pull down to refresh
20 sats \ 6 replies \ @glix OP 11 May 2022 \ parent \ on: Ask HN: How do taxes work in a hyperbitcoinized world? bitcoin
Yes, definitely we aren't going to just sit around and do nothing; but then the pay-per-use thing doesn't work for most of the things, no? We will end up in a situation where every single little thing needs to be paid for (and I would rather have that than have "tax" be misused and be used to buy more caviar for the elites), but how viable is "paying for everything"? And I can see its advantages now - pay per use would be more efficient in determining what the demand for something is? Maybe people aren't using the metro transit as much so the company that runs it can shut down some trains or something, and that capital maybe used elsewhere - but not everything can scale up or down. Healthcare for example - what about the scale at which it needs to be available to all? It's not always about the demand, somethings need to be available to all no matter what their capital capabilities are, and in that case we would need altruistic people with great capital power to provide for all? How would that come about?
It's just a little hard to get my head around this because maybe we aren't used to this form of society functioning and maybe we won't be for a long time to come.
Yes these are all possibilities, I agree with you, but this idea we shouldn't feel economic pain for our decisions only leads to a path of totalitarianism.
If someone offers a shit service, another provider will come in, if someone overcharges another provider will bring down the price. High prices are a signal of economic distress and a call to others to solve it. If we hide these signals we lose efficiency
Efficiency isn't something that happens overnight there will be fuck ups, booms and busts, but overall over time, it would be less painful than what we are doing now
Regarding scale, each regions resources would dictate that, and we'd have much smaller cities dispursed as people move between to find the best deal for them. We need to allow for that discovery, and if one town has people running the roads or water that charge exploitative pricing, people will leave and kill their business, the customer holding the satoshis is always in control
I know it took me a while, I am not even there myself fully, I would highly recommend listening to The Bitcoin Standard podcast on
- Private cities
- Who will build the roads
It did a lot for me to get my head around how silly state intervention is in civil services
reply
Long shot - all this just feels like a long shot, but we weren't too far away in the past where people would literally freak out if we showed them a smartphone from today and so the world 100 years from today could be so different from today's that it's literally impossible to comprehend even a bit. Hope things improve and Thank God For Bitcoin - I don't know how this movement would even start if it wasn't for it.
reply
Of course it's a long shot, if 50 years of floating fiat teaches us anything is that we can remain irrational for a long time. But that's the beauty of bitcoin, you can choose to opt-out and reap the benefits.
I live in South Africa, I lived under apartheid, I've been all over Africa, I've been in places of civil war, I know what man is capable of in governments/fiats names and perhaps that makes me biased but I am ready for something else, this system does not and has not worked for the global South
reply
Explain this simple fact: if gov and banksters can print shitload of money from thin air, why we still pay taxes?
reply
They definitely shouldn't, but half the population is not even aware that this "printing" is even possible or is being done, that's the sad part tbh.
reply
I know it sounds dick-ish but the population and their opinion don't matter, they will go along with anything which is evident, it's up to people who are on the fringes to drive change, places that embrace bitcoin will continue to thrive and attract more people
reply