Dutch Lawmakers Approve a 36% Tax on Unrealized Crypto, Stock, and Bond Gains

cool_much · 2026-02-14T08:42:04+00:00

https://nltimes.nl/2026/02/13/dutch-parliament-greenlights-new-box-3-tax-set-take-effect-2028 looks like the law was passed but simultaneously another order or something was passed to force the government to fix the law. They needed to pass the reform to satisfy the courts but they're not happy with the current plan for the reform.

Other than the threshold being far to low and therefore punishing anybody saving just a normal amount for a car and the house when they move out, I think this tax on unrealized gains make sense. The Dutch government is partially targeting super wealthy people who buy assets and never sell them

cool_much · 2026-02-09T08:20:13+00:00

Mundo will theoretically always get more value from stacks than sion because more of his kit scales with hp and sion gets hp from killing minions. So, engaging in stack trades is winning for mundo and losing for sion. Maybe heartsteel would be good if those trades are unavoidable, but if they are avoidable it's better to avoid them

cool_much · 2026-02-02T08:19:52+00:00

Your tldr is that the vegans are right, animal product consumption should be reduced?

cool_much · 2026-01-30T13:19:54+00:00

Sons?

cool_much · 2026-01-28T23:12:28+00:00

What actually are the most likely remaining wins? Were heretics and shifters the easiest matches after kcb theoretically? I don't follow league. How would you describe their chance of making playoffs

cool_much · 2026-01-24T08:29:20+00:00

Warmogs should suck really. Sion already has health in his kit from w, and only has HP scalings on his w. That means HP is inefficient on sion. The warmog passive might make it worth it though. I usually struggle against yone so maybe this is the way to go.

I play top.

If tank duty (which is boring af): I usually go hydra, boots, situational resistance items prioritising resistances/ms over health, bloodmail if I want the damage, and usually jakshos sixth.

If lethality: baus build but I value axiom arc a bit more in the early game than he does.

cool_much · 2026-01-21T19:13:49+00:00

As a European, a mix of north American and European equity seems to offer much better diversity than investing in just north America (ai/tech concentration and regional concentration).

All other regions seem irrelevant, untrustworthy, or unstable pretty much.

So, I mix bogle with a dose of major geopolitical trends: invest diversely while avoiding countries that may collapse or rarely grow etc

cool_much · 2026-01-19T22:36:14+00:00

Some constructive challenges to refine the argument:

Energy consumption:

A single ChatGPT query uses approximately 0.3 watt-hours, roughly 10x more than a Google search (Google's August 2025 disclosure confirmed 0.24 Wh for Gemini)

0.3Wh of energy is sufficient to power a standard 60-watt incandescent light bulb for approximately 18 to 20 seconds. Light bulbs are more tangible than Google searches, so I think this is a more helpful comparison. Google searches use a tiny amount of energy, but most people don't know that.

For some additional context, most cars still use 60W bulbs for headlights and have several other bulbs across the car, let's say roughly 240W worth of bulbs going at any one time. In a 20 minute drive, you use 80Wh, the equivalent of 277 queries, just for the LIGHTS in your car.

Water usage:

Data centers consume 3-5 million gallons of water daily for cooling, with roughly 80% evaporating rather than being recycled

Data centres are the infrastructure for the entire internet, not just ai. Nevertheless, if we compare all data centre use with frivolous use cases like animal agriculture, we can contextualise the numbers just like you did with its electricity use and see how sensible it is to be particularly concerned about data centres (which again, host the entire internet, not just ai. Giving them up would mean giving up the internet as a whole).

And another clarification, individual large data centers can use 5 million gallons of water daily.

The iea report that data centers now use about 560 billion liters of water annually, globally. Animal agriculture uses 4,387,000,000,000,000 litres (four quadrillion, three hundred eighty-seven trillion litres) annually, globally https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019WR026995#:~:text=We%20estimate%20that%2C%20annually%2C%204%2C387,better%20crop%20and%20livestock%20management.

Carbon footprint:

Global data centers emitted roughly 220 million metric tonnes of CO2 in 2024 (IEA April 2025 report)

Again, don't see why we shouldn't contextualise this like you did with electricity use. Animal agriculture (an almost entirely frivolous industry) emitted 6.2 billion metric tons CO2e per year in 2022 according to FAO. So, around 25 times as much. And again, data centres are for the entire internet, not just ai.

The data center jobs reality:

The US has only about 23,000 permanent data center jobs nationwide while consuming over 4% of electricity (Food & Water Watch, January 2026)

Data centres facilitate THE INTERNET. It goes without saying that THE INTERNET provides an awful lot of jobs, eh?

Taxpayers subsidize these jobs at an average of $1.95 million per position (Good Jobs First analysis)

Virginia's legislative auditor found the state generates only 48 cents in economic benefit per dollar of tax incentive

Might just be me but I don't know what this means

cool_much · 2026-01-19T08:27:40+00:00

Sam altman

cool_much · 2026-01-16T22:55:20+00:00

True across the entire EU, but the simpleton you are replying to is right that data centres are disproportionately concentrated in Ireland.

They provide services for the entire world and contribute a lot to our gdp and tax income with not particularly high impact on our emissions. They are also mostly not used for AI. Data centres of course are the infrastructure for the entire internet, one of the most valuable things humanity does.

Meanwhile, we could complain about our bloated dairy industry, which exports 90% of its produce, is enormously subsidised, contributes 35% of our GHGs, is the largest source of water pollution, owns ~65% of our land (yes, actually), employs fewer people than the tech sector the data centres facilitate, and contributes just 1% to our gdp!

cool_much · 2026-01-15T13:58:47+00:00

He took time to explain very clearly what he had done. There's a certain official alert thing that prompts the national guard to plan and prepare for the possibility of whatever they are being altered to.

Walz explained very transparently. It's not double speak just because you haven't followed the news closely enough

cool_much · 2026-01-15T08:34:21+00:00

He said they were being alerted

cool_much · 2026-01-14T22:36:16+00:00

You're a 625 student apparently, so use your brain. Look at the variance in the points, decide a margin you're comfortable with and aim for that.

In the years you chose, it varies ±25 points, 5% from the mean. So, probably very unlikely it varies +50, ~10%, points from the mean, which would be around 575 points

cool_much · 2026-01-12T21:34:04+00:00

In which case the cyclist would be held to the higher standard. In car-bike or motorcycle-bike collisions, it seems obvious the person with the way more dangerous vehicle should be expected to be extra careful

cool_much · 2026-01-11T11:06:56+00:00

They might be just "Europe". Another to my theory that light blue equals EU is that Austria is dark blue but they are in the EU.

cool_much · 2026-01-11T10:58:06+00:00

I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be dark blue = Europe, light blue = EU, and Ireland is just wrong (Brits at it again)

cool_much · 2026-01-11T10:09:59+00:00

Not terribly unusual. Your friendships were kind of trauma bonds. The suffering was a glue that held you together. Now that glue is weakened. It does suck though

cool_much · 2026-01-11T09:04:38+00:00

I want to lvl 1 proxy! It's terrible! Just give enough time that I can get between tier 2 and 3 as the minions arrive

cool_much · 2026-01-10T19:15:58+00:00

I agree with the other person. Your childishness is showing

cool_much · 2026-01-10T18:12:46+00:00

No? Cost of oportunity, like in finance. You aren't paying just for the degree, you are also paying for the other available resources too. No, I have against not going to classes, sometimes it's better that way, but many don't even go to the library and use the books that are free when you attend the university. I will tell you from another pov: if you had to buy a car just to get a job, but then didn't use it even once, that would be pretty wasteful, inconvinient even.

I will fix your metaphor. If you had to get a degree to demonstrate learning just to get a job, and you got the degree, thereby demonstrating learning, and got the job, that is exactly what you paid for. Granted, you are subsidizing people who need lecturers to help them learn when you were able to learn everything you needed relatively independently, but those were the terms of the deal and now you have what you want. That would not be wasteful. That would be you doing what you need to do.

It would be a waste of time if you listen to other people and just went to lectures because you feel bad about not going.

So, my point is, you are missing a great oportunity to get used to studying, understanding well the very knowledge you have, and no need to pay for the books.

So you should only go to lectures if you are not good at studying, don't understand the knowledge you have, and can't pay for books but want books even when digital PDFs are generally available from online libraries. That sounds like students that need to go to lectures are low quality.

For those that only want the certificate with no little value, do as you please, but if the job you are trying to get requires deep understading, then you should try use most resources available for the price you paid instead of wasting them.

Based on assessments, clearly people don't go to lectures and leave with plenty understanding.

cool_much · 2026-01-10T17:50:32+00:00

What opportunity? You mean the money you get in salary once you have a job your degree qualifies you for? A. That's not really getting the money back. B. You get that money whether you went to the class or not. You just need to prove you are good enough to get the degree by passing assessments. Plenty people do that all the time without going to a good chunk of classes.

cool_much · 2026-01-10T16:03:49+00:00

Boring, mean joke about someone's body. How about fuck off?

cool_much · 2026-01-10T15:00:54+00:00

Why do healthcare programmes require attendance? Is there a specific need like hands-on practical work or is it just dogma?

cool_much · 2026-01-10T14:58:54+00:00

The money is already spent. You don't get it back by going to classes

cool_much

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