4 ms·

What about food subsidies? Or the massive subsidy we give drivers in the form of paved, maintained roads? Are only the subsidies you personally benefit from oka

by throwway120385 3y ago

What about food subsidies? Or the massive subsidy we give drivers in the form of paved, maintained roads? Are only the subsidies you personally benefit from okay or can we sometimes give subsidies to other people?

verisimi 3y ago
I'm not really fine with taxes or subsidies at all. I certainly don't think that state officials have some special insight to judge the best way to spend communal funds... of course their pensions feature highly in worthy expenditures.
- throwway120385 3y ago
  How do communities put funding together for special projects in your mind? Do we just not do that?
  - verisimi 3y ago
    Have you ever heard of community gardens, or community anything really? This is where people voluntarily contribute to what is perceived as some communal good. The key word is 'voluntary', ie without coercion, force or manipulation. If you don't pay taxes, you will be forced to pay, regardless of whether you agree with the attack (not defence) budget, or whether you would like the money to be used on actual communally valued goals as opposed to lining an ever increasing number of government workers' pockets, or the cradle-to-grave propaganda effort, etc.
    - throwway120385 3y ago
      Yeah, in fact the area I live in has several of those. But I'm talking about building things like roads, water systems, sanitation, etc.. How do you propose those things get built?
      - verisimi 3y ago
        There is more than one way to do things, and its far from clear that the state mandated way is the right way. Its pretty obvious that this is the most expensive way though - as most of the tax take goes on paying off existing debts, and superfluous expenses such as supporting a huge administrative state 'service' - pay, pensions, army, police, teachers, etc. With roads, in the first place these existed before the state adopted the infrastructure - someone made these. New roads were created to encourage a specific type of corporate industrialisation, with petrol companies heavily supporting gas burning cars. And nowadays, roads are being constrained and pedestrianised to discourage cars - so this infrastructure (that has already been paid for) is being rolled back (at further expense). So, how is that a good use of money; what value is the state adding here? By the way, having an extensive road network is probably why we don't have flying cars. Water systems and sanitation are sort of the same thing. Perhaps you think taking all the sewage and grouping it into a river of muck to then discharge it at sea is a good idea. I don't. Have you considered that human excrement might be processed more locally, and then re-used as fertiliser - as we do for animal waste? Probably this is how things were done (I know this was the case even recently in China) but instead we are taught the gross story that 300 years ago people in cities threw their sewage into the streets, walking into their homes, etc. I'm sure some of that occurred - forced industrialisation happened very quickly, moving people off common (acts of enclosure, etc - this is state sanctioned theft, btw) forced people into cities. I'm sure peoples' peasant habits could not work in the city. Force, brutality and tight control underlie the state system. Humans are perfectly capable of managing things without state intervention - but once you force people from a more natural state (living near the land to living in densely populated cities), the state seems to be the only management option. The state is not actually there to help - it only needs to appear to be 'doing its best'. It is there to collectivise and harness the efforts of many people, regardless of how they feel about it. Most people simply accept the reality that they are presented and are happy to do what it tells them. The state uses schooling, culture etc to create the idea that it is beneficent, that it has a moral right to force another - it literally teaches people to adopt its self-serving immorality - and it works! Mostly.
        throwway120385 3y ago

verisimi 3y ago

I'm not really fine with taxes or subsidies at all. I certainly don't think that state officials have some special insight to judge the best way to spend communal funds... of course their pensions feature highly in worthy expenditures.

throwway120385 3y ago
How do communities put funding together for special projects in your mind? Do we just not do that?
- verisimi 3y ago
  Have you ever heard of community gardens, or community anything really? This is where people voluntarily contribute to what is perceived as some communal good. The key word is 'voluntary', ie without coercion, force or manipulation. If you don't pay taxes, you will be forced to pay, regardless of whether you agree with the attack (not defence) budget, or whether you would like the money to be used on actual communally valued goals as opposed to lining an ever increasing number of government workers' pockets, or the cradle-to-grave propaganda effort, etc.
  - throwway120385 3y ago
    Yeah, in fact the area I live in has several of those. But I'm talking about building things like roads, water systems, sanitation, etc.. How do you propose those things get built?
    - verisimi 3y ago
      There is more than one way to do things, and its far from clear that the state mandated way is the right way. Its pretty obvious that this is the most expensive way though - as most of the tax take goes on paying off existing debts, and superfluous expenses such as supporting a huge administrative state 'service' - pay, pensions, army, police, teachers, etc. With roads, in the first place these existed before the state adopted the infrastructure - someone made these. New roads were created to encourage a specific type of corporate industrialisation, with petrol companies heavily supporting gas burning cars. And nowadays, roads are being constrained and pedestrianised to discourage cars - so this infrastructure (that has already been paid for) is being rolled back (at further expense). So, how is that a good use of money; what value is the state adding here? By the way, having an extensive road network is probably why we don't have flying cars. Water systems and sanitation are sort of the same thing. Perhaps you think taking all the sewage and grouping it into a river of muck to then discharge it at sea is a good idea. I don't. Have you considered that human excrement might be processed more locally, and then re-used as fertiliser - as we do for animal waste? Probably this is how things were done (I know this was the case even recently in China) but instead we are taught the gross story that 300 years ago people in cities threw their sewage into the streets, walking into their homes, etc. I'm sure some of that occurred - forced industrialisation happened very quickly, moving people off common (acts of enclosure, etc - this is state sanctioned theft, btw) forced people into cities. I'm sure peoples' peasant habits could not work in the city. Force, brutality and tight control underlie the state system. Humans are perfectly capable of managing things without state intervention - but once you force people from a more natural state (living near the land to living in densely populated cities), the state seems to be the only management option. The state is not actually there to help - it only needs to appear to be 'doing its best'. It is there to collectivise and harness the efforts of many people, regardless of how they feel about it. Most people simply accept the reality that they are presented and are happy to do what it tells them. The state uses schooling, culture etc to create the idea that it is beneficent, that it has a moral right to force another - it literally teaches people to adopt its self-serving immorality - and it works! Mostly.
      - throwway120385 3y ago