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Your framing is no better: Don't look at how much you are paying in taxes because somehow in the end you are getting more out of it. Of course you should look

Your framing is no better: Don't look at how much you are paying in taxes because somehow in the end you are getting more out of it. Of course you should look at what you are getting out of it and scrutinize every euro spent by the state. This is the basis of the social contract between a country and its citizens. Citizens pay money in the form of taxes and expect to receive decent services in return. If the state is no longer fulfilling its share of the agreement then what? People are happy to pay high taxes if they see improvements in their lives but they do not: - Germany has had massive infrastructure backlog for the last 15 years that will not be resolved tomorrow - The German state is increasingly seen as a wasteful thing that still runs of paper and fax machines when we are well within the digital age - Germany's train system is so dysfunctional that only 60% of its trains are on time - Germany's healthcare system is one the most expensive in the world and people are paying more and more for a lesser service This is the same problem that France is facing today.

dinfinity 18d ago
Have you tried doing what I suggested? As an addendum to what I said to your sibling commenter: people in developed countries take a lot of shit for granted. Of course there is a judicial system. Of course sewage is properly dealt with. Of course there is a fire department, etc. etc. The whole point of the exercise is realizing what your taxes are actually providing. All that shit ain't free: it costs a lot of money and a lot of constant work from a lot of people who don't do it for the fame or fortune, yet publicly mostly just get shit on and called "lazy". Don't get me wrong: Government isn't perfect and a lot can be and should be improved, but the framing that it is somehow scandalous or immoral to have to spend half of your earnings on the collective (mostly) good, or even to call that theft (as so many do) is entitled, spoiled and ignorant of history. Edit: as to the prosperity of Germany, on a global scale and compared to other points in history it is actually doing fucking fantastic. It's citizens lead lives that are easily top 1% of any lives that have ever been and easily top 5% of lives currently on this planet.
- cyberpunk 18d ago
  I'd like more control where my money goes. I'd happily spend the time every year deciding what % of my contribution goes where, and it would be more democratic. I'm happy to have sewers, police, schools, infrastructure and so on. I'm less enthused about the growing debt pile my children will inherit, and obvious wastes (e.g - the F126 story, everything Claudia Roth ever touched, 2.6 million* euros on whatever 'antisemitism funding' is, etc). edit: I was wrong, it was 2.6 million in antisemitism, not billion, so that's a pretty much irrelevant sum.
  - dinfinity 18d ago
    > edit: I was wrong, it was 2.6 million in antisemitism, not billion, so that's a pretty much irrelevant sum. Do you see how your initial feeling was far more extreme than the actual data show? That is the point of doing the actual work of looking at what your contribution funds: a scientific, solid basis for reasoning, rather than social media fueled primitive outrage. You should really try it. > I'd like more control where my money goes. Would you like everybody to have more control of that? What if people don't want to contribute to roads because they contribute to pollution (even though society would pretty much collapse without roads). Would you be okay with that? Are you familiar with the Tragedy of the Commons [0]? Or perhaps any real world libertarian experiments? Turns out individual people are generally selfish, highly incompetent and very fallible in making decisions on complex matters affecting lots of people. It's really, really hard to train individuals to make decisions that lead to collective prosperity, especially if they can choose options that are beneficial for them in the short term. The reason we effectively work towards collective prosperity at all is the evolution of systems and processes that mitigate individual incompetence (most voters really don't know how to run a sewage system), elevate individual specialization (experts), and push for a well-reasoned basis. This evolution took place over a long time and in the process a lot of people and systems died. We can and must evolve it further, but that evolution should not ignore everything that went before it for the sake of feelings. See also Chesterton's Fence [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons [1] https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/ https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/
- 18d ago

dinfinity 18d ago

Have you tried doing what I suggested? As an addendum to what I said to your sibling commenter: people in developed countries take a lot of shit for granted. Of course there is a judicial system. Of course sewage is properly dealt with. Of course there is a fire department, etc. etc. The whole point of the exercise is realizing what your taxes are actually providing. All that shit ain't free: it costs a lot of money and a lot of constant work from a lot of people who don't do it for the fame or fortune, yet publicly mostly just get shit on and called "lazy". Don't get me wrong: Government isn't perfect and a lot can be and should be improved, but the framing that it is somehow scandalous or immoral to have to spend half of your earnings on the collective (mostly) good, or even to call that theft (as so many do) is entitled, spoiled and ignorant of history. Edit: as to the prosperity of Germany, on a global scale and compared to other points in history it is actually doing fucking fantastic. It's citizens lead lives that are easily top 1% of any lives that have ever been and easily top 5% of lives currently on this planet.

cyberpunk 18d ago
I'd like more control where my money goes. I'd happily spend the time every year deciding what % of my contribution goes where, and it would be more democratic. I'm happy to have sewers, police, schools, infrastructure and so on. I'm less enthused about the growing debt pile my children will inherit, and obvious wastes (e.g - the F126 story, everything Claudia Roth ever touched, 2.6 million* euros on whatever 'antisemitism funding' is, etc). edit: I was wrong, it was 2.6 million in antisemitism, not billion, so that's a pretty much irrelevant sum.
- dinfinity 18d ago
  > edit: I was wrong, it was 2.6 million in antisemitism, not billion, so that's a pretty much irrelevant sum. Do you see how your initial feeling was far more extreme than the actual data show? That is the point of doing the actual work of looking at what your contribution funds: a scientific, solid basis for reasoning, rather than social media fueled primitive outrage. You should really try it. > I'd like more control where my money goes. Would you like everybody to have more control of that? What if people don't want to contribute to roads because they contribute to pollution (even though society would pretty much collapse without roads). Would you be okay with that? Are you familiar with the Tragedy of the Commons [0]? Or perhaps any real world libertarian experiments? Turns out individual people are generally selfish, highly incompetent and very fallible in making decisions on complex matters affecting lots of people. It's really, really hard to train individuals to make decisions that lead to collective prosperity, especially if they can choose options that are beneficial for them in the short term. The reason we effectively work towards collective prosperity at all is the evolution of systems and processes that mitigate individual incompetence (most voters really don't know how to run a sewage system), elevate individual specialization (experts), and push for a well-reasoned basis. This evolution took place over a long time and in the process a lot of people and systems died. We can and must evolve it further, but that evolution should not ignore everything that went before it for the sake of feelings. See also Chesterton's Fence [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons [1] https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/ https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/
18d ago