[ExI] Yet more misinformation of the sort found on TwitterX

[Adrian Tymes]

On Tue, Aug 18, 2026 at 2:15 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
> Sent: Tuesday, 18 August, 2026 10:19 AM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Cc: Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Yet more misinformation of the sort found on TwitterX
>
> On Tue, Aug 18, 2026 at 1:14 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> > Prop 40, the billionaire tax Adrian.  Had not Elon fled California, he was at risk of owing the state 50 billion dollars.  One can buy a lot of signed voter registration forms for fifty billion dollars.
>
> 1) But he has, so he's no longer at that particular risk, no?
>
> 2) The remaining population in California that might be affected do not seem inclined toward massive voter registration.
>
> 3) The amount of unregistered homeless in California does not seem sufficient to defeat Prop. 40, even if literally all of them (of age to vote, and even if one ignores citizenship requirements) were registered and voted to defeat Prop. 40 as you suggest.
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> 1)  The current governor of California is a likely candidate for national office.  He has specifically called for a national level 5% billionaire tax.  Elon is of course at risk, as are all billionaires (and millionaires (and eventually thousandaires.))

Congress makes laws, not the President.  The current governor of
California can prefer such a law all he wants; without control of
Congress, it won't happen.  That aside, he'd be about as likely to
advocate for it if he were to become President whether or not Prop. 40
passes.

> 2)  Irrelevant.  If billionaires collectively start offering real money for signed voter applications, it will happen.

Quite relevant.  History - including the scale of what similar events
have happened - suggests that the specific scenario you suggest won't
happen at large enough scale to matter.

> 3)  ...even if literally all of them... sure.  But we don't know what literally all of them means,

Even if we don't know the exact count, we know it is not nearly enough
to change the outcome.

> nor do we have any clear recourse if way more than literally all of them register to vote.  How would we disprove those applications, if we can't find the people who filled them out?  We have no mechanism for finding any particular homeless person.

Tossing people off of voter lists doesn't require finding them.
There's been a long history of people being incorrectly tossed off of
voter rolls without anyone bothering to confirm if they existed.
Generally, in those cases, it is up to the individual to prove that
they do exist.

I mean, consider if the government said you didn't exist therefore you
couldn't vote.  You would do something about it, right?  Same thing
there.

It's usually illegal to toss someone off the rolls who does exist, but
it happens anyway.  Those who enforce those particular laws are what
keeps it from being widespread.