5 ms·

Why should I pay for other people's kids if I'm never going to have kids? The only people that should have to pay for those services are the people who actually

Why should I pay for other people's kids if I'm never going to have kids? The only people that should have to pay for those services are the people who actually use those services. For things that are unplanned like injuries (or even unplanned pregnancies), payment can be deferred if necessary and wages deducted straight from the paycheck to pay back for those services. Ideally, roads are that way too. People licensed should be charged a tax for road maintenance based on their odometer readings, or something to that effect. Or just use a Fastrak-type system where it automatically scans a device in your car when you get onto certain roads and charges you for that usage -- but do it in more places. Everyone else can get a very minimal tax for the upkeep of the administration in case few very people use these services.

acuozzo 5y ago
> Why should I pay for other people's kids if I'm never going to have kids? Medical Debt Up => Poverty Up => Crime Up => Incarceration Up => Paying for their imprisonment instead. You're protected by prisons, so you are a user of the service provided by them and must therefore pay under your model. > Ideally, roads are that way too. How would this work for e.g. Montana with seemingly-endless lengths of highway and a very low population density? … Let's take things a little further. Do you believe only private schools should exist?
- pedroma 5y ago
  >How would this work for e.g. Montana with seemingly-endless lengths of highway and a very low population density? Why would they need nice roads then? Seems like a waste of money to build a bunch of expensive roads for the 5,000 people who use them. They can manage with cheap roads and dirt roads that don't need much maintenance. The Chinese rural areas manage just fine with dirt roads, and those areas have way higher population densities. >You're protected by prisons, so you are a user of the service provided by them and must therefore pay under your model. Why should I pay for someone's crimes? It's such a stupid system. If they are murderers they should just receive the capital punishment. And if the crime is not murder, they can be put into factories where they are able produce something of value -- farming or whatever. If their business is not profitable it should at least reduce the taxpayer burden. I know this is dreamland ideal world logic, but working closer to this certainly doesn't hurt, with the alternative being they don't do anything at all and are pure leeches. Yes, I know they make license plates but surely they can do a little more than that with such a huge prison population. This also incentivizes training them and providing them skills when they leave prison -- if training them with skills will help the prison make money, why not? The inmate also leaves the prison with job prospects with many years of experience in a trade. >Do you believe only private schools should exist? Private schools have higher success rate for their graduates. There are other factors that play into this, obviously. Let me ask you this first - do you think public schools are doing poor kids any good? Especially in the inner cities where many poor black families live? I think any alternative is worth looking into to bring them out of poverty. Or you can just leave them to their devices.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    >>Why should I pay for someone's crimes? It's such a stupid system. If they are murderers they should just receive the capital punishment. And if the crime is not murder, they can be put into factories where they are able produce something of value -- farming or whatever. If their business is not profitable it should at least reduce the taxpayer burden. God, I would hate to live in the system you're describing. And again, it's all me me me. Society wants to punish people with prison, so society should pay for it. Whether you personally want to is fortunately irrelevant. As for forcing people to work so they are not a burden on society - that's just slavery with extra steps. But oh wait, I forgot that US still does that. Nevermind then. >>if training them with skills will help the prison make money, why not? Because prisons should never ever ever be money making institutions in a functional society. I can't believe I actually have to say this. >>Let me ask you this first - do you think public schools are doing poor kids any good? Especially in the inner cities where many poor black families live? Of course they do, what are you on about.
    - acuozzo 5y ago
      People like this always imagine that they'll be on the "good" side of such a system— That the private prisons wouldn't lobby to make all speeding illegal in order to increase the labor pool for profit. That they'll hear about the law change in time. That they'll never have to drive 5mph above the speed limit because they're running late. That they'll never be one of the slaves in the cyberpunk dystopia they're longing for.
      - pedroma 5y ago
        What's your suggestion for changes to our god awful prison system then? Or might you even be okay with it?
        acuozzo 5y ago
        I am in favor of the way the prison system is run in Sweden; more broadly, the so-called "Nordic Model".
gambiting 5y ago
>>Why should I pay for other people's kids if I'm never going to have kids? Hmmmm. I think the issue here is that you're looking at it from an individualism perspective. Why should I be paying for something that I'm not using. You're obviously completely entitled to such an opinion, and I'm not going to change it with one HN comment, but imho that's the wrong way to build a society. Society should be paying to support new births, because those people will eventually grow up to be the workforce of your country, they will be paying taxes, and supporting you in retirement. The individualist approach that I see so often in Americans just seems so short sighted to me - why should I pay for any of this. I don't care about any of those things, if people want workforce/taxes/retirement they should just work for it goddamit! Like, ok. I just want to point out that societies, including American one, pay for things just because they want to have them, regardless of whether it benefits every individual or not. You pay for roads just so they are there and so that every American can use them, regardless of whether you personally are going to drive every mile of every road ever built. Most Americans want to pay for agencies that make sure you have clean water or air, even though personally you probably aren't going to live in Flint or next to a coal power station. And obviously all Americans pay for the biggest military in the world just to keep a certain level of control and place in the world, even though many people could say well, how does paying for the 20th aircraft carrier benefit ME? Paying for people to give birth so that they don't end up in medical debt straight away when starting a family has benefits to the society. But you will never see it if you just try to see what's in it for you personally.
- pedroma 5y ago
  You're right that this is a matter of personal philosophy. I view it as an optimization problem. Given a set number of tax dollars collected, everyone wants a piece of it. I don't trust people to allocate these correctly. The alternative is to give less of these dollars so less corruption and mistakes can occur, which is what I view is better. As for using the next generation to support the older generation through taxation, this does not seem to work very well in practice. As societies reach higher quality of life, like in the US, Japan, some Euro countries, there tends to be a drop in birth rates. There are other factors in play (career opportunities, culture), as in some of these countries giving birth is highly encouraged (e.g. Japan pays families to give birth). I just view it as risky to expect there to be enough children to support all the old folks. They might even vote those benefits out and you'll be left hanging. For example, if we're going to mandate something, rather than Social Security a mandatory 401k-style plan seems better. That account is yours, it's your own money, and the government just asks you to deposit 5-10% of every paycheck into that account and you can withdraw a fraction of that account with some interval once you're 50. Maybe it can used to pay for health care before 50.
mjbeswick 5y ago
I can only guess you are against universal healthcare also? In countries that have universal healthcare, that care is substantially cheaper; so you pay much less overall. I live in the UK, which has quite a generous benefits system. Although such a system is open to abuse, it's much cheaper than imprisoning people that have resorted to crime to get by (they they do in the US).
- pedroma 5y ago
  This narrative is overblown and parroted by the uninformed. We do have Medicaid for low income families, and Medicare for seniors. The problem is you have to apply for it. Maybe people should be automatically enrolled.

acuozzo 5y ago

> Why should I pay for other people's kids if I'm never going to have kids? Medical Debt Up => Poverty Up => Crime Up => Incarceration Up => Paying for their imprisonment instead. You're protected by prisons, so you are a user of the service provided by them and must therefore pay under your model. > Ideally, roads are that way too. How would this work for e.g. Montana with seemingly-endless lengths of highway and a very low population density? … Let's take things a little further. Do you believe only private schools should exist?

pedroma 5y ago
>How would this work for e.g. Montana with seemingly-endless lengths of highway and a very low population density? Why would they need nice roads then? Seems like a waste of money to build a bunch of expensive roads for the 5,000 people who use them. They can manage with cheap roads and dirt roads that don't need much maintenance. The Chinese rural areas manage just fine with dirt roads, and those areas have way higher population densities. >You're protected by prisons, so you are a user of the service provided by them and must therefore pay under your model. Why should I pay for someone's crimes? It's such a stupid system. If they are murderers they should just receive the capital punishment. And if the crime is not murder, they can be put into factories where they are able produce something of value -- farming or whatever. If their business is not profitable it should at least reduce the taxpayer burden. I know this is dreamland ideal world logic, but working closer to this certainly doesn't hurt, with the alternative being they don't do anything at all and are pure leeches. Yes, I know they make license plates but surely they can do a little more than that with such a huge prison population. This also incentivizes training them and providing them skills when they leave prison -- if training them with skills will help the prison make money, why not? The inmate also leaves the prison with job prospects with many years of experience in a trade. >Do you believe only private schools should exist? Private schools have higher success rate for their graduates. There are other factors that play into this, obviously. Let me ask you this first - do you think public schools are doing poor kids any good? Especially in the inner cities where many poor black families live? I think any alternative is worth looking into to bring them out of poverty. Or you can just leave them to their devices.
- gambiting 5y ago
  >>Why should I pay for someone's crimes? It's such a stupid system. If they are murderers they should just receive the capital punishment. And if the crime is not murder, they can be put into factories where they are able produce something of value -- farming or whatever. If their business is not profitable it should at least reduce the taxpayer burden. God, I would hate to live in the system you're describing. And again, it's all me me me. Society wants to punish people with prison, so society should pay for it. Whether you personally want to is fortunately irrelevant. As for forcing people to work so they are not a burden on society - that's just slavery with extra steps. But oh wait, I forgot that US still does that. Nevermind then. >>if training them with skills will help the prison make money, why not? Because prisons should never ever ever be money making institutions in a functional society. I can't believe I actually have to say this. >>Let me ask you this first - do you think public schools are doing poor kids any good? Especially in the inner cities where many poor black families live? Of course they do, what are you on about.
  - acuozzo 5y ago
    People like this always imagine that they'll be on the "good" side of such a system— That the private prisons wouldn't lobby to make all speeding illegal in order to increase the labor pool for profit. That they'll hear about the law change in time. That they'll never have to drive 5mph above the speed limit because they're running late. That they'll never be one of the slaves in the cyberpunk dystopia they're longing for.
    - pedroma 5y ago
      What's your suggestion for changes to our god awful prison system then? Or might you even be okay with it?
      - acuozzo 5y ago
        I am in favor of the way the prison system is run in Sweden; more broadly, the so-called "Nordic Model".

gambiting 5y ago

>>Why should I pay for other people's kids if I'm never going to have kids? Hmmmm. I think the issue here is that you're looking at it from an individualism perspective. Why should I be paying for something that I'm not using. You're obviously completely entitled to such an opinion, and I'm not going to change it with one HN comment, but imho that's the wrong way to build a society. Society should be paying to support new births, because those people will eventually grow up to be the workforce of your country, they will be paying taxes, and supporting you in retirement. The individualist approach that I see so often in Americans just seems so short sighted to me - why should I pay for any of this. I don't care about any of those things, if people want workforce/taxes/retirement they should just work for it goddamit! Like, ok. I just want to point out that societies, including American one, pay for things just because they want to have them, regardless of whether it benefits every individual or not. You pay for roads just so they are there and so that every American can use them, regardless of whether you personally are going to drive every mile of every road ever built. Most Americans want to pay for agencies that make sure you have clean water or air, even though personally you probably aren't going to live in Flint or next to a coal power station. And obviously all Americans pay for the biggest military in the world just to keep a certain level of control and place in the world, even though many people could say well, how does paying for the 20th aircraft carrier benefit ME? Paying for people to give birth so that they don't end up in medical debt straight away when starting a family has benefits to the society. But you will never see it if you just try to see what's in it for you personally.

pedroma 5y ago
You're right that this is a matter of personal philosophy. I view it as an optimization problem. Given a set number of tax dollars collected, everyone wants a piece of it. I don't trust people to allocate these correctly. The alternative is to give less of these dollars so less corruption and mistakes can occur, which is what I view is better. As for using the next generation to support the older generation through taxation, this does not seem to work very well in practice. As societies reach higher quality of life, like in the US, Japan, some Euro countries, there tends to be a drop in birth rates. There are other factors in play (career opportunities, culture), as in some of these countries giving birth is highly encouraged (e.g. Japan pays families to give birth). I just view it as risky to expect there to be enough children to support all the old folks. They might even vote those benefits out and you'll be left hanging. For example, if we're going to mandate something, rather than Social Security a mandatory 401k-style plan seems better. That account is yours, it's your own money, and the government just asks you to deposit 5-10% of every paycheck into that account and you can withdraw a fraction of that account with some interval once you're 50. Maybe it can used to pay for health care before 50.

mjbeswick 5y ago

I can only guess you are against universal healthcare also? In countries that have universal healthcare, that care is substantially cheaper; so you pay much less overall. I live in the UK, which has quite a generous benefits system. Although such a system is open to abuse, it's much cheaper than imprisoning people that have resorted to crime to get by (they they do in the US).

pedroma 5y ago
This narrative is overblown and parroted by the uninformed. We do have Medicaid for low income families, and Medicare for seniors. The problem is you have to apply for it. Maybe people should be automatically enrolled.