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I would rephrase be a cog in the machine to "contributing to society". If someone wants to live a hedonistic carefree life, more power to them. But this is often coupled with abusing the social safety net designed for people who are down on their luck and can't contribute enough to society due to no fault of their own.

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Pot is an expensive habit in large quantities which is not really conducive to staying on welfare. The issue is self sufficiency is not really enough without 2.2 kids thing break down long term. Further without economic growth our system is completely unsustainable.

So, if parity is not enough and everyone must be a net contributer, well that's a cog.

expensive cost for the body

Which is why many people support removing public safety nets (or reducing them). I feel like anyone who wants to opt out of society should be able to do so, but they also lose societal support

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