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Life as a Service

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Life as a Service

#41

Post by eckyptang »

digitalWestie wrote: post #40
eckyptang wrote: post #36

Some thoughts on this: You have no obligation to conform to these laws at all. You are not born into a contract. A contract is a piece of paper which you can use to wipe your bum with if you wish. You can in theory do what the hell you like. People regularly do. You can kill people, not pay tax, walk over the border of any country and urinate anywhere you like. The only downside is that someone who does subscribe to…

Absolutely right - there is no formal contract. What is being reflected on here is really a 'social contract' - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

There is no social contract either. It evaporates in a moment's notice when you break the speed limit or download an mp3.

Re: Life as a Service

#42

Post by peteretep »

adaml_623 wrote: post #25
peteretep wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defacto your legal guardians have signed you up to this until the age of majority. That seems pretty reasonable, under any jurisdiction.

'legal guardians' AND 'jurisdiction'. These are concepts that weren't negotiated when signing up for the L-a-a-S. (just continuing OPs direction of thought)

This reduces to absurdity pretty quickly, when you start complaining that babies don't sign up for any of the decisions their parents make on their behalf. No shit. Almost everything your parents sign you up for can be undone at an age that's almost universally close to 18 from the perspective of the state.

Compare and contrast that with Islamic or Scientological interpretation of apostacy if you're really looking for a service your parents signed you up for and you can't easily get out of...

Re: Life as a Service

#43

Post by sdoering »

Paul_S wrote: post #38

Shop around for a country to live in. I wish countries were more accommodating about this. In my dream world like minded people live in the same country. Just think of how great it would be if you didn't have to compromise because everyone in the country were on the same side of (for example) the liberal/conservative divide.

Interesting idea. But I believe, that countries as a whole a too big to be really manageable. I imagine a society living in smaller regions (but big enough for natural resources, et al.) and these regions are part of a bigger structure. Like cells in a body. OK, Germany or the US do have a similar way of organizing, but I would love for these "cells" to be more autonomous, so that like-minded people could "just" switch cells, so that ideologies or political principles would be voted for by feet.

Something along these lines. sitting @work, this rough sketch is everything I can offer. And I know, a lot of detail is missing.

Re: Life as a Service

#44

Post by wwwtyro »

mibbitier wrote: post #39
msluyter wrote: post #26

"Even so, I’d be a lot happier paying taxes if there had been a moment where I was given the choice: pay taxes and have these benefits or be left to your own devices." Except that there's no (current, easy) way of excluding you from various public goods that are paid by taxes. Examples include national defense, public spaces like parks, public highways, fire protection (if you live in shared housing or simply close e…

One thing I've never understood, is why a seemingly large number of Americans don't seem to see the similarity between public fire protection, and a public health service. Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation?

> Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation?

Isn't that also true of food?

Re: Life as a Service

#45

Post by rheide »

jschuur wrote: post #14
nagnatron wrote: post #5

This hits very close and I guess you only realize it if at some point of your life you live where you'd rather not but have no way to get out. I need permission from my government if I want to leave the country. Being given a passport is apparently not a right. Oh and they cost quite a bit of money and are valid only 5 years. That works out to a certain amount of money per day just to be able to exist outside the bor…

I challenge the 'quite a bit of money' part. Fees for a Dutch passport amount to about US $100 at the UK embassy e.g. (I'm Dutch, but live in the UK): http://www.dutchembassyuk.org/page/index.php?i=158 Sure, $100 sounds low for many people, even though it's a fortune for some. However, spread across a 5 year period, it's a little more than 5 cents a day.

It's tax for living. It's bad.

Re: Life as a Service

#46

Post by mibbitier »

wwwtyro wrote: post #44
mibbitier wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've never understood, is why a seemingly large number of Americans don't seem to see the similarity between public fire protection, and a public health service. Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation?

> Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation? Isn't that also true of food?

Not really the same IMHO.

Giving people access to healthcare and fire protection doesn't create any bad incentives. You can't 'use' healthcare for monetary gain.

Giving people food, money etc, gives people incentives to not bother working.

Also I would say that a national health service ensures that the public is 'healthy'. Which affects us all, as diseases are transmitted etc. Just as the fire services ensures fires don't spread and burn down all the houses.

The same isn't true of giving people food.

Re: Life as a Service

#47

Post by Zak »

praptak wrote: post #33
msluyter wrote: post #26

"Even so, I’d be a lot happier paying taxes if there had been a moment where I was given the choice: pay taxes and have these benefits or be left to your own devices." Except that there's no (current, easy) way of excluding you from various public goods that are paid by taxes. Examples include national defense, public spaces like parks, public highways, fire protection (if you live in shared housing or simply close e…

Don't forget the money service - managing supply and providing guarantees for its value. Actually if you manage to exclude yourself from using this particular service you won't have to pay any taxes.

That's not entirely true. I'll confine my response to how things work in the US since that's where I live and it's what I know the most about.

Attempting to use an alternate medium of exchange may result in legal problems. In particular, Federal law says:

Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

That doesn't seem to exclude exchanging goods or services for precious metals or other commodities so long as they're not cast in to something resembling money. It would be difficult to make small day-to-day purchases that way.

The other problem is that income tax law in the US applies to non-monetary compensation. If I pay you 2kg of gold to work for me for a year on a software project and the IRS finds out about it, they will demand that you pay taxes on its dollar value.

Re: Life as a Service

#48

Post by eloisant »

Well, it sounds like a really consumerist way to interpret things.

While it is true that some countries will not let you leave your country and will impose obligations even if you don't live in the country, in most western democracies (and in particular the author's country): * You can leave freely * As soon as you're not resident, you pretty much have no obligation toward your origin country - hell, you can even get a citizenship from a different country and be done with it.

I think among western democracies, only US imposes taxes on non-residents citizens.

Most of the complains are irrelevant - of course they are rules you have to follow, and you didn't decide at some point to "agree" with them. The rules are usually for the benefit of the group, i.e. not being able to use a land you buy for anything you want prevent you to build a chemistry factory in the middle of a residential area.

Re: Life as a Service

#49

Post by atirip »

mootothemax wrote: post #31
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #13

The essence of the (flawed) argument Jacques is making is in his passport section I need permission from my government if I want to leave the country. Oddly, that's not true. A passport is necessary to get into a country, not leave one. The distinction is subtle but important. You can if you wish as an adult, leave the country you are in, and if they will let you in, enter another with a different set of obligations.…

Oddly, that's not true. A passport is necessary to get into a country, not leave one. Not true for me, at least. I live in Poland, which means I get passport-free travel (and ID-card free, for that matter) within the EU Schengen Area, but not when visiting my home country, the UK, since it's outside the Schengen area. To visit the UK, I have to go via the scary ladies and gentlemen in glass booths with big guns strap…

That's because governments are widely agreed that the "sender" country is responsible if passenger has no right to enter "receiver" country. So to avoid the hassle, it's mandatory to check your passport when you leave Poland, but not whether you have right to leave Poland...

Re: Life as a Service

#50

Post by Paul_S »

sdoering wrote: post #43
Paul_S wrote: post #38

Shop around for a country to live in. I wish countries were more accommodating about this. In my dream world like minded people live in the same country. Just think of how great it would be if you didn't have to compromise because everyone in the country were on the same side of (for example) the liberal/conservative divide.

Interesting idea. But I believe, that countries as a whole a too big to be really manageable. I imagine a society living in smaller regions (but big enough for natural resources, et al.) and these regions are part of a bigger structure. Like cells in a body. OK, Germany or the US do have a similar way of organizing, but I would love for these "cells" to be more autonomous, so that like-minded people could "just" swit…

I think a 2 million city would be big enough. We can call it an special economic area. I do believe this is already happening.

We all know that this is the inevitable cyberpunk future - just substitute governments with corporations.

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