3 ms·

This might be fine with you but I do not think that this would be fine by everyone else paying taxes. > You pay taxes if you don't use every road, hospital, sc

This might be fine with you but I do not think that this would be fine by everyone else paying taxes. > You pay taxes if you don't use every road, hospital, school, opera house as well. And this is a bad thing. No need to make it even worse.

iso1631 7y ago
No, it's not a bad thing. You may not have kids, but you rely on a society that educates children, as employees, as people making goods, providing services etc. You want to live in a civilised society, you pay the membership club. You want to live in your Randian distopia, go and make one.
- dependenttypes 7y ago
  > but you rely on a society that educates children, as employees, as people making goods, providing services etc The whole "educating people in order to become good wageslaves" thing, yes. Anyway, these that directly benefit from their education (their parents? the companies that they will work on?) could as well fund their education. Using my hard earned money however to inefficiently fund some low-quality education for someone else's child (who might not even be interested in it) under the threat of violence when I did not have the same luck as them is at the very least unfair. > You want to live in a civilised society, you pay the membership club. You want to live in your Randian distopia, go and make one. Ah yes, the native Americans in the trail of tears were also expelled in the name of civilization. Don't you think it is time to stop expelling people from the clay that they were born on in order to bring an abstract concept such as "civilization" (as defined by you ofc) to the lands? Also, I love it how you focused on the most sensationalist part of the story, that is, the education of the children. But failed to mention how everyone being forced to fund -for example- opera houses from their labour is an integral part of society. Or how when the UK joined the war against iraq under false pretences and their taxes were funding war crimes helped our civilization prosper - "You want to live in a civilised society, you pay the membership club", including war crimes. Honestly, it feels like the entire argument is basically "pay your taxes even if it funds things you don't like, because those are things I like". BBC these days with the rise of the internet only benefits the few who watch TV, forcing everyone to fund it is basically thief.
  - lol768 7y ago
    There are many things which I disagree with in this comment and some things that I don't think are relevant at all, but the statement that "[sic: The] BBC these days with the rise of the internet only benefits the few who watch TV, forcing everyone to fund it is basically thief" is particularly problematic. The BBC does a lot more than just produce content for TV broadcast. BBC News, BBC Weather, BBC Sport, Bitesize (online educational resources), all of the radio stations.
    - dependenttypes 7y ago
      > BBC News, BBC Weather, BBC Sport, ... A similar argument can be applied there. They could adopt an online subscription model like other similar companies (NYTimes, etc) did, or they could have ads or whatever. There is no reason to have every taxpayer pay for something that they do not need. So let me correct what I said: "BBC only benefits the few who use its services". > There are many things which I disagree with in this comment and some things that I don't think are relevant at all Such as?
      - lol768 7y ago
        >So let me correct what I said: "BBC only benefits the few who use its services". Except it's not "the few". The BBC has 81% audience reach amongst adults in the UK across different mediums (source: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/116529/news-consumption-2018.pdf https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/116529/...) and 62% reach for the flagship BBC One channel. It's simply not comparable to American newspapers with as little as 3% audience (source: (5 / (0.76239))100 - https://nytmediakit.com/newspaper/ https://nytmediakit.com/newspaper/ and https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-age/ https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-ag...) reach across the country's adult population. Out of interest, do you yourself live in the UK? I suspect you don't from the way you've written your comment, but I do genuinely think you might have a different opinion if you consumed its output in the same way as the vast majority of people do.
        7y ago
duckmysick 7y ago
You can vote for people who set the budget. If the issue (let's say defunding a local opera house you don't attend) is important enough, you can form a voting bloc and get your way. You might need to spend some time and money on raising awareness among local voters. And you will definitely face some opposition, but it's doable.

iso1631 7y ago

No, it's not a bad thing. You may not have kids, but you rely on a society that educates children, as employees, as people making goods, providing services etc. You want to live in a civilised society, you pay the membership club. You want to live in your Randian distopia, go and make one.

dependenttypes 7y ago
> but you rely on a society that educates children, as employees, as people making goods, providing services etc The whole "educating people in order to become good wageslaves" thing, yes. Anyway, these that directly benefit from their education (their parents? the companies that they will work on?) could as well fund their education. Using my hard earned money however to inefficiently fund some low-quality education for someone else's child (who might not even be interested in it) under the threat of violence when I did not have the same luck as them is at the very least unfair. > You want to live in a civilised society, you pay the membership club. You want to live in your Randian distopia, go and make one. Ah yes, the native Americans in the trail of tears were also expelled in the name of civilization. Don't you think it is time to stop expelling people from the clay that they were born on in order to bring an abstract concept such as "civilization" (as defined by you ofc) to the lands? Also, I love it how you focused on the most sensationalist part of the story, that is, the education of the children. But failed to mention how everyone being forced to fund -for example- opera houses from their labour is an integral part of society. Or how when the UK joined the war against iraq under false pretences and their taxes were funding war crimes helped our civilization prosper - "You want to live in a civilised society, you pay the membership club", including war crimes. Honestly, it feels like the entire argument is basically "pay your taxes even if it funds things you don't like, because those are things I like". BBC these days with the rise of the internet only benefits the few who watch TV, forcing everyone to fund it is basically thief.
- lol768 7y ago
  There are many things which I disagree with in this comment and some things that I don't think are relevant at all, but the statement that "[sic: The] BBC these days with the rise of the internet only benefits the few who watch TV, forcing everyone to fund it is basically thief" is particularly problematic. The BBC does a lot more than just produce content for TV broadcast. BBC News, BBC Weather, BBC Sport, Bitesize (online educational resources), all of the radio stations.
  - dependenttypes 7y ago
    > BBC News, BBC Weather, BBC Sport, ... A similar argument can be applied there. They could adopt an online subscription model like other similar companies (NYTimes, etc) did, or they could have ads or whatever. There is no reason to have every taxpayer pay for something that they do not need. So let me correct what I said: "BBC only benefits the few who use its services". > There are many things which I disagree with in this comment and some things that I don't think are relevant at all Such as?
    - lol768 7y ago
      >So let me correct what I said: "BBC only benefits the few who use its services". Except it's not "the few". The BBC has 81% audience reach amongst adults in the UK across different mediums (source: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/116529/news-consumption-2018.pdf https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/116529/...) and 62% reach for the flagship BBC One channel. It's simply not comparable to American newspapers with as little as 3% audience (source: (5 / (0.76239))100 - https://nytmediakit.com/newspaper/ https://nytmediakit.com/newspaper/ and https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-age/ https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-ag...) reach across the country's adult population. Out of interest, do you yourself live in the UK? I suspect you don't from the way you've written your comment, but I do genuinely think you might have a different opinion if you consumed its output in the same way as the vast majority of people do.
      - 7y ago

duckmysick 7y ago

You can vote for people who set the budget. If the issue (let's say defunding a local opera house you don't attend) is important enough, you can form a voting bloc and get your way. You might need to spend some time and money on raising awareness among local voters. And you will definitely face some opposition, but it's doable.