Government for the people. How?

[Izzy]

The objective of this thread is to altruistically* design a political structure wherein the needs and interests of EVERY inhabitant of this country are met. (None of this "general public" crap, we should try to make everyone happy. ) It's impossible to not be aware of how inconceivable this sounds, but I think by being mindful of what we're trying to accomplish, but.. just might be feasible?**

Now, before we can even begin devising laws, creating our constitution, bill of rights, etc., I think it's best we assemble a list of what people want from their government. Feel free to contribute ANYTHING. (I stole some of these from the world's smallest political quiz and the bill of rights. >_>)

1. Government should not censor speech, press, media, or internet.
2. Military service should be voluntary.
3. There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults, where a consenting adult is anyone of 16 years of age or older.
4. Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs.
5. End government barriers to international free trade.
6. Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security.
7. Keep government welfare, but no taxation without representation.
8. Freedom of speech, religion, sexuality, peaceful protests, and petition.
9. Soldiers may not be quartered in a house without the consent of the owner.
10. People may not be unreasonably searched or kept in captivity.
11. The right to a free, public, and speedy trial.
12. Laws are to remain the same from State to State.
13. Eventual globalization is a priority.

*We can get into the semantics of altruism later. I have.. mixed feelings, but this most closely elucidates my intentions. (Lol, I swear, I bounce back and forth from being the apathetic hippy civilian who just wants to live to the extremely fervent humanitarian practically daily. >_>)
** Eh, truthfully, it isn't. Too many people disagree on matters of religion, which define the moral code for a LOT of people (even if they don't strictly adhere to it, haha). We need to agree now to define morals for ourselves and not base them off of religious texts. Like, if someone proposes "Don't kill", that's perfectly acceptable, and I expect it to be fully ratified. If someone else suggests "Love God", this is more open to debate. While you can submit ideas that coincide with religious texts, submit them because they are mandates you want and agree with, not just because your scripture of choice tells you to follow them.

Edited February 13, 2014 by bonanova

[Guest]

As Izzy has been saying, in your world, what happens if a group of people come together and form a government and then a few years later, they want to amend the contract, but they come to a disagreement on what the amendment should say?

Again you are making bad assumptions about the system I am suggesting. Why do you assume I'm suggesting individuals join such tyrannical governments? I mean, if you want to sign your freedom away permanently I'm not going to stop you, but I certainly wouldn't join such a government myself. Personally I would only sign a contract connecting myself to a government if the government was temporary and had an expiration date. I wouldn't ever sign my life or my future children's lives over to a government that I might wish to leave years down the line. So the issues that you say would occur in my world wouldn't occur with me. They might occur with people like you as they do in our current world. People formed the United States. Now what do the people who want to amend the government or leave it do? It's your system that has that flaw. My system of contractual governments allows individuals who want to avoid that problem avoid it simply by not signing onto such tyrannical governments that they may not be able to leave in the future. In my system I can just choose to have an expiration date on my government so that we can either choose to renew it at that point or I can choose a new government if I don't like how mine is going.

There's no intrinsic "right" to property, but we decided at some point in our evolution that if everyone could take anything someone else currently possessed, there would be chaos. Now that we have the concept of property, it's developed from our contractual agreements, but we still don't have a specific "right" to it. We just agree that ignoring property rights would be more chaotic. Ignoring laws would be the same way. If people could opt-out of any law with which they disagreed (something that seems to me to be inevitable in your society), then it would only be a matter of time for chaos to reign.

Wow, back to back bad assumptions. Of course we don't have an intrinsic "right" to property. Nobody has any intrinsic "rights" to food, shelter, health care, freedom, or anything else. Rather, as you said, people come to agree that they would rather live in a system in which people can own property. They agree on who owns what and then set up a government to protect their property. Wouldn't you choose to join such a government? Why would ever assume that it would be "inevitable" that people would form agreements with each other in which at any point they can just decide to leave the agreement without any consequences? You can't seriously think that people are THAT stupid.

This is entirely speculation on your part. You do not know what will benefit society in the long run; none of us do. You think that dropping the lower class from the scale will help, while we think boosting the lower class will solve the problem.

Of course none of us know with certainty what will happen if we do certain things. But, I am quite confident that it will not benefit society to pay for an extremely deformed baby to have a billion dollar surgery with tax money in order to help it live. Why in the world would you ever consider such a thing a right? Do you seriously think that a billion dollar operation to save this worthless deformed baby would be a good idea? Bill Gates could easily afford it and the money would just be "transferred" to many doctors and scientists and construction workers paid to build the hospital, thus causing it to help the economy too! Won't those doctors appreciate the business! Yipee! Seriously though, do you not see how insane this is and how bad all of you all's reasoning is in support of paying for the ridiculous surgery for the baby that is clearly far too expensive for the value of the baby? I would confidently say that a million dollars is too expensive to save the vast majority of babies born without arms or legs, but if you guys need to ask yourself the question with the surgery costing a billion dollars instead in order to see why your "human right" to health care is completely retarded not only because it helps you justify stealing from rich people, but also because it would hurt society as a whole, then please do so: If you had to choose between having the government pay for a billion dollar operation to save a baby born without arms or legs or letting the baby die, which would you choose?

Everybody answer the above question in bold please. I will know whether or not I am going to continue discussing politics with you people based on your answers. Please don't refuse to answer because you deem the question "absurd" or anything like that. And also, don't just say "that wouldn't happen; no surgery is that expensive." The point is that there are surgeries that far too expensive to pay for even if we are capable of paying for them (thanks to very rich people like Bill Gates). If you deny this then please deny it in a clear statement for me by answering this question: Do you think that there are medical surgeries and other possible procedures that somebody could potentially receive as a form of health care that are too expensive for society to pay for?

[Izzy]

..I only read your massive paragraph and your bolded statement (kinda busy atm, can't properly reply), but save the baby. Ffs.

Maybe one of the things we need to focus on is not having ridiculously overpriced medical procedures.

You value money over human life, not even realizing money is merely a human invention. It's disgusting.

[Guest]

UtF: dawh said everything I was thinking on your posts.

About the health care: My idea is that you would have had to have tried to get a job in order to be able to get anything. Any company you apply for must send proof of your attempt to the government, and you must apply to at least 3 places a month (or have a job of course) to be qualified. I agree that we have to eliminate the free riders.

Okay. Would it do any good to say that I think that you'll never be able to clear up all of the partial-free riders and the more regulations you put in your system will make for more loopholes and more confusion preventing people from being able to just produce? Anyways, go ahead and have you society full of regulations, but again, don't force me to support it with my money. Why do you refuse to allow me to stop paying into your government and stop receiving services as well? There are already many poor people who don't have to pay a cent and yet you are happy to give them services. So what do you have against me stopping paying taxes and stop receiving benefits from your programs either. I'll gladly give up free food and shelter and welfare and social security and everything else you are able to give stop providing me in exchange for getting to decide what to do with my money. Sure, practically I still might have roads in front of my house or things like that, but you don't seem to mind giving these things to poor people for free. What do you have against me so much? What do you have against people who produce things and profit? Why treat me differently than a poor person? Does my production hurt you more than a poor person or hurt society more than a person? Would you rather have me stop producing so I become a poor person? I wish not to provide funds nor receive services from your government. Will you support my request or does the fact that I produce things that your society likes cause you to refuse to give me freedom over my money?

[unreality]

I haven't read anything of the past like 10 pages lol, nor am I very informed on health care, but I read just your bolded sentence and the paragraph and my answer is: save their life

[Guest]

Maybe one of the things we need to focus on is not having ridiculously overpriced medical procedures.

I support the right of someone who makes a lot of money to be able to buy an expensive procedure if he so desires. Perhaps if you want to find cheaper, lower quality procedures to use in your univeral health care system, however, then I would support you over the alternative that you seem to be advocating which is having my good-quality health care for everyone, even the worthless babies.

You value money over human life, not even realizing money is merely a human invention. It's disgusting.

Now you must be trying to be ignorant. Do you really think I don't realize that humans came up with the concept of money?

A man's money represents what he produces, as long as he makes the money honestly rather than stealing it or scamming fools. Thus, I would call a person who makes money through honest work is a valuable person. On the other hand, just because somebody is a human doesn't make them valuable. Do you consider Osama Bin Laden to be valuable? Probably not (I would answer "of course not"), because he doesn't produce anything in society that you like, but instead destroys the things you give value to. So why do you consider a neutral baby who neither produces nor destroys as something of an inherent amount of high value? He only will ever produce anything after you invest a billion dollars in him, in which case I highly, highly doubt that he will ever be able to produce anything worth at all close to a billion dollars. Thus, he's not worth spending the energy to keep alive. So you're right: I don't give any inherent value to a human just by being a human. I wouldn't call that disgusting at all though. I would call it smart if what you desire is a prosperous world in the future. And because that is what I value, I am glad that I don't have silly emotional reasons to prevent me from making the right decisions regarding human lives.

..I only read your massive paragraph and your bolded statement (kinda busy atm, can't properly reply), but save the baby. Ffs.

I saved your first statement for last because I am most definitely dumbfounded. The fact that you would support paying a billion dollars to save this worthless baby is beyond me. I honestly expected to say that of course you wouldn't save it if it cost a billion dollars, but apparently you have no idea of the value of money. Tell me, how much would you be willing to have the government pay to save such a baby without limbs? If the surgery cost $500 billion would you support the government paying for it? Give me an estimate of the maximum cost that you would be willing to have the government pay to save the baby's life.

My estimate for the maximum amount of money I would personally want the government to pay to save an ordinary child born to ordinary, typical, or average (whatever term you want to use) poor parents, would be less than $100,000. There would have to be some very special circumstances to cause me to want to pay close to $100,000 or pay anything more. Why? Well, how much would it cost to have the couple have another child that perhaps even might be free from the birth defects? Certainly not $100,000 worth of energy. Perhaps a very wealthy person might value their time that much, but there's very little way I would support spending $100,000 just to have a poor couple be able to keep their deformed baby alive. The baby simply isn't worth nearly $100,000 to society. You say that's disgusting? I call it sane.

Convert a billion dollars worth of effort into animal terms. If it were to cost a billion dollars worth of energy in lemur energy terms to save the weak lemur on the mother's back, then that would mean that it would take many, many individual lemurs spending a great deal of their time gathering food or whatever you want to call their "work", in order to afford to save this weak lemur that that ordinarily a lemur mother would leave to die. Surely doing such a thing would suck all of the energy out of the other lemurs who were planning on spending their efforts on having their own children, and thus spending all that energy to save that lemur individual would be quite a bad decision if you cared about the success of the lemur species as a whole. Sure, that individual might live, but at what cost to the society? Do you really seriously want to hurt society that much and support paying a billion dollars to save a baby born without arms or legs? It's irrationality like that that made me think you were religious. I don't even know of a religious person with messed up religious values who would support such a thing. All you need is a basic understanding of money to see that it's totally not worth paying anything at all close to a billion dollars to save the baby.

[Guest]

Well, first of all, you can't really demand that we do or don't do anything. That's our prerogative. I think that you of all people would agree with that.

Second, I will say that the question is ridiculous because it is completely out of proportion of anything that can be expected. With today's exchange rates, there is no person who would be a liable to have a shot in heck of living if the cost would be $1 billion. They would be long dead before any bill racked up that high. You're the one who brought this up, so you can't insist that we have to answer it on your terms. We never agreed to those terms. Besides, you rarely know how much something is going to cost before the fact. No one would go into it expecting it to cost that much (or even a 1/10 of that amount, which would be an extreme case). So I would say that it depends on the circumstances. I would say it's best to try to save the life if it could be saved, but I couldn't tell you when I would say enough is enough. I'm not one to make that kind of judgment call.

Wow, back to back bad assumptions. Of course we don't have an intrinsic "right" to property. Nobody has any intrinsic "rights" to food, shelter, health care, freedom, or anything else. Rather, as you said, people come to agree that they would rather live in a system in which people can own property. They agree on who owns what and then set up a government to protect their property. Wouldn't you choose to join such a government? Why would ever assume that it would be "inevitable" that people would form agreements with each other in which at any point they can just decide to leave the agreement without any consequences? You can't seriously think that people are THAT stupid.

My point was that people, in general, don't think things through to the full logical conclusion. What about all the people who get themselves embroiled in all sorts of scammy contracts? Can you expect them to go into a contract negotiation knowing everything that they will want/need? You didn't really answer the question posed (not that I was asking you to answer it publicly anyway): if people make contractual governments, and then have a falling out, how would you resolve that "morally"? If the contract is no longer in what you view as your best interests, but a majority of people who signed it still think it is, what would you do? Would you grin and bare it? Would you try to leave? What you initially thought was a good idea is now not a good idea in your view. You either start impinging on people's rights again in your new world or you let them continually form new governments. Either very little of substance changes from the current arrangement (though I guess you would argue those changes are significant) or you get chaotic, constantly shifting winds.

As for the poor right now in this country, they do pay taxes. They just aren't paying income taxes. They still pay sales taxes. They still pay service taxes. They still pay gas taxes and tobacco taxes. They still pay payroll taxes if they have a job. But they don't make enough income to pay income taxes and have enough left over to have a family or just live alone. So to say that they pay no taxes is mistaken. They still pay taxes for most of the services they use. For instance, the gas tax pays for roads. So you can't just say that the poor don't pay any taxes because it just isn't true. Please consider what we're saying. We're trying to build a consensus here; it works best when we're all working from the same playbook. And please consider looking up some political philosophers, I don't really care which, but Locke and Rousseau form the basis for our current system and that's why I think it would be a good place to start. You might learn something from those old fogies.

[Guest]

I haven't read anything of the past like 10 pages lol, nor am I very informed on health care, but I read just your bolded sentence and the paragraph and my answer is: save their life

Wait, really? For a billion dollars? I don't believe you're serious. Do you realize how much money a billion dollars is? Before wasting it on a worthless baby, you should consider spending it on many cheaper procedures for others that would be more efficient and on matters like education. To show you the value of money, imagine that there is a town in City, State, USA, that is currently in a lot of poverty, but with a billion dollars it could be transformed into a much better town with good quality hospitals and schools and roads and houses and regular-quality health care (none of this expensive nonsense) for the people in it. Would you rather spend the billion dollars (in an efficient manner, hint, hint) by transforming City, State, USA into a great quality town that will be able to sustain itself and educate its children with the money that you invested in it for years to come, or would you rather spend the billion dollars to keep this one baby without arms or legs alive? Personally I could care less about the baby if it were to cost a billion dollars to save. I would much rather choose spending my money towards a more worthwhile task.

[gvg]

UtF:

You can't seriously think that people are THAT stupid.

I do. They may not realize what they are doing at the time.

Also, I'm sorry, but 1 BILLION is too much, although I don't think it would ever cost that much. But I must ask you: Would you save someone like Bill Gates if the procedure was 1 trillion dollars? (I know it's too high, I'm just wondering)

My estimate would be a couple mil.

And poor people do pay taxes as dawh says.

And by the way, I have nothing against you or the rich. My thought is this: Why shouldn't the one's who can help the most help those who deserve to be helped, the hard working poor so down on their luck that they'll never be able to break out of poverty and have to watch as their children attempt to as well?

What do YOU have against the honest, working poor? (I hate free riders too, so...)

[Izzy]

Again, haven't read anything (I'll get to it shortly), but here's an alternative scenario.

UTF, let's pretend I kidnapped you. To put my canibalistic desires to a rest, I chopped off your arms and legs and ate them. However, I'm a nice person, and will let you live. However, I put you up for a $1 billion dollar ransom. Now, I'm sure you'll say you have potential in life. I'm also sure others will disagree. Do you want the government to pay to save you? Or would you prefer I eat you?

Same scenario, almost.

[unreality]

Wait, really? For a billion dollars? I don't believe you're serious. Do you realize how much money a billion dollars is? Before wasting it on a worthless baby, you should consider spending it on many cheaper procedures for others that would be more efficient and on matters like education. To show you the value of money, imagine that there is a town in City, State, USA, that is currently in a lot of poverty, but with a billion dollars it could be transformed into a much better town with good quality hospitals and schools and roads and houses and regular-quality health care (none of this expensive nonsense) for the people in it. Would you rather spend the billion dollars (in an efficient manner, hint, hint) by transforming City, State, USA into a great quality town that will be able to sustain itself and educate its children with the money that you invested in it for years to come, or would you rather spend the billion dollars to keep this one baby without arms or legs alive? Personally I could care less about the baby if it were to cost a billion dollars to save. I would much rather choose spending my money towards a more worthwhile task.

you didn't ask me to compare between a city and a baby. You asked me to compare between a billion dollars and a baby. To bring in the whole city thing you have to establish such a system where the money will go to efficiently help all that happen. Which in your system it seems that the billion will just stay in the hands of the rich either way

[Izzy]

Now you must be trying to be ignorant. Do you really think I don't realize that humans came up with the concept of money?

Chill with the childish insults? (Again, only reading what sticks out to me. I WILL get to it haha. Today has been so busy.) I really don't care whether or not you realize money is a concept. If you're choosing a concept over life, you don't deserve to live. How much would you kill yourself for? One million? Two?

[Izzy]

Woo, just skimmed the last few pages. And what a hateful few pages they were.

UtF, stop with the holier-than-thou, pretentious, hypocritical, self-righteous ego-tripping posts. Frankly, calling us stupid and ignorant is immature and if you were a serious politician, your insults would be laughable. If you have an opinion to make, state it, but cut the superiority crap. If you call me stupid one more time, I will personally report you. If I'm not understanding your posts the way I'm intended to, reword them.

Secondly. I think taxes are a small price to pay for a nation's support, protection, and benefits. If you disagree, move.

Thirdly. Didn't we just decide that we were getting no where, and were going to vote on this?

Fourthly. I await your answer to my kidnapping scenario.

Edited July 22, 2010 by Izzy

[gvg]

UtF:

Say that baby was the son of a rich man. He could easily pay the 1 billion without help.

Does it seem right to you that just because that baby was lucky enough to have a rich father that it would survive, as opposed to the poor one, who is going under this scrutiny? Does the other baby have more potential because of it's father????

And by the way: US pop. = 400 million.

That equals $2.50 per person on a non-progressive tax.

Think about it.

[Izzy]

Hey, watching the Joy Behar show right now. The average age of a homeless person in America person is 9 years old, and 40% of homeless people in America are under 6.

Yeah, our system is definitely working. Of course, UtF doesn't care, because they were born there and ought to stay there.

Edited July 23, 2010 by Izzy

[gvg]

Woah. I didn't know that.

Scary actually.

[Guest]

if people make contractual governments, and then have a falling out, how would you resolve that "morally"? If the contract is no longer in what you view as your best interests, but a majority of people who signed it still think it is, what would you do? Would you grin and bare it? Would you try to leave? What you initially thought was a good idea is now not a good idea in your view. You either start impinging on people's rights again in your new world or you let them continually form new governments.

Well I already told you I wouldn't sign my power rights and power away to a government unless there was temporary. If there was an expiration date of a couple years then I would only have to wait a little while if I realized that joining the government was a mistake. The fools who might give up their rights aren't really of a concern to me, but if you're wondering what I might do if someone tricked me into doing such a foolish thing, perhaps I would do what I am doing right now to you regarding the US government. The difference would be that I would have to say that I actually made a choice to join the government, but I realize that it was a mistake. I'd try to find a way to leave without ripping of the government and other people in it. For example, I might buy my way out or buy my way out of whatever services I was foolish enough to agree to pay for, and then leave so that I don't have to continue paying for them in the future. I don't know what you want me to answer with; it totally would depend on the specific circumstance. Anyways, the fact that some people might be stupid and sign their lives away to a government like the USA that controls them and their kids forever without an expiration date isn't reason to take away people's right to a choice.

And why do you assume that giving people choices about what they whether or not they want to give their government money for services, etc, would either fail because it would be the same as now (so isn't now a fail in your view?) or else become extremely chaotic? Do you really think that people are so stupid that if given a choice they would choose something worse than our current government? Why not just keep the default a "choice" for our current government and then allow others who aren't stupid leave (by "leave" I mean choose to not pay for government programs and not receive the benefits from them either). I'm not arguing for chaos or stupid people getting mixed up in dictatorships by signing their lives away. All I'm asking for is that you support my right to not pay taxes and not receive services from the government that I pay taxes for. I don't want to pay for social security and I don't want the benefits from it. I don't want to pay for politicians to do things with my money in Congress and I don't want the services that they might give me. Why don't you support that? Millions of people already don't pay taxes and yet you don't complain? Why are you forcing me to pay taxes just because I produce things that people in society like?

As for the poor right now in this country, they do pay taxes. They just aren't paying income taxes. They still pay sales taxes. They still pay service taxes. They still pay gas taxes and tobacco taxes. They still pay payroll taxes if they have a job. But they don't make enough income to pay income taxes and have enough left over to have a family or just live alone. So to say that they pay no taxes is mistaken.

You're right, I was talking about income taxes only. What I should have said is that the amount of money that most poor people pay in all forms of taxes (including income taxes and all of those other types of taxes you mentioned) is far less than the services that they receive from the government. In other words, you are forcing the wealthy producers to support the poor people who often can't produce enough to stay alive themselves. I'm saying that it's fine for the rich to support the poor (I, myself, would do that too), but I'm saying it's immoral for you to point a gun at a rich person and force them to pay for the poor.

Edited July 23, 2010 by Use the Force

[Guest]

UtF:

I do. They may not realize what they are doing at the time.

Also, I'm sorry, but 1 BILLION is too much, although I don't think it would ever cost that much. But I must ask you: Would you save someone like Bill Gates if the procedure was 1 trillion dollars? (I know it's too high, I'm just wondering)

My estimate would be a couple mil.

And poor people do pay taxes as dawh says.

And by the way, I have nothing against you or the rich. My thought is this: Why shouldn't the one's who can help the most help those who deserve to be helped, the hard working poor so down on their luck that they'll never be able to break out of poverty and have to watch as their children attempt to as well?

What do YOU have against the honest, working poor? (I hate free riders too, so...)

Well Bill Gates has the money, not me. But, if we ignored that fact by saying he suddenly lost all of his wealth to somebody else magically or something, I still wouldn't pay a trillion dollars at all to pay for him. First of all, he personally doesn't produce much today. There are many other people who could replace him. I probably wouldn't pay a billion dollars to save him either and I wouldn't be surprised if he wouldn't pay a billion dollars to save himself either.

Anyways, my point with the value thing is that economically it's only worth paying X amount of money for a medical procedure on someone if that is going to allow for X more money to be made than if the procedure isn't done (and I don't mean money made by the doctors and others receiving the cost of the procedure). Now, in reality there are probably many instances where I would support paying the X amount of money even if I didn't quite think that would cause them to be able to produce X amount of money. But, that's because people produce things all of the time without producing it for money. If the medical procedure costing X would allow the person to raise a kid or make his spouse happier allowing her to perform better at work, or blah blah blah affect other people and help them be more productive without money involved, then I would take into account the value of all of those things when considering that against the cost of the procedure. So it's not just them making X more money, but rather, it's them being of X more value or more as a result of receiving the procedure costing X.

What do YOU have against the honest, working poor? (I hate free riders too, so...)

No matter how little money or wealth they have, I probably wouldn't call them poor if they were producing enough to sustain themselves. Now, this becomes difficult to judge because you would have to take into account the value of the government benefits, etc, that they are receiving. Anyways, I don't think we're having a debate about the middle cases. We're having a debate about whether or not we ought to spend insane amounts of money to save babies that are of little value, relative to the cost of the medical procedures that would be needed to save their lives. But, as for your statement quoted above, I don't have anything against them if they are producing enough to support themselves. I also don't have anything against them if they're not producing enough to support themselves. I also don't have anything against (other than the immoral theft part, but I'm talking personally right now) them if they're not producing enough to support themselves and they are being given some government aid as long as that is because they are young, etc, and thus there is reason to believe that by supporting them you will help them to be able to grow to become more productive adults that are likely to produce more than they consume. What I do have something against (other than the immoral theft part again) is giving government aid to people who will likely not become much more productive as the result of the aid (i.e. the amount more productive for them and everyone else will be less than the amount of aid). I've already explained all of this though. It's the "bad investment" business. A billion dollar operation is almost always going to be a bad investment, for a newborn baby, me, you, or Bill Gates. All that I'm against is these bad investments (and the immoral theft part... because who are we to decide what good investments / bad investments are? I certainty wouldn't support declaring my view superior and using that as justification to give rich peoples' money to poor people against their will). So to clear it up, it's not exactly poor people: it's people who don't produce or who won't produce much more (how much is "much more"? the amount of the cost of the medical procedure) as a result of the medical procedures. So a lot of old people, etc, fit into this category too. I will note though that if an old person wants to spend their money on themselves in something that I would consider a "bad investment" to society, then I'm fine with that because it's there money to spend. If they want to spend it on other old people too, that's fine too.

The reason why I made this whole big argument anyways, though, is because I thought the common view on the goal of government was to help out society so that the people of society aren't living lives of chaos, but rather can live orderly so as to be able to be more productive overall as a nation. If that's true, then a government shouldn't take large sums of money from rich people and spend them on procedures for poor people that aren't worth spending that amount of money on because doing such things are bad investments for society overall. Sure you're helping out the poor people, but you aren't helping out the country as a whole by doing such things.

[Guest]

Again, haven't read anything (I'll get to it shortly), but here's an alternative scenario.

UTF, let's pretend I kidnapped you. To put my canibalistic desires to a rest, I chopped off your arms and legs and ate them. However, I'm a nice person, and will let you live. However, I put you up for a $1 billion dollar ransom. Now, I'm sure you'll say you have potential in life. I'm also sure others will disagree. Do you want the government to pay to save you? Or would you prefer I eat you?

Same scenario, almost.

Do you seriously not know my answer? I find that offensive. Do you really think that I'm so arrogant that I think I'm worth a billion dollars? Of course not. I wouldn't pay the ransom, for a number of reasons (and on the basis of any single reason given below alone I would choose to not pay the ransom):

1) I don't value my life at a billion dollars or more.

2) You'd get the money, which I wouldn't want.

3) I'd be stealing the money from people against their will, which of course is immoral. However, even if I owned the billion dollars, I would still choose to not pay the ransom and would instead leave my money behind for whatever wise people I would be capable of giving the money to. Someone extremely selfish like yourself might ask why so I'll tell you why: Because my life isn't worth a billion dollars, regardless of who pays it.

I would only would give you the ransom if I had good reason to believe that the value of the billion dollars was going to drop away (e.g. if it was US dollars then I would have to have reason to think there was going to be a great depression soon, etc, before you could spend the money or secure its value by converting it to another form of currency, etc). A second possible time that I might pay the ransom would be if I thought it was quite likely that law enforcement (or whoever else) would stop you before you could spend the money, etc. Then, the money could always be retrieved and no harm would be done. Anyways, both of these exceptions to me not paying the ransom are just ways that I wouldn't actually be giving you a billion dollars of value for you to control, in which case, I would of course prevent myself from being eaten.

Any by the way, you could lower the ransom down from 1 billion to a few million and my answer would be the same. The lower you made the cost, the more I would have to think about it and the more details I would need before I could confidently make a decision whether or not to pay the ransom. In other words, I don't at all have enough information to come up with even a small range of values that I would see as the "border" of a ransom that I would pay versus a ransom that I wouldn't pay. A billion dollars is definitely far above this border though, so I can answer you confidently about that one.

[Izzy]

Why do you value colorful paper over LIFE?!

*edit* And our paper isn't even colorful!

Edited July 23, 2010 by Izzy

[Guest]

you didn't ask me to compare between a city and a baby. You asked me to compare between a billion dollars and a baby. To bring in the whole city thing you have to establish such a system where the money will go to efficiently help all that happen. Which in your system it seems that the billion will just stay in the hands of the rich either way

Even if you inefficiently spend the billion dollars towards the city, you can still help improve it a ton more in value then you would be improving the value of the baby.

And I did ask you to compare it to the city and to absolutely anything else that a billion dollars is worth. A billion dollars has a value. It isn't just something that is exchanged for fun. It's traded in exchange for goods and services of similar value. You're deeming the baby's value worth a billion dollars. I'm saying that the baby isn't worth at all close to a billion dollars and that the repairs you could do on a city even inefficiently might only be worth half a billion dollars, but I would still rather only waste half the money on that than waste it on a baby that is worth less than a million dollars.

You and gvg and Izzy and possible dawh are obviously having a problem understanding the value of money compared to the value of human lives so I'll try to give you another way to show you why I definitely don't support what you are saying you support:

Let's pretend you're playing a video game in which you are acting as a "god" and are controlling a civilization and the people in it, trying to build up a great society. In it you get to decide where all of the resources produced by every individual in your civilization are spent. I'm thinking of Age of Empires or any game like that where you control a whole society and how all of their resources are spent. In Age of Empires you can build villagers for 50 food. Once you pay that amount and they are built then they are able to work and do all kinds of great things for your civilization. Now let's say that in the game you pay 10 food to get the baby and another 40 food to raise it to adult working status that you can actually use in the game. Now imagine that after you pay 10 food you get a baby without arms or legs. Thus, rather than costing 40 food to turn it into a working adult, you have to pay 1000 food to save it from dieing and then proceed to pay 40 food to raise it. Would you choose to pay the 1000 food to save the baby? Of course not. You could always buy another baby for 10 food. So in this game I give babies the value of 10 food. Why? Because you can replace it for the cost of 10 food. If you want your society to prosper, there's no reason to pay 1000 food to save it, even if the villagers have human qualities that make it difficult to predict how productive they will be as adults (perhaps some villagers can work very hard and make a lot of food while other will be duds). Even with this, there's still no reason to think that the baby without arms or legs is going to be extraordinarily productive when it grows up and make 1000 food more than the average baby. Thus, you'll take a chance that you're throwing out the most productive baby alive and instead not pay the 1000 food and just pay 10 food to make another baby instead.

Now I don't think there's anything wrong with using the above reasoning in politics. Why? Because I'm not religious and I don't hold any religious values that attaches me to individuals that are replaceable for 10 food. If it would cost 1000 food or a million or billion dollars to save the baby, then I would look at society as a whole and say, of course we shouldn't save the baby. Why would we do that? Our civilization is the same as the same thing as the game civilization. I want the society to prosper. How can I do that in the game if I'm spending so much of my resources on saving babies? Just have another baby. The same applies to real life. Why would you ever give human life an inherent value just by being human? If you have another baby instead then that baby would have the value too that you adore and it will be the same except you'll have a billion dollars to spend on something else.

[Izzy]

We're don't have a problem understanding the value of money. We are telling you a life is worth more than money, and you are disagreeing. If you apply your logic to everyone (not that I'd think you actually would, for the fear of you thinking I'm implying you're stupid again ), everyone dies and all money becomes meaningless.

People don't need money to be happy, they need a functioning society and other people. Society has the ability to function regardless of how much we pay for it, because the goods exist and money is just conveinient. If I had children, and you told me to pick between my house and my child, my child all the way. That answer is going to be the same with almost every person you meet. It just so happens you fall into the other category, but that doesn't make you right, no matter how you argue it. People are going to choose people over money the same way we're going to choose beds over sleeping bags and e-mails over written letters.

[Guest]

We're don't have a problem understanding the value of money. We are telling you a life is worth more than money, and you are disagreeing. If you apply your logic to everyone (not that I'd think you actually would, for the fear of you thinking I'm implying you're stupid again ), everyone dies and all money becomes meaningless.

Apply my logic to everyone and everyone dies? Okay, you're definitely out of it.

"We are telling you a life is worth more than money, and you are disagreeing." How much money? I'm saying that it would only cost a few thousand dollars at the most to have a mother have a baby, so why pay a billion dollars to save it? Why not just have another one so that you can spend the billion dollars on more worthy tasks?

So I do strongly disagree with all of you in that I don't suddenly give something a ton of value just because it is a human. I would say you are crazy for thinking that (then again, a lot of people think that, so don't feel like I'm singling you out).

Let me ask you another question about how much you value lives, if I may:

In a hypothetical situation that may be quite impractical, but is only meant to see how much you value certain things, there are two groups of people. One group is composed of 5 1-day-old babies without arms or legs. The other group is composed of 2 1-day-old babies that are ordinarily healthy. You're only able to save one group. The group that you do not save dies. If you do not choose to save either group, both groups will die in five minutes. Which group do you save?

People don't need money to be happy, they need a functioning society and other people. Society has the ability to function regardless of how much we pay for it, because the goods exist and money is just conveinient. If I had children, and you told me to pick between my house and my child, my child all the way. That answer is going to be the same with almost every person you meet. It just so happens you fall into the other category, but that doesn't make you right, no matter how you argue it. People are going to choose people over money the same way we're going to choose beds over sleeping bags and e-mails over written letters.

I wouldn't choose one bed over one billion sleeping bags. You're forgetting that a billion dollars and ten thousand dollars aren't the same thing. They represent different amounts of work and energy.

And I too would likely save a child (depending on the specific child / age of that child) in exchange for burning down my house. I'm not saying I value money more than people. I'm saying that there are some amounts of money that are great enough that they are more valuable than some individual lives. I'm also saying that you don't understand the concept of money for this reason. If we took away money and went back to "trading" or something else, and you had a child that was born without arms and legs. It was going to die unless you took Bob's offer. Bob's offer was that you and a thousand friends and family must spend your entire lives working to build him a house and his family and friends some houses and in exchange he will keep your baby alive. Assuming your dozen friends are like you and would go along with the offer if you wanted to go along with it, would you have you and your thousand friends and family work your whole lives to keep your one baby alive? I shouldn't even have to use this argument because you should see that a baby is replaceable with only a small amount of energy, but because your values seem to prevent you from liking the idea of replacing a baby, I instead present you with this scenario to show you how messed up your values are. You're not going to make a billion dollars building houses your entire life. Your house-building work might amount to a million dollars if you're an outstanding worker. So that means you need you and a thousand friends to work your whole lives in order to make an even trade with this guy Bob whose genius allows him to save your baby. Would you agree to Bob's trade? Would you and 1000 friends work your whole lives for Bob (and not receive any pay to stay alive yourselves, realize) to save your baby? Please tell me you're sane enough to say no.

[Guest]

Chill with the childish insults? (Again, only reading what sticks out to me. I WILL get to it haha. Today has been so busy.) I really don't care whether or not you realize money is a concept. If you're choosing a concept over life, you don't deserve to live. How much would you kill yourself for? One million? Two?

I'm not trying to insult you, I'm trying to wake you up. Of course money is a concept, but it's also a tool we use to measure the value of goods and services. I'm saying that the service of saving a baby is not at all worth a billion dollars. You're saying it is. I'm saying if you think that then you don't understand the concept of a billion dollars. Saying that you would spend the billion dollars to save the baby is the same thing as saying you would do a billion dollars worth of work to save the baby. In other words, you are supporting you and a thousand friends working your entire lives for Bob (see previous post) to save your baby. If you would really do that (waste 1000 lives to save 1 baby) then you're absolutely nuts or you simply don't understand the concept of money.

On the subject of the Bob example in my last post:

I just thought of another error some of you might make in your reasoning. That error is that you might say that in the Bob example you are creating houses while working which somehow would justify saving the baby. To solve that problem, in Bob's trade he will be as irrational as you and will ask you and your thousand friends to dig holes in the ground for him for your entire lives and in exchange he will save your baby without arms or legs.

[Guest]

UtF:

Say that baby was the son of a rich man. He could easily pay the 1 billion without help.

Does it seem right to you that just because that baby was lucky enough to have a rich father that it would survive, as opposed to the poor one, who is going under this scrutiny? Does the other baby have more potential because of it's father????

And by the way: US pop. = 400 million.

That equals $2.50 per person on a non-progressive tax.

Think about it.

You're making the mistake of saying that it only costs $2.50 to save the baby because you get to spread out the cost across a lot of people. But, you're still valuing the baby's life at a billion dollars. It doesn't matter who is paying for it. The baby isn't worth that much effort. See my Bob example at the end of my post (post number 273) on page 28 of this thread (and also note the bold statement in post 274, changing the "building houses" to "digging holes").

[Guest]

Why do you value colorful paper over LIFE?!

*edit* And our paper isn't even colorful!

Do you value a billion dollars of colorful paper less than your house? If so, give me your money, I'll gladly give you some of my physical possessions that you value more than colorful paper.