4 ms·

What's the point of making public how much each person owns? Aside from making you a prime target for kidnappings and targeted advertising?

kalleboo 8mo ago
Tax data is government data. Government data is public data. Instead of asking "what's the reason for making something public" the question is "what's the reason for making a carveout for some specific data to make it secret"
- Saline9515 8mo ago
  Government data about private individuals can be considered as private, for privacy reasons. If the government knows that I have a mental disability, should everyone know about it, so they can discriminate me accordingly? What kind of dystopian view of the world is this? Or, if I own crypto, why should the government facilitate the work for criminals?
  - 1718627440 8mo ago
    The Government IS the public. I agree that the public shouldn't necessarily know about your mental disabilities, but then you just shouldn't give this information to the government.
    - Saline9515 8mo ago
      Giving this information to the government is needed to get either financial help, or just a card to justify accommodations. But yeah, let's create second class citizens out of disabled people, great idea, very "scandinavian" indeed. At least they stopped sterilizing them.
      - 1718627440 8mo ago
        > Giving this information to the government is needed to get either financial help, or just a card to justify accommodations. But maybe that shouldn't be necessary? It could also remain with the doctor, who then just approves that you should be eligible for financial help. > But yeah, let's create second class citizens out of disabled people, great idea You are fighting strawmen.
    - oska 8mo ago
      > The Government IS the public. How can you say this (and seem to believe it)? The Government is answerable to the public and should serve the public. But conflating the government with the public is simply bizarre, to my way of thinking. Governments should be transparent as much as possible, yes. But that doesn't mean being necessarily transparent with sensitive information that they know about members of the public. Only with your (bizarre to me) conflation of the public with the government would this make any sense.
analyst74 8mo ago
People in safe countries generally do not worry about kidnappings.
- Saline9515 8mo ago
  People thought that in France until a public official started to sell tax data to the mafia. Now there is a kidnapping almost everyday. Things can change faster than what you can imagine, and Sweden is not a safe country anymore by the way.
  - pastage 8mo ago
    You will not find any reputable source for those statements, sure maybe as opinions. This is the issue here we are talking about facts. I have been able to look up this information for as long as we had a government in Sweden, and it works. Financial privacy is a complicated subject, could you perhaps agree that there is a use for transparancy?
    - Saline9515 8mo ago
      Here is a link in french: https://journalducoin.com/actualites/france-employee-fisc-vendait-informations-confidentielles/ https://journalducoin.com/actualites/france-employee-fisc-ve... You can cross-reference this by asking your favorite LLM about it. Even the international news have started to catch it: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/10/europe/crypto-linked-kidnapping-france-intl https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/10/europe/crypto-linked-kidn... The problem is that when you get a high amount migrant from very different ethnicities and cultures than you, it starts to change. Those people do not necessarily want to play the same social game as you, and you risk having structured crime networks arising. Just like in France where those kidnappings were made by the algerian "DZ" mafia (DZ is a slang for Algeria). Or in Netherlands, with the "mocro" mafia (= Morroccan) who put a price on the royal family's head, forcing the princess sibling to leave the country[0]. In the case of Sweden, this is now the case, although that many Swedish people continue to do as if it wasn't. Don't tell me that such news happens in a "safe" country: https://swedenherald.com/article/teenagers-in-malmo-charged-with-recruiting-people-to-carry-out-murders-and-bombings https://swedenherald.com/article/teenagers-in-malmo-charged-... And I don't see why there should be transparency about how much I own, or earn. I don't want the neighbors to know about it, or feed your voyeurist pulsions. The line is thin between "social justice" and "mob violence", or discrimination, in that aspect. Which is likely to happen in a country that sterilized "socially unfit" people for a long time. [0]: https://www.thetimes.com/world/article/dutch-princess-fled-country-after-crime-groups-plotted-to-kidnap-her-hh9f3ng2k https://www.thetimes.com/world/article/dutch-princess-fled-c... [1]:
slim 8mo ago
why would anyone kidnap you if they own as much as you ?
- Saline9515 8mo ago
  Maybe they want to own twice more than they did before?
Epa095 8mo ago
Because tax is not your bill from 'government Corp ', its your contribution to the community, to your tribe. And we have explicit goals for this, besides bringing revenue (like the strongest back should carry the heaviest burden). When we have communal contributions in other settings, your contribution is usually not a secret. It is meant to give the tax system more legitimacy, that you don't gave to wonder if people sneak out of their contribution, you can check. It also leads to yearly debates about the tax system as the list of the richest(usually inherited) is published together with what they pay in income tax vs wealth tax. Previously you could check up anyone anonymous. These days you have to log inn, and they get a notification. But the list of the richest and their tax contribution gets published in the newspaper.
- Saline9515 8mo ago
  This has also the effect of fueling envy, and allows employers to discriminate you if they see that you have side income (or if you don't). Why make all of this fuss about RGPD if private data is in the open? And why not include medical data as well? The "tribe" has the right to know how much each one costs, right?
  - dspearson 8mo ago
    I don't follow. It allows citizenry to identify wage discrimination and other malpractices, people can get paid on the value of their work and not just how good they are at gaming the wage negotiations. Plus most of the civilised world has this thing called a "union" and "workers rights" that generally prevent your imagined scenario from happening. What has medical data got to do with this? You can't very well go up to a disabled person and say, hey, you cost society more money, maybe you should have been born less disabled, you cost too much, pay more. Societal safety nets exist for a reason, and how much one is compensated for equal labour as your coworker... I don't see how it's related at all to the "make the disabled pay more" eugenics argument.
    - Saline9515 8mo ago
      > It allows citizenry to identify wage discrimination and other malpractices, people can get paid on the value of their work and not just how good they are at gaming the wage negotiations. Ah yeah, so you are for mob justice. "Value of their work" is a highly subjective topic, which everyone is an expert on, of course. > Plus most of the civilised world has this thing called a "union" and "workers rights" that generally prevent your imagined scenario from happening. Worker rights and unions don't prevent employers from setting wages freely with their employees. An employee with 0 revenue has much less negociating power if the employer knows about it. > you cost too much, pay more I'm pretty sure people can have envy about the disabled person earning as much as they do while he/she doesn't have to wake up in the morning. Or some disabled person would like to evolve freely in the society without having everyone know about it. > eugenics argument Sweden sterilized disabled and socially unfit people for a long time, until 2013, so yeah, I totally see it happening. Incidentally I have seen racial and social mappings made out of the Swedish public data in the past, so it's far from anecdotic.

kalleboo 8mo ago

Tax data is government data. Government data is public data. Instead of asking "what's the reason for making something public" the question is "what's the reason for making a carveout for some specific data to make it secret"

Saline9515 8mo ago
Government data about private individuals can be considered as private, for privacy reasons. If the government knows that I have a mental disability, should everyone know about it, so they can discriminate me accordingly? What kind of dystopian view of the world is this? Or, if I own crypto, why should the government facilitate the work for criminals?
- 1718627440 8mo ago
  The Government IS the public. I agree that the public shouldn't necessarily know about your mental disabilities, but then you just shouldn't give this information to the government.
  - Saline9515 8mo ago
    Giving this information to the government is needed to get either financial help, or just a card to justify accommodations. But yeah, let's create second class citizens out of disabled people, great idea, very "scandinavian" indeed. At least they stopped sterilizing them.
    - 1718627440 8mo ago
      > Giving this information to the government is needed to get either financial help, or just a card to justify accommodations. But maybe that shouldn't be necessary? It could also remain with the doctor, who then just approves that you should be eligible for financial help. > But yeah, let's create second class citizens out of disabled people, great idea You are fighting strawmen.
  - oska 8mo ago
    > The Government IS the public. How can you say this (and seem to believe it)? The Government is answerable to the public and should serve the public. But conflating the government with the public is simply bizarre, to my way of thinking. Governments should be transparent as much as possible, yes. But that doesn't mean being necessarily transparent with sensitive information that they know about members of the public. Only with your (bizarre to me) conflation of the public with the government would this make any sense.

analyst74 8mo ago

People in safe countries generally do not worry about kidnappings.

Saline9515 8mo ago
People thought that in France until a public official started to sell tax data to the mafia. Now there is a kidnapping almost everyday. Things can change faster than what you can imagine, and Sweden is not a safe country anymore by the way.
- pastage 8mo ago
  You will not find any reputable source for those statements, sure maybe as opinions. This is the issue here we are talking about facts. I have been able to look up this information for as long as we had a government in Sweden, and it works. Financial privacy is a complicated subject, could you perhaps agree that there is a use for transparancy?
  - Saline9515 8mo ago
    Here is a link in french: https://journalducoin.com/actualites/france-employee-fisc-vendait-informations-confidentielles/ https://journalducoin.com/actualites/france-employee-fisc-ve... You can cross-reference this by asking your favorite LLM about it. Even the international news have started to catch it: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/10/europe/crypto-linked-kidnapping-france-intl https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/10/europe/crypto-linked-kidn... The problem is that when you get a high amount migrant from very different ethnicities and cultures than you, it starts to change. Those people do not necessarily want to play the same social game as you, and you risk having structured crime networks arising. Just like in France where those kidnappings were made by the algerian "DZ" mafia (DZ is a slang for Algeria). Or in Netherlands, with the "mocro" mafia (= Morroccan) who put a price on the royal family's head, forcing the princess sibling to leave the country[0]. In the case of Sweden, this is now the case, although that many Swedish people continue to do as if it wasn't. Don't tell me that such news happens in a "safe" country: https://swedenherald.com/article/teenagers-in-malmo-charged-with-recruiting-people-to-carry-out-murders-and-bombings https://swedenherald.com/article/teenagers-in-malmo-charged-... And I don't see why there should be transparency about how much I own, or earn. I don't want the neighbors to know about it, or feed your voyeurist pulsions. The line is thin between "social justice" and "mob violence", or discrimination, in that aspect. Which is likely to happen in a country that sterilized "socially unfit" people for a long time. [0]: https://www.thetimes.com/world/article/dutch-princess-fled-country-after-crime-groups-plotted-to-kidnap-her-hh9f3ng2k https://www.thetimes.com/world/article/dutch-princess-fled-c... [1]:

slim 8mo ago

why would anyone kidnap you if they own as much as you ?

Saline9515 8mo ago
Maybe they want to own twice more than they did before?

Epa095 8mo ago

Because tax is not your bill from 'government Corp ', its your contribution to the community, to your tribe. And we have explicit goals for this, besides bringing revenue (like the strongest back should carry the heaviest burden). When we have communal contributions in other settings, your contribution is usually not a secret. It is meant to give the tax system more legitimacy, that you don't gave to wonder if people sneak out of their contribution, you can check. It also leads to yearly debates about the tax system as the list of the richest(usually inherited) is published together with what they pay in income tax vs wealth tax. Previously you could check up anyone anonymous. These days you have to log inn, and they get a notification. But the list of the richest and their tax contribution gets published in the newspaper.

Saline9515 8mo ago
This has also the effect of fueling envy, and allows employers to discriminate you if they see that you have side income (or if you don't). Why make all of this fuss about RGPD if private data is in the open? And why not include medical data as well? The "tribe" has the right to know how much each one costs, right?
- dspearson 8mo ago
  I don't follow. It allows citizenry to identify wage discrimination and other malpractices, people can get paid on the value of their work and not just how good they are at gaming the wage negotiations. Plus most of the civilised world has this thing called a "union" and "workers rights" that generally prevent your imagined scenario from happening. What has medical data got to do with this? You can't very well go up to a disabled person and say, hey, you cost society more money, maybe you should have been born less disabled, you cost too much, pay more. Societal safety nets exist for a reason, and how much one is compensated for equal labour as your coworker... I don't see how it's related at all to the "make the disabled pay more" eugenics argument.
  - Saline9515 8mo ago
    > It allows citizenry to identify wage discrimination and other malpractices, people can get paid on the value of their work and not just how good they are at gaming the wage negotiations. Ah yeah, so you are for mob justice. "Value of their work" is a highly subjective topic, which everyone is an expert on, of course. > Plus most of the civilised world has this thing called a "union" and "workers rights" that generally prevent your imagined scenario from happening. Worker rights and unions don't prevent employers from setting wages freely with their employees. An employee with 0 revenue has much less negociating power if the employer knows about it. > you cost too much, pay more I'm pretty sure people can have envy about the disabled person earning as much as they do while he/she doesn't have to wake up in the morning. Or some disabled person would like to evolve freely in the society without having everyone know about it. > eugenics argument Sweden sterilized disabled and socially unfit people for a long time, until 2013, so yeah, I totally see it happening. Incidentally I have seen racial and social mappings made out of the Swedish public data in the past, so it's far from anecdotic.