Real rebels pay their taxes
summary
Argues it is unethical to spend free time learning and building on tech from tax-avoiding giants, citing examples: React, Kubernetes, AWS powering huge market caps (~$1.2–1.4T) while Apple fights the EU over €14 billion and Amazon reports zero federal income tax (2018). Points to harms — Facebook enabling Rohingya violence, Cambridge Analytica, Google Project Dragonfly, alleged Amazon sale of facial recognition to ICE, Apple blocking right-to-repair — and recommends alternatives: vanilla JS, web components, libraries over frameworks, copyleft dual licensing, and measuring environmental impact.
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chapters (38)
- 0:00Intro
- 1:07GAFAM - the big five
- 1:27Runaway tax optimisations
- 2:12Market capitalization
- 3:13Societal costs
- 6:06whoami
- 10:54Rebels critique systems
- 11:05Developers build systems
- 12:19Morality
- 12:47Categories of ethical theories
- 13:08Virtue ethics
- 13:54Deontology
- 14:55Consequentialism
- 15:19Utilitarianism
- 17:46Makers vs. takers
- 18:42Political arithmetic
- 21:55Production boundary
- 22:36Banks as unproductive
- 23:32Value extraction
- 24:26Rent-seeking platforms
- 24:55The neoclassical narrative
- 27:35Value by circular logic
- 29:19Billionaire Philanthropy
- 30:06Tax and government
- 31:08Wealth is power
- 32:14Tax bills
- 34:10Our task at hand
- 35:27How does React benefit Facebook?
- 36:10Beware the free hammers
- 36:51Alternative-cost
- 37:20What gives value in 10-20yrs?
- 38:43The web ca 2003
- 39:20Social silos
- 40:28Building accessible alternatives
- 40:44Evaluating time investments
- 42:05Lowering barrier to entry
- 42:28What we should do
- 45:50World Wide Waste
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