No, we don't need to "engineer" anything. We need people educated in how a republic operates, and some basics of economics based on reality and not "feels". I blame the public school systems for failing on that.
You are saying that social unrest and unhappiness is an education problem? What kind of "education" would convince people to be happy with a society they feel is unjust? Sounds very "War is peace, Ignorance is strength, Freedom is slavery" to me. Social unrest happens because of inequality - giving people real equal opportunity is the solution.
I thought the point of taxes were to raise funds for providing services like police, courts, military, roads, bridges, and so on. I believe these powers were spelled out explicitly in the US Constitution. Show me the part where it says the government is supposed to minimize wealth inequity, I looked and I couldn't find it.
Providing for the general welfare covers it pretty well, regulation of interstate commerce also certainly applies to tax and monetary policy. But here's the thing - the use of the taxes is a tangential issue - because you aren't disputing that taxation is a legitimate practice of the federal government, are you? If not, then the question just becomes: what tax system best ensures liberty, prosperity, and the equal opportunity that's central to our idea of a meritocratic economy? Even supposing the tax was only funding the military, those questions would still pertain.
History has proven that lowered tax rates can improve revenue.
No, history hasn't proven that. You are talking about the Laffer curve, and although it can't be faulted as a theoretical construct, it doesn't mean Lower Tax Rate = More Revenue. It's just a mathematical function, and a fairly obvious one that comes from considering that revenue goes to zero at 0% tax rates or 100% tax rates, and follows a curve in between. Whether a tax increase will lead to a revenue increase depends on where you are at on the curve - only at very high tax rates will a percentage decrease cause an increase in revenue, and history has demonstrated that we generated the most revenue in the 50's, when the top marginal rate was 90%.
But Democrats didn't care about maximizing revenue, they cared about sticking the wealthy with more and more taxes.
You couldn't be more wrong. The deficit has almost unilaterally increased with Republican administrations and decreased with Democrats: http://thegreatrecession.info/...
The last Republican to decrease the deficit on average was Nixon. I use to be flummoxed by this, because the Republicans claim to be the fiscal conservatives, yet they slice revenue at every opportunity and increase spending (or keep it constant at best). This is actually a very deliberate strategy instituted in the 80's called "Starve the Beast", where you try to create a massive debt that will force the government to shrink. It's akin to quitting your job so that the smaller income will force you to get your budget in order.
If you want to generate revenue, you have to tax people that have money.
We see this now. A proposal for a reduced tax rate is getting resistance from the Democrats because it reduces taxes for the wealthy.
Not true. The reduced tax rate is problematic because it will increase the deficit and/or shift the burden to the middle and lower class, depending on which proposed version you are talking about. The issue isn't that it reduces tax on the wealthy - it's that it cuts taxes for the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.
That's where you seem to be, we can never reduce the tax rate for anyone because that means the wealthy will see a reduction too.
Factually false. It is trivial to reduce the taxes j
I think you're missing the point. I'm not stating the obvious that the founding fathers were hypocrites, but that you are one when you praise them as paragons of virtue, defenders of liberty while at the same time defending their support of slavery.
I don't defend their support of slavery. I merely say that they can obtain meaningful liberty for some people, and that doing so is a good thing, even if they failed to obtain liberty for other people, which is a bad thing. It's a pretty simple claim, and you're insisting on painting them as cartoon villains rather than acknowledging the good with the bad. It seems like your attachment to your pet theory is blinding you to the real-world complexities of morality and politics.
There was little empiricism in the American revolution.
Bare assertion fallacy. Support your claims. Jefferson commissioned a painting of Newton, Bacon, and Locke specifically because he glorified all of them. Newton was pretty much universally worshipped by the prominent American politicians of the time. That wasn't the case in all nations though, because a big split existed between the enlightenment era empiricists and the upcoming romantics who were reacting against them. The founders of the U.S. were pretty far on the side of the empiricists, the French were more on the romantic end of the spectrum, and that had an impact on the respective revolutions.
The WWII Fall of France was not due to a lack of technical and industrial wherewithal, except for a few short-term things (the French aviation industry was in the midst of transition). The Allies had a slight edge in tanks, and a slight edge in tanks with decent guns.
Do we know that for sure? Granted, this is a hypothetical scenario, so there's not going to be a decisive answer, but what I'm saying is that France would have been stronger technologically if they didn't execute scientists and abolish the Royal Academy during the revolution. That's not to say that they were at a dire disadvantage compared to the Germans, but they were at a disadvantage compared to an imagined France that hadn't sabotaged its own scientific institutions. Since WWII was where technical might really started to be the decisive factor in military engagements, I think it's easy to imagine an alternate history where France had stayed more grounded in empiricism and science, developed more advanced technology, and would have enjoyed a much stronger relative position.
Jealousy, greed, and envy cause unhappiness and social unrest.
Ah, perfect, then we just need to engineer humans so they can no longer feel these emotions! A claim like that is wilfully ignoring causes, and suggests that revolutions happen because a sudden outbreak of greed sweeps a nation - you can believe that if you want, but the rest of us would like to look at the real world and figure out root cause. In international studies, there is a strong correlation between economic inequality and unhappiness, and between equality and stability. Provide evidence to justify your claims rather than just spouting feel-good folk wisdom.
Is it possible that a moderate inequality means a moderate economic growth and extreme inequality means extreme economic growth?
Yes, but only if it is temporary. In an effective economy, money is changing hands rapidly. The reason inequality is unavoidable is because if you have money completely equally distributed across the population, but then 4/5 quintiles double their wealth, inequality has increased but the nation as a whole is much better off. But you need to look at where the inequality is coming from - and all the evidence suggests that the middle class and lower class haven't gotten any wealthier for the last couple decades, in some cases are getting poorer, yet the people at the top are doing the best they've ever done in history. The system is siphoning money straight to the top, and it isn't working for the other 80-90% of the nation.
Here's just a part of the problem I see with this "raise taxes on the top 1%" idiocy, there will always be a top 1%.
So? What's the objection? The purpose isn't to get rid of the 1%. The point is to tax the people who can afford the tax, and give a break to the people at the bottom so that they can see some wage growth as well. I can afford the tax - I'm not rich, but I do have disposable income. It makes a hell of a lot more sense to tax that disposable income than it does to tax the lower class, when that means they will struggle to make a car payment, house payment, buy food, etc.
Look, all you do is apologise for something that was quite obvious at the time: slavery was a noxious institution completely at odds with high-minded professions of liberty. The reason the founding fathers were unwilling to make an issue of it was simply because it would have cut into their profits, either directly, because their farms and factories were run on slave labour, or indirectly because a schism would make their rebellion fail.
You are attacking a point that I freely conceded - you can rightly accuse the founders of hypocrisy on the topic of slavery. But people are complicated, large social movements doubly so, and what the founders of the U.S. accomplished achieved significant good for many people. Every social movement that has ever happened can be criticized because of the groups it left out, or the social issues it failed to address, or the harm that was caused as a byproduct. The only reasonable question to ask is whether it caused a net benefit.
You seem to want to have a one-dimensional view of the U.S. founders - they were slaveholders, and therefore cannot have accomplished anything of value. That just isn't how the world works - if history is anything to go by, our descendants 100 years from now will look at the regressive attitudes we have towards machines or children or animals or gender relationships - something that is commonplace today will be seen as unthinkable then. Does that mean we are right, or that they are right? Not necessarily. Does that mean that some of us are earnestly attempting to do something worthwhile, despite all the problems that can't be fixed? Yes. There are terrible injustices in our society and the world generally, and there always have been. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to improve the situations that can be improved.
Even though the beginning of the nation was hypocritical and failed to address deep social issues of the time, given the choice between a history that included an American experiment to try out liberty and democracy, and a history without, what would have been better? It's arguable that the success of the U.S., being the first liberal democracy, set off a wave of revolutions and the gradual adoption of democracy worldwide. Of course, you could also argue that some other country would have done it, and maybe slavery would have ended sooner without American independence. But there is plenty of writing about the tremendous impact American independence had on thinkers of the day, and if it had failed, monarchy might have lasted much longer.
I'm not a strict constitutionalist or a worshiper of the founders, btw - my main intent was to point out the role of empiricism and pragmatism that underpinned the philosophy of American liberty at its outset. This is one main contention of Timothy Ferris' The Science of Liberty, which makes a pretty good case that scientific thinking and empirical thought generally was critical to the birth of liberalism across the world, and that liberalism in turn supported scientific development. Whether you like it or not, there's no disputing that American independence played a critical role in the development of liberal democracy as a legitimate form of government, even if the nation has an equally prominent history of slavery and genocide to contend with.
The only path forward is for each of us to transact in our own, personal cryptocurrency, issued at the age of majority. Social status will be quantified easily by exchange rate. We can sell the use of our bodies or minds to the highest bidder via ICO. Ooh - we could even create futures markets for promising youth, and the rich could obtain a controlling stake in a massive army of cryptoservants from the day they are born. It's a bold new future.
Second, why would you complain about the wealthy not being so bright? If they are not bright enough to hold on to their wealth then it's a self correcting problem, they'll invest in stupid shit and soon not be wealthy any more. Those that are bright enough to hold on to their wealth should be in charge of running the economy, as they would be good examples to follow for the rest.
What happens when the power of tremendous wealth becomes significant enough to outweigh human folly? To the extent that a single, corrupt businessman can get $1M from his daddy, mismanage the shit out of every business he touched, screw over contractors left and right, and still manage to come out fabulously wealthy? There's a point at which the inertia of wealth renders you too big to fail - even Bill Gates is now earning far more due to the sheer size of his wealth than his productive activities. The whole thing just turns into a "who got here first" contest.
Third, wealth inequality is a necessary side effect of a growing economy. The money cannot spread out instantaneously to everyone.
True, but not all wealth inequality is the same. A moderate level of inequality is inherent to a functional economy and sometimes a consequence of economic growth - but at extreme levels, it causes unhappiness, social unrest, and poverty. If it is allowed to get to extreme levels, it can cause instability in the system, it can cause a de facto caste system, and in the extreme cases lead to bloody revolutions.
There are lots of indications that wealth inequality in the U.S. has been at overly high levels for a while, and is rapidly headed towards seriously problematic territory. You don't have to be a guillotine enthusiast to see the value in reigning things in a bit.
Taxes are a necessary evil, which is only offset by the goal of the common good. That means you have to know what the use will be.
"Taxes are a necessary evil" - not at all demonstrated, if a tax gives someone as much or more benefit than the cost, why isn't it good? "offset by the goal of the common good" - we agree here, taxes are used for things of mutual benefit. "That means you have to know what the use will be" - conclusion not at all related to the premises of your argument. Knowing what a tax is for doesn't make it good or evil. The size of a tax doesn't make it good or evil. Agreeing with the use of the tax doesn't make it good or evil. Having that tax enacted by a representative government does make it as legitimate as it could ever be, though. Tax is not theft. Certainly not in a democratic government. It is tax. Repeating yourself doesn't count as supporting your argument.
Why should your tax dollars educate people on the other side of the country? For the same reason that your tax dollars should fund defensive actions by the military on the other side of the country.
Wrong. The military is a federal agency. Basic education is a local system.
So? Who made it that way? We're talking about what ought to be, not what is. And I say that if you really believe that people should all have a chance to succeed, and should be rewarded by society proportionally to their skill and productivity, then a quality education should be available to all children, regardless of their parent's economic status, or their neighborhood's. Why should a child be deprived of opportunity because he was born into a poor neighborhood? Quality education for all is in the national interest just as much as it is in the national interest to have a capable military.
What tax policy best rewards and incentivizes work and innovation?
That's easy. Don't punish those who work and innovate by deciding they don't need the money they earn by doing so and then taking it away from them just because they have it. While there are many incentives in life, money is a very common and effective one for most people.
Guess what - at every level of a progressive tax system, earning another dollar will make you richer. The incentive never disappears, and even in the 1950's, with a top tax rate of 90%, it was still always the case that a greater gross income translated to a greater net income. A progressive tax system doesn't imply a lack of incentive for the wealthy to earn more. It doesn't punish the rich. Think of it this way - if John Doe and Jane Doe both make $100k, they pay the same taxes on that $100k. If Jane makes $200k, she pays taxes on that second $100k of earnings as well (potentially at a different rate) but still pays the same rate as John on her first $100k of earnings. In no way is Jane discouraged from earning more by such a policy, and in every way she is better off than she would be at the $100k income.
"You have too much money."
You keep saying that, and I'm not sure where you got it from. This isn't about someone having too much money. It's about a system that is systematically moving currency in suboptimal ways. We aren't encouraging productive work to generate real wealth - we're encouraging hoarding and financial shell games that create the illusion of growth without any real material goods under the hood. Wealth redistribution is part of any economy, whether you want it to be or not. It's the entire point - that resources flow from one area to another. The system is stable as long as the flow is fairly balanced - people are gaining and losing similar amounts. There are winners and there are losers. It becomes problematic when the flow gets out of whack, and the currency is flowing mostly in one direction, with the winners always winning more and the losers always losing more. Our options as a group of people i
There is no conceivable experiment that would falsify any mathematics.
Only for very narrow definitions of "experiment", "falsify", and "mathematics". The utility, accuracy, and predictive power of mathematics is empirically confirmed on a continual basis. Every test in physics is a simultaneous test of the mathematical principles upon which physics is based.
These guys were not high-minded philosphers. They were a bunch of plantation owners and criminals who clothed their lust for profit in high-minded ideals, most of them badly ripped off from French and English philosophers. The only one with some claim to integrity among them is Thomas Paine.
I disagree. They were certainly hypocritical with their failure to address slavery while speaking of liberty, but they also rightly saw that serious political action in that regard would lead to civil war. If Washington had really prioritized profit and power above all else, as you claim, he would have declared himself Emperor, as Napoleon did. The founders deserve credit for creating the first government devoted to liberty and democracy for all, even if it was a deeply flawed start. And of course the principles were derived from leading philosophy of the time, but of chief importance were Newton, Bacon, and Locke, all of whom were deeply grounded in empiricism and pragmatism. Compare to France, which drew revolutionary inspiration primarily from Rousseau, who disdained factual knowledge. Since then, other countries have done an even better job in transitioning to liberal democracies, IMO, but the founders of the U.S. deserve credit for being the earliest, and for proving that the concept was viable.
When asked about the budget, healthcare reform, tax reform, etc Democrats say they'll vote against it all because they don't like Trump, despite agreeing that all are in need of serious reform.
What the hell are you talking about? They've said over and over again that they would be happy to work with Trump or republicans (look at the Chuck Schumer deal for god's sake). It's just that they have their opinions about how the government should work, and they will only work with Republicans on legislation that is compatible with their goals.
Right - democracy is a terrible system, that's better than anything else we've tried. Franklin approved the constitution not because he thought it was perfect or even good, but because "he couldn't prove that it isn't the best". I hope we can make it through this rough patch by reforming the system, but honestly it's concerning how many people are getting more violent with their rhetoric.
Sure, but if it isn't falsifiable or testable, how would we know that it's the basis for the universe, instead of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
I'm not ruling out that an individual could find personal meaning in Taoism (or any other religion). But I am disputing that it has any bearing on a discussion of the factual beginnings of the universe.
The purpose of the tax is critical in determining if it is a valid tax, and if it is invalid then it is theft.
Circular argument, unsupported claims, and word games. You are stating these things as though they are self-evident, but giving no support for the statements at all. What does "valid" mean? Who gets to decide? One fundamental principle of the U.S. government is that taxation is legitimate only if it is enacted via democratically elected representatives. Every tax law that exists has been put in place via those representatives. The policies have been tested exhaustively via the judicial system. So taxes are legitimate, at least to the extent that any other government policy is. We've collectively decided by our self-chosen system of government what policies to enact, and so those policies derive their legitimacy from the consent of the governed. You might be in the minority opinion and have other preferences, but that doesn't make the entire enterprise illegitimate or wrong - it just means you've been outvoted, and most people don't share your opinion.
You can't get away with the idea that "no tax is a bad tax", or the opposite "every tax is a good tax".
"Bad" and "good" are very subjective words, that don't give much useful meaning to the discussion. An illegitimate tax, by our nation's principles, would be one that wasn't enacted by elected representatives. A broken tax would be one that wasn't accomplishing what it was intended to do. An economically suboptimal tax is one that is causing the nation as a whole to have less prosperity than it otherwise could. Unless you are opposed to any tax, whatsoever, you've already conceded that taxation is morally justified. At this point it's just tweaking the knobs to make the system work optimally, and pretending that it's some kind of a holy war is both hypocritical and distracts from useful discussion.
We're not talking about a property tax.
We're not talking about a sales tax, and in any case, a "sales tax" is not the justification for being able to buy things. I get to buy all kinds of things without paying a sales tax. Nobody has EVER said that a sales tax is necessary to give anyone the right to buy something.
How about the price for being able to breathe? You forgot that excuse.
Your hyperbolic strawman doesn't add anything to the discussion. And, where did you or I or anyone define what kind of taxation we're talking about? I'm talking about the tax policy as a whole, including sales, property, income, and anything else you care to bring up. By choosing to live in this country, purchase goods, and do business transactions in the national currency, you are consenting to abide by the laws regulating the usage of that currency, tax laws included. No one is forcing you to live here or to conduct your business in that manner. What's more, if you disagree with the way those taxes are enacted, you are free to try to get the policies changed by the democratic process. I believe that tax policy should be enacted in order to provide for the maximum prosperity and benefit of the nation and all its citizens. From what you've expressed in this discussion so far, it sounds like you believe that tax policy needs to follow some set of values that make certain taxes morally good and other taxes morally evil. I see no basis in either the founding documents of the nation or just common ethics for such a set of rigid values, so if you believe they exist you should articulate what they are and why we should consider your values.
"You don't need that much money" is a statement that they don't need all of their money, so THAT part of their money belongs to the state, to be given to other people.
Again, you're playing word games to try to redefine taxation. Taxation is part of participating in the economy, plain as that. If $10 is taken from your earnings as an income tax, it is just tax. If it is paid to a soldier, i
Look at the founders. Many of them were scientists in their own right - Jefferson, Franklin, Adams. And, big surprise, these guys weren't perfect, and can certainly be accused of hypocrisy on the topic of slavery while espousing high-minded ideals about democracy and equality. To be fair, though, most of the nation's founders accepted slavery only as a necessary evil, and basically avoided big political action on the issue because they (correctly) predicted that it would take nothing short of a civil war to make things right.
Either way though, the main contention is this: guillotines are not necessary, and political change via mob rule and indiscriminate violence is suboptimal. The difference between the American Revolution and French Revolution is one example, but more recent, non-violent processes are better yet, such as the Indian independence movement.
That is a pretty weak argument, post-Revolutionary France was one of the most powerful nations on Earth. Like the UK its power and influence only declined after WW2 and the emergence of the US as the world's global superpower.
Not sure how that rebuts what I'm saying - my contention is that the anti-intellectualism and violence made France weaker than it otherwise would have been. A nation that is among the world's most powerful will still be powerful even after some mistakes. But there are still consequences. Look at how easily Germany overpowered France in WWII - and the Germans (at least at first) had really embraced science and technology. If the French revolution hadn't driven away and murdered some of the nations greatest minds a few generations earlier, maybe they would have had the technical and industrial wherewithal (which is the real strength of nations) to hold their own.
So, once again America is wrong and evil and letting people die, and the problems are so sore that we need to adopt socialism right now, without a vote if necessary.
That's an impressive strawman right out of the gate. Never did I suggest we need to abandon capitalism, or that this process should in any way violate democracy. If anything, I'm engaging in the most precious tradition of all liberty-loving, democratic societies: using free speech to publicly advocate for the governmental that makes the most sense to me.
Of course, I get it. You aren't comparing us to any country that exists, you're comparing us to a utopia that exists only in your head.
No. There are lots of modern societies that are doing healthcare cheaper and more equally than we are, at a quality that is just as high or higher by any quantitative measure. And imagining an adjustment to tax policy isn't exactly utopic thinking... what's more, if you believe that we shouldn't aspire to things that don't yet exist, then surely you object to this American Experiment, envisioning a veritable utopia of liberty and free thought, the likes of which the world had never seen? Surely that could never work out.
I mean, we're literally killing people because we're greedy and stupid, why would you want deplorable citizens like that to prosper?
Another strawman. Did you see where I specifically advocated this system on the grounds that it would better encourage meritocracy? And one of the fundamental arguments for liberty is that a system that allows all citizens to pursue their own goals freely ends up producing more prosperity for all. When economic policy is harming our concept of meritocracy, we must change that policy to preserve liberty.
Anything bad can be explained as a minor programming error.
I wouldn't even go that far - I would say that in this model, the deity/creator/whatever designed some laws and then hit "start". Death isn't a programming error, it's just part of the game. Let's assume that the point of this iteration of the universe was to create the most interesting possible universe from the most concise set of physical laws possible. God's Code Golf. In that case, it's a dramatic success. The problem of evil doesn't really pertain here, and isn't even an error necessarily, because we don't necessarily assume that God is all-powerful, and we don't necessarily assume that he/she/it gives any special regard to the specific circumstances of an individual's existence.
Only when taxes are used for the intended purpose for taxes to begin with (to fund the needs as outlined in the Constitution, for US taxes) are they not equivalent to theft by threat of force.
No. You can't decide that taxation is theft when it is for something you agree with, and that it isn't theft when it is for something you don't. Taxation is the price you pay to own property, buy goods, and earn an income in a specific society. If you don't want to pay taxes, don't engage in those things. Do your business with bitcoin. Go live somewhere else. You can't call a road toll theft if you are choosing to drive on that road and the toll is public knowledge. Even if the toll you pay is used for purposes you don't agree with.
Deciding who needs points and who doesn't is what results in theft by taxation. It is class envy that propels this "you don't need your money" attitude.
No, it doesn't. The attitude isn't "you don't need your money". The attitude is "let's use our elected representatives to create an economic policy that is optimal". Our system is allowing people to die because they don't have money, while other people are using excess money to plate their bathrooms in gold, and in some cases our current tax policy is making the poor families pay MORE taxes as a percentage of their income. This is stupid, wrong, and makes the whole country poorer.
The concept you are trying to get rid of is rewarding those who take risks and creating the concept that we reward existence.
Not true. In fact, I explicitly said that we should create our policy to enable meritocracy to the greatest extent possible. Every indicator we have suggests that wealth inequality rewards those who have money, and punishes those who don't. If you believe in rewarding the hard workers and the risk takers, you should oppose severe wealth inequality.
We've had "universal education" for a very long time. I doubt you will find anyone still alive who wasn't a participant, unless it was voluntary.
People don't have equal access to education. If you disagree, then let's pick the school your kids attend by random lottery.
As for health care, hospitals routinely deal with the uninsured when they walk in the door.
Medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy. Emergency rooms only take care of urgent needs. There are people dying of treatable cancer because they would rather not burden their families with the lifetime of debt.
By the way, when was the last time you donated to any of the charity health care organizations? Just asking.
It's not much, but I donate $50 a month to Living Goods, which is a charity that creates child health care networks by providing the education and raw materials for women to start basic health care businesses in developing nations. I really believe in their work, because they are saving kid's lives, educating people, and improving the local economies where they are involved, and have third-party random trials to prove their effectiveness.
Yeah, that constitutional republic thing is getting so long in the tooth, we need something better.
No, I like the structure of the government for the most part, but I think it's doing a piss-poor job of executing on the regulation of commerce, of which currency control and tax policy are absolutely a part. This is largely because the financial sectors have gotten sophisticated enough to figure out how to influence the democratic process to their own ends, bending regulation in their favor and gaming the system. We need people to take the problem seriously or it will just get worse and worse.
France was a fairly dominant force in science prior to the revolution. However, the revolutionaries disbanded the Royal Academy of Sciences, executed at least 6 scientists, indirectly caused the death of another 4, and general created an anti-intellectual atmosphere that praised lofty-minded but vapid philosophers and shunned empiricism.
Look at pre-revolution science - the scene is dominated by French names, Ampere, Legendre, Laplace, Lagrange, Fourier, Poisson, Lamarcke. The French revolution was decidedly authoritarian, militaristic, nationalistic, and fairly indiscriminate in its violence. If, instead, France had followed a more peaceful trajectory and rebelled against the government by instituting a more just replacement, many, many lives would have been saved, their intellectual dominance might have been preserved, and France might be a much more powerful nation today.
I fully believe that inequality is a problem, and it needs to be addressed, but many solutions are worse than the original problem. Guillotines and lynchings don't have to be part of the equation, and all historical evidence suggests that peaceful revolutions are far more likely to result in actual improvement.
This is a non-political topic. Yet it has somehow attracted a large amount of commenters. The discussion is at times insightful, funny, or just good-natured. People are debating science, math, technology, and philosophy.
So my question is: what the hell has happened to slashdot? Have I somehow transported myself into the anti-universe?
Here's the problem. We're living in a system where the rich are just playing a game trying to score the most points, while people are dying because they don't have enough points to get life-saving health care. The points that belong to the richest players could easily rectify the fundamental stresses of the lower classes.
Money is not sacred. It's an artificial construct created to facilitate trade and distribution of goods. Taxation is not theft. It is not even about funding the government. It is about destroying money (not destroying wealth, but destroying currency). If we think of money as points and economics as a game, the whole purpose of taxation is to remove points from problematic areas (players who abuse massive collections of points to the detriment of other players) or to dis-incentivize antisocial behaviors that can be used to generate extra points (like using taxation to discourage polluters). You also need to destroy points to balance out the many points in the system where points are being created from nothing - otherwise the value of a point will plummet and you get crazy inflation that causes undesirable imbalances in the system.
So here's the thing: Americans believe in meritocracy, or at least claim they do. We ought to have a society that allows successful players to be rewarded for their contribution, and that still allows unsuccessful players to have their fundamental needs met, even if at a reduced capacity. It's pretty simple to see that you rectify this imbalance by removing points where you don't really need them (from people that already have more than they can ever use) and adding points where they can do the most good.
Let's get rid of this ridiculous concept that money is the most sacred thing in life, and get back to things that actually matter: liberty, for starters. Our broken economy is needlessly depriving people from their fundamental right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have the resources as a society for all people to have access to decent health care and education, and only a rigid ideological attachment to an arbitrary government construct is keeping us from correcting the system.
The French Revolution was far from perfect, just like the English Civil War, but it definitely changed things for better. Democracy doesn't just spring forth fully formed, it takes a long time to get right and guillotines are just the first step.
I have to disagree here. The American revolution was carried out primarily by practical, science-minded thinkers who just wanted their interests represented. The French revolution was carried out by romantic philosophers who turned on each other and executed the rich, the poor, and anybody who dared to question their flawless ideology. We ought to look to Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. for inspiration on reforming unjust political systems without substituting a more unjust one. When you introduce mob execution, the chances of creating a more just society after the destruction trend towards zero.
Either way you end up with the atheist's F word: Faith.
It doesn't take faith to believe the universe has always existed. And nobody is required to believe that the universe has always existed. What we can deduce from observation is that, going back in time, all parts of the universe get closer and closer together, which suggests that at one point they would have all been in the same place. Hence the big bang.
This says nothing at all about whether the universe has always existed. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. It's just a philosophical question, and one that nobody really has an answer to. And invoking a deity or some kind of supernatural narrative doesn't help at all - either the universe exists for some unknowable reason, or there's a deity that exists for some unknowable reason, and that deity created the universe. Can you really argue for one versus the other?
If the universe is infinite, and generally isotropic (as all observations indicate it to be), then there are some interesting consequences - given infinite time to deal with, all things that can happen, no matter how improbable, will happen. What's more, they will happen an infinite number of times. Since your existence can happen (given that you are writing on the internet), then it must have happened before and it must happen again. Which means that right now, this discussion is just one iteration of an infinite string of slashdot arguments about stoner physics.
The absurdity of all that is one reason that I don't think anybody really believes in infinity. Unless you are willing to accept all the ludicrous statistical implications, you probably shouldn't suggest that the universe is actually infinite.
Slashdot Mirror
No, we don't need to "engineer" anything. We need people educated in how a republic operates, and some basics of economics based on reality and not "feels". I blame the public school systems for failing on that.
You are saying that social unrest and unhappiness is an education problem? What kind of "education" would convince people to be happy with a society they feel is unjust? Sounds very "War is peace, Ignorance is strength, Freedom is slavery" to me. Social unrest happens because of inequality - giving people real equal opportunity is the solution.
I thought the point of taxes were to raise funds for providing services like police, courts, military, roads, bridges, and so on. I believe these powers were spelled out explicitly in the US Constitution. Show me the part where it says the government is supposed to minimize wealth inequity, I looked and I couldn't find it.
Providing for the general welfare covers it pretty well, regulation of interstate commerce also certainly applies to tax and monetary policy. But here's the thing - the use of the taxes is a tangential issue - because you aren't disputing that taxation is a legitimate practice of the federal government, are you? If not, then the question just becomes: what tax system best ensures liberty, prosperity, and the equal opportunity that's central to our idea of a meritocratic economy? Even supposing the tax was only funding the military, those questions would still pertain.
History has proven that lowered tax rates can improve revenue.
No, history hasn't proven that. You are talking about the Laffer curve, and although it can't be faulted as a theoretical construct, it doesn't mean Lower Tax Rate = More Revenue. It's just a mathematical function, and a fairly obvious one that comes from considering that revenue goes to zero at 0% tax rates or 100% tax rates, and follows a curve in between. Whether a tax increase will lead to a revenue increase depends on where you are at on the curve - only at very high tax rates will a percentage decrease cause an increase in revenue, and history has demonstrated that we generated the most revenue in the 50's, when the top marginal rate was 90%.
But Democrats didn't care about maximizing revenue, they cared about sticking the wealthy with more and more taxes.
You couldn't be more wrong. The deficit has almost unilaterally increased with Republican administrations and decreased with Democrats: http://thegreatrecession.info/...
The last Republican to decrease the deficit on average was Nixon. I use to be flummoxed by this, because the Republicans claim to be the fiscal conservatives, yet they slice revenue at every opportunity and increase spending (or keep it constant at best). This is actually a very deliberate strategy instituted in the 80's called "Starve the Beast", where you try to create a massive debt that will force the government to shrink. It's akin to quitting your job so that the smaller income will force you to get your budget in order.
If you want to generate revenue, you have to tax people that have money.
We see this now. A proposal for a reduced tax rate is getting resistance from the Democrats because it reduces taxes for the wealthy.
Not true. The reduced tax rate is problematic because it will increase the deficit and/or shift the burden to the middle and lower class, depending on which proposed version you are talking about. The issue isn't that it reduces tax on the wealthy - it's that it cuts taxes for the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.
That's where you seem to be, we can never reduce the tax rate for anyone because that means the wealthy will see a reduction too.
Factually false. It is trivial to reduce the taxes j
I think you're missing the point. I'm not stating the obvious that the founding fathers were hypocrites, but that you are one when you praise them as paragons of virtue, defenders of liberty while at the same time defending their support of slavery.
I don't defend their support of slavery. I merely say that they can obtain meaningful liberty for some people, and that doing so is a good thing, even if they failed to obtain liberty for other people, which is a bad thing. It's a pretty simple claim, and you're insisting on painting them as cartoon villains rather than acknowledging the good with the bad. It seems like your attachment to your pet theory is blinding you to the real-world complexities of morality and politics.
There was little empiricism in the American revolution.
Bare assertion fallacy. Support your claims. Jefferson commissioned a painting of Newton, Bacon, and Locke specifically because he glorified all of them. Newton was pretty much universally worshipped by the prominent American politicians of the time. That wasn't the case in all nations though, because a big split existed between the enlightenment era empiricists and the upcoming romantics who were reacting against them. The founders of the U.S. were pretty far on the side of the empiricists, the French were more on the romantic end of the spectrum, and that had an impact on the respective revolutions.
The WWII Fall of France was not due to a lack of technical and industrial wherewithal, except for a few short-term things (the French aviation industry was in the midst of transition). The Allies had a slight edge in tanks, and a slight edge in tanks with decent guns.
Do we know that for sure? Granted, this is a hypothetical scenario, so there's not going to be a decisive answer, but what I'm saying is that France would have been stronger technologically if they didn't execute scientists and abolish the Royal Academy during the revolution. That's not to say that they were at a dire disadvantage compared to the Germans, but they were at a disadvantage compared to an imagined France that hadn't sabotaged its own scientific institutions. Since WWII was where technical might really started to be the decisive factor in military engagements, I think it's easy to imagine an alternate history where France had stayed more grounded in empiricism and science, developed more advanced technology, and would have enjoyed a much stronger relative position.
Jealousy, greed, and envy cause unhappiness and social unrest.
Ah, perfect, then we just need to engineer humans so they can no longer feel these emotions! A claim like that is wilfully ignoring causes, and suggests that revolutions happen because a sudden outbreak of greed sweeps a nation - you can believe that if you want, but the rest of us would like to look at the real world and figure out root cause. In international studies, there is a strong correlation between economic inequality and unhappiness, and between equality and stability. Provide evidence to justify your claims rather than just spouting feel-good folk wisdom.
Is it possible that a moderate inequality means a moderate economic growth and extreme inequality means extreme economic growth?
Yes, but only if it is temporary. In an effective economy, money is changing hands rapidly. The reason inequality is unavoidable is because if you have money completely equally distributed across the population, but then 4/5 quintiles double their wealth, inequality has increased but the nation as a whole is much better off. But you need to look at where the inequality is coming from - and all the evidence suggests that the middle class and lower class haven't gotten any wealthier for the last couple decades, in some cases are getting poorer, yet the people at the top are doing the best they've ever done in history. The system is siphoning money straight to the top, and it isn't working for the other 80-90% of the nation.
Here's just a part of the problem I see with this "raise taxes on the top 1%" idiocy, there will always be a top 1%.
So? What's the objection? The purpose isn't to get rid of the 1%. The point is to tax the people who can afford the tax, and give a break to the people at the bottom so that they can see some wage growth as well. I can afford the tax - I'm not rich, but I do have disposable income. It makes a hell of a lot more sense to tax that disposable income than it does to tax the lower class, when that means they will struggle to make a car payment, house payment, buy food, etc.
Look, all you do is apologise for something that was quite obvious at the time: slavery was a noxious institution completely at odds with high-minded professions of liberty. The reason the founding fathers were unwilling to make an issue of it was simply because it would have cut into their profits, either directly, because their farms and factories were run on slave labour, or indirectly because a schism would make their rebellion fail.
You are attacking a point that I freely conceded - you can rightly accuse the founders of hypocrisy on the topic of slavery. But people are complicated, large social movements doubly so, and what the founders of the U.S. accomplished achieved significant good for many people. Every social movement that has ever happened can be criticized because of the groups it left out, or the social issues it failed to address, or the harm that was caused as a byproduct. The only reasonable question to ask is whether it caused a net benefit.
You seem to want to have a one-dimensional view of the U.S. founders - they were slaveholders, and therefore cannot have accomplished anything of value. That just isn't how the world works - if history is anything to go by, our descendants 100 years from now will look at the regressive attitudes we have towards machines or children or animals or gender relationships - something that is commonplace today will be seen as unthinkable then. Does that mean we are right, or that they are right? Not necessarily. Does that mean that some of us are earnestly attempting to do something worthwhile, despite all the problems that can't be fixed? Yes. There are terrible injustices in our society and the world generally, and there always have been. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to improve the situations that can be improved.
Even though the beginning of the nation was hypocritical and failed to address deep social issues of the time, given the choice between a history that included an American experiment to try out liberty and democracy, and a history without, what would have been better? It's arguable that the success of the U.S., being the first liberal democracy, set off a wave of revolutions and the gradual adoption of democracy worldwide. Of course, you could also argue that some other country would have done it, and maybe slavery would have ended sooner without American independence. But there is plenty of writing about the tremendous impact American independence had on thinkers of the day, and if it had failed, monarchy might have lasted much longer.
I'm not a strict constitutionalist or a worshiper of the founders, btw - my main intent was to point out the role of empiricism and pragmatism that underpinned the philosophy of American liberty at its outset. This is one main contention of Timothy Ferris' The Science of Liberty, which makes a pretty good case that scientific thinking and empirical thought generally was critical to the birth of liberalism across the world, and that liberalism in turn supported scientific development. Whether you like it or not, there's no disputing that American independence played a critical role in the development of liberal democracy as a legitimate form of government, even if the nation has an equally prominent history of slavery and genocide to contend with.
The only path forward is for each of us to transact in our own, personal cryptocurrency, issued at the age of majority. Social status will be quantified easily by exchange rate. We can sell the use of our bodies or minds to the highest bidder via ICO. Ooh - we could even create futures markets for promising youth, and the rich could obtain a controlling stake in a massive army of cryptoservants from the day they are born. It's a bold new future.
Second, why would you complain about the wealthy not being so bright? If they are not bright enough to hold on to their wealth then it's a self correcting problem, they'll invest in stupid shit and soon not be wealthy any more. Those that are bright enough to hold on to their wealth should be in charge of running the economy, as they would be good examples to follow for the rest.
What happens when the power of tremendous wealth becomes significant enough to outweigh human folly? To the extent that a single, corrupt businessman can get $1M from his daddy, mismanage the shit out of every business he touched, screw over contractors left and right, and still manage to come out fabulously wealthy? There's a point at which the inertia of wealth renders you too big to fail - even Bill Gates is now earning far more due to the sheer size of his wealth than his productive activities. The whole thing just turns into a "who got here first" contest.
Third, wealth inequality is a necessary side effect of a growing economy. The money cannot spread out instantaneously to everyone.
True, but not all wealth inequality is the same. A moderate level of inequality is inherent to a functional economy and sometimes a consequence of economic growth - but at extreme levels, it causes unhappiness, social unrest, and poverty. If it is allowed to get to extreme levels, it can cause instability in the system, it can cause a de facto caste system, and in the extreme cases lead to bloody revolutions.
There are lots of indications that wealth inequality in the U.S. has been at overly high levels for a while, and is rapidly headed towards seriously problematic territory. You don't have to be a guillotine enthusiast to see the value in reigning things in a bit.
Taxes are a necessary evil, which is only offset by the goal of the common good. That means you have to know what the use will be.
"Taxes are a necessary evil" - not at all demonstrated, if a tax gives someone as much or more benefit than the cost, why isn't it good?
"offset by the goal of the common good" - we agree here, taxes are used for things of mutual benefit.
"That means you have to know what the use will be" - conclusion not at all related to the premises of your argument. Knowing what a tax is for doesn't make it good or evil. The size of a tax doesn't make it good or evil. Agreeing with the use of the tax doesn't make it good or evil. Having that tax enacted by a representative government does make it as legitimate as it could ever be, though. Tax is not theft. Certainly not in a democratic government. It is tax. Repeating yourself doesn't count as supporting your argument.
Why should your tax dollars educate people on the other side of the country? For the same reason that your tax dollars should fund defensive actions by the military on the other side of the country.
Wrong. The military is a federal agency. Basic education is a local system.
So? Who made it that way? We're talking about what ought to be, not what is. And I say that if you really believe that people should all have a chance to succeed, and should be rewarded by society proportionally to their skill and productivity, then a quality education should be available to all children, regardless of their parent's economic status, or their neighborhood's. Why should a child be deprived of opportunity because he was born into a poor neighborhood? Quality education for all is in the national interest just as much as it is in the national interest to have a capable military.
What tax policy best rewards and incentivizes work and innovation?
That's easy. Don't punish those who work and innovate by deciding they don't need the money they earn by doing so and then taking it away from them just because they have it. While there are many incentives in life, money is a very common and effective one for most people.
Guess what - at every level of a progressive tax system, earning another dollar will make you richer. The incentive never disappears, and even in the 1950's, with a top tax rate of 90%, it was still always the case that a greater gross income translated to a greater net income. A progressive tax system doesn't imply a lack of incentive for the wealthy to earn more. It doesn't punish the rich. Think of it this way - if John Doe and Jane Doe both make $100k, they pay the same taxes on that $100k. If Jane makes $200k, she pays taxes on that second $100k of earnings as well (potentially at a different rate) but still pays the same rate as John on her first $100k of earnings. In no way is Jane discouraged from earning more by such a policy, and in every way she is better off than she would be at the $100k income.
"You have too much money."
You keep saying that, and I'm not sure where you got it from. This isn't about someone having too much money. It's about a system that is systematically moving currency in suboptimal ways. We aren't encouraging productive work to generate real wealth - we're encouraging hoarding and financial shell games that create the illusion of growth without any real material goods under the hood. Wealth redistribution is part of any economy, whether you want it to be or not. It's the entire point - that resources flow from one area to another. The system is stable as long as the flow is fairly balanced - people are gaining and losing similar amounts. There are winners and there are losers. It becomes problematic when the flow gets out of whack, and the currency is flowing mostly in one direction, with the winners always winning more and the losers always losing more. Our options as a group of people i
There is no conceivable experiment that would falsify any mathematics.
Only for very narrow definitions of "experiment", "falsify", and "mathematics". The utility, accuracy, and predictive power of mathematics is empirically confirmed on a continual basis. Every test in physics is a simultaneous test of the mathematical principles upon which physics is based.
These guys were not high-minded philosphers. They were a bunch of plantation owners and criminals who clothed their lust for profit in high-minded ideals, most of them badly ripped off from French and English philosophers. The only one with some claim to integrity among them is Thomas Paine.
I disagree. They were certainly hypocritical with their failure to address slavery while speaking of liberty, but they also rightly saw that serious political action in that regard would lead to civil war. If Washington had really prioritized profit and power above all else, as you claim, he would have declared himself Emperor, as Napoleon did. The founders deserve credit for creating the first government devoted to liberty and democracy for all, even if it was a deeply flawed start. And of course the principles were derived from leading philosophy of the time, but of chief importance were Newton, Bacon, and Locke, all of whom were deeply grounded in empiricism and pragmatism. Compare to France, which drew revolutionary inspiration primarily from Rousseau, who disdained factual knowledge. Since then, other countries have done an even better job in transitioning to liberal democracies, IMO, but the founders of the U.S. deserve credit for being the earliest, and for proving that the concept was viable.
When asked about the budget, healthcare reform, tax reform, etc Democrats say they'll vote against it all because they don't like Trump, despite agreeing that all are in need of serious reform.
What the hell are you talking about? They've said over and over again that they would be happy to work with Trump or republicans (look at the Chuck Schumer deal for god's sake). It's just that they have their opinions about how the government should work, and they will only work with Republicans on legislation that is compatible with their goals.
Right - democracy is a terrible system, that's better than anything else we've tried. Franklin approved the constitution not because he thought it was perfect or even good, but because "he couldn't prove that it isn't the best". I hope we can make it through this rough patch by reforming the system, but honestly it's concerning how many people are getting more violent with their rhetoric.
Sure, but if it isn't falsifiable or testable, how would we know that it's the basis for the universe, instead of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
I'm not ruling out that an individual could find personal meaning in Taoism (or any other religion). But I am disputing that it has any bearing on a discussion of the factual beginnings of the universe.
The purpose of the tax is critical in determining if it is a valid tax, and if it is invalid then it is theft.
Circular argument, unsupported claims, and word games. You are stating these things as though they are self-evident, but giving no support for the statements at all. What does "valid" mean? Who gets to decide? One fundamental principle of the U.S. government is that taxation is legitimate only if it is enacted via democratically elected representatives. Every tax law that exists has been put in place via those representatives. The policies have been tested exhaustively via the judicial system. So taxes are legitimate, at least to the extent that any other government policy is. We've collectively decided by our self-chosen system of government what policies to enact, and so those policies derive their legitimacy from the consent of the governed. You might be in the minority opinion and have other preferences, but that doesn't make the entire enterprise illegitimate or wrong - it just means you've been outvoted, and most people don't share your opinion.
You can't get away with the idea that "no tax is a bad tax", or the opposite "every tax is a good tax".
"Bad" and "good" are very subjective words, that don't give much useful meaning to the discussion. An illegitimate tax, by our nation's principles, would be one that wasn't enacted by elected representatives. A broken tax would be one that wasn't accomplishing what it was intended to do. An economically suboptimal tax is one that is causing the nation as a whole to have less prosperity than it otherwise could. Unless you are opposed to any tax, whatsoever, you've already conceded that taxation is morally justified. At this point it's just tweaking the knobs to make the system work optimally, and pretending that it's some kind of a holy war is both hypocritical and distracts from useful discussion.
We're not talking about a property tax.
We're not talking about a sales tax, and in any case, a "sales tax" is not the justification for being able to buy things. I get to buy all kinds of things without paying a sales tax. Nobody has EVER said that a sales tax is necessary to give anyone the right to buy something.
How about the price for being able to breathe? You forgot that excuse.
Your hyperbolic strawman doesn't add anything to the discussion. And, where did you or I or anyone define what kind of taxation we're talking about? I'm talking about the tax policy as a whole, including sales, property, income, and anything else you care to bring up. By choosing to live in this country, purchase goods, and do business transactions in the national currency, you are consenting to abide by the laws regulating the usage of that currency, tax laws included. No one is forcing you to live here or to conduct your business in that manner. What's more, if you disagree with the way those taxes are enacted, you are free to try to get the policies changed by the democratic process. I believe that tax policy should be enacted in order to provide for the maximum prosperity and benefit of the nation and all its citizens. From what you've expressed in this discussion so far, it sounds like you believe that tax policy needs to follow some set of values that make certain taxes morally good and other taxes morally evil. I see no basis in either the founding documents of the nation or just common ethics for such a set of rigid values, so if you believe they exist you should articulate what they are and why we should consider your values.
"You don't need that much money" is a statement that they don't need all of their money, so THAT part of their money belongs to the state, to be given to other people.
Again, you're playing word games to try to redefine taxation. Taxation is part of participating in the economy, plain as that. If $10 is taken from your earnings as an income tax, it is just tax. If it is paid to a soldier, i
Look at the founders. Many of them were scientists in their own right - Jefferson, Franklin, Adams. And, big surprise, these guys weren't perfect, and can certainly be accused of hypocrisy on the topic of slavery while espousing high-minded ideals about democracy and equality. To be fair, though, most of the nation's founders accepted slavery only as a necessary evil, and basically avoided big political action on the issue because they (correctly) predicted that it would take nothing short of a civil war to make things right.
Either way though, the main contention is this: guillotines are not necessary, and political change via mob rule and indiscriminate violence is suboptimal. The difference between the American Revolution and French Revolution is one example, but more recent, non-violent processes are better yet, such as the Indian independence movement.
That is a pretty weak argument, post-Revolutionary France was one of the most powerful nations on Earth. Like the UK its power and influence only declined after WW2 and the emergence of the US as the world's global superpower.
Not sure how that rebuts what I'm saying - my contention is that the anti-intellectualism and violence made France weaker than it otherwise would have been. A nation that is among the world's most powerful will still be powerful even after some mistakes. But there are still consequences. Look at how easily Germany overpowered France in WWII - and the Germans (at least at first) had really embraced science and technology. If the French revolution hadn't driven away and murdered some of the nations greatest minds a few generations earlier, maybe they would have had the technical and industrial wherewithal (which is the real strength of nations) to hold their own.
So, once again America is wrong and evil and letting people die, and the problems are so sore that we need to adopt socialism right now, without a vote if necessary.
That's an impressive strawman right out of the gate. Never did I suggest we need to abandon capitalism, or that this process should in any way violate democracy. If anything, I'm engaging in the most precious tradition of all liberty-loving, democratic societies: using free speech to publicly advocate for the governmental that makes the most sense to me.
Of course, I get it. You aren't comparing us to any country that exists, you're comparing us to a utopia that exists only in your head.
No. There are lots of modern societies that are doing healthcare cheaper and more equally than we are, at a quality that is just as high or higher by any quantitative measure. And imagining an adjustment to tax policy isn't exactly utopic thinking... what's more, if you believe that we shouldn't aspire to things that don't yet exist, then surely you object to this American Experiment, envisioning a veritable utopia of liberty and free thought, the likes of which the world had never seen? Surely that could never work out.
I mean, we're literally killing people because we're greedy and stupid, why would you want deplorable citizens like that to prosper?
Another strawman. Did you see where I specifically advocated this system on the grounds that it would better encourage meritocracy? And one of the fundamental arguments for liberty is that a system that allows all citizens to pursue their own goals freely ends up producing more prosperity for all. When economic policy is harming our concept of meritocracy, we must change that policy to preserve liberty.
Anything bad can be explained as a minor programming error.
I wouldn't even go that far - I would say that in this model, the deity/creator/whatever designed some laws and then hit "start". Death isn't a programming error, it's just part of the game. Let's assume that the point of this iteration of the universe was to create the most interesting possible universe from the most concise set of physical laws possible. God's Code Golf. In that case, it's a dramatic success. The problem of evil doesn't really pertain here, and isn't even an error necessarily, because we don't necessarily assume that God is all-powerful, and we don't necessarily assume that he/she/it gives any special regard to the specific circumstances of an individual's existence.
Only when taxes are used for the intended purpose for taxes to begin with (to fund the needs as outlined in the Constitution, for US taxes) are they not equivalent to theft by threat of force.
No. You can't decide that taxation is theft when it is for something you agree with, and that it isn't theft when it is for something you don't. Taxation is the price you pay to own property, buy goods, and earn an income in a specific society. If you don't want to pay taxes, don't engage in those things. Do your business with bitcoin. Go live somewhere else. You can't call a road toll theft if you are choosing to drive on that road and the toll is public knowledge. Even if the toll you pay is used for purposes you don't agree with.
Deciding who needs points and who doesn't is what results in theft by taxation. It is class envy that propels this "you don't need your money" attitude.
No, it doesn't. The attitude isn't "you don't need your money". The attitude is "let's use our elected representatives to create an economic policy that is optimal". Our system is allowing people to die because they don't have money, while other people are using excess money to plate their bathrooms in gold, and in some cases our current tax policy is making the poor families pay MORE taxes as a percentage of their income. This is stupid, wrong, and makes the whole country poorer.
The concept you are trying to get rid of is rewarding those who take risks and creating the concept that we reward existence.
Not true. In fact, I explicitly said that we should create our policy to enable meritocracy to the greatest extent possible. Every indicator we have suggests that wealth inequality rewards those who have money, and punishes those who don't. If you believe in rewarding the hard workers and the risk takers, you should oppose severe wealth inequality.
We've had "universal education" for a very long time. I doubt you will find anyone still alive who wasn't a participant, unless it was voluntary.
People don't have equal access to education. If you disagree, then let's pick the school your kids attend by random lottery.
As for health care, hospitals routinely deal with the uninsured when they walk in the door.
Medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy. Emergency rooms only take care of urgent needs. There are people dying of treatable cancer because they would rather not burden their families with the lifetime of debt.
By the way, when was the last time you donated to any of the charity health care organizations? Just asking.
It's not much, but I donate $50 a month to Living Goods, which is a charity that creates child health care networks by providing the education and raw materials for women to start basic health care businesses in developing nations. I really believe in their work, because they are saving kid's lives, educating people, and improving the local economies where they are involved, and have third-party random trials to prove their effectiveness.
Yeah, that constitutional republic thing is getting so long in the tooth, we need something better.
No, I like the structure of the government for the most part, but I think it's doing a piss-poor job of executing on the regulation of commerce, of which currency control and tax policy are absolutely a part. This is largely because the financial sectors have gotten sophisticated enough to figure out how to influence the democratic process to their own ends, bending regulation in their favor and gaming the system. We need people to take the problem seriously or it will just get worse and worse.
France was a fairly dominant force in science prior to the revolution. However, the revolutionaries disbanded the Royal Academy of Sciences, executed at least 6 scientists, indirectly caused the death of another 4, and general created an anti-intellectual atmosphere that praised lofty-minded but vapid philosophers and shunned empiricism.
Look at pre-revolution science - the scene is dominated by French names, Ampere, Legendre, Laplace, Lagrange, Fourier, Poisson, Lamarcke. The French revolution was decidedly authoritarian, militaristic, nationalistic, and fairly indiscriminate in its violence. If, instead, France had followed a more peaceful trajectory and rebelled against the government by instituting a more just replacement, many, many lives would have been saved, their intellectual dominance might have been preserved, and France might be a much more powerful nation today.
I fully believe that inequality is a problem, and it needs to be addressed, but many solutions are worse than the original problem. Guillotines and lynchings don't have to be part of the equation, and all historical evidence suggests that peaceful revolutions are far more likely to result in actual improvement.
This is a non-political topic. Yet it has somehow attracted a large amount of commenters. The discussion is at times insightful, funny, or just good-natured. People are debating science, math, technology, and philosophy.
So my question is: what the hell has happened to slashdot? Have I somehow transported myself into the anti-universe?
Here's the problem. We're living in a system where the rich are just playing a game trying to score the most points, while people are dying because they don't have enough points to get life-saving health care. The points that belong to the richest players could easily rectify the fundamental stresses of the lower classes.
Money is not sacred. It's an artificial construct created to facilitate trade and distribution of goods. Taxation is not theft. It is not even about funding the government. It is about destroying money (not destroying wealth, but destroying currency). If we think of money as points and economics as a game, the whole purpose of taxation is to remove points from problematic areas (players who abuse massive collections of points to the detriment of other players) or to dis-incentivize antisocial behaviors that can be used to generate extra points (like using taxation to discourage polluters). You also need to destroy points to balance out the many points in the system where points are being created from nothing - otherwise the value of a point will plummet and you get crazy inflation that causes undesirable imbalances in the system.
So here's the thing: Americans believe in meritocracy, or at least claim they do. We ought to have a society that allows successful players to be rewarded for their contribution, and that still allows unsuccessful players to have their fundamental needs met, even if at a reduced capacity. It's pretty simple to see that you rectify this imbalance by removing points where you don't really need them (from people that already have more than they can ever use) and adding points where they can do the most good.
Let's get rid of this ridiculous concept that money is the most sacred thing in life, and get back to things that actually matter: liberty, for starters. Our broken economy is needlessly depriving people from their fundamental right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have the resources as a society for all people to have access to decent health care and education, and only a rigid ideological attachment to an arbitrary government construct is keeping us from correcting the system.
The French Revolution was far from perfect, just like the English Civil War, but it definitely changed things for better. Democracy doesn't just spring forth fully formed, it takes a long time to get right and guillotines are just the first step.
I have to disagree here. The American revolution was carried out primarily by practical, science-minded thinkers who just wanted their interests represented. The French revolution was carried out by romantic philosophers who turned on each other and executed the rich, the poor, and anybody who dared to question their flawless ideology. We ought to look to Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. for inspiration on reforming unjust political systems without substituting a more unjust one. When you introduce mob execution, the chances of creating a more just society after the destruction trend towards zero.
Either way you end up with the atheist's F word: Faith.
It doesn't take faith to believe the universe has always existed. And nobody is required to believe that the universe has always existed. What we can deduce from observation is that, going back in time, all parts of the universe get closer and closer together, which suggests that at one point they would have all been in the same place. Hence the big bang.
This says nothing at all about whether the universe has always existed. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. It's just a philosophical question, and one that nobody really has an answer to. And invoking a deity or some kind of supernatural narrative doesn't help at all - either the universe exists for some unknowable reason, or there's a deity that exists for some unknowable reason, and that deity created the universe. Can you really argue for one versus the other?
If the universe is infinite, and generally isotropic (as all observations indicate it to be), then there are some interesting consequences - given infinite time to deal with, all things that can happen, no matter how improbable, will happen. What's more, they will happen an infinite number of times. Since your existence can happen (given that you are writing on the internet), then it must have happened before and it must happen again. Which means that right now, this discussion is just one iteration of an infinite string of slashdot arguments about stoner physics.
The absurdity of all that is one reason that I don't think anybody really believes in infinity. Unless you are willing to accept all the ludicrous statistical implications, you probably shouldn't suggest that the universe is actually infinite.