere with people who are doing things that aren't valuable to you.

I believe you can trade after hours on so called "dark pool" markets which don't have the constraints of the NYSE and similar markets. The clamoring was answered.

How can they be sure you're a citizen if they don't spy on you?

Be reasonable.

So what? Why should corporate taxes be greater than 0%? There seems to be this opinion that corporations should pay taxes. But those in turn get passed on to customers, employees, and shareholders. And the resulting tax revenue just gets squandered by governments.

No. There is a difference legally between tax avoidance and tax evasion in that the latter is defined to be illegal. What Apple is doing is legal. Hence, anyone or any business in the so-called "free market" can pursue the same strategies.

While the original poster attempted to make a distinction between "legal" and "morally acceptable", it's worth noting that what Apple does is probably considered morally acceptable by Apple. Why should I give the original poster's opinion on moral acceptability any more weight than Apple's?

That's an opinion. Apple doesn't have a defined share of taxes. And I've noticed that no one goes out of their way to pay more taxes.

No evidence in either case that this is occurring.

What does "represented" do for me? Sounds like it's nothing more than a pretext for claiming that I have no justification for complaining about taxation. The problem with my "representation" is that it is diluted by a lot of other people.

What I find instead is that I represent my interests far better than any government does or could. Hence, I have a natural desire to see power shifted from that government to me. Second, since government is running so very counter to my beliefs and opinions, particularly on fiscal and future-oriented matters, why should I think I'm being represented here? Instead, I find that those engaging in adventurous tax avoidance seem to further my interests better than the governments which claim to represent my interests.

I wouldn't make the mistake of saying that Apple is representing my interests because they happen to be doing something I approve of. But we seem to have common interests which is more than I can say for the people who are getting worked up over what is supposed to be morally acceptable.

Oh well, at least they didn't pull an Apple and label it "The New Xbox(tm)".

Volkswagen is even worse about that. First they had the old air-cooled Beetle (except it was actually called the "Type 1"), then they had the "New Beetle" (from 1998 to 2011), and now they have the "Beetle" (from 2012 on). So now, to avoid confusion, I have to refer to my 1998 model as my "old New Beetle" and my friend with a 2013 model has to refer to it as a "2012 Beetle" because if he calls it simply "new" people will think it's the 1998-2011 version!

(And no matter what we call it, we'll still get asked "is the engine in the back?")

Did you bother reading the rest of my post where I go into how we can balance public and private interests here without creating a cluster-f*ck of high cost litigation that ultimately winds up costing all of us? Or did you just knee-jerk your foot into your own mouth?

Just them? You'll note it also said suspected spies and terrorists. With "broader definitions" of terrorism coming out every day, and the criteria for being included on a watchlist, paired with these hotlines opening up for anonymous "tips"... pretty much anyone these days can be a suspected spy or terrorist. And being a citizen of the US is very little barrier against invasions of your privacy; They've even talked about revoking citizenship for people simply to avoid any legal hassles.

It might be more accurate to say "If you are writing anything you don't want made public, given to law enforcement, or any of the 170+ governments of the world, don't use Gmail." At least then we'd cover all the bases. :/

I'm talking about a hypothetical situation where somebody bought Portal but regrets their hypocrisy (re: DRM) now. In other words, a "you're usually not OK with it, but sometimes can't help yourself" thing.