A Think Tank Game

Would you pay for good little pieces of data?  Would you like to get paid for creating good little pieces of data?  My answer to both is YES, and I bet yours is too.  I will be reaching out to everyone I know because Brett Veinotte has inspired me.  We all share information all the time, and sometimes we thank each other for it.  If we set it up well, as I think Brett has done, we even, sometimes, pay each other for it.  I have, in fact, paid Brett a few times because of all the great information he has provided to me and everyone else who might benefit from it.

The goal of this blog post, I hope, will be met in one of the next few paragraphs.  It will be a few sentences that will catch your eye and uncork your mind.  You will look forward to sitting at your computer, or on your phone, just as you are now, reading and writing.  A seed will be planted in your subconscious driving you to research and brainstorm how you might benefit from or encourage the input of others.

One of my favorite things to do is respond to comments on the Internet. You can browse my comments on Disqus or what I've written on Quora to see what I have to say.  In my experience, most other people don't comment very much, if at all.  It makes me sad.  Most people are good, and that goodness would show up in comments if they were to make them.  Do you comment on the Internet much?

Of course, our foolishness also shows up if we are lazy when we write comments.  Because school teaches us to, we might parrot a claim we read somewhere but which we never bothered to examine, and a response might come back providing us with strong evidence that the claim is wrong.  That hurts because we have presented the claim as our own.

If you do examine my comments on Disqus, you'll see my strategies to avoid that pain.  Most folks who comment a lot follow such strategies, and they tend to improve critical thinking and communications skills.  Either you already know this, or else, since I've (hopefully) planted a seed, you will come to know it soon, and that will make you a great contributor to my "think tank game."

I will soon announce a date for the commencement of the "think tank game."  If all goes well, it will go on for a few days or, if it goes really well, indefinitely.  During that time, you'll visit memeracing.net every now and then to answer or ask questions and maybe invest a few dollars worth of bitcoin.  If you write something good, you'll get an email asking you to visit the site and check out what six other people had to say in the same context.  You'll put these six blurbs, along with your own, in order by quality.  Perhaps you will put yours first, even if you think someone else's was better, or perhaps you'll be more honest.  Either way, you and those six other people will combine your judgements to find the best of the seven things, and bitcoin will be redistributed as encouragement.

That's what I have to offer.  Well, one of the things I have to offer.  I look forward to your suggestions and ideas.

I have some more background information for those who decided to keep reading this far.  Many people, once they understand what memeracing.net is trying to do, say that it's a great idea.  The problem is that a "great idea" is only great until it's old, which takes a few days or weeks.  After that, it's either useful or forgotten.  Memeracing.net has been forgotten by many people who recognized its value.  One might say they are just waiting for it to become useful.  I'm pretty sure that the usefulness will come from the density of traffic, so I wanted to get a lot of people on board for a kind of event on memeracing.

Do you think I should identify some particular topic for this "think tank game" event?  I do.  The link above ("suggestions and ideas") goes to a page where you can enter whatever topic you think would work well.  One of the answers already has about $30 backing it, but it isn't the one I think is best.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to comments as well as input on memeracing.net.

Let's Educate the new IRS Agents

It seems to me that turnover at our favorite government entity is quite high.  In the interest of helping the newbies there learn how to navigate between the mistakes of their coworkers as well as the folks who need to pay taxes or receive refunds and the requirements of the law, I propose that we "in the know" leverage our experiences.

If you have ever gotten the IRS to correct its records regarding:

1. Whether or not you qualify as an "employee" according to USC 26,
   
2. Whether or not you earn "wages" according to USC 26,
   
3. Whether or not you have received "income" as it is used in USC 26,
4. Whether or not something you sent to the IRS was frivolous,
5. Whether or not you sent something early enough according to whatever "statute of limitations" applies,
   
6. Whether or not your submission has been received or processed, or ...

...then you might enjoy calling them back to chat about how it went.  You would do this in the interest of helping the IRS more efficiently administer the tax laws.  During your chat, you could bring up one, some, or even all of the following items for the benefit of myself and everyone else who understands what Peter Hendrickson's Cracking the Code teaches about the income tax laws of the United States:

1. As someone who has found it necessary to contact the IRS, I am aware that some IRS employees are given verbal instructions, and that by following these instructions, they put themselves in danger of violating laws or people's rights, or even simple internal rules, so it's best for the employee to request that all instructions be provided in written form so that they can be passed on to any victim of such accidental violations.
2. When folks call in, it is helpful to let them know that things do not always happen in the order one would expect.  For example, mailing something to the IRS may have no effect until the sender calls the IRS to find out whether or not the mailed item has been processed.
3. Others who have called the IRS have learned that something they sent in was handled a certain way, but often the notes do not identify the something well enough for the caller to know what it was that was handled.  We urge IRS employees taking notes on items received in the mail to identify them in the notes with the date and title (if it has one) of the document for the convenience of anyone who reads those notes.  If the document was mailed with a tracking number, type that in too.
4. It is often very helpful to ask up front if a person is a federal employee, or since the tax administered by the IRS falls only upon activities that involve the exercise of federal privilege, whether or not the caller uses any federal privilege to earn his or her living.
5. Many in the "Tax Honesty" movement have found that employees of the IRS often don't understand nearly as much as those in the movement understand.  Thus, any efforts to narrow that gap would be very helpful.  Let's encourage IRS agents to examine Peter Hendrickson's website and discuss it among themselves.  Suggest that refutations of the material there be made in writing so that information can be vetted and anyone spreading misinformation can be stopped.

From the perspective of IRS employees, it may be the case that the IRS is collecting too much money, or too little.  There are, of course, cases on both sides.  Regardless of who believes it's too much and who believes it's too little, getting it closer to what congress designed it to be is in the best interested of everyone.  It is to that end that I make the suggestions above.  If our nation collected the correct amount of taxes, then we would see positive effects in many areas:

Public education would be significantly improved, not only because the "right" amount of money would be available to schools from the federal government, but also because people would be interested in following through on their promises and obligations, making sure those promises and obligations are clearly delineated, and recognizing and exposing all manner of deception that not only infects the pocketbooks of everyone involved, but also damages the minds of the young people who are exposed to the system.

The national defense apparatus would be resized to an ideal size, not too big, and not too small.  While some may argue that it is already too big and others may argue that it's still too small, the best path forward is for everyone to follow through on their promises and obligations, and make sure those promises and obligations are clearly delineated.

When the proper amount of tax is collected from the people of this country, the welfare of its inhabitants will be optimized.  This means that welfare programs that rest on the backs of the taxpayers would be lighter or heavier, whichever is the case according to what we get when everyone follows through on their promises and obligations, and makes sure those promises and obligations are clearly delineated.

U.S. Government Quotations

During "discovery" in the case where the United States Postal Inspection Service is attempting to steal my money from me (16-01166-DSF), the government had these things to say.  I figured it was important to publish them:

1. "[The question] implies that the decisions of any United States District Judge or United States Magistrate Judge are influenced by the source of their salaries."  The question was "Do you pay the salaries of judges Dale S. Fischer and Kenly Kiya Kato?"
   
2. "[T]he defendant in this action is currency and is not entitled to legal representation."
3. "To the extent claimant asserts that he is an innocent owner of the defendant currency, the assertion is without merit because there is no evidence currently available to the government suggesting that claimant exercised due diligence in obtaining any information about the person to whom he sold the bitcoins, or in determining whether the defendant currency was derived from a legal or legitimate source."
4. "[T]he burden of proof is on claimant in this action to establish that he is the innocent owner of the defendant currency."

I submit that there is a conflict of interest exposed in the first quotation.  Do you see that?  Would you be willing to provide me with a video of yourself stating that if #1 above is real, then you see a conflict of interest?

The government of the United States has admitted that it is using the term "defendant" to describe something that is not a person.  How do we solve that problem?

The government suggests that a person's assertion of innocence is without merit unless that person "obtains information about the person to whom they" are selling or "determines whether the payment was derived" legally or legitimately.  I submit that agents working for the U.S. government are guiltier than I am in this respect because of the corruption of that organization and those agents' sale of their own efforts to it.  I do not think it is fair to blame them, but the government is attempting to blame me.