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The current debate over free speech on the Internet offers us a prime example of how different strands of collectivists play ping-pong with each other. It begins with a serve of the ball. For example, companies like Twitter or Facebook or Google convince people that their social media sites are "communities." They say this in their TOS and use it to justify forming "community standards" of behavior. And when prominent people start suffering from demonetization or deplatforming because of their speech, the users send a sharp volley back to the server. They accept the notion of "social media as community," but follow the premise to its collectivist conclusion: social media is public space. This game continues back and forth until both sides settle on a compromise: an Internet Bill of Rights. Of course such a Bill of Rights is based on the false premise that social media is a community, when in reality it's only media. If you watch prominent Internet talk show hosts like Joe Rogan or Dave Rubin, you'll see them struggle to integrate free speech with property rights, because they still hold the collectivist principle. They see humans as primarily members of a group, instead of primarily as individuals. And so any form of media is primarily group-owned, communal property. The concept of "community" has been thus pilfered and abused by collectivists. Its genus used to be actual people. People living together. Now it includes products. People and their online products together. This is a contradiction. And since it cannot exist, people evade the fact that they don't actually live on the Internet together. They must evade or compartmentalize this fact in order to accept "social media as community" and continue playing collectivist ping-pong. Unfortunately for us individualists, it's a game that increasingly opposes individual rights until the most skillful collectivist wins. If we can't convince them to stop playing the game, we are doomed.

Is there a legal loop-hole that would allow to build a physical or virtual community that can avoid paying taxes ? Let's say "income taxes" ? For example -- a community based on barter ? IRS says that barter is still income taxable. However, is there a legal way to barter in a way that there is no paper trail that IRS can latch on ? Maybe some other tricks? For example, if all members of a community are getting stock of the company, instead of money, and then use the stock as currency, among themselves -- would it still be income taxable? Ordinarily stock must be sold, to be taxed as income. Would this still qualify as barter? Perhaps, the structure can be registered in another country, say offshore zone -- but people can live in their homeland ? If there is no paper trail, and all transactions are in cash, can IRS implement an income tax system in a practical way ? If a loop-hole exists, and we discover it, would the government be able to to issue new laws, closing the community down ? What would it take to issue such new bill or ammendment ?

I found an interesting video on TED.com today, in which speaker Alain de Botton says that, while we need not agree with religions, we (meaning atheists in general, not specifically objectivists) may want to look into adopting some of their methods. I don't agree with everything that he says, but he made some interesting points. I especially liked what he had to say about art (his view seems rather O'ist). Below I've provided a link to the video (19:21 long), which includes a complete transcript on the webpage. http://www.ted.com/t...theism_2_0.html