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| ▲ | NilMostChill 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | So given you didn't address any other part of the reply am i to assume you agree ? Future consequences and poor outcomes based on current day incompetence and mismanagement ? To address your reply: If you don't know the phrase "there is no ethical consumption" then looking it up might be interesting reading for you, it's a large part of the plot from the last half of "the good place", if that helps at all. Anyway ,it's the same idea but taken to it's logical conclusion, everything everyone does is causing harm in some way somewhere down the chain and therefore it's impossible to do anything without some harm being caused. If that's your point then i agree, but specifically here i was pointing out the direct point to point link between removing monetary aid and the deaths of people relying upon that aid. You asked for costs on money and lives, and while i think billions and millions were hyperbole there are still directly attributable deaths, even now. The key part here is the "directly" The difference between "physically taking away someones food until they starve to death" vs "participating in a societal structure that routinely lets people starve to death" one is direct taking an action to achieve an outcome, the other is not. I think those numbers will grow significantly larger in relatively short order, i think it's naive to think DOGE is running on any platform of competence but it's entirely possible i'm wrong. However, there's not a lot of evidence i am wrong, | | |
| ▲ | anonym29 14 days ago | parent [-] | | There are two points I'd like to address here. >So given you didn't address any other part of the reply am i to assume you agree ? Future consequences and poor outcomes based on current day incompetence and mismanagement ? With your post I was replying to? I do agree with large parts of it. I think Elon Musk brought a "move fast and break things" approach to the Federal government, which has traditionally not been a place where that approach is welcome, and the "break things" part certainly carries a different level of impact when the thing being broken is the single income source of many people who either neglected to adequately financially prepare themselves for retirement, were unable to avoid unexpected financial difficulties in life, or otherwise wound up in a situation where they were left otherwise destitute in old age (e.g. romance scammers stole their entire private retirement balance). That said, to answer the core question being asked: "does removing systems actively (and provably) preventing deaths count [as killing people]?", I don't necessary think so as a rule of thumb. I see a fundamental difference between initiating an act of violence designed to deprive someone else of their life or safety, and overly hasty bureaucratic maneuvering to attempt to streamline efficiency, however reckless the latter may be carried out. This doesn't necessarily mean I condone the approach DOGE is taking, either. >To address your reply: You asked for costs on money and lives, and while i think billions and millions were hyperbole there are still directly attributable deaths, even now. I am sorry if I phrased my question poorly, I was not attempting to ask whether this could or would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and/or millions of lives, but rather whether it has cost billions of dollars and/or millions of lives, as the original post made by ZeroGravitas seemed to imply, from the way I read it. | | |
| ▲ | NilMostChill 14 days ago | parent [-] | | Ah, that makes sense. As i alluded to in my post i don't think it has hit the hyperbolic numbers provided in the original post. I suspect they will be hit in the short-ish term 1-3 years, but these kinds of things are notoriously difficult to calculate, especially when the actual data around it will almost certainly be purposefully obfuscated. As you said though ,that wasn't what you were asking. "Move fast and break things" is a concept referring to not worrying too much about breaking existing solutions or integrations while *improving* them. Declaring a laughably unrealistic timescale to replace a system millions of people rely upon to survive isn't innovative or groundbreaking, it's reckless and dangerous, bordering on callous. There could genuinely be an argument made that he's so narcissistic and delusional that he genuinely doesn't realise how badly this is going to pan out, in which case the intent might not be malicious but accidentally killing tens/hundreds of thousands of people because you don't think things through isn't a good enough excuse for me personally. But then you get statements like "empathy is a weakness" that point to him at least partially understanding what's going to happen and just not caring. i'd like to address a specific reference in your reply: > neglected to adequately financially prepare themselves for retirement, were unable to avoid unexpected financial difficulties in life To me that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of just how difficult modern financial stability is to achieve for a large proportion of the population. Living paycheque to paycheque can sometimes be neglect yes, but i'd wager that far more instances of that are due to the increasing gap between cost of living and actual wages. It's difficult to plan for retirement when you work a 60 hour week and are only just covering rent and food. It also doesn't address the fact that social security is funded by taxes, it's not a handout, people make financial decisions based on the information they have, the information they had was "pay your taxes and when it comes time to stop working you'll get some assistance". If you want to kill it, fine, stop taxing people to pay in to it, removing it after an entire lifetime of paying in to the system is basically theft. | | |
| ▲ | anonym29 14 days ago | parent [-] | | >To me that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of just how difficult modern financial stability is to achieve for a large proportion of the population. Living paycheque to paycheque can sometimes be neglect yes, but i'd wager that far more instances of that are due to the increasing gap between cost of living and actual wages. It's difficult to plan for retirement when you work a 60 hour week and are only just covering rent and food. I try to take a very humble approach in evaluating what I'm entitled to. I don't believe that I'm automatically entitled to a large enough income to build long-term prosperity just because I am working 60 hours a week. At the end of the day, if I spend 60 hours digging ditches to lay fiber that is mostly used for Netflix, Youtube, and adult video content, I have delivered less value to society than if I spent 60 hours developing a new pharmaceutical drug that saved a hundred thousand lives, haven't I? It's certainly not fair, but life does not drop all of us into the adult world with an equal upbringing, an equal education, or the equal training necessary for us all to produce the same amount of value. If I want to achieve a higher income, I see that as fundamentally a "me" problem, not a problem with other people - it means I have a duty to go above and beyond, to work harder, to study longer, to research which skills have higher demand in society, to educate and train myself, and to strive for the goals that I want to achieve, because I don't believed I'm really "owed" much besides the right to life, liberty, private property, and the pursuit of happiness, which is not the same thing as a right to happiness itself, I might add. This also means I don't think I'm entitled to wage increases that match the rate of inflation. If I want to extract more value from employment, I have a duty to make myself more valuable. I don't necessarily think everyone is capable of becoming a multi-millionaire, but I do think (almost) everyone is capable of working harder, studying more, watching less TV, buying less "wants" rather than just "needs" (recall that the most prolific purchasers of lottery tickets are the bottom two quintiles), of saving up money diligently, of being more frugal than we are, etc. Obvious exceptions apply to people with profound mental or physical disabilities, of course, but most of us are not quadriplegics or suffering from severe schizophrenia - and even those kinds of barriers haven't prevented people like Stephen Hawking or Terry Davis from going on to produce profound and noteworthy outputs. Obviously that's not the bar for people suffering from such disabilities, but I think most people are capable of much more than we give them credit for. >It also doesn't address the fact that social security is funded by taxes, it's not a handout, people make financial decisions based on the information they have, the information they had was "pay your taxes and when it comes time to stop working you'll get some assistance". If you want to kill it, fine, stop taxing people to pay in to it, removing it after an entire lifetime of paying in to the system is basically theft. I agree that this is a problem, and simply stripping people of benefits they spent a lifetime paying into is as fundamentally unfair as forcing them to pay into a program with no choice to opt out was. The solution needs to be compassionate, and it logically follows to me that the people calling for radical reform should be the first to offer self-sacrifice to be part of the solution. I'm a big proponent of allowing everyone to have the option to permanently opt out of receiving benefits for life from these programs, in exchange for a small tax credit or deduction to offset the FICA taxes they will continue to pay in to help fund benefits for the current or near-current retirees. I'd be the first to volunteer for such a program. | | |
| ▲ | NilMostChill 14 days ago | parent [-] | | I think that rather than a fundamental misunderstanding this is more of a fundamentally different outlook between us. I understand the draw of seeing 'value' as a metric by which to judge things but i don't generally take that approach myself. I find that what constitutes 'value' is too nebulous a concept on which to place foundations. That isn't to say it isn't useful and that i don't use it, just that it's less of a core belief than it is a useful tool in some contexts. To take your example of netflix, youtube and adult content, some may see that kind of entertainment as a valuable contribution to modern society and thus by being the facilitator you are contributing to society as a whole. Youtube especially is the vehicle for a lot of information dissemination (both good and bad, for whatever metric you use for such things). Spending that time making a pharmaceutical drug that then gets bought and shelved because it undercuts profit margins on an existing product because of corporate greed means you'd have essentially contributed to profit margins rather than society as a whole. Or just absorbed my the private medical complex as a whole. See : Insulin And i wasn't implying people were owed anything for just existing, i specifically implied they were owed the service that they had paid in to for their whole lives. Whether or not you are entitled to wage increases in line with inflation isn't the point i was making (the economics behind it are fascinating though), i was saying that the idea that people being negligent as a major contribution to lack of retirements funds is a faulty premise in a lot of cases, because it isn't that they could have and chose not to , it's that they never had the opportunity. > I don't believed I'm really "owed" much besides the right to life, liberty, private property, and the pursuit of happiness, I agree with the not owed much sentiment but i can't see how you resolve that with "except these somewhat substantial concepts", especially when you throw "private property" in there. Working from a baseline you aren't owed anything means you aren't owed those things, you go back to pre-civilisation times, you get what you earn and keep what you can defend. As soon as you start introducing societal concepts such as the right to liberty or private property then you introduce the idea of societal expectations and obligations, from all included parties, including governing bodies. Even societies with small tribal numbers had the idea of looking after the elderly to a degree. > I try to take a very humble approach in evaluating what I'm entitled to and it seems a very privileged view of how modern society currently 'works'. A lot of the things you have said are applicable to a specific subset of the population, namely lower-middle to upper-middle class ( the traditional class system is a shitty metric but people know it so... ) . They don't work for anybody near the poverty line and don't apply to people who are already wealthy. > I don't necessarily think everyone is capable of becoming a multi-millionaire, Agreed > but I do think (almost) everyone is capable of working harder, studying more, watching less TV, buying less "wants" rather than just "needs" Look up the actual poverty line statistics to see what kind of numbers you are looking at for who can afford "needs". > (recall that the most prolific purchasers of lottery tickets are the bottom two quintiles) There is a reason for that and a reason why it's sometimes considered a "poverty tax". With no good options for upward mobility the idea of a very low chance at changing your life is much more appealing. People with money don't need to win the lottery, so why would they buy lottery tickets? > of saving up money diligently, of being more frugal than we are Partially agreed, see my response about actual poverty statistics. > Obvious exceptions apply to people with profound mental or physical disabilities, of course, but most of us are not quadriplegics or suffering from severe schizophrenia - and even those kinds of barriers haven't prevented people like Stephen Hawking or Terry Davis from going on to produce profound and noteworthy outputs. Obviously that's not the bar for people suffering from such disabilities, but I think most people are capable of much more than we give them credit for. How about the ones that aren't actively providing 'value' or are in fact providing negative 'value'? That is one of the reasons i find 'value' based belief systems, when considering people, to be a weak foundation. Stephen hawking is a bad example because he was 'valuable' before his disability kicked in fully. Modern society is set up for the 'average' person, anybody deviating from that average is working from a starting deficit. > I agree that this is a problem, and simply stripping people of benefits they spent a lifetime paying into is as fundamentally unfair as forcing them to pay into a program with no choice to opt out was. The solution needs to be compassionate, and it logically follows to me that the people calling for radical reform should be the first to offer self-sacrifice to be part of the solution. Agreed and currently the head of the division in charge of creating and applying those solutions (or deciding to cut existing ones) in the US government thinks empathy is a weakness and is a multi-billionaire. > I'm a big proponent of allowing everyone to have the option to permanently opt out of receiving benefits for life from these programs, in exchange for a small tax credit or deduction to offset the FICA taxes they will continue to pay in to help fund benefits for the current or near-current retirees. I'd be the first to volunteer for such a program. This is interesting as a concept, though i doubt many of the current governments could pull off the administrative side of such a system. I also think, they'd actively fight any such suggestion, because given how things are now they'd have a large proportion of the current and future generations opting out, not because the governments want to provide a safety net, but because they couldn't deal with the shortfall in the budget. This would need to be part of a much larger suite of programs and support mechanisms, you think there's a homeless/drug addiction/crime problem now, just wait until you get a whole generation of people who have concrete proof they won't have a viable means of survival once they hit retirement age. |
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| ▲ | mexicocitinluez 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > was taken from others without their consent Wait, what? Since when our tax dollars taken from us without consent? What are you talking about? | | |
| ▲ | bakugo 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Since when our tax dollars taken from us without consent? Since forever? You can't just opt out of paying taxes. | | |
| ▲ | mexicocitinluez 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Wait, is the government forcing you to work? Did I miss that somewhere? Is there a provision in the constitution that forces an American citizen to get a job and pay taxes? That's not even pointing out that you 100% have control of who makes tax policy through this little tiny mechanism called voting. | | |
| ▲ | bakugo 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Wait, is the government forcing you to work? No, my own body forces me to work, because fulfilling the basic needs required for my survival costs money. | |
| ▲ | anonym29 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'd like to address two points here: the first being the idea that taxes are voluntary, and the second being implicit claims about the nature of the democratic process itself. I will raise some labelled and ordered questions if you care to respond, I understand that this is a subject that can lend easily to hostility, but I want to remind everyone that I am not necessarily refuting what you are saying here, I am just asking follow-up questions to achieve a better understanding of your point of view. I hope we can continue this dialogue respectfully, and if at any point any points I am raising strike you as disrespectful or unkind, please let me know. First: If paying taxes hypothetically became completely optional, and there were no legal penalties for not paying them (coercion, threat of force, state-sanctioned violence), 1a. Do you think tax revenues would stay almost the same, or be dramatically reduced by this change? 1b. Do you suppose most people would still voluntarily choose to pay taxes of their own free will if there were no individual consequences for not paying them? 1c. If answering in the negative to 1b, how do you characterize taxes being any more "voluntary" than the act of handing my wallet to an armed robber can be considered "voluntary"? i.e. if the motivating force that compels me to pay is a threat of force (either implicitly and roundaboutly, through the legal system, which eventually ends with one staring down the barrel of a gun, or explicitly and expediently, just skipping the other steps and going straight to staring down the barrel of a gun), isn't that ultimately the same act of extortion being justified with / "backed up by" the same threat of force from the same mechanism (firearm) regardless of whether it is by one man calling himself a robber or a million men calling themselves a government? Second: As individuals, we do not exercise "control" through the democratic process, we express preferences. 2a. From my understanding (please correct me if this is wrong), the DNC has made it clear in both 2016 and in 2024, that the voters do not get to pick the nominee, the DNC's superdelegates do, and they retain the right to nominate candidates that do not have the majority or plurality of popular support even from within their own party, right? 2b. Expanding out to a broader level, does your comment intend to suggest or imply that all results of democratic processes are inherently and automatically voluntarily consented to by the populace on the basis that we were all allowed to vote on it? 2c. If the proposition made in 2b were true, wouldn't that necessarily imply that we both voluntarily consented to the election of Donald Trump, or the invasion of Iraq in search of WMD's that didn't exist? I can't speak for you, but I certainly did not consent to either of those. 2d. If, on the other hand, the proposition made in 2b were false, why is it we can choose not to consent some democratic process outcomes, like a president that we disapprove of, but not others, like the specific details of tax policy? |
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| ▲ | sorcerer-mar 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sure you can: move! Or do you mean "you can't benefit from all of the security, infrastructure, and social investments in our country and not pay taxes to it?" | | |
| ▲ | anonym29 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Hasn't this frequently been used as a go-to talking point of xenophobic nationalists pretty extensively in the past? I'm not accusing you of expressing either xenophobic or nationalist sentiment, but don't we have a social responsibility to avoid legitimizing these types of highly divisive talking points? Also, isn't there room for a middle ground here? I'd love to sign up to opt out of receiving any social security or medicaid benefits permanently for the rest of my life in exchange for a small tax credit or deduction, smaller than the amount I'd expect to receive out of these programs. What's the downside there, if I'm still paying in grossly more than I'm receiving in benefits, and could be liberating taxpayers from a financial responsibility to me that they already can't afford, and which I don't need? I'd prefer to be part of the solution to the deficit, but me leaving the country only exacerbates the problem, given that I pay in close to an order of magnitude more than I get back in return. I'm anti-war and not a fan of the defense industry, shouldn't I be allowed to stay and express policy preference for less defense spending, even though I benefit from it? We also cannot assume that everyone is drawing from collective infrastructure investment just because we're all forced to pay into it. Some people use well water, have their own microgrid that is disconnected from the public one, and go out of their way to only utilize private toll roads, private medical services, etc for ethical reasons. Shouldn't we at least give people the freedom of choice to opt out of taking from the collective pool of resources if they do not need to, and in turn, because their utilization is lower, offer them some form of limited incentive to do so, as long as they are still paying in more than they're getting out of the system, ultimately? Is it fair to give gifts to people who did not ask for them or want them, and then expect the same sacrifices in return from the recipients, regardless of whether not these public services are even utilized or necessary? | | |
| ▲ | sorcerer-mar 14 days ago | parent [-] | | > I'd love to sign up to opt out of receiving any social security or medicaid benefits permanently for the rest of my life in exchange for a small tax credit or deduction, smaller than the amount I'd expect to receive out of these programs. And if you go broke and end up starving on the street, everyone else just needs to bear that cost either through watching you starve to death or by paying to feed you? It turns out that in practice, the number of people who think they can achieve your proposed outcome is far, far higher than the number that actually does achieve it. > I'd prefer to be part of the solution to the deficit, but me leaving the country only exacerbates the problem, given that I pay in close to an order of magnitude more than I get back in return. Sure but you're not leaving the country because, like GP, you are aware you get far more value from your taxes in indirect services. > shouldn't I be allowed to stay and express policy preference for less defense spending Sure can! Vote. |
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| ▲ | bakugo 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Sure you can: move! To where? Another country that also forces you to pay taxes? I'm sure there are places in the world where taxes don't exist, but if they were places worth living in, I'm sure way more people would be moving there. > Or do you mean "you can't benefit from all of the security, infrastructure, and social investments in our country and not pay taxes to it?" Nobody said anything about whether or not the benefits that result from taxation are worth it. Just that it's mandatory, which it effectively is for the vast majority of people. | | |
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| ▲ | kreetx 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's how they are used, not the taken part - they are taken according to law, thus consent. Though, money printing (i.e, inflation or borrowing money from the FED) basically seems to happen without consent. | | |
| ▲ | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 14 days ago | parent [-] | | > It's how they are used, not the taken part - they are taken according to law, thus consent They're also used according to law. That's why there's sometimes talk of a "government shutdown" in the US: it happens when Congress is close to their deadline to write/pass the budget law. |
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| ▲ | 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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