A tech god start talking about topic he does not understand well enough, and the article is full of descriptions without much data to back. No one is immune from human nature after all.
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John Carmack on the Government
11–20 of 43 posts
Re: John Carmack on the Government
#12> What things do you care strongly enough about to feel morally justified in pointing a gun at me to get me to pay for them? A few layers of distance by proxy let most people avoid thinking about it, but that is really what it boils down to. Feeding starving children? The justice system? Chemotherapy for the elderly? Viagra for the indigent? Corn subsidies?
nailed it.
Re: John Carmack on the Government
#13A tech god start talking about topic he does not understand well enough, and the article is full of descriptions without much data to back. No one is immune from human nature after all.
Yup massive respect for Carmack on a technical level but I can't agree with him here. At least on the individual level US has one of the lower income tax rates when compared to Europe or Canada. I don't see how going even lower would benefit US society as a whole(spending a little less on the military might help though).
> I don't see how going even lower would benefit US society as a whole
The argument is that the tax rates (and control over resulting revenues) should be more of a local decision. It's an orthogonal concern to what government, at all levels, should take responsibility for. And therefore how revenue is collected is also an orthogonal concern.
Re: John Carmack on the Government
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup massive respect for Carmack on a technical level but I can't agree with him here. At least on the individual level US has one of the lower income tax rates when compared to Europe or Canada. I don't see how going even lower would benefit US society as a whole(spending a little less on the military might help though).
I found the post very rambley but I don't think Carmack was far off the mark. Most of his arguments seem to orbit around the concept that the federal government is hugely wasteful, which isn't a particularly uncommon or controversial opinion. Your comment about the US tax rate is misguided though. While we might technically pay less than some European countries (not much less, in some cases), we also receive a lot le…
Yes, and besides, there's a flat income tax called 'payroll tax' that everyone pays both directly and indirectly through employment taxes paid by employers. Americans don't call that 'income tax' for some reason.
Re: John Carmack on the Government
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup massive respect for Carmack on a technical level but I can't agree with him here. At least on the individual level US has one of the lower income tax rates when compared to Europe or Canada. I don't see how going even lower would benefit US society as a whole(spending a little less on the military might help though).
I found the post very rambley but I don't think Carmack was far off the mark. Most of his arguments seem to orbit around the concept that the federal government is hugely wasteful, which isn't a particularly uncommon or controversial opinion. Your comment about the US tax rate is misguided though. While we might technically pay less than some European countries (not much less, in some cases), we also receive a lot le…
Wastefulness of government is fairly uncontroversial, yes. But you're acting like that's all he claims - he's claiming it's both wasteful and that it cannot be fixed. It's a slightly more eloquent version of "make it small enough to drown it in a bathtub".
That government cannot be made to work for the people IS controversial (and kind of un-American, really). That evidence of wastefulness weakens the usefulness of government IS controversial. That a wasteful democractic government at least ostensibly answerable to its constituents isn't better than any alternative IS controversial.
You're basically saying, "he said the sun's coming up tomorrow and we're all going to die in a horrible conflagration, and really the sun coming up tomorrow isn't a particularly controversial opinion".
Re: John Carmack on the Government
#16A tech god start talking about topic he does not understand well enough, and the article is full of descriptions without much data to back. No one is immune from human nature after all.
This comment is especially relevant, given yesterday's popularity of Scott Aaronson's blog post.
What is the Scott Aaronson's blog post? Could you post a link please?
Re: John Carmack on the Government
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup massive respect for Carmack on a technical level but I can't agree with him here. At least on the individual level US has one of the lower income tax rates when compared to Europe or Canada. I don't see how going even lower would benefit US society as a whole(spending a little less on the military might help though).
I found the post very rambley but I don't think Carmack was far off the mark. Most of his arguments seem to orbit around the concept that the federal government is hugely wasteful, which isn't a particularly uncommon or controversial opinion. Your comment about the US tax rate is misguided though. While we might technically pay less than some European countries (not much less, in some cases), we also receive a lot le…
>Most of his arguments seem to orbit around the concept that the federal government is hugely wasteful, which isn't a particularly uncommon or controversial opinion.
Why is this uncontroversial?
>A vast amount of US tax dollars go towards social security--a creaky, shuddering retirement plan that many expect will collapse before they ever benefit from it--and defense.
I'm not a fan of the defense spending, and I've heard it is quite inefficient. Social Security, however, seems very efficient and effective: elder poverty is nothing compared to what it was before Social Security, and the administrative overhead on the program is tiny.
Also, it's not creaky and shuddering at all. All it needs for indefinite, perfect solvency is to have its contribution cap lifted so people actually pay in proportion to their incomes.
>When ~32% of your paycheck evaporates with no clear benefit like those enjoyed in European countries, it makes sense to complain.
I don't see how Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act are "no clear benefit". They seem like society's lifelines to me.
Re: John Carmack on the Government
#18A tech god start talking about topic he does not understand well enough, and the article is full of descriptions without much data to back. No one is immune from human nature after all.
Yup massive respect for Carmack on a technical level but I can't agree with him here. At least on the individual level US has one of the lower income tax rates when compared to Europe or Canada. I don't see how going even lower would benefit US society as a whole(spending a little less on the military might help though).
Seems like a flawed way to think:
In most other countries people pay higher taxes, in the US people pay less in taxes, therefore I can't see why taxes should be lower.
How about reasoning from first principles?
Re: John Carmack on the Government
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup massive respect for Carmack on a technical level but I can't agree with him here. At least on the individual level US has one of the lower income tax rates when compared to Europe or Canada. I don't see how going even lower would benefit US society as a whole(spending a little less on the military might help though).
I found the post very rambley but I don't think Carmack was far off the mark. Most of his arguments seem to orbit around the concept that the federal government is hugely wasteful, which isn't a particularly uncommon or controversial opinion. Your comment about the US tax rate is misguided though. While we might technically pay less than some European countries (not much less, in some cases), we also receive a lot le…
The US government per capita spending on health care is 4,763.9USD [1]. Canada's is 4801.25USD [2]. But Canadians don't have to buy medical insurance, nor do they pay deductables, or out of pocket for nearly everything.
Carmack is totally right. Most Americans are totally right. The government in the US is totally huge, bloated, and wasteful.
What's really foolish is that they attribute that quality to the fact that it's government, and by definition governments are incredibly incompetant and wasteful. Nope, it's just their government.
American's never seem to ask why their civil service is so poorly run in comparision to other developed countries. They just seem to want to punish it out of fury.
1. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/US_per_capita_spending.h... 2. https://www.cihi.ca/en/spending-and-health-workforce/spendin...
Re: John Carmack on the Government
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found the post very rambley but I don't think Carmack was far off the mark. Most of his arguments seem to orbit around the concept that the federal government is hugely wasteful, which isn't a particularly uncommon or controversial opinion. Your comment about the US tax rate is misguided though. While we might technically pay less than some European countries (not much less, in some cases), we also receive a lot le…
Wastefulness of government is fairly uncontroversial, yes. But you're acting like that's all he claims - he's claiming it's both wasteful and that it cannot be fixed . It's a slightly more eloquent version of "make it small enough to drown it in a bathtub". That government cannot be made to work for the people IS controversial (and kind of un-American, really). That evidence of wastefulness weakens the usefulness of…
His point that government is not subject to the same competitive forces which force private industry to adapt or die isn't wrong.
You can see this at work in industries with monopolies or duopolies: how many people are over the moon about the service and support they receive from, say, Comcast?
Carmack's point seems to be that an entity with no competition and the ability to requisition cash at a whim is inherently wasteful and broken.