this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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Corporate fines should be in % of the company income.
I would also argue that personal fines should be like that too.
All fines should be a percentage of income. Otherwise we have what we call a poor tax on people who can’t afford it, and “the price of doing business” for people who can. And I’m not referring to just companies.
It has to be worth, not just income. There's too many loopholes around "I don't have income I just have stock I use as collateral for a loan" or "I don't have income but my LLC happens to pay for all of my daily expenses".
But yes, all fines need to scale with the perpetrator. The more dollars you have, the less each dollar means.
A $100 ticket for parking on a crosswalk means nothing to a millionaire, but is potentially ruinous for someone living in poverty. It needs to hurt the same for everyone. The millionaire should have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. They need to feel pain.
A lot of people are really shitty and operate at a very basic level of moral reasoning. It's just "did I get punished?".
That's income. Not according to tax laws, but that's also why we shouldn't base monetary penalties on tax law. These fuckers have been exploiting the loopholes to have the most money and power and also pay almost nothing. But they still eat! And grocery stores don't accept leveraged loans, securities, Bitcoin, or percentages of annuities... At some point, they touch money. So let's tax (and penalize) them so they can't avoid paying their fair share.
Maybe stuff you can't pay with also shouldn't be allowed to loan money with. I know it currently does work like that, I'm just saying it shouldn't, because this creates so many loopholes.
Good luck getting that to happen anywhere but Scandinavian countires.
We Bad a millionaire jerk in germany that printed bis own license plate so he didnt need to drill holes in bis Porsche. The fee was 30000€ iirc. Because traffic fees are mostly income based here
Steve Jobs would exploit a California loophole that says new cars didn’t require a license plate, so he would lease a new car every 6 months to avoid license plates.
A friend shared a memory of his drug dealer dad, when they were in vegas, lost a ton of money gambling and flipped the fuck out. Started smashing vases.
Security approached. He threw hundred dollar bills at them. They started handing him more vases.
Not income, global revenue of the parent company, like GDPR does it
So if Google fucks up, it’s the full revenue of Alphabet Inc that determines the fine.
That way you can’t found GDPR Violation Incorporated and do your shady stuff there risk free.
Meanwhile, Google is illegally chopping down a forest to make space for a data centre. Those fines should be proportional to revenue too. That would teach them not to mess around with trees.
trees are different. malicious removal of them for profits is even worse. the fine should also be recurring, and paid-in-full annually until that forest is restored to its former condition.
So… about 100-200 years?
Has anyone actually got hit with big gdpr fines?
Lots of ‘em for meta; just about all US big tech.
https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
Those are fines that have been given but did they actually pay? Or was it just a big headline the one time and then they appealed it and 5 years later it's reduced to nothing.
Operate fines should be a % of income + the amount of illegal gains. Most times the fines today are much lower than the amount of profit they make from committing the crimw
fines should be levied against the company itself while the c-levels get arrested for the crimes they orchestrated. if you or i committed even a fraction of the crimes that c-levels get away with, we'd be in prison for the rest of our lives.
Damn straight
*Networth
You fuck up badly, better be ready to liquidate some assets.
Hmm. That's a very good point. And if corporations are "people", they should be the only people subjected to capital punishment.
Cause serious enough harm? Fuck you, you're ALL getting fired. Or at least everyone in management; the ones who actually do the work rarely have any agency in the situation, so yeah maybe don't punish them. At least minimize harm, maybe nationalize resources and break it up.
Isn't that what European laws are now doing?
And that's for offense 1.
Offense 2 within 5 years of the first would be same as offense 1, plus losing the right to pay dividends and issue derivatives for a year.
Offense 3 within 5 years of the second would be same as 1 and 2, plus you get restructured as a nonprofit.
Offense 4 within 5 years of the third would be the entire management board's and executive team's browser, chat, email, and dating app history gets published...