4 ms·

The solution is that the government steps in and says "No, you must". And American culture does not like when government says "must". But in the rest of the wo

by mabbo 4y ago

The solution is that the government steps in and says "No, you must". And American culture does not like when government says "must". But in the rest of the world, we act like grown ups and accept that sometimes, it's perfectly okay.

pdonis 4y ago
No, you have this backwards. Acting like a grownup means taking responsibility for your own actions and not expecting the government, or any institution, to magically make sure nothing bad ever happens to you. Paying for services like firefighting is fine; but being forced to pay for things because some government bureaucrat decrees it is not. And acting like a grownup also means letting people take the consequences of their decisions. According to other posters in this thread, the family in question repeatedly refused to pay a fair price for firefighting coverage, and the fire was started by a family member. That means the consequences are on them.
- rqtwteye 4y ago
  Acting like a grownup means that you realize that not all things that happen to people are their own fault and that you yourself can’t totally avoid bad things no matter how careful you are. It also means to understand that some things can be handled much better by a shared effort instead of everybody on their own. That’s why we have police, firefighters and the military.
  - thegrimmest 4y ago
    I think this is exactly where reasonable people disagree. Some (myself included) feel that acting like a grownup means exactly that everything that nature (not other people) inflicts on you is your responsibility. This includes your house catching on fire or your person contracting a disease.
    - linuxdude314 4y ago
      No reasonable person thinks this. If you truly believe this, your perspective have been warped by the culture you are immersed in. It sounds like you don’t find value in living in a society. Try living in a different culture than USA for 6 months to a year and I suspect your eyes will be opened.
      - thegrimmest 4y ago
        I'm not so sure - entire revolutions have been had about this, and extensive documents written, for centuries[1]. Not everyone is a negative utilitarian. I value living a society where cooperation is (maximally) voluntary. Involuntary cooperation is indistinguishable from a degree of slavery. 1. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp
        bombolo 4y ago
        Declaration of human rights was about the right to have your house burn down? You always learn some new made up crazy thing on the internet!
        thegrimmest 4y ago
        No, it's about not being forced into compulsory insurance schemes in various disguises.
        bombolo 4y ago
        Can you quote the specific bit that supports your point? Because I see some bits that go in the other direction.
        thegrimmest 4y ago
        > Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law. Point being that liberty itself is a value that it is reasonable to optimize over negative utilitarianism.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    Police, firefighters, and military don't have to be provided by governments. There are plenty of historical examples of all three being provided by private institutions (indeed, the article referenced in this discussion talks about such institutions for firefighters in England over a period of several centuries). Nor does charity for those in genuine need need to be provided by governments. Indeed, charity throughout human history has worked best when it is provided by private institutions made up of people who genuinely want to help others, of which there are plenty in the US as there are everywhere, not by government departments staffed by bureaucrats.
  - JetAlone 4y ago
- autoexec 4y ago
  - pitaj 4y ago
    Coercion is not cooperation.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    Adults know that making sensible collective agreements where necessary is not the same thing as government. Governments never limit themselves to that. Certainly the US government doesn't--even though that's exactly what it's supposed to do under the Constitution. Also, allowing people to suffer bad consequences from their own choices does not mean being indifferent. It just means refusing to adopt a "cure" that is worse than the disease. Adults also know that collective agreements to provide the means to help those who are in trouble through no fault of their own are called "charity", and are best done by private institutions made up of people who genuinely want to help others (and there are plenty of those in the US just as there are everywhere), not government departments staffed by bureaucrats.
    - autoexec 4y ago
      > Adults also know that collective agreements to provide the means to help those who are in trouble through no fault of their own are called "charity", and are best done by private institutions While your other arguments are subjective, this one is just plain factually wrong. It will always be far less efficient to depend on a few individuals to shoulder large expenses or for disparate organizations (each with their own overhead expenses) to find and collect smaller contributions than it is for everyone to pay just a small amount automatically to collectively cover an expense through a single origination. In addition to the massive inefficiencies of charity, and the fact that many charities are really little more than scams, there are still several other problems with them. See for example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/charity/against_1.shtml https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/charity/against_1.shtml https://harvardpolitics.com/charity-band-aid/ https://harvardpolitics.com/charity-band-aid/ Some of these problems are even seen by some people as benefits. For example, federal or state aid to victims of a natural disaster would go to help everyone impacted, but a charity to help them can allow someone to only support certain people while discriminating against others. Some people actually find it extremely preferable to restrict all their charitable giving to only people with a certain religion, or skin color, or political alignment, but the freedom that gives a person to leave "the wrong kind of people" to suffer is still a massive problem when your goal is to help everyone impacted. Charity is great, when it's not a total scam, and it's equitable, and the origination is lucky enough to find enough people willing to take the time to research them and give them enough donations to accomplish what needs to be done, but it's still no substitute for government programs. Government programs can have their problems too certainly. They can be run poorly, they can not do enough to help people, and the help they provide can be less than equitable, but you're entitled to a much higher level of control and transparency over government programs and you always have the ability to vote for improvements and hold the government accountable when they fail to deliver.
cragfar 4y ago
Why is it not acceptable for someone to lose everything when three different entities (probably more) say "hey you should do this".
bombolo 4y ago
> And American culture does not like when government says "must". Except when it's about treating everyone like terrorists in airports, I presume.
- dang 4y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dang 4y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by mabbo 4y ago

pdonis 4y ago

No, you have this backwards. Acting like a grownup means taking responsibility for your own actions and not expecting the government, or any institution, to magically make sure nothing bad ever happens to you. Paying for services like firefighting is fine; but being forced to pay for things because some government bureaucrat decrees it is not. And acting like a grownup also means letting people take the consequences of their decisions. According to other posters in this thread, the family in question repeatedly refused to pay a fair price for firefighting coverage, and the fire was started by a family member. That means the consequences are on them.

rqtwteye 4y ago
Acting like a grownup means that you realize that not all things that happen to people are their own fault and that you yourself can’t totally avoid bad things no matter how careful you are. It also means to understand that some things can be handled much better by a shared effort instead of everybody on their own. That’s why we have police, firefighters and the military.
- thegrimmest 4y ago
  I think this is exactly where reasonable people disagree. Some (myself included) feel that acting like a grownup means exactly that everything that nature (not other people) inflicts on you is your responsibility. This includes your house catching on fire or your person contracting a disease.
  - linuxdude314 4y ago
    No reasonable person thinks this. If you truly believe this, your perspective have been warped by the culture you are immersed in. It sounds like you don’t find value in living in a society. Try living in a different culture than USA for 6 months to a year and I suspect your eyes will be opened.
    - thegrimmest 4y ago
      I'm not so sure - entire revolutions have been had about this, and extensive documents written, for centuries[1]. Not everyone is a negative utilitarian. I value living a society where cooperation is (maximally) voluntary. Involuntary cooperation is indistinguishable from a degree of slavery. 1. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp
      - bombolo 4y ago
        Declaration of human rights was about the right to have your house burn down? You always learn some new made up crazy thing on the internet!
        thegrimmest 4y ago
        No, it's about not being forced into compulsory insurance schemes in various disguises.
        bombolo 4y ago
        Can you quote the specific bit that supports your point? Because I see some bits that go in the other direction.
        thegrimmest 4y ago
        > Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law. Point being that liberty itself is a value that it is reasonable to optimize over negative utilitarianism.
- pdonis 4y ago
  Police, firefighters, and military don't have to be provided by governments. There are plenty of historical examples of all three being provided by private institutions (indeed, the article referenced in this discussion talks about such institutions for firefighters in England over a period of several centuries). Nor does charity for those in genuine need need to be provided by governments. Indeed, charity throughout human history has worked best when it is provided by private institutions made up of people who genuinely want to help others, of which there are plenty in the US as there are everywhere, not by government departments staffed by bureaucrats.
- JetAlone 4y ago
autoexec 4y ago
- pitaj 4y ago
  Coercion is not cooperation.
- pdonis 4y ago
  Adults know that making sensible collective agreements where necessary is not the same thing as government. Governments never limit themselves to that. Certainly the US government doesn't--even though that's exactly what it's supposed to do under the Constitution. Also, allowing people to suffer bad consequences from their own choices does not mean being indifferent. It just means refusing to adopt a "cure" that is worse than the disease. Adults also know that collective agreements to provide the means to help those who are in trouble through no fault of their own are called "charity", and are best done by private institutions made up of people who genuinely want to help others (and there are plenty of those in the US just as there are everywhere), not government departments staffed by bureaucrats.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > Adults also know that collective agreements to provide the means to help those who are in trouble through no fault of their own are called "charity", and are best done by private institutions While your other arguments are subjective, this one is just plain factually wrong. It will always be far less efficient to depend on a few individuals to shoulder large expenses or for disparate organizations (each with their own overhead expenses) to find and collect smaller contributions than it is for everyone to pay just a small amount automatically to collectively cover an expense through a single origination. In addition to the massive inefficiencies of charity, and the fact that many charities are really little more than scams, there are still several other problems with them. See for example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/charity/against_1.shtml https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/charity/against_1.shtml https://harvardpolitics.com/charity-band-aid/ https://harvardpolitics.com/charity-band-aid/ Some of these problems are even seen by some people as benefits. For example, federal or state aid to victims of a natural disaster would go to help everyone impacted, but a charity to help them can allow someone to only support certain people while discriminating against others. Some people actually find it extremely preferable to restrict all their charitable giving to only people with a certain religion, or skin color, or political alignment, but the freedom that gives a person to leave "the wrong kind of people" to suffer is still a massive problem when your goal is to help everyone impacted. Charity is great, when it's not a total scam, and it's equitable, and the origination is lucky enough to find enough people willing to take the time to research them and give them enough donations to accomplish what needs to be done, but it's still no substitute for government programs. Government programs can have their problems too certainly. They can be run poorly, they can not do enough to help people, and the help they provide can be less than equitable, but you're entitled to a much higher level of control and transparency over government programs and you always have the ability to vote for improvements and hold the government accountable when they fail to deliver.

cragfar 4y ago

Why is it not acceptable for someone to lose everything when three different entities (probably more) say "hey you should do this".

bombolo 4y ago

> And American culture does not like when government says "must". Except when it's about treating everyone like terrorists in airports, I presume.

dang 4y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dang 4y ago

Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html