4 ms·

Why could this not be a public service? Sort of like the very public highways the cars drive on.

pm90 10y ago
Hmmm... interesting idea. I wonder it autonomous vehicles would enable this even more? I wouldn't mind paying a little extra tax to my local government to enable them to maintain a fleet of self-driving vehicles that I could summon with an app.
- fwn 10y ago
  Imagine the beauty of this tax if it were not mandatory. Kind of like a gov. service, but without any threat attached to it. Like a private startup out something..
- pm24601 10y ago
  Oh .. you mean buses, paratransit, and other mass transit vehicles :-)
foxylad 10y ago
What are you, communist or something?! I read a poignant comment on Twitter the other day, about how nowadays public libraries and fire services would never be funded - perhaps we'd give illiterate people tax credits for buying books, and insurance companies would have private fire engines. The neo-liberal agenda of not allowing any public entity to provide services that could possibly compete with a private corporation has succeeded too well.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  We already have that: https://usnews.newsvine.com/_news/2011/12/07/9272989-firefighters-let-home-burn-over-75-fee-again https://usnews.newsvine.com/_news/2011/12/07/9272989-firefig... Modern conservatism is a cancer.
  - PhantomGremlin 10y ago
    No sympathy from me. I pay for fire protection as part of my property taxes. In this case, it's a separate item that must be purchased separately. That's what makes it "a cancer"? As the morons in the article said: Bell and her boyfriend said they were aware of the policy, but thought a fire would never happen to them.
    - goodplay 10y ago
      Yeah, I agree. I also move to let sick people die if we can't verify that they have insurance coverage, and bar children from education if their parents can't pay (or if they are orphaned). I mean, screw poor people! Right?
    - darpa_escapee 10y ago
      > No sympathy from me. No sympathy for people who lost their home and possessions over a $75 fee? I had a friend who had no sympathy for another friend who was diagnosed with throat cancer, because he smoked cigarettes. Didn't matter that the person had cancer, what mattered is that they smoked cigarettes and knew the risks. It was forgivable on the first friend's part because he was also heavily medicated for a psychiatric illness.
      - PhantomGremlin 10y ago
        No sympathy for people who lost their home and possessions over a $75 fee? Well, yes, sympathy from me as in "sucks to be them". But they were adults and made a voluntary decision to forego paying for fire protection. They made a bet and they lost. As for cancer, when I was in high school some 40 years ago, I knew a US Army Major (i.e. Gung-ho military) who smoked. Even then, smoking was starting to be frowned upon. So he used to say "any fool can quit smoking. It takes a man to face cancer." At a personal level, if I ran into that person now and it turned out he indeed had cancer, I would of course have sympathy for him. But perhaps he and I would both agree that adults sometimes make bad decisions, and they then should accept the consequences of those bad decisions. As Niven and Pournelle explained it back in 1981: "think of it as evolution in action".

pm90 10y ago

Hmmm... interesting idea. I wonder it autonomous vehicles would enable this even more? I wouldn't mind paying a little extra tax to my local government to enable them to maintain a fleet of self-driving vehicles that I could summon with an app.

fwn 10y ago
Imagine the beauty of this tax if it were not mandatory. Kind of like a gov. service, but without any threat attached to it. Like a private startup out something..
pm24601 10y ago
Oh .. you mean buses, paratransit, and other mass transit vehicles :-)

foxylad 10y ago

What are you, communist or something?! I read a poignant comment on Twitter the other day, about how nowadays public libraries and fire services would never be funded - perhaps we'd give illiterate people tax credits for buying books, and insurance companies would have private fire engines. The neo-liberal agenda of not allowing any public entity to provide services that could possibly compete with a private corporation has succeeded too well.

Spooky23 10y ago
We already have that: https://usnews.newsvine.com/_news/2011/12/07/9272989-firefighters-let-home-burn-over-75-fee-again https://usnews.newsvine.com/_news/2011/12/07/9272989-firefig... Modern conservatism is a cancer.
- PhantomGremlin 10y ago
  No sympathy from me. I pay for fire protection as part of my property taxes. In this case, it's a separate item that must be purchased separately. That's what makes it "a cancer"? As the morons in the article said: Bell and her boyfriend said they were aware of the policy, but thought a fire would never happen to them.
  - goodplay 10y ago
    Yeah, I agree. I also move to let sick people die if we can't verify that they have insurance coverage, and bar children from education if their parents can't pay (or if they are orphaned). I mean, screw poor people! Right?
  - darpa_escapee 10y ago
    > No sympathy from me. No sympathy for people who lost their home and possessions over a $75 fee? I had a friend who had no sympathy for another friend who was diagnosed with throat cancer, because he smoked cigarettes. Didn't matter that the person had cancer, what mattered is that they smoked cigarettes and knew the risks. It was forgivable on the first friend's part because he was also heavily medicated for a psychiatric illness.
    - PhantomGremlin 10y ago
      No sympathy for people who lost their home and possessions over a $75 fee? Well, yes, sympathy from me as in "sucks to be them". But they were adults and made a voluntary decision to forego paying for fire protection. They made a bet and they lost. As for cancer, when I was in high school some 40 years ago, I knew a US Army Major (i.e. Gung-ho military) who smoked. Even then, smoking was starting to be frowned upon. So he used to say "any fool can quit smoking. It takes a man to face cancer." At a personal level, if I ran into that person now and it turned out he indeed had cancer, I would of course have sympathy for him. But perhaps he and I would both agree that adults sometimes make bad decisions, and they then should accept the consequences of those bad decisions. As Niven and Pournelle explained it back in 1981: "think of it as evolution in action".