[ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA]

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 7:21 AM, Stathis Papaioannou<stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:

>>>
>> ### Hey, how can not paying taxes harm us? You say it's morally
>> wrong!? And all this while agreeing that you and of course everybody
>> else would be financially better off under option (c). What's wrong
>> with being financially better off?
>
> I might be financially better off without taxation since I am in a
> relatively high tax bracket, but the people who currently can't work
> for one reason or another would definitely be worse off,

### Why would they be worse off? Can't they use charity, insurance?
What about the inevitable fact that without violence economic growth
would be much higher, making the median citizen much wealthier? (look
at the difference between South and North Korea caused by 50 years of
a mild reduction in violence achieved in the south)
---------------------------
 and the
> country as a whole might be worse off, given a few years of no public
> services such as education or health.

### Definitely not worse off. Privately funded education and health
care are definitely better than government funded ones.

There is most definitely no coherent consequentialist argument in
favor of allowing initiation of violence among the ingroup, however
you slice it. Yeah, definitely, baby!

----------------

 You don't believe this,
> obviously, but most people do, which is why they agree to be taxed
> when taxation is such an intrinsically unpleasant thing.

### Oh, they have been bamboozled by years of schooling in government
controlled schools, where the fox teaches the chickens to appreciate
what he does to the integrity of their coop. But, you are not "most"
people, you are a smart dude, you can see that there are two main
reasons for the acceptance of this form of violence: envy of the rich
and a callous disregard for the well-being of others (because if you
care, you don't threaten them with violence except in defense). No?

Rafal