Dwarkesh Patel: belief

Transcript context

…American hubris in action. Think about our country. We have one of the most crazy tax codes on the planet, and neither party can touch it. Because you touch any part of it, someone negotiated that wording exactly. Yet think of how much of our economy is taken up by the overhead of all the tax accountants, all the misdirected cash in order to take advantage of something that’s simply an invention of the tax system. There was years ago when there was talk of doing a flat tax, “Wouldn’t that be much more efficient?” You can imagine what accountants thought about that one. That idea has totally died. Talk about inefficiency. Then we realize we have budgetary problems in this country. This would seem to be something that ought to be on people’s radar, clean up the tax code. But isn’t it precisely that many people don’t want the radar on the tax code? That’s why we’re wondering who can get in and out of girls’ or boys’ bathrooms, instead of looking at the tax code, which should be the real thing. I think there should be big deductions for podcasts. It should count for research and development. Well, Dwarkesh, you’re almost at that stage. You need to add a lobbyist in DC.…

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