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Comment by RHSeeger | Hacker News Reader

I think there's a lot of people that want things to be fair at the individual level ("that person gets time off for a child, but that other, childless person works the whole time")... but don't see the greater "benefit to society overall" part of it. It's not necessarily that they're being greedy; it may not even be something that would benefit them directly. They just never consider that they're paying a cost for the greater good, because it's not in their view of the world.

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In some cases it’s probably legitimately “unfair”. Me for example am probably at the more unfair end. I

- have high income so pay a large % into taxes

- not a citizen so don’t enjoy some of the benefits of military protection

- wasn’t raised here so didn’t use any of the earlier year services

- likely won’t retire here so won’t use those either

Most of my tax dollars goes to fund others in the country. But as a society there is no good way to account for all that. To try to do so the tax calculation will be crazy. So I’ll grumble about the taxes I pay, but end of the day I also don’t really have a better solution.

But you still benefit even from the mere _existence_ of human beings younger than you are (e.g. service, manufacturing, research, medical, etc.). If you think you don't, think about the fraction of people you will interact with in 20 or 40 years that are younger than you will be, or about the innovations you will be using in 20 or 40 years that were developed by people younger than you. Those human beings have to come from somewhere - why do you insist it my obligation to make you that gift, at exorbitant expense of my time and money?

The European countries with these benefits don't have higher birth rates, so it doesn't seem like it's actually producing more younger people.

Instead, it's African countries and then ones with more practicing religious people who do.

I’m not arguing that I don’t derive value from my taxes. Like you said there are benefits from the next generation, social stability etc. Just that I don’t necessarily derive value proportional to the amount I pay.

Presumably you're not paying taxes to <whereever you will retire to>, but you reap the benefits of the people that did pay taxes there during this time. So it works out in the end. It's the same thing, just at a global level instead of a national level. Admittedly, the rules aren't the same everywhere.

Plus, as noted elsewhere, you are getting benefits from the taxes you're paying now, only just on some of it.

It’s the proportion of payment vs benefit. We intentionally have a set up where some people pay more into the system than they might get out of it. This isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. But then by the same token some people will be paying an “unfair” amount.

Eg if I make a million a year, I might pay 500k in taxes. Someone making 50k a year might pay 10k. I don’t get an extra 450k a year worth of benefit from my taxes. This is intended and is ok. But I think we should also acknowledge that this happens.

> not a citizen so don’t enjoy some of the benefits of military protection

Can you explain what you mean by this part?

If I was stuck in a war torn country, I don’t get evacuated by the US military.

I think Afghanistan and Ukraine both show that this is not necessarily the case for citizens either.

> likely won’t retire here so won’t use those either

I don't know which country you're living in, but surely the money you paid into a pension scheme - be it public or private - doesn't just disappear because you moved to another country?

Spain is famously full of UK pensioners receiving and spending their pounds there. Heck, my father worked for a few years in Belgium in his youth, without even being a citizen, and that still entitled him to a (minuscule) Belgian pension later on, in addition to his more substantial one from his subsequent decades of work in a different country.

It really is a tragedy of the commons with a changing demographic, where DINK are more prevalent that, say, 50 years ago, where most tried to contribute to raising the next generation. But the amount of entitlement still baffles me - where do these people think everyone younger than them comes from? How much time and money do they think it costs to train a human being to be a member of society, of benefit to them!, and why do they just assume it is someone else's duty to provide this to them, free of charge to them?

> DINK are more prevalent that, say, 50 years ago

A good standard of living was possible with a single income 50 years ago (just). It's barely possible today with two average incomes in much of the US.

A standard of living in 2022 wasn't achievable at any cost 50 years ago; the reason both people want to work in a modern family is that it gets you more money and they want to spend more.

You'd only want to not work if your job couldn't effectively contribute to the household (you're already rich or your spouse is a super high earner) or else you can't pay for the childcare work you're no longer doing (you're poor). Both of you working is a sign of being middle class.

>why do they just assume it is someone else's duty to provide this to them, free of charge to them?

Why do you assume I would think it is someone else's duty to provide anything to me? This seems to be a bit of projection.

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