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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35361 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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The argument that it's all just a business transaction is a double edged sword.

You thinking it’s not just a transaction makes it easier, not harder, for the state to take your stuff when the time comes, right as you’d stare at the process in disbelief, denial, hoping for the better and taking seriously the state’s shallow excuses for doing so. I’ve seen this happen many times. Sentimental feelings towards a country prevent people from cutting their losses early on.

If all you have to offer is the value of your stuff why shouldn't a country just take your stuff?

What I have to offer are the yearly taxes and the ongoing benefits of my participation in the economy, the value a country receives out of my residence in it extends far in the future.

Also most of the "stuff" we’re talking about consists of control over businesses and processes, that wouldn’t fare well after being seized.

You thinking it’s not just a transaction makes it easier, not harder, for the state to take your stuff

"Loyalty to nation" doesn't mean "loyalty to the current government". And nation isn't the only loyalty there, and it becomes harder for the government to take your stuff if it interferes with loyalty to someone else and that loyalty is recognized.

Also most of the "stuff" we’re talking about consists of control over businesses and processes, that wouldn’t fare well after being seized.

I don't even know how you'd compute "most" when comparing financial and non-financial stuff. How would you compare, for instance, teaching CRT in schools to taking $X in taxes, and how would you compare either one to taking $Y in taxes, but using the money for things most people object to?

I don't even know how you'd compute "most" when comparing financial and non-financial stuff. How would you compare, for instance, teaching CRT in schools to taking $X in taxes, and how would you compare either one to taking $Y in taxes, but using the money for things most people object to?

Well imagine if someone paid you one billion dollars, on a condition that your children have to listen to let’s say a course of ten 1-hour CRT lectures in school. Would you agree to it?

If yes, then there is in fact a value of $X that compares to teaching CRT in schools, and it is somewhere between zero and one billion.

It may be hard to estimate precisely, so in real life you should just go with what your intuition tells you is a better option.

I could give approximate answers like you suggest, but these answers would have large error bars on them, and because diminishing marginal utility applies differently to money and to non-monetary costs, it wouldn't be possible to add up the monetary values anyway, making them useless for comparison.

If all you have to offer is the value of your stuff why shouldn't a country just take your stuff?

Because if a country does that, people will predictably stop producing stuff for the country to take, and also will leave the country if they can.

Unless you mean "some of your stuff, but not enough that you're strongly incentivized to leave or stop producing stuff", in which case they're called "taxes".

But they aren't taking "people's" stuff, they are taking your stuff specifically. You the defector is getting your stuff taken, the cooperators keep their stuff.

How is the government in question distinguishing "cooperators" from "defectors" here, such that they are specifically taking the stuff of "defectors"?

If "defector" is a broad enough category, it might still be better to take only some of their stuff rather than all of it, even from the perspective of a government that only cares about obtaining resources for itself.

First they came for the defectors? This is fine.

If your state ever gets to the point where people are so desperate to leave that the government starts going to extremes to discourage it, it's time to leave anyway, while the penalty is merely robbery, before the next "Antifaschistischer Schutzwall" goes up. "You're worthless and so I want to make it hard for you to leave me" is a self-contradictory claim. It's only a popular claim because the first part is a too-often-effective lie that abusive relationship partners use as a control tactic. But even when the best time to escape escalating abuse has already passed, the second-best time is "as soon as possible".

going to extremes

Better revision of the article, before the COVID19 section got blanked.

Edit: Don't know why that link didn't work, hopefully this one will.

Strangely, that links to something unrelated.

Your link does not mention COVID.

The point is not so about you defecting against the state, but rather about preventing the state from defecting against you.

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