[jeofken]

The best case would be a parallel economy developing, where you can hide yourself from government. No burglar can cost you as much as government. I sadly have yet to find a client for coding who wants to pay in crypto and not report it to the state...

[ineedasername]

That would only work on a small scale. Large scale, truly massive adoption can't occur until the major financial institutions are on board. If businesses can't legally accept it, put it in a bank, make loan payments with it, all of the normal things you do with money-- or have off ramps to convert to currency to allow that-- then you won't get widespread adoption.

[jeofken]

This is true for large business. But an independent contractor, a hair dresser, a carpenter, a plumber, or any number of other people can do business without involving the violent and coercive group known as the state

[ineedasername]

As I said, small scale. All of those people in those jobs may want to buy a car, a house, go food shopping at a store that doesn't take crypto... If they're only paid in crypto, they can't do those things unless there's on-ramps and off-ramps from crypto currencies. Those ramps are bottlenecks subject to the regulations of the jurisdictions in which they take place.

At best, even if a shadow economy built up to facilitate those transactions, tax agencies (IRS for those of us in the US) will knock on a lot of doors and say "you have lots of stuff. That means you're receiving value of some sort. You owe us a cut of that, pay up."

[sokoloff]

Without you giving a discount equal to their marginal tax rate, they would likely be both complicit in tax fraud and paying more after taxes.

[jeofken]

Without tax I could provide my service at a lower rate and still make more, which I would then invest in the most efficient way I could, unlike government.

“Tax fraud” makes it sound like one breaks a contract - but I never agreed with the state who threatens me to include them in any transaction I make.

[juancampa]

Would you consider that be unethical?

[jeofken]

If ethics exists it must be universal - otherwise ethics is just = power.

If ethics is universal, rules apply equally to anyone.

Let’s say theft is not moral, unlike receiving a gift. Both are cases of receiving without payment - the difference being that “giver” giving voluntarily or not. The same goes for how sex is moral, but rape is the furthest from moral, or how work is moral but slavery isn’t.

Tax is money collected under threat of violence - pay, or be punished. It can thus not be moral if morality is universal.

It is also bound to be inefficient - spending “other people’s money” is easy, but when you spend it yourself, you ensure it is invested where it creates the greatest value, unless you’re an addict. This is evident as governments waste money in any way that can to buy rulers the currency they need most - votes or special interest groups goodwill.

[kypro]

Something I struggle with personally is how much money I give the government despite having significant ethical concerns over how my money is being spent.

I know my taxes have contributed to the death and suffering of countless people. I try to remind myself that it also helps some people, but I still struggle to justify my lack of resistance knowing that at least some amount will be used in ways I consider evil.

I think there is some pragmatism needed here though. As individuals we don't really have any incentive to pay taxes if they were optional. I think what's needed is more localised spending and the ability for local communities to withhold tax collectively when concerns are raised about how federal governments might spend it. This would give individuals far more input into how their tax money is spent and the system overall would be far more consensual and prompt people to ask if they're okay with x amount being spent developing nuclear weapons or killing civilians in distant lands. I do find it quite odd that the default assumption is that you're a bad person if you don't pay taxes. I suspect someone who avoids tax then contributes an equivalent amount to charity is almost certainly more ethnical than a tax payer like myself.

[jeofken]

If you are interested in universal morals, the effects of incentives, and a world without coercion, I’d recommend checking out the website of the Mises Institute or the podcast of Stefan Molyneux. Good night from a small socialist European country!

[ineedasername]

Probably illegal pretty much anywhere.

[jeofken]

Legal != ethical

[ineedasername]

Ethics are subjective. Asking "Is it ethical?" to a large group of people is little better than asking "Is chocolate the best flavor of ice cream?"

Legality is a more concrete and easier to give a firm answer to. If you want to have a reasonable conversation on the internet with random strangers of different belief systems, questions like "is it ethical" go right out the window.

[jeofken]

Are you objectively sure it’s subjective?

Ethics must be objective/universal, although cheating it is common and alluring.

Because ethics are universal the rules make sense even for children. It is wrong to lie, steal, rape, and kill, while it is right to honestly tell stories, receive gifts, have sex, and give life. In these words definition lies whether the receiving party partakes voluntary or is forced to.

Legality on the other hand is defined by who controls most guns. If might is right, why should not the strong group genocide the weak?

[ineedasername]

Ethics must be objective/universal

That's a bold statement without accepted axioms & subsequent proofs to build off of & establish the universality of ethics. There has never been universal agreement on any set of ethics. Genocide is itself an excellent example of that: It's not hard to find examples where those participating in the genocide believed their actions to be perfectly acceptable.

If you watch children for any length of time, you'll see that "universal ethics" are not readily apparent to them either. Children have to be taught not to hit people, that they can't take another child's toy (stealing) just because they want it, that lying isn't acceptable, etc. Plenty of people never learn those lessons, and have no problem violating them when the consequences can be avoided (and even many times when they can't)

Your other examples of what is right & wrong are also not universally agreed upon. It's not hard to find examples of any of those actions where people justify their actions as acceptable.

This is without even getting into the gray areas: Is it wrong to kill in self defense? Is it right to honestly tell your neighbor the story that his wife is cheating on him if he'd previously said "I'd kill my wife if she ever cheated on me"? Is it right for puppy mills to give life to animals it will kill in a few months if someone doesn't buy them? Is it right to accept a gift from someone who stole the money to purchase it? Is it wrong to lie if the lie would save an innocent life?

If ethics are universal, then the underlying principals have yet to be discovered.

[root_axis]

lol, how do you propose to power your mining rig and connect to the internet without a government?

[jeofken]

Assuming free people could not create internet and electricity infrastructure is like an East German assuming free markets could not provide a Trabant alternative

[ineedasername]

So long as governments exist you will need to pass your data through government-controlled spaces. You may produce your own electricity, you may create your own wireless mesh WAN spanning a continent even, but that continent might contain the US, and the FCC will come knocking on doors and knocking down you signal towers. You cannot operate on any significant scale without touching on something under the regulatory jurisdiction of nation-states. This is not a problem of imagination, it's the current structure of power. East Germans undoubtedly both imagined and were often aware of Trabant alternatives outside of East Germany. But their dominant power structure did not easy allow for home grown competition.

[jeofken]

We agree. Reread my comment - I said it was “just like” the similie.

Just like East Germans lived under forced government monopoly and regulations in the car market but most could dream of Benzes and BMWs, you and I can dream about a world where voluntary relationships replace government force in areas such as internet, conflict resolution, health insurance (where I live we only have government health care, and like for Trabants, there are long lines...), road management, and all other tasks government bureaucrats so selflessly have relieved us of

[stouset]

People like that have existed and yet in 100% of cases they’ve been outcompeted by and swallowed up by people who form governments. Funny that.

[jeofken]

The same argument was surely made by slave owners since the beginning of history, but westerners managed to abolish slavery, and after that industry was invented

[root_axis]

Individual's could not build nor maintain the infrastructure that underpins the internet, for that you need government.

[Barrin92]

https://unherd.com/2020/12/libertarianism-never-ends-well/

given that free people can't even fend off a bunch of garbage stealing bears I have little confidence that they can get an electricity grid running.

The East Germans were wrong to assume that central planning is very good, they weren't wrong to assume that public governance and central authority is pretty good, which it is.

[ineedasername]

What exactly are you proposing? Anarcho-capitalism or some variant?

[jeofken]

If you follow to it’s end the principle that makes gifts moral but theft immoral, or sex moral but rape immoral, or work moral but slavery immoral, yes you reach “anarcho-capitalism”

[ineedasername]

Okay, I see where you're coming from then. I disagree, but I understand your premises & therefore your comments much better.

[jeofken]

You and I have a thread above where I replied why ethics must be universal if they exist - I welcome you to prove me wrong there, or to boldly argue that might is right!