I say eliminate it all. No system = no corruption of said system. But if you're going to keep it, the "best of the best" should get 4 times the average US salary. That way, the law doesn't need to ever be revisited.

Just think, future software developer deaths will be met with "Rust In Peace".

'An interesting and helpful anecdote.

It's interesting that this post somehow got modded down. Did I offend Minnie Mouse?

During the pandemic, I had a doctor's appointment over video. My doctor connected and had a really high, mousey voice. He said his daughter played with the tablet earlier and he couldn't figure out how to turn the voice filter off. So he had to reconnect with a different device.

(Sorry, somehow the formatting got botched at the end...fixing it for clarity for future readers.)

I see...thank you for that, AND your informative post!

'Some final, random, it's-Monday-and-I'm-not-awake-yet thoughts; I am not posting these to argue with you nor your salient points, just defend my perspective for future readers:

I, perhaps ignorantly, think using plastics should be avoided whenever they can be. I'm not worried about glass getting into my liver.

It's already reached down to 30s degrees F where I live and the furnace will be turned on soon. Bulb efficiencies, be they incandescent or LED, don't matter for half the year here.

I see around me that LEDs do not hold up well in very cold weather--it's common to see them they flicker here until their replacement.

The incandescent bulbs in my car are ~ 30 years old (albeit used infrequently through the day). There are incandescent bulbs still working in the house we bought 40 years ago (albeit used infrequently through the day). I believe at least one of those is 60 years old (of course, things were made more robustly, back when). You've probably heard about the century-old bulb that's still shining--I wonder whether a bunch of low-wattage bulbs like that in one room could last "forever".

I've heard of the circadian rhythm disruption* but am more concerned about the damage to rodent retinas in experiments and the flickering--personally, my eyes don't care for them...I'm suspecting they know something that I don't.

*I watched an interesting YouTube video where engineers examined bulb spectra; I did not know they were so varied. I searched for it just now so I could pass it along, but, alas, YouTube is hiding it from me right now.

This is probably not germane, and rather meta, but incandescent bulbs were 25 - 50 cents when LED lighting appeared on store shelves. How much more pollution is created by people working to make the extra money to buy the LEDs bulbs?!

It would make more sense, fire and all, that Satan invented the incandescent! ;)

I see...thank you for that, AND your informative post!

'Some final, random, it's-Monday-and-I'm-not-awake-yet thoughts; I am not posting these to argue with you nor your salient points, just defend my perspective for future readers:

I, perhaps ignorantly, think using plastics should be avoided whenever they can be. I'm not worried about glass getting into my liver.

It's already reached down to 30s degrees F where I live and the furnace will be turned on soon. Bulb efficiencies, be they incandescent or LED, don't matter for half the year here.

I see around me that LEDs do not hold up well in very cold weather--it's common to see them they flicker here until their replacement.

The incandescent bulbs in my car are ~ 30 years old (albeit used infrequently through the day). There are incandescent bulbs still working in the house we bought 40 years ago (albeit used infrequently through the day). I believe at least one of those is 60 years old (of course, things were made more robustly, back when). You've probably heard about the century-old bulb that's still shining--I wonder whether a bunch of low-wattage bulbs like that in one room could last "forever".

This is probably not germane, and rather meta, but incandescent bulbs were
I've heard of the circadian rhythm disruption* but am more concerned about the damage to rodent retinas in experiments and the flickering--personally, my eyes don't care for them...I'm suspecting they know something that I don't.

*I watched an interesting YouTube video where engineers examined bulb spectra; I did not know they were so varied. I searched for it just now so I could pass it along, but, alas, YouTube is hiding it from me right now.

It would make more sense, fire and all, that Satan invented the incandescent! ;)

Don't blame the tool, blame the tools.

Yes, I was going to mention waste. Incandescents are arguably made of natural ingredients and so no recycling required. LED's semiconductors require toxins and (micro)plastics for manufacturing. And LED recycling is dubious in many parts of the world.

Also, I was not talking about the manufacturing of AN LED bulb, I'm talking about the massive, entirety of the electronics industry, all of which is required to make an LED bulb: every employee, driving his car to every factory, mining every element, creating every chemical and shipping every component all over the world, many times over. This is never considered.

(Not to mention that there is some evidence that LEDs are harmful to health.)

Not that I want to get in the middle of your argument, but I have wondered about this: Clearly the LED bulbs draw less power to produce the same amount of light (ignoring wavelength spectra).

But even a low-skill artisan can make glass and smelt metal--incandescent bulbs were made stably, a century ago. I design electronics for a living and know about the PhDs, physics and engineering that goes into just making diodes, let alone entire circuits. Even though the LED bulbs may be more efficient, what happens to the math when one calculates the entirety of the electronics manufacturing industry when it comes to making the millions of different components?

(Looks up from screen) I'm sorry, did you say something?

How is a percentage of intake "inequitable"? I don't think the tax system should be used to try to correct societal ills--it just leads to corruption and is confusing as heck. Confusion causes waste. Waste is inefficient and eventually promotes human suffering. I am anti-human suffering. There's no evidence because we haven't tried it.

Don't guess at my goals, ask! I want everyone to be able to do his taxes on a calculator within 5 seconds. I want to be able to do my taxes without having to hire a pricey expert who knows the tax laws that change every single year. I want the corruption loopholes to end. I want our costly eternal vigilance of the systems and the people to stop. I want to stop the dubious accounting tricks that those with more money engage in. I want everyone to be confident that everyone else is engaged in fairness, and not feel like a sucker. I want people to stop pointing at the wealthy and assuming that if we can just squeeze their bank accounts a little bit more that that will finally save the country. I want EVERYONE to vote for lower taxes, every time, to where can then decide, as a unified group, how high the taxation percentage should be, versus the class warfare nonsense we enjoy now.

Right now, I'm not talking about stupid presidents, politicians, their moronic decisions and what they do with our taxes. I'm not talking about fixing the state of "the poor". I'm only talking about making everyone vote for lower taxes instead of the random hodgepodge we have now. Can you image if the wealthy used their power to keep everyone's taxes low because this percentage affected equally?!

But I already know it won't happen--this is a chat site, not a "do" site.

That's not enough, I want everything to be flat. I guess I'm not interested in those ancillary things as I see the overall waste and corruption involved everywhere, and at all levels of power when it comes to taxation. After decades of doing my own taxes on paper, I've finally hired a tax accountant recently because it's too complex and requires too much time for something that should be staid by now.

And I consider that a bonus: I think the government is made of idiot turtles all the way down and should keep their hands out of incentivizing (read "gambling with") X, Y or Z. They are not engineers and hence know not what they do most of the time. (Legislation and punishments are enough, if need be wielded.)

Forgive me if I'm skeptical.

Not just consumption, ALL cash transactions would be taxed. Loans, real estate, charitable donations, electricity bills, everything. Simple, easy, fair. Say, 0.05 percent. Everyone would then vote for lower taxes, ending this class warfare nonsense and dubious tax avoision.