Comment by brnaftr361 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brnaftr361 | Hacker News Reader

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I think it's more nuanced than that. As it's currently ordered society is a forced participation regime. I don't get the option to say "no." to a great many things. This is due to a loss of security, I don't get to refuse work at a job or in general, and in the case that I do it becomes a compromise, and this compromise is largely arbitrary because there are really very few actual social distinctions in the world currently because the undergirding has overwhelmingly been hijacked by this weird captive environment that has been engineered to support the dominant status quo. However, it is not necessarily the case that this is the "final solution." but the level of ossification presents a substantial challenge. I think this is particularly salient in the American domestic politic, but as the reigning sovereign of the world that has very significant geopolitical impacts globally. Not to mention the fact that we're also the largest consumer market and the most profound conglomerate of companies the world over.

To the question of saying "no.", It's questionable that all but the elite suffer from such stricture. For instance if I were to purchase in full some allotment of land which I inhabited, the government would still extract taxes from it, taxes which I would be obliged to pay, and thus I would necessarily require some income. That's without considering the more likely case of mortgaging a home in the suburbs, taking a loan for a car, the myriad bills necessary to sustain a "functional" life, all the sundry little accessories that invariably set up a treadmill of break and replace... Factor in a family and the manifold complications it inserts - viola - no options available.

This is, of course, not actually the natural course of things and all of this is malleable. Overcoming the massive inertia of the antiquated systems and their underpinning ideas is a huge challenge though. This itself largely due to the overwhelming coherent mass.

But I think anyone would be insane to say they support things as they currently are at any level. But very few are positioned to refuse. It's indenture, but structured in such a way that "society" can point its finger and place blame on the individual.

> the government would still extract taxes from it, taxes which I would be obliged to pay, and thus I would necessarily require some income.

To solve this, you need to balance your obligations to the government (property taxes), against obligations from the government (bonds of some kind).

I'll use TIPs for my example, because it's harder for the government to inflate away these obligations.

A plot of land might have taxes of $1,000/yr. It looks like TIPs give a fixed real rate of 1.3%. So, $77k in TIPS will balance out your taxes. You need to add that to the true price of the land.

Obviously, there is the question of how you obtain that capital. So in a sense we are generally born "in the red", and need to work our way out of these implicit debts. But it can be done, even within the system.

Really cool perspective

Two corrections:

1. If you look at recent Treasury auctions, 30-year TIPS are actually yielding 1.5%, not 1.3% (https://treasurydirect.gov/auctions/announcements-data-resul...).

2. In reality, you have a finite lifetime, so you can spend down the principal. Suppose you are 30 years old (about the youngest I could imagine this being possible), and that you plan on living to 100 (most people don't). That's 70 years. If you do the math, and use the 1.5% rate, it works out that you only need $43k, not $77k, to hit that $1k/yr number.

> 1. If you look at recent Treasury auctions, 30-year TIPS are actually yielding 1.5%, not 1.3%

Auction results only show the coupon rate on the TIPS, not the total yield.

All TIPS are currently yielding more than 2.1%: https://www.wsj.com/market-data/bonds/tips

> A plot of land might have taxes of $1,000/yr. It looks like TIPs give a fixed real rate of 1.3%. So, $77k in TIPS will balance out your taxes.

This math is wrong because you have to pay tax on the income from TIPS (unless you are low income enough that you net tax rate is 0%).

The real problem with that idea is that one's living expenses are almost certainly going to be more than $1000/year, even if you are able to grow enough calories and generate enough watts to be self sufficient.

In order to live off interest alone, you'd probably need $1M in assets or more. At that point, you could just live off the principle.

> I don't get to refuse work at a job or in general...

Living is work no matter where. The monestary, for example, is no different than having a job to generate tradeable value to live. The article might really be interested in places where you can live entirely self-sufficiently, without relying on inputs that society voluntarily grants.

For example, the Into the Wild guy in Alaska. He "lived" for "free", for a short time, but he still relied on an old vehicle for shelter (from society) and had a bunch of clothes and provisions. So, that fits the mold only if you include becoming a thief or outlaw and just taking things from society without trade or agreement, Not done successfully, anywhere, for any length of time.

> just taking things from society without trade or agreement

Isn't it what some arostocratic and monarchy families do?

This is a radical aside that extrapolates my meaning to an extreme. I don't mean to say people had ought to refuse work altogether, moreso that it would be ideal if one could refuse to pay taxes to a government insistent on fueling wars, or that one could withdraw from work or more generally systems which one views as egregious. Conversely some middle ground might be acceptable.

While this does exist in theory, as I said, there are significant caveats. These are largely derived from the structure. However, I argue that the function could be optimized outside of, or with modification of the system. But overall the system in and of itself is self-reinforcing so there is a substantial barrier to such improvements, and such alterations will be made against an "adversarial network" for lack of a better term.

> As it's currently ordered society is a forced participation regime

Yes, as long as an entity owns the land they want to get paid for it - either to live on it, game, cross

I’d say the free life doesn’t scale but maybe it doesn’t have to for those that can find their own corner of Earth

Do Bedouin tribes pay taxes or tariff ?

What is the natural course of things?

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