gpl's recent activity
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
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Comment on A court orders the Unification Church in Japan dissolved in ~society
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Comment on A court orders the Unification Church in Japan dissolved in ~society
gpl Link ParentReligious belief and identity has been used as one of the the primary axes of governmental oppression throughout history, and this just totally ignores that. I think society as a whole is...Religious belief and identity has been used as one of the the primary axes of governmental oppression throughout history, and this just totally ignores that. I think society as a whole is healthier when there are non-governmental institutions that can wield power in opposition to the government, like rights groups (e.g. ACLU), universities, and yes, religious orgs. I am basically just describing "civil society" write large.
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Comment on A court orders the Unification Church in Japan dissolved in ~society
gpl (edited )Link ParentI definitely don't intend to be misleading, but I am trying to pull some numbers in to make this discussion more concrete and to illustrate why I think it is not worthwhile to tax churches. It is...I definitely don't intend to be misleading, but I am trying to pull some numbers in to make this discussion more concrete and to illustrate why I think it is not worthwhile to tax churches. It is tough to find sources that are not obviously biased.
But what percentage of revenue goes to mega churches? Billionaires make up a tiny percentage of all human population, etc.
The closest thing to an estimate I could find online is "several billion" dollars going to mega churches. Assuming that is true (let's say 10 billion dollars, but I think that is an overstimate), and accounting for inflation since that article was published, that is still around 1-2% of the total revenue figure quoted above. Mega churches are not representative of the typical church in the US.
Small churches would likely have fewer profits. You say further down that most churches are small and not making much money, thus their tax bills would be low or none. You can't say the total tax bill is estimated to be $X and then assume the effect falls evenly on all churches.
I didn't say that, and I didn't mean to imply it, although I can see how one would reasonably read my post that way. My point was that by taxing churches, we stand to gain around $5 billion based on a rough back of the envelope calculation. But given that most churches in the US operate at break-even (according to the study I linked to above), any change in their tax bill would require re-budgeting, and given that their top two expenses are personnel and facilities, that means either laying people off or selling properties, both of which threaten closure.
I'm not claiming this analysis is the only one that can be done, but I thought getting some numbers in here would provide some perspective on the relative merits. I'd welcome any refinements to the above if people can find better sources, but as it stands this is as quantitative as I can get.
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Comment on A court orders the Unification Church in Japan dissolved in ~society
gpl Link ParentSure, that’s not what you said though. You said churches are businesses, with the implication that they should be regulated as such. Churches are not tax exempt because of some special law, they...Sure, that’s not what you said though. You said churches are businesses, with the implication that they should be regulated as such. Churches are not tax exempt because of some special law, they are tax exempt because the vast majority are registered as non-profits and therefore are tax exempt. I just don’t understand what exactly you’re advocating for? That non-profits be tax exempt so long as they are not religious, in which case they must pay taxes?
Im just wary of claims giving the government unilateral authority to dismantle or suppress community organizations that they deem to be ‘unscrupulous’. I know of many governments that would love to do so for all kinds of community orgs.
In extreme cases, it could be warranted.
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Comment on A court orders the Unification Church in Japan dissolved in ~society
gpl Link ParentThe person I was responded to had claimed there was no difference between a church and a business organization, which I was pushing back on. Most churches in the US do not occupy prime real...The person I was responded to had claimed there was no difference between a church and a business organization, which I was pushing back on.
Most churches in the US do not occupy prime real estate, and most operate on basically shoestring budgets given their size. The majority of congregations are 100 people or less, and have a yearly revenue of $250k or under. Most of this revenue goes towards personnel, then towards facilities, then towards mission related services. The majority of churches spend all of the money they receive yearly. The worst offenders, ‘mega churches’, comprise less than 10% of all congregations in the US.
Put another way, individual donations comprise about 50% of a given churches revenue in a year, and according to this that amount comprised around $130 billion nationally in 2019, the most recent year I could find this number. So let’s say that all churches in the US bring in $260 billion. Assuming around 7.5% profits (average), and the average corporate tax rate of ~20%, this amounts to a total federal tax liability of $5 billion. So we stand to gain $5 billion dollars, but at risk of totally destroying most congregations financial situation, likely causing many churches to close? Anyway, given that the largest social support providers outside of the government are run by churches (Lutheran Services, Catholic Charities USA, etc), I imagine they provide more than $5 billion in social benefits each year.
These are exactly the reasons that we don’t typically tax non-profits and I really do not see why we shouldn’t tax non-profits, except religious ones, which seems to be the claim here. Financial abuse happens in secular non-profits as well, I will point out.
I think a lot of people, online and on this site in particular, tend to have bad past experiences with hypocritical organized religion (and that’s understandable), see the few large mega churches or historic cathedrals at the center of a city, and assume that all churches in the US are like that. I think the vast majority of churches in the US are small faith-centered orgs that help with social welfare and provide religious fulfillment, while operating on not a lot of money and usually only surviving because of the volunteerism of their congregants (and tax breaks).
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Comment on A court orders the Unification Church in Japan dissolved in ~society
gpl Link ParentIf you don't believe giving the government power to freely shutter organized religion is not at least inhibiting the free exercise of religion then idk what to tell you. In the US, churches do not...If you don't believe giving the government power to freely shutter organized religion is not at least inhibiting the free exercise of religion then idk what to tell you. In the US, churches do not need to get "official recognition" to get tax exempt status. A church is not a church because the government says so.
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Comment on A court orders the Unification Church in Japan dissolved in ~society
gpl Link ParentChurches fulfill a very, very different role in people's lives than businesses. I find the fact that this needs to be stated surprising.Churches fulfill a very, very different role in people's lives than businesses. I find the fact that this needs to be stated surprising.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
gpl Link ParentI really tried to get into Hyperion last year, and the Priest’s tale had me hooked, but I lost interest soon after. That couple with the knowledge that everyone says you should at least read the...I really tried to get into Hyperion last year, and the Priest’s tale had me hooked, but I lost interest soon after. That couple with the knowledge that everyone says you should at least read the first two books made me dnf. A bummer for me!
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Comment on Is dark energy getting weaker? Fresh data bolster shock finding. in ~science
gpl (edited )Link ParentThe "timescape" theory in the video you linked to is not well accepted because it does not fit the data any better than LCDM, and there is no evidence that its central claim is true. It's an...The "timescape" theory in the video you linked to is not well accepted because it does not fit the data any better than LCDM, and there is no evidence that its central claim is true. It's an example of a inhomogeneous cosmology which posits that the inhomogeneities in the distribution of matter that we see are significant enough that they cannot be averaged over and the FRW metric that underpins LCDM and its extensions is not valid. These theories are not genuinely fringe but they are just on the other side of the divide.
For these theories to be true, inhomogeneities must be vastly larger than we measure, time dilation effects must be orders of magnitude larger than we calculate, and even then it turns out that these inhomogeneities tend to deccelerate the expansion of the universe rather than accelerate. While timescape theories can fit supernovae data alright, they fail at fitting other probes across a range of scales.
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Comment on Is dark energy getting weaker? Fresh data bolster shock finding. in ~science
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Comment on Is dark energy getting weaker? Fresh data bolster shock finding. in ~science
gpl Link ParentI find the most elegant and exciting explanation to be that it is the cosmological constant, i.e. the energy of empty space itself. While this is what is actually assumed in the standard...I find the most elegant and exciting explanation to be that it is the cosmological constant, i.e. the energy of empty space itself. While this is what is actually assumed in the standard cosmological model, Lambda-CDM (the Lambda stand for the cosmological constant, the CDM stands for cold dark matter), the interpretation faces serious theoretical roadblocks.
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Comment on Is dark energy getting weaker? Fresh data bolster shock finding. in ~science
gpl Link ParentI'm somewhat familiar with Stacy McGaugh's arguments. I personally am not convinced for various reasons. The analyses in the DESI papers recently released assume General Relativity to do their...I'm somewhat familiar with Stacy McGaugh's arguments. I personally am not convinced for various reasons.
The analyses in the DESI papers recently released assume General Relativity to do their analysis. However, data from the Atacama Desert Telescope (ACT), also released this week, when combined with data from DESI (not the most recent release) has found evidence for a deviation from GR that is at around the 3 sigma level. That means there's about a 3% chance of it being a statistical fluke. While that may sound unlikely, you must remember how many different things the collaboration tests for, and consider how likely it is at least one of those tests shows some deviation (this is known as the look-elsewhere effect). A 3 sigma deviation certainly gets attention, but it is not taken as strong evidence for or against anything.
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Comment on Is dark energy getting weaker? Fresh data bolster shock finding. in ~science
gpl Link ParentACT observes the cosmic microwave background, which can be thought of as a snapshot of the primordial plasma that existed immediately after the Big Bang, when the universe was so hot and dense...ACT observes the cosmic microwave background, which can be thought of as a snapshot of the primordial plasma that existed immediately after the Big Bang, when the universe was so hot and dense that photons and normal matter existed in a plasma much like the plasma of the sun. As such, we learn mostly about the early universe (the first 300k years or so) by studying the CMB (this is actually what I do), with some information about the late universe included because photons are gravitationally lensed as they travel to us.
The DESI measurements, on the other hand, observe galaxies that took a while to form, and therefore exist in the "late universe". By late universe I mean the last few billion years or so. When doing galaxy surveys like this, we therefore primarily learn about the late universe, but to do so we have to calibrate a few things based on our understanding and measurements of the early universe from the CMB. Dark energy, evolving or not, only becomes a significant effect in the last ~4 billion years, so we don't learn about it from the CMB. Therefore it is possible that ACT observations are broadly consistent of the standard model, where dark energy is treated as a constant, since for the most part if it wasn't constant it simply wouldn't show up in that data.
The connections between the two sets of measurements (i.e. the need to calibrate the late-time stuff with early time stuff, or the influence of late-time stuff on the the stuff we see from early times from gravitational lensing) complicates the matter and sorting out the details is what everyone is focused on now.
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Comment on Is dark energy getting weaker? Fresh data bolster shock finding. in ~science
gpl Link ParentDESI is a really amazing instrument. In order to make these measurements, they need to essentially create a 3D map of the universe, measuring the angular position of galaxies on the sky along with...DESI is a really amazing instrument. In order to make these measurements, they need to essentially create a 3D map of the universe, measuring the angular position of galaxies on the sky along with their redshift. Redshift refers to how much the spectrum of the light you are receiving has been shifted from where it would be if observed in the lab, due to the expansion of the universe (you can think of it as the light equivalent of the Doppler effect, where the frequency of light changes because these galaxies are receding from us). It is a measure of how much the universe has expanded since the light was emitted, and is related to the distance to the object, but is much easier to measure.
Measuring the angular position of galaxies on the sky is easy. Measuring the redshift is easy, but it takes time, since you have to observe a galaxy for a longer exposure in order to measure its spectrum (instead of just measuring the intensity in a few color filters). The main innovation of DESI is it's focal plane, which contains over 5000 optical fibers that can be individually, robotically pointed. When DESI looks at a patch of the sky, each of these fibers is focused on a different galaxy in the patch, and measures its spectrum. This allows DESI to significantly increase the number of spectra it can record, because while doing so still takes a long exposure, it can knock out 5000 galaxies as once. In just one year of taking data, it matched the precision of all preceding comparable galaxy surveys, combined. The newest data that was just released represents 3 years of collecting data, and is therefore much more precise.
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Comment on Is dark energy getting weaker? Fresh data bolster shock finding. in ~science
gpl Link ParentThere are a lot. This would be the first clue we have gotten in the ~30 years since dark energy was discovered that tells us something about what it is. The implications of that are massive, as...There are a lot. This would be the first clue we have gotten in the ~30 years since dark energy was discovered that tells us something about what it is. The implications of that are massive, as currently dark energy doesn't really fit into the standard model of particle physics, so with some new evidence about what it is, we might finally be able to make some progress there.
The specific implications are confusing. The type of evolving dark energy that the DESI data seems to prefer exhibits something called "phantom crossing", which means it violates something known as the null energy condition. This essentially says that the energy density of things cannot increase with cosmic expansion: at best, they can remain constant (like a cosmological constant would), or they can decrease (as do the densities of matter and radiation). Phantom crossing poses serious theoretical challenges. There are some theories out there that exhibit phantom crossing, but the majority don't. Most people expect/expected the null energy condition to not be violated, although there is nothing hard or fast that says this must be so. This is part of the reason I am skeptical of the evolving dark energy interpretation.
The null energy condition is one of the assumptions that goes into Penrose's singularity theorems, which is the theorem that guarantees black holes have a singularity at their center.
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Comment on Is dark energy getting weaker? Fresh data bolster shock finding. in ~science
gpl LinkThis is directly in my field, so feel free to AMA about this. As a disclaimer, I am not entirely convinced of the interpretation, but I do believe the data is showing that the standard...- Exemplary
This is directly in my field, so feel free to AMA about this. As a disclaimer, I am not entirely convinced of the interpretation, but I do believe the data is showing that the standard cosmological model, Lambda-CDM, is not adequately explaining the expansion history of the universe anymore. I am not sure that evolving dark energy is the only or best explanation (although it could be).
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Is dark energy getting weaker? Fresh data bolster shock finding.
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Comment on Anyone interested in trying out Kagi? (trial giveaway: round #2) in ~tech
gpl LinkI've been interested for a while — if anyone has a spare I'd take it!I've been interested for a while — if anyone has a spare I'd take it!
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Comment on x86 assembler in Bash in ~comp
gpl LinkI don't know what compelled me to do this, but I googled the author after wondering "where are they now", and I found this. Apparently this guy tried to sue the US to compel the secret service to...I don't know what compelled me to do this, but I googled the author after wondering "where are they now", and I found this. Apparently this guy tried to sue the US to compel the secret service to arrest George W and Dick Cheney for war crimes. My kinda guy!
Titus Andronicus' "The Monitor" has been back in my rotation, and I'm loving it!