3 ms·

What's the solution?

by protimewaster 2y ago

_heimdall 2y ago
A smaller, less powerful government?
- moduspol 2y ago
  We're not willing to try that.
- protimewaster 2y ago
  The government is almost always going to be relatively huge, though, if you're comparing it to a single wealthy person. It's very unlikely we have a $500,000 federal government.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    There's a huge gap between a single wealthy person and what we have today. Surely there's a middle ground. I have to assume the government currently had authority that most people wouldn't actually want it to have, and that the budget has a long list of even just low hanging fruit where money is being wasted on things tax payers wouldn't want it spent on is wouldn't agree with how its done.
- consteval 2y ago
  We used to have this and, well, it sucked. Turns out people are still extremely rich but in their own little governments - what we call corporations. This may seem like an improvement. But these people aren’t elected, so we’re back at square one minus the democracy part. We had less regulation, less rules, less taxation. People were poor. They were sick. They died when they shouldn’t have. They were illiterate. They were easily influenced. The economy suffered. Markets crashed. People lost their jobs. People starved. So we decided, “hm maybe that doesn’t work like we thought it did”. Pretty much everyone was on board. The government has many faults, yes, but many powers too. Power is distributed, and even you yourself hold some power. Having 20,000 people making decisions across 300 agencies sounds awful at first - but is having 10 people making decisions behind closed doors in a boardroom better?
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    Comparing the present to the past depends entirely on where you set the point to compare against though. Go back further and we didn't really have corporations and most people worked for themselves and individuals that were much more independent. That was for both good and bad, like everything else. To compare where we are today only against a point in the past where we had massive corporations and little to no workers' rights feels like cherry picking. We have more options than massive government or massive, unregulated corporations.
    - consteval 2y ago
      If you minimize the government that means you minimize regulations. That's an oxymoron - you want companies regulated, but nobody to regulate them? There are other options - a communist utopia, a zero-state solution. Somehow, I doubt that's what you're referring to. I admit, it is cherry-picking. But at least it's historically backed. You're also cherry-picking, but you're doing it on some hypothetical future that you're just imagining. I have zero reason to believe a smaller government makes things better. In fact, everyone has zero reason to believe that. So why try? Burning things done is lazy. Maintaining existing systems and improving them is both tedious and difficult, yes. But we have some baseline assurances down that path.
      - _heimdall 2y ago
        > There are other options - a communist utopia, a zero-state solution. Somehow, I doubt that's what you're referring to. Communism, and utopias, aren't really an option. Communism has never been tried, no one seems to get past the phase where a strongman in charges takes control of everything. Regardless of whether that's even what I wanted (it isn't) that doesn't work. > You're also cherry-picking, but you're doing it on some hypothetical future that you're just imagining. You're jumping timelines here though. I also cherry picked a point in the past that makes a better example for me, but I never talked about the future. I assume both of us have an expectation that our model could work in the future, but that's not really what we were talking about. For what its worth, I consider the future you prefer with an ever growing government attempting to create more and more regulation is just as unlikely as you think it is for us to be able to shrink the government.

What's the solution?

_heimdall 2y ago

A smaller, less powerful government?

moduspol 2y ago
We're not willing to try that.
protimewaster 2y ago
The government is almost always going to be relatively huge, though, if you're comparing it to a single wealthy person. It's very unlikely we have a $500,000 federal government.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  There's a huge gap between a single wealthy person and what we have today. Surely there's a middle ground. I have to assume the government currently had authority that most people wouldn't actually want it to have, and that the budget has a long list of even just low hanging fruit where money is being wasted on things tax payers wouldn't want it spent on is wouldn't agree with how its done.
consteval 2y ago
We used to have this and, well, it sucked. Turns out people are still extremely rich but in their own little governments - what we call corporations. This may seem like an improvement. But these people aren’t elected, so we’re back at square one minus the democracy part. We had less regulation, less rules, less taxation. People were poor. They were sick. They died when they shouldn’t have. They were illiterate. They were easily influenced. The economy suffered. Markets crashed. People lost their jobs. People starved. So we decided, “hm maybe that doesn’t work like we thought it did”. Pretty much everyone was on board. The government has many faults, yes, but many powers too. Power is distributed, and even you yourself hold some power. Having 20,000 people making decisions across 300 agencies sounds awful at first - but is having 10 people making decisions behind closed doors in a boardroom better?
- _heimdall 2y ago
  Comparing the present to the past depends entirely on where you set the point to compare against though. Go back further and we didn't really have corporations and most people worked for themselves and individuals that were much more independent. That was for both good and bad, like everything else. To compare where we are today only against a point in the past where we had massive corporations and little to no workers' rights feels like cherry picking. We have more options than massive government or massive, unregulated corporations.
  - consteval 2y ago
    If you minimize the government that means you minimize regulations. That's an oxymoron - you want companies regulated, but nobody to regulate them? There are other options - a communist utopia, a zero-state solution. Somehow, I doubt that's what you're referring to. I admit, it is cherry-picking. But at least it's historically backed. You're also cherry-picking, but you're doing it on some hypothetical future that you're just imagining. I have zero reason to believe a smaller government makes things better. In fact, everyone has zero reason to believe that. So why try? Burning things done is lazy. Maintaining existing systems and improving them is both tedious and difficult, yes. But we have some baseline assurances down that path.
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      > There are other options - a communist utopia, a zero-state solution. Somehow, I doubt that's what you're referring to. Communism, and utopias, aren't really an option. Communism has never been tried, no one seems to get past the phase where a strongman in charges takes control of everything. Regardless of whether that's even what I wanted (it isn't) that doesn't work. > You're also cherry-picking, but you're doing it on some hypothetical future that you're just imagining. You're jumping timelines here though. I also cherry picked a point in the past that makes a better example for me, but I never talked about the future. I assume both of us have an expectation that our model could work in the future, but that's not really what we were talking about. For what its worth, I consider the future you prefer with an ever growing government attempting to create more and more regulation is just as unlikely as you think it is for us to be able to shrink the government.