• TheFriar@lemm.ee
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      Whatdoyoumean?! The govt obviously has so much money as to be able to put millions away for each and every person born! And that money isn’t even being used! Just $3M each, that’s just sitting there waiting for the right magic words to be uttered in a Bank of America in Lubbock, TX to finally be used! Of course money is infinite! They’re the ones printing it!

      • betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Not even making that bit up, it’s established SovCit lore that pops up now and again. I’m a boat, you’re a boat, your mom is a barge lovely lady (and also a boat).

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            yes, they believe it’s one of the “in plain sight” pieces of evidence - that when you’re born, you have to have a berth (maritime) certificate that makes you like, property of the state or something because you’re recorded as “docking” with the country (which is actually a corporation that wants to own you and use your cache of money they hide from you that you receive at birth), and “they” get away with the ruse because us normal rubes just never think to ask if they said “berth” (maritime) or “birth” (reproduction). not even joking lmao

            it is a funny pun, too, but they really think birth certificates are, in fact, secretly “berth” certificates for them in maritime trade law, which they believe is the only real law, in which we are all like… sovereign vessels that have been duped into signing away our independence.

  • frezik@midwest.social
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    5 months ago

    My econ 101 professor once said “what are the things that even the most anti-government people say the government needs to do? Emergency services.” Then these dense motherfuckers came along to outdo even that.

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      Internet libertarians & off-the-rails conservatives unironically say EMS and Fire Departments should be privatized. Ancaps go one step further and say police and sometimes even military should be private. It makes me lose hope in voters, until I remember that I was 15 before too and most people surely grow out of that phase. But there’s a few people who are fully adult-aged who still believe that which is kind of sad for them I guess

      • Xenny@lemmy.world
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        Firefighters were literally private companies before we collectively decided it was a bad idea. Firefighters would just sit and watch a place burn if nobody payed up. Sometimes rival firefighters would even get in brawls over who gets the contract while the house was burning down beside them.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          There were cases of firefighters setting fires so that they could be paid to put them out. Why not?

          • Contravariant@lemmy.world
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            Somewhat predictably they also started the first public firefighting force after a large part of the city burned down, again. Apparently prevention is just not profitable if you’re only paying people to extinguish fire.

            Didn’t prevent what is now known as the Great Fire of Rome though.

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          They’re municipally operated here and we actually had a case a few years back where a small town that couldn’t reasonably afford to operate their own fire department needed to make arrangements with a nearby larger town to have fire emergency response services cover them.

          The larger town said sure, $50 per year per home. Small town had 63 people, but some refused to pay. Fire department said they weren’t going to keep track of which houses were and were not covered, so they had to all be on board or none of them would be.

          Naturally a home later caught fire and burned to the ground. Thankfully no one was inside at the time.

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            Damn, that isn’t even all that much. Tiny town so I’m assuming some people just couldn’t afford it.

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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        They tried this with firefighters before way back when, and then realized that fire doesn’t seem to care who’s subscribed or not lol. Can you imagine? “The fire and EMS lobby” would be powerfully pushing for reduced safety and maybe even starting fires themselves LOL.

        Edit while looking up the first thing: Oh my word… mercenary firefighters are a thing for the rich and we’re living in clown world.

        EDIT: Link went to NYT because it was top result, but screw that lol. Fixed.

        I can see it now though…

        Privatized emergency services be like:

        “Thank you for calling 9-1-1, this is Janeanniesomebody, can I have your 14-digit emergency insurance number, date of birth, and mother’s maiden name please. Okay thank you, one moment while I verify that…” (Click)

        "Your call is very important to us. Want to skip the line when it matters most? Did you know, for only $49.97 a month, you can get Emergency-Services-Plus+! Whether you want help fast, or to regret being covered for the rest of your life, we have a plan right for YOU!

        “Remember, emergency insurance means you can have peace of mind that, when you’re in mortal danger, we’re only a phone call and 45-minutes-to-1-business-day away! Not signed up yet? Press 1, and we can help!”

        ((Trendy upbeat hold music))

        “Did you know? We’re always hiring!”

        (Receiver pickup) “Thank you for calling this is Devaidengregjimmothy, dispatch specialist, how can I help you today? Hello?..Hello?..”

        • Mikelius@lemmy.world
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          Cassius from the tail end of the roman republic famously was the richest man in Rome and owned the “fire brigade”. When a fire broke out he would only put it out after the owner agreed to sell the place for next to nothing.

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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              Also the guy whom Parthians had drink molten gold.

              He wanted to try himself as a general too, but that didn’t quite work out.

                • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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                  I don’t know why you’re being downvoted, that’s the account. It probably didn’t happen, but it made a great story. The greediest, richest man in Rome bought an army and was made to drink what he craved most when he failed. Poetic justice.

                  Yes, I know ; there are a few stories of his death, some mutually exclusive. The most popular is the version that he was beheaded, “gold-fed” and his head used instead of cabbage in a theatrical play, the place is disputed too, most likely Ecbatana or Susa, but there’s also a version of that happening in Artaxata (matches the premise where it’s said that he didn’t listen to Artavazd’s warning out of his pride, and then Artavazd decided to “betray” Crassus by remaining loyal to Parthia).

                  I think I’ve heard a version of him being overfed with meat and fat and made drink cold water, thus dying ; well, I don’t know if it’s even a working way to execute someone.

      • ameancow@lemmy.world
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        They sure do want us all to live in a world where you have to swipe your credit card to drive anywhere, to go into a store, to walk anywhere, to use a public bathroom, to call 911, to use any services at all.

        But I guess it will be worth it, because I’m sure the ancaps and libertarians and sovcits have a really good plan to keep each of us wealthy enough that privatizing the entirety of civilization won’t harm anyone.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        It makes me lose hope in voters, until I remember that I was 15 before too and most people surely grow out of that phase.

        Wait till you turn 25 and leave your parents’ basement

        • sparkle@lemm.ee
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          Damn I didn’t know ancaps existed on this site. Ooooo taxes ooOo basic public services ooo scawy

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            You’re the one who wrote about being 15.

            You are most likely not able to reason why ancap ideology is bad or why your own ideology is good. Which is why you should show more respect to people who are trying to reason in either direction. Their opinion, no matter which direction specifically that is, is worth something.

            Specifically ancap ideology is attractive for me exactly because it requires one to imagine very specific architectures of how things would work, so - to reason their position. I’ve been following one ancom channel in TG, because they were posting many interesting articles about tackling the same problems ancaps want to tackle. And as you may know, ancaps and ancoms don’t like each other.

            Both ancap and ancom ideologies are simply better than all the rest, because they don’t ignore the problem of compromised institutions.

            Once again, your opinion is worth as much as you personally can support it with logic. Being part of a crowd doesn’t mean attaining the intelligence or the authority of somebody else in that crowd. These things don’t transfer. So your tone makes only you personally look immature and stupid.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              Both ancap and ancom ideologies are simply better than all the rest, because they don’t ignore the problem of compromised institutions.

              And yet almost no one wants to live in the world those people have presented to everyone. Should they be forced to?

              • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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                Should they be forced to?

                If I can be forced to live in the world you like more, then yes, otherwise no.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                  I see, so how would you force them to live this way, kill the ones who elect a leader and decide to trade in currency?

            • 𝓔𝓶𝓶𝓲𝓮@lemm.ee
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              I mean I am basically a feudal lady but even I know this whole capitalistic mess is toxic for mind, soul and environment. How you want that but dialled to 11 is beyond me.

              It would end in actual feudalism as in few people amassing goods, land, resources and ruling over the masses as kings with their monopolies and monetising air you breathe or the like. Killing you for disobedience in some private execution using private justice system keeping u in check with private militia.

              The only thing between that reality and current is government with its anti monopoly laws, taxes, protection of basic amenities and wealth redistribution. Of course countries vary here.

              Ancapitalism is probably one of the most stupid systems you can invent as it basically deconstructs itself as one individual amasses so much wealth they become a de facto king ruling over everything with absolute power destroying the system that helped them amass such power.

              It is sad to see someone crazy enough to advocate for such system that isn’t even possible to exist long term and leads to feudalism very fast.

              Not many people are insane enough to want RUST game irl unironically

              • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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                OK, the other comment was bored, lazy and not very sincere.

                Ancapitalism is probably one of the most stupid systems you can invent as it basically deconstructs itself as one individual amasses so much wealth they become a de facto king ruling over everything with absolute power destroying the system that helped them amass such power.

                No. To learn about ancap, go to ancaps and not to non-ancaps writing about ancaps.

                It would end in actual feudalism as in few people amassing goods, land, resources and ruling over the masses as kings with their monopolies and monetising air you breathe or the like. Killing you for disobedience in some private execution using private justice system keeping u in check with private militia.

                No, because ancap is not the same as anarchy by Hobbes.

              • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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                Sorry, I see no value in this text because it wrongly assumes that ancap is about abolishing rules.

                Ancap is about determining a specific functional set of rules and functional architecture to support it.

                It’s about evaluating forces and feedbacks in human societies and economies and designing a system where people are impeded in using power to enforce their vision upon other people.

                That is why central authority and state are a problem - there are never backup mechanisms that you can switch to once the main one stops working correctly, and many people want this, because they want to capture that mechanism and enforce their will upon others. So even attempts to create backup mechanisms are met with resistance by crowds of fools who think that their favorite faction is the closest to capturing the main one and making others do something, and by people with power, who, of course, exist just as well despite that being ideologically inconvenient for you.

                The problem of someone eventually amassing too much power is not being solved by existing states any better than in ancap.

                Thus ancaps are trying to design systems as decentralized as possible for human societies. So that there always would be backup mechanisms to run away to.

                EDIT: If this is too abstract, that’s because ancap as an ideology is defined by these criteria and not by specific solutions. And that’s right, if an ideology puts its set of solutions above the goals, then it’s a religious cult.

                • 𝓔𝓶𝓶𝓲𝓮@lemm.ee
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                  That’s a big load of pseudo-intellectual gibberish. But the end effect would be the same no matter how you try to gymnastic your way around it

            • sparkle@lemm.ee
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              Your reading comprehension must suck because you completely incorrectly read the sentence you’re obsessing over. There are so many of you ancaps (almost entirely clueless teenagers) online that it becomes tiring to debunk your stupid ideology over and over again. If you can’t see why a system based around capital – where you vote with your capital and people with more capital have more votes, where resources are distributed based on capital and capital itself is a resource – is inherently flawed, then that’s completely on you. If you want leftists to educate you, then you can support the education reforms they’re advocating for, not go on Lemmy and beg for them to personally tutor you. But I guess you’re still in high school so that’s not exactly something you’re old enough to do.

              Ancaps are pathetic, there is no reason to seriously engage every single one you see. They live in a fantasy world where charity replaces taxes and systematic discrimination & deepseated cultural biases are solved by the “free market”, and pollution & climate change (if you even think it’s an issue) are solved by future techbros which will totally invent stuff to completely unfuck the planet asap (or something something they’ll totally be stopped when people realize it violates the NAP). They also live in a fantasy world where capital isn’t used to “compromise the institutions” as you say you’re worried about. You can try to slither your way into anarchist discourse all you like and try to gain their acceptance, but it is not happening.

              • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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                No. You may imagine you’ve defeated someone or debunked something. Bye

                EDIT: “If you want leftists to educate you” - definitely not. “Ancaps are …” - you are not qualified to talk about ancaps instead of ancaps themselves.

                • sparkle@lemm.ee
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                  The fact that your resolve immediately crumbles when you have to think about the logic of your ideology even a tiny bit says a lot about the number of years you have left until you graduate from high school

            • Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world
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              Specifically ancap ideology is attractive for me exactly because it requires one to imagine very specific architectures of how things would work

              You’re saying you like it because it makes you use your imagination because it’s literally so far from reality it’ll never exist? Lol.

              • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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                Ancap ideology, not ancap world.

                Most ideologies require you only to bunch together and yell louder. Ancap is not suited for that, which is why it’s cool.

                I would formulate this as “hard to achieve, so requires clearly understood principles”. Same as space travel. Or GNU/Hurd. Sigh.

                • Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world
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                  Most ideologies require you only to bunch together and yell louder. Ancap is not suited for that, which is why it’s cool.

                  Then why the fuck do I constantly see Ancaps doing this?

                  I’ve literally never actually seen an ancap successfully practice their ideas. I’ve only ever seen them desperately fail trying, or loudly exclaiming that they’re the smartest and bestest and all their ideas are golden (ignore the fact they’ve never even tried to put them In place, just loudly yelled complaining about the world they exist in like cats).

  • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    Fun fact: The government doesn’t actually need to use taxes to pay for things. The amount of currency in the market isn’t fixed, and so the government actually is fully capable of “printing more money” however, this has the potential to cause rapid inflation. So, taxes are a way of reducing inflation, rather than paying for government services.

    • Trantarius@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      That’s assuming printing money is the default solution. Taxes have existed for longer than that. The earliest taxes were literally a portion of a farmers harvest. You can’t just print more food, or gold, or whatever else. Printing money to fund government was never really an option, so positioning taxes as a solution to inflation just doesn’t make sense. It’s like saying that instead of eating at a restaurant, you could eat roadkill, which you aren’t going to do because of disease, and therefore restaurants are a way of reducing disease rather than providing food.

      • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        That’s assuming printing money is the default solution.

        I’m not operating with a model of solutions being “default” or not, so no it absolutely does not. What I’m doing is intentionally ignoring the historical context of how these systems developed to observe how they work in the present moment. Doing so allows me to understand the flaws of the model where money is viewed as a resource, rather than a pure social construct that exists in the minds of those who use it. Resources are limited by physical reality, whereas money flows like a clockwork river who’s source is infinite and who’s sink has infinite capacity. Changing the ammount of money available too much, too quickly, or in particular ways has negative consequences but it is possible. Resources don’t do that.

        Resteraunts are a way of reducing disease instead of providing food

        I’d say they have more to do with entertainment, but they do all of those, yes. It’s just a matter of perspective.

    • Jikiya@lemmy.world
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      There is a Planet Money (podcast) episode about this. It’s a fairly new economic theory, but actual PhD level economists have said this. Government prints money, and to bring down inflation they need to get taxes to reduce the amount of money in circulation, to control inflation. The epidsode was in the 2019 timeframe, I think.

      Something that absolutely works in the abstract, but kinda hard to fit into my current model of reality.

      • Natanael@slrpnk.net
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        You have to look at it from the perspective of mathematics, like systems control theory and balance / equilibriums. Money flow is comparable to energy flow. Mathematical equivalence principles allows for multiple descriptions of the same phenomenon because every externally visible system behavior can be implemented in many different ways.

        So even if that’s not how the underlying implementation looks like, you can switch the system to work like that without changing anything about how you interact with it. And that allows you to analyze the system in different ways that might not work in the current system

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          I’m a mathematician, so yes; I can confirm. 😂 I was trying to avoid that comparison, but I did use the same techniques I use to compare algebras when my sister and I stumbled on this way of thinking about the economy. I’ve never heard of systems control theory, though.

      • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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        It’s not really abstract, it’s pretty close to how advanced economies already work in practice. Fiat currency is the proxy by which goods and services are valued and exchanged. It is the underlying goods and services themselves which actually have intrinsic value, and printing money doesn’t actually change that. Deficits are inflationary and surpluses are deflationary. Growth is deflationary and recessions are inflationary. Governments in these economies will always run deficits because you can’t have both growth and a surplus at the same time. At the end of the day macroeconomics isn’t balancing a spreadsheet as much as it is about balancing the money supply and economic activity.

        This is also why something resembling capitalism is pretty much inevitable in an advanced economy where scarcity is a factor governing economic behavior. If you are using a fiat proxy to mediate economic inputs and outputs, you will end up with market forces. Pretending you can centrally plan around that is naive, which is why harm reduction is the right strategy.

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Except that money is put back into circulation through government spending, especially when they’re running the kind of deficits we see in the US.

    • AeonFelis@lemmy.world
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      Taxation is a big part of the reason why fiat money has any value at all. By demanding to be payed with its own currency, a government can ensure that the bills it issues will always have demand (because people will need it to pay taxes) and therefore will always have value.

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      “printing more money” however, this has the potential to cause rapid inflation.

      That only happens if you put all that money into circulation - if you were to, say, just give it away as a handout to the military or Israel… no inflation. Which is… exactly how they give handouts to the military and Israel.

      To think… they could just as easily spend that thumb-suck money on healthcare - but that won’t murder brown people, so they don’t do it.

      • exanime@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        That only happens if you put all that money into circulation - if you were to, say, just give it away as a handout to the military

        How do you give a handout to the “military” without putting that money into circulation?

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          How do you give a handout to the “military” without putting that money into circulation?

          That’s the beauty of “trickle-down” economics - it doesn’t. Give it to the military and the parts of it that doesn’t get hoarded by MIC billionaires gets spent on things such as R&D and asset/infrastructure development and maintenance - there’s not a lot of that money “trickling” down and circulating amongst the general population.

          If you were to spend it on health infrastructure and development, the money will still not be “trickling” down - but the benefits will. A bunch of F-35s means next-to-zero benefits for people - but a functional hospital does.

          • exanime@lemmy.world
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            Even so bud, every cent used in R&D is already in circulation

            Even the hoarded money, it’s not in an evil lair, it’s in some bank, in circulation, making money for the hoarder.

            It may have a slightly less inflationary effect but this money is as much in circulation as the single going into a strippers thong

      • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        Since the USD is considered the world reserve currency, the government is capable of doing wacky shenanigans like that. Inflation, so long as the American people are insulated from it, could theoretically be used as a way to extract wealth from other nations. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that they’re actually already doing exactly that.

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    5 months ago

    The forefathers were famed for their bake sales.

    Ben Franklin used to make a bundt cake that was to die for

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      And that has no influence on the price of goods, which is strictly decided by the buyer and seller. Or so I read today.

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      Not even that. All your state’s comptroller1 has to do is discharge debts made to the state, by writing “discharged with prejudice” with red pen on the DOT contractor bills. But this only works on pink collection notices, not normal paperwork. State stays out of debt and the roads stay paved.

      1 Yep, that’s a real word.

  • AeonFelis@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Are SovCits against the concept of taxation in general? I thought they just convinced themselves they have loopholes that allow them to avoid it personally…

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      The ones I’ve seen posted here seem to want all of the benefits of living in a society without any of the restrictions or responsibilities that go along with it. Taxation is just one part of that.

      Some think they shouldn’t even have to pay other things, basically believing that there’s a part of loans that is voluntary and their esoteric knowledge means they can just get loans and not pay them back, which itself comes from a misunderstanding of how the rich use loans to get to spend their assets and keep them.

      That misunderstanding itself is that there’s an overall fair system in place, if you have the esoteric knowledge to use it, and you just have to know what magic words to use to make judges agree with you and police back off. They don’t realize that the rich following a different set of rules isn’t based on fairness under a secret system, it’s based on the soft power that comes with being rich and having the resources to make someone’s life better or worse with a phone call.

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      Just sign up for corpo-pass! As you drive through the toll, your Zelle account will be charged automatically. You hereby agree to all fine print as you drive past it.