"Just open-source it" is not realistic

What did this 19th century fellow know of efficient public healthcare, roads, the publicly funded research which led to things like computers and the internet? What about cooperatives, a natural way to purchase things which none of the participants could afford individually?

Part of the right wing likes to frame itself as anti-statist. (And are trotted out when anyone proposes funding anything decent, rather than ways to kill and control.) But of course, the "socialists" are the most serious about transcending these violent nation-states. Take the Occupy movements, influenced by "anarchists" (and think what you will about them, but these socialists aren't exactly the biggest supporters of nation-states).

As mentioned, it's hard for people in non-democratic societies to imagine how to rationally team together to allocate funds. In such hierarchical societies, wealthy/powerful elites make such decisions; the rest are supposed to obey their bosses every working day, in their corporate communes. Like indoctrinated cult members, we often have a difficult time imagining how to rationally function and accomplish simple goals as a horizontal team.

This is utterly rediculous, and quite frankly bordering on racist. it's often in the poor areas of the 'non-democratic' societies where people learn how to co-operate, and exchange without the state, and rationally function and accomplish goals as teams.

The socialists are about forcibly redistributing property: allocating the fruits of labor as either the electorate or an elected elite sees fit. In the first case, it will be the marginalized minority that gets punished, in the second case, it will be the unconnected poor that get punished.

Nobody is saying don't help out the poor, but the idea that the state is a qualified agent to help out the poor is laughable and there is plenty of evidence spanning milennia that it is a bad idea.

As for public healthcare. Healthcare in the US sucks, but would I rather be part of the private healthcare system or the VA (public healthcare)? Did you not see? As part of the 'healthcare reform bill' all legislators and their staff were required to join the public option. They are busy carving out an exemption to this as we speak.

As for publically funded research, it's horrifyingly wasteful, and all, I mean ALL of it goes to the "1%". Realistically there is no professor that is not a part of the 1%, and their work is built on the backs of a very very exploitative system of labor where grad students and postdocs' most productive years are sucked dry. Much of that essentially becomes subsidies for the military-industrial complex or the pharmaceutical-medical complex (allowing them to shove off some of what should be R&D money off onto the backs of the public).

Don't beleive me? Here is a 501(c)(3) - and four-stars on charity navigator, no less - organization that operates 90% on NIH money (and negotiates a sweet 85% 'overhead' deal) its president makes 1.3 million dollars. http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/330/3304359...

The hilarious thing is this: i'm now working at a different nonprofit science research institute. About 10 years ago, it was almost entirely run on the endowment - salaries given to postdocs and professors were generous, and the president was paid about 1/1000th of the net worth of the company. Since then, the net worth of the nonprofit has decreased by two orders of magnitude, and it is almost completely run off of public funds, in fact private granting organizations are turned down because they bring in no overhead. Now, the president gets paid three times what he did back then. Moreover, his son is about to be employed with us (uh, that's a no-no), as is the grandson of a board member.

There is something about accepting 'public monies' that is almost magically a corrupting factor.

Is there currently something like that? A crowdfunding platform will work, I guess, but I want something with more visibility, because I'm bad at discovering and communicating with my target market.

I guess this is a rather hard problem, I might try one of Kickstarter, Indiegogo or a similar platform and see if I'm successful.

Do you want to be put in the situation where you are contributing to Rachel's Kickstarter, whether you want to or not? What if you didn't like her project and wanted to fund some competing project instead? Where are these countries where you get to choose exactly where your tax money goes to, anyway?

Like, do these magical countries with ultrafine granularity for choosing public funding let you make choices like: do you want your tax money to go towards Rachel's Kickstarter? Because if that's the granularity that you want, then why involve government and taxation at all? You keep your money, and you contribute it where you want to. Or not.

What if this enlightened government you speak of decides that the books, music, and movies that it wants to spend your money on for you are things which you hate? Presumably, if that government was responsive to what its citizens were asking for, it would produce stuff along the lines of what currently gets the best ratings/sales/etc. in these "non-democratic" countries that you look down on so much. Although, I'm sure the people in your country are much more enlightened than the people in my country, and all they want is more philosophy and history and intellectually honest and well-researched analysis of current events, because you live in a magical place where the bulk of humanity is good and nice and curious about the world.

Basically, do you want the government to spend your money making the next Jersey Shore? Why not just eliminate the middleman and vote with your own money, instead of thrusting the government into the position of deciding what sort of entertainment everyone wants?