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> My coworkers would talk about tax payers in a demeaning tone - as if they rightfully owed us something. But... they do? Tax payers use public services every

> My coworkers would talk about tax payers in a demeaning tone - as if they rightfully owed us something. But... they do? Tax payers use public services every day. I get what you’re saying but if someone opted to not pay taxes surely it wouldn’t be fair for them to drive on public roads, or use public transit? Or drink water provided by city-maintained pipes? How on earth would you enforce that? If someone wished to live a life where they used absolutely zero tax payer funded things how would they even start? > I encourage anyone working for their “public sector” and especially tax departments to think about the morality of your work Many years ago I worked for a local government authority. It’s honestly some of the most rewarding work I’ve done before or since. I created pages and backend tools for people to look up trash collection, how to vote, what’s going on at their local recreation centres, so on. All of those things played a part in creating community. And yes, they were paid for by taxes. Which meant no ads, no up sell, no invasive tracking, no monetisation to worry about. I could just make a tool that served people. The tools I created are probably already long gone, but the community still exists. When I’m old I don’t think I’ll have the slightest regret about the work I did. The two years I spent at a startup, burning myself out to create a product that failed and has since vanished from the earth? I’ll regret that more.

deleted 6y ago
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jeofken 6y ago
The joys of not needing ads and tracking are very true. The way I try to live that, is setting up automatic $1/month donations to all and every podcast/blog/oss project, etc I wish to support. They don’t track me, and I ensure more content to my liking will be produced. I wish ad based business models didn’t work so well - hopefully people will wise up to it and reject it. The flip side of what you speak of is the force and coercion required to fund all these nice things. I’ll use my country as an example: a family father may earn €4600/month (a good salary indeed!) but after income tax and “employment fee” receive €2650. When they spend, they pay a 25% sales tax (VAT). This means he gets to spend about €1700 of the €4600 value he creates. (Source: https://www.ekonomifakta.se/Fakta/Skatter/Rakna-pa-dina-skatter/Rakna-ut-din-skatt/#&&/wEXAQUEY2FsYwUBMYDp9Tkj4OGAN4R9N1IUN54CiLz9yKMG5G2iLHW2Pox3 https://www.ekonomifakta.se/Fakta/Skatter/Rakna-pa-dina-skat...) So as a back of the envelope calculation, you could say that if a government project costs €2650x2, one “effective” expert slave labourer is used for it. And the moral issue is this: these men (main tax funding group) must therefore, in order to fund their families, work more than otherwise, and not see their children. Their wives must often work too, and the obvious solution is to leave the kids in (government) daycare - which effectively is a daily abandonment trauma. The work I did for the government had a direct effect of children not seeing their fathers and mothers, but their upbringing being outsourced to the state. I think this is such a moral ugliness, I can have no part in it any more.

deleted 6y ago

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jeofken 6y ago

The joys of not needing ads and tracking are very true. The way I try to live that, is setting up automatic $1/month donations to all and every podcast/blog/oss project, etc I wish to support. They don’t track me, and I ensure more content to my liking will be produced. I wish ad based business models didn’t work so well - hopefully people will wise up to it and reject it. The flip side of what you speak of is the force and coercion required to fund all these nice things. I’ll use my country as an example: a family father may earn €4600/month (a good salary indeed!) but after income tax and “employment fee” receive €2650. When they spend, they pay a 25% sales tax (VAT). This means he gets to spend about €1700 of the €4600 value he creates. (Source: https://www.ekonomifakta.se/Fakta/Skatter/Rakna-pa-dina-skatter/Rakna-ut-din-skatt/#&&/wEXAQUEY2FsYwUBMYDp9Tkj4OGAN4R9N1IUN54CiLz9yKMG5G2iLHW2Pox3 https://www.ekonomifakta.se/Fakta/Skatter/Rakna-pa-dina-skat...) So as a back of the envelope calculation, you could say that if a government project costs €2650x2, one “effective” expert slave labourer is used for it. And the moral issue is this: these men (main tax funding group) must therefore, in order to fund their families, work more than otherwise, and not see their children. Their wives must often work too, and the obvious solution is to leave the kids in (government) daycare - which effectively is a daily abandonment trauma. The work I did for the government had a direct effect of children not seeing their fathers and mothers, but their upbringing being outsourced to the state. I think this is such a moral ugliness, I can have no part in it any more.