As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there’s a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a “filter bubble” and don’t get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.
An email from BraveNew Foundation asks:
What would you rename the David Koch Theater if democracy and the arts couldn’t be bought?
Considering the large amount of money that the Koch brothers have given MIT to build a new building, I have come up with my response to the next year’s alumni fund campaign: Put my contribution on the Koch brothers’ tab. They can afford it better than I can.
I just thought I would keep this item around for the next time somebody questions my statement that Faux Noise lies. If they ask for proof, I have one more item in my collection.
A few quotes from the article This Fact May Not Sit Well: Americans Are Under-Taxed by Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers make the point.
Americans on average saw 17.3 percent of their income go to federal taxes in 2009 and 2010. The last time the percentage was this low was 1975, and during the late 1960s.
If you exclude social insurance taxes on wages – for Medicare and Social Security – the share of taxes as a percentage of income drops to 9.4 percent in 2009 and 9.3 percent in 2010, the lowest since 1950.
“It’s hard to argue that we’re overtaxed, and we’re low by world standards,” said David Wyss, the chief economist for the New York ratings agency Standard & Poor’s.