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Comment by michaelmrose | Hacker News Reader

I presume you like roads, social security, a standing army, and a million other things. These things cost money and the logical way to raise that money is via taxes. Please don't post unreadable incomprehensible stream of consciousness here. Take a moment to refine the words running through your head into a coherent paragraph or two.

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Go look at America's budget and come back with that ignorance... The amount of money America spends on itself, its people, and its infrastructure, is embarrassing.

Taxes are often lauded as a necessary evil, but it's generally not JUST the tax people have trouble with. It's how it's allocated. And we can cutely sidestep or handwave that as "a voting problem", but it's interconnected.

I'd have no problem paying taxes to an entity who I could trust and know has my back, who invests in the infrastructure that makes life in this country better.

But we cannot trust that entity, it never does what it says it should on paper. It sends money overseas for pet military projects. It doles out countless frivolous contracts to fulfill the gargantuan military budget.

Collective pooling of resources only works when the spending of those resources is done for the benefit of everyone contributing. That currently does not happen.

I like creature comforts like anyone else, but I'd rather live in a country that gives a shit about me and puts my tax dollars to good use, instead of feeling like livestock in a rat wheel whose contributions to the country will never bear into a tangible benefit.

Then let’s fight corruption, let’s fight to spend those budgets on educating our populace and having amazing public services. Let’s stop dithering about taxes and create a system of government that punishes corruption and is policed by a wholly different institution. It’s ridiculous to expect any institution that polices itself to not fall into corruption over time.

The only way to fight corruption is to have a small enough government that it can be a) understood b) watched, and c) isn't too powerful. Much like the systems many on HN work with, if you can't keep a good chunk in your head at once and understand what it might be doing on the border with the bit you can't, then it's probably too big or you start having to give trust to others to understand it and handle it for you. If we want voters to be able to watch and meaningfully impact the government then it must be much, much smaller than any current developed nation's government is.

It has to scale to the population and functions that it serves. I’m not saying the current form(s) of government are doing it right or that they should be as big as they are. I don’t appreciate the simplistic rallying cry of “small government” that I hear all too often as if it’s some panacea. The average person can barely remember longer than a 7 digit number. I don’t expect everybody to understand every part of government at once. Understanding the larger bodies and functions of the branches of government sure. But understanding why the DOT has a purchasing agent, or why the local building department has electricians and structural engineers on staff, that’s beyond far too many people.

As you point out, that it needs to scale does not mean that it should be exponentially bigger than it was. In fact, economies of scale are supposed to be a thing in the commercial world but, for some reason, they can't occur in government…

There is no government small enough to for the average ignoramus to "watch" or understand in any meaningful way and our population and indeed people at large are absolutely shockingly stupid and informed about little beyond their hobbies and professions.

Look at for instance medicine. Medicine is vastly too complicated for average folks to "watch" or understand. We don't simplify medicine or appoint more ignorant boobs to decide what drugs are useful in between episodes of survivor we have a professional system which qualifies experts and helps us select individuals who actually know things to produce guidelines, useful decisions, and regulation.

There is no difference between that and civil engineering or astronomy. Government isn't merely another discipline it is the coordination of a multitude of disciplines which the electorate are equally incompetent at.

A government an idiot who can't follow complex plots on TV shows can understand its functionally incapable of delivering a useful product to allow one to run a 23T GDP country of 338M people and its not a useful goal.

If we take the bell curve as at least somewhat true then at least half of the population should not be cast as ignoramuses, at least in possibility.

Regardless, even if it were only the top 2% that could understand a small enough government in a meaningful way, that would be better than a government too large to be understood by no one in any meaningful way. It is not a black and white situation.

I also don't see why experts would be cast out from a smaller government. That, to me, seems like the product of more black and white thinking in pursuit of some fallacious nirvana that can only be used to dismiss the idea that a much smaller government might be better and possible.

Personally I wish more people would post stream of consciousness writing, as I believe it often reveals the uncertainty and inner conflict that exists within our thoughts and feelings.

What I gathered from what they posted was a conflict about realizing that governments need money but wishing they didn't force people to pay, but not sure if people would pay if it weren't forced, and trying to dance between those ideas.

Some may not like stream of consciousness and some may, it's hard to know, and it may depend on our current situation and format of the post or culture of the place.

Maybe HN has a culture to distill thoughts before posting, I dunno. I like more raw thoughts typically.

Nobody on earth who has spent any amount of time thinking about it thinks society at scale would pay for common goods if it was optional. Part of actually distilling your thoughts into a useful form is realizing when to use the backspace key.

There might be 1000 people reading this. We all have a stream of conscioisness. If we all shared it this thread would be unteadable with a few gems buried in dross.

Distilling your thoughts down and sharing what is worthy is a universal good not merely a cultural value. It's why we are reading this and not YouTube or Facebook comment threads.

At times what I deem as worthy is a distilled version. At other times what I deem as worthy is a messier version. Distilled can help me read it quickly and give me certainty over someone's perspective. Messier can take longer to read and yet show me an often more accurate window into someone's mind, helping me feel more connected to the person.

Again, if you're saying that you strongly believe HN is not the place for such windows into the inner workings of someone's mind and you believe HN should be the packaged output, I might agree. Most people who contribute here seem to obey that rule. Maybe if everyone posted stream of consciousness, this place would become untenable. However, if it goes from 1% to 3%, I think it'd still be manageable and then I could feel delighted at the interspersed nature of it.

In other words, almost the opposite of the free rider problem you may have alluded to regarding public goods, or the similarity to it if you think those who provide distilled versions are doing more work for the common good and the others are doing less. In this scenario, I suppose it depends on what one defines as good in the common good.

> HN should be the packaged output, I might agree. Most people who contribute here seem to obey that rule.

the submissions: yes, absolutely yes. I agree 100%.

but not for the comments, after all comments are literally the "inner workings" of the HN culture (some people call this "hive mind")

To be frank, this place is a slightly nerdier Reddit with stronger topicality enforced, whose audience trends toward middle age, male, and moderate. It is not a shining city on a hill. I can find a lot of the same content on Lobste.rs later in the day, and get comments from an actually exclusive group.

We're here because there is enough news to keep us visiting, and relaxed enough rules to feel comfortable challenging each other intellectually.

Most of the Internet used to be this way, before social media.

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