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Comment by Reichhardt | Hacker News Reader

The current fiat system (and the Governments that control it) are completely enslaved to the welfare (pension) and healthcare demands of baby boomers.

These demands will only multiply as the populations age, until eventually consuming the host. You can already see this in countries like Italy, which are now in demographic death spirals.

If we can craft a new financial system without spending 15%+ of our GDP and rising on Pensions[1], even with some inefficiency its still worth it.

https://data.oecd.org/socialexp/pension-spending.htm

Avoiding sales taxes, platform commissions, and income taxes is a major advantage.

The issue with Crypto right now is waste from Proof of Stake, and fraud/security risks. We need to resolve this before expanding.

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> The current fiat system (and the Governments that control it) are completely enslaved to the welfare (pension) and healthcare demands of baby boomers. If we can craft a new financial system without spending 15%+ of our GDP and rising on Pensions, even with some inefficiency its still worth it. Avoiding sales taxes, platform commissions, and income taxes is a major advantage.

So you think the problem solved by crypto is no longer paying taxes or contributing any part of our incomes to the collective good? I guess you think that child mortality isn't something we should worry about? Or looking after the weak and sick, in general. Why pay for schools, or sanitation, or public transport, at all? And the rules that govern human behavior - we can just rid ourselves of the police in this libertarian-anarcho system where the rich do as they please, and the rest predate upon each other.

Sounds like a great use-case for crypto.

50% of healthcare costs are incurred in the final 5 years of life, and in much of the world private healthcare is accepted and efficient.

I'd rather euthanize myself at age 80 and pay much lower taxes throughout my adult life than die at age 85 in a gold-plated Government hospital.

Sanitation and public transport can be directly charged to end-users based on usage. Education can be funded with land value taxes.

Federal Government bureaucracy just exists to support itself. Healthcare agencies have been turned against the population to promote lockdowns and big pharma, and intelligence agencies spy against their own citizens.

> in much of the world private healthcare is accepted and efficient.

It is accepted in many parts of the world, unfortunately, but in what part of the world is it "efficient"? Can you give an example? Is "basic medicine costing $500 (see insulin) to the few that can afford it and the rest dying because they can't access it" what you define as efficient?

> I'd rather euthanize myself at age 80 and pay much lower taxes throughout my adult life than die at age 85 in a gold-plated Government hospital.

I'd rather not. I doubt many people would be okay with that. I like living and being healthy. You can still feel free to do that in either situation.

> Sanitation and public transport can be directly charged to end-users based on usage.

So the rich should get clean streets and running water while the poor walk on their own shit? Should we charge per poop? As for public transportation, you think it would work if I didn't pay taxes for it and it cost $80 for someone to take it because they can't afford the $20 Uber ride?

> Federal Government bureaucracy just exists to support itself.

This is objectively not true. Many techies (not just crypto people) tend to forget why societal structures were invented in the first place. No one's saying inefficiencies don't exist but disregarding all of society seems to be specifically tailored to get a rise out of people.

I don't know how I can explain to you that we all need to care about each other, otherwise we'll all go extinct.

> So the rich should get clean streets and running water while the poor walk on their own shit?

That's a pretty accurate depiction of the US. Seattle at least

For a minute I thought you made a typo and meant "US Senate".

but then I remembered some stories I've heard about Seattle and San Francisco.

At least San Francisco is more democratic in that sense. We all get to walk on some amount of shit :P

> I'd rather not. I doubt many people would be okay with that. I like living and being healthy. You can still feel free to do that in either situation.

Part of GP’s point is that you’re not healthy & free for those extra five years when the costs truly spike.

>I'd rather euthanize myself at age 80 and pay much lower taxes throughout my adult life than die at age 85 in a gold-plated Government hospital.

Only it wouldn't probbably work that way, more probably it would be something more like:

Dear Citizen, this is the Government.

Our actuaries determined that you can only live up to 70 years with the tax you paid, so you are kindly requested to present yourself on the morning of the day before your 70th birthday at 9:00 o'clock at [redacted] so that we can proceed to your termination.

We assure you that the procedure will be quick and painless.

Thnks in advance for your cooperation.

It only solves one problem, proof of work (or now I guess proof of stake).

It doesn't solve the political issue(s), for this reason most everything going on is harmful nonsense...

It could have been a part of a larger puzzle, but it's not and the people (seriously) involved with it are mostly scumbags and scammers, by the sound of it.

The legit businesses were a start but it never became a true payment contender, meanwhile those in power ran interference with competing payment systems (think apple or google pay, absolute nonsense I absolutely do not want) or propoganda "yeah this is illegal and fake and all worth nothing", which just hurt adoption.

Sounds like there is hope with Ethereum for it to actually be useful but Bitcoin is just a speculation heatsink at present. "In the future" it might work but there is a likely chance it will be gone in the future...

Governments collected taxes on cash and non-fiat for millenia (and still do so), they will have no issues taxing crypto if they need to.

But at much lower rates. Taxes as a % of GDP didn't exceed 10% in the USA until WW1: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Federal%...

You can see other spikes related to other wars. Wars sure are great if you want to expand Government power and taxation over your own citizenry!

Also if you want to build and maintain infrastructure and social services.

Given that I was born into this system with zero say in it what if I don't?

You know what is even better than wars? Government services. Like education, healthcare, roads & infra.

Also some stuff of much more dubious value, like TSA and heavily militarized police

Sure, but the claim is that crypto magically allows you to avoid all taxes. It doesn't. How much the government chooses to tax you is entirely unrelated.

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