therealpygon

Your wording needs some work there. If you’re trying to say that the “pile” would reach 1/4 low earth orbit and cover half the continental US, you’re absolutely incorrect. If you are saying it is a “pile of money” that “when laid out as a single layer can cover half of the continental US” or “when made into a single stack would reach 1/4 of the height of LEO”, that would be mostly accurate. For perspective, 44 billion would be 44k briefcases, or 440 pallets. That’s about 17 semi trailers (single high) or 9 trailers double-stacked. As a “pile” it could easily fit in a single Wal-mart parking lot and wouldn’t even be that high. Still a lot of money though.
Edit: Actually, I don’t even think the continental US number is accurate. A single bill is 16 in^2. Laid out as a single layer of single $1 bills, that covers ~7e11 in^2 which is about 175 square miles, not even 1/2 of Rhode Island.

(E: For perspective,) Truth Social was just a mouthy startup for spreading hate, not a nearly trillion dollar company with a lengthy history of anti-competitive activity.

Society. That is how taxes work.

Being first to take what is frequently the next logical step shouldn’t be protected from competition for long enough to make the innovation obsolete. 5 years is more than enough time to establish a brand name and recoup any R&D costs. We can raise entirely new people to adulthood in less time than current patent expirations. If it can easily be undercut by a cheaper alternative, then the “innovation” is unlikely to have been that novel or costly. A more complex innovation would be harder to create and productize which should in itself help limit competition. If you aren’t capable of productizing an innovation, you patented it early just to prevent competitors who were already working on the same innovation from being able to recoup their own costs.

People far too often buy into the “R&D is incredibly expensive” narrative that republicans and big pharma like to perpetuate. R&D isn’t generally as expensive as much as if you aren’t first, you automatically lose everything you invested. Beyond that, R&D is frequently done with the assistance public funding, then snatched away by corporations to prevent competition.

If competition is healthy, and is the self-proclaimed hallmark of capitalism, why are corporations so anti-competitive? Competition IS healthy, but it means that wealth is spread across many rather than the few who control patents, and requires continual innovation if you want to maintain your status as #1 rather than just sitting on a large, frequently purchased, patent portfolio.

The current speed of innovation in AI has shown what things could have been like if less time and money was spent trying to stifle innovation in the name of protecting profits by suing over patents. Every patent is just one more ball and chain shackling society to slow progress for profit.

At least, that’s my opinion.

Me too. Facebook is the craigslist of Social Networks. Hard to go more than two posts without running into a scam or a business.