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GNU Taler 0.0.0 released

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Re: GNU Taler 0.0.0 released

#101

Post by exstudent2 »

Frondo wrote: post #68
kybernetyk wrote: post #13

>Unlike BitCoin or cash payments, Taler ensures that governments can learn their citizen's total income and thus collect sales, value-added or income taxes Wow, what a feature ...

Indeed, that is an excellent feature. Money transfers without the banks, but I can potentially get buy-in from my government and use it to pay my taxes (which I am happy to pay, because I am buying civilization with it)? Sign me up!

It's funny that you think you're buying civilization with your taxes when the vasty majority of the money you give the government is used to actively destroy civilization. Bombs aren't cheap.

Re: GNU Taler 0.0.0 released

#102

Post by sbierwagen »

exstudent2 wrote: post #101
Frondo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, that is an excellent feature. Money transfers without the banks, but I can potentially get buy-in from my government and use it to pay my taxes (which I am happy to pay, because I am buying civilization with it)? Sign me up!

It's funny that you think you're buying civilization with your taxes when the vasty majority of the money you give the government is used to actively destroy civilization. Bombs aren't cheap.

Vast majority? Military spending is only 15.75% of the US federal budget. And that's just federal spending, citizens also pay taxes to states and municipalities, which rarely field combat aircraft.

Re: GNU Taler 0.0.0 released

#103

Post by [deleted] »

sbierwagen wrote: post #102
exstudent2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny that you think you're buying civilization with your taxes when the vasty majority of the money you give the government is used to actively destroy civilization. Bombs aren't cheap.

Vast majority? Military spending is only 15.75% of the US federal budget. And that's just federal spending, citizens also pay taxes to states and municipalities, which rarely field combat aircraft.

[deleted]

Re: GNU Taler 0.0.0 released

#104

Post by X86BSD »

tremon wrote: post #95
X86BSD wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They have no issue with their work being used..." Stop. Right there. Do not pass go do not collect $200 dollars. There is where you should have stopped. People who write code and release it under a BSDL want people to use their code. ALL people! Users and business. That is called freedom. You, whoever you may be, are free to use this code any way you see fit just don't sue me. The GPL on the other hand hates proprie…

"They have no issue with their work being used..." Stop. Right there. No, you can't stop there. You can't quote half an assertion and then attack that. It's called a straw man, and a fairly obvious one.

First, yes, actually I can and I did.

Second, you don't know what a straw man argument is. And should educate yourself before opening your mouth and looking 'ignit.

Allow me to give you an example of a straw man argument.

Example: After Will said that we should put more money into health and education, Warren responded by saying that he was surprised that Will hates our country so much that he wants to leave it defenseless by cutting military spending.

That sir is a straw man. Which has nothing to do with what I said.

Good day.

Re: GNU Taler 0.0.0 released

#105

Post by Allezxandre »

codewiz wrote: post #78

Reading Taler's website ( https://www.taler.net/ ) it is not clear to me whether customer and merchant must agree to use the same exchange in order to perform a transaction. It seems to be implied by the key interactions of a Merchant: "Create a reserve based on an incoming wire transfer from a customer" and "Execute wire transfers to merchants in response to validated deposits". If this is indeed the case, then ther…

I understood the website the same way you did: the merchant must use the same exchange as the customer. I hope we're wrong.

For the sake of anonymity though, it appears to me that using a new exchange would be easy as you would not require to log in with an email and a password, but rather with a kind of web-browser extension or something similar. Each merchant could then become its own exchange, and you would only see a few big exchanges whose role would just be to make everything simpler for the merchant, and that simplicity would come at the price of an increased fee. This is a bit like what PayPal or Stripe are doing today.

Re: GNU Taler 0.0.0 released

#106

Post by wstrange »

brasky wrote: post #99
typon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are taxes immoral?

Forced taxation is immoral since it violates the non aggression principle. You can still have voluntary taxation though.

There are plenty of third world countries where you can pretty much avoid taxation, but it hasn't worked out terribly well for them.

There are benefits to belonging to civilisation. Voluntary taxation is just not realistic.

Re: GNU Taler 0.0.0 released

#107

Post by evgen »

exstudent2 wrote: post #90
vec wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the argument is that humans are tribal creatures. Imagine going off to live in the woods with a handful of other individuals, 100% off the grid and with only the tools you can carry. Inevitably, it wouldn't be long before you start insisting that everyone help out with farming or hunting or repairs or something. It's literally built into our DNA that individuals should contribute some labor to the betterment of t…

It's not so black and white. You can be against taxes but not want to opt out of civilization. If the government wasn't stealing around 40% of my income, I could spend that money on initiatives that benefit people other than just myself. Money could even be pooled by neighbors to pay for things. The thing is it has to be up to the individual how they spend their money, not left to guys with guns forcing you to hand o…

If the government wasn't stealing around 40% of my income, I could spend that money on initiatives that benefit people other than just myself.

If the government was not stealing around 40% of your money I would come and take 100% of it and leave you bleeding in the gutter.

Re: GNU Taler 0.0.0 released

#108

Post by sgift »

exstudent2 wrote: post #90
vec wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the argument is that humans are tribal creatures. Imagine going off to live in the woods with a handful of other individuals, 100% off the grid and with only the tools you can carry. Inevitably, it wouldn't be long before you start insisting that everyone help out with farming or hunting or repairs or something. It's literally built into our DNA that individuals should contribute some labor to the betterment of t…

It's not so black and white. You can be against taxes but not want to opt out of civilization. If the government wasn't stealing around 40% of my income, I could spend that money on initiatives that benefit people other than just myself. Money could even be pooled by neighbors to pay for things. The thing is it has to be up to the individual how they spend their money, not left to guys with guns forcing you to hand o…

I'd rather not try out again what happens when we give people the option to help those less fortunate than them or let them suffer without any safety net for those people. History tells me that this won't work very well.

And if you don't like that the government is stealing your money you can always go somewhere else (and resign your citizenship if your taxiation is bound by that) where they steal less money. You can even go somewhere where the government doesn't steal any of your money (usually only in countries where there's no government).

At the end of the day democracy demands that we have to live with decisions that we personally do not like but the majority of people voted for. Everyone knows that this is not a great system, but we haven't found a better one yet. Not for lack of trying though.

Re: GNU Taler 0.0.0 released

#109

Post by Frondo »

exstudent2 wrote: post #101
Frondo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, that is an excellent feature. Money transfers without the banks, but I can potentially get buy-in from my government and use it to pay my taxes (which I am happy to pay, because I am buying civilization with it)? Sign me up!

It's funny that you think you're buying civilization with your taxes when the vasty majority of the money you give the government is used to actively destroy civilization. Bombs aren't cheap.

I don't need to (and don't) agree with every single thing my country/state/city does.

It would be rather silly to expect that, anyway. I mean, with friends and relatives, I compromise all the time. I'm sure they do, too. That's part of what life entails, compromising with the people and groups around you.

I don't see why my government would be any different; and just like with friends and loved ones, I get a chance to voice my opinion, both with regular changes of power (elections) and in regular conversation (freedom of speech!).

So funding a very small part of the country's oversized military budget, well, that's a compromise I make, because I generally like living here and am happy to pay for (most of) the other stuff.

Re: GNU Taler 0.0.0 released

#110

Post by dragontamer »

sbierwagen wrote: post #102
exstudent2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny that you think you're buying civilization with your taxes when the vasty majority of the money you give the government is used to actively destroy civilization. Bombs aren't cheap.

Vast majority? Military spending is only 15.75% of the US federal budget. And that's just federal spending, citizens also pay taxes to states and municipalities, which rarely field combat aircraft.

And one of the biggest Military Deployment in the past 10 years was 5,000 troops to Japan to assist in Fukashima.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/fukushima-navy-heal...

Even if you think that "Fighting ISIS" is destroying civilization (erm... ambiguous. They're destroying civilization. And we are destroying them. I'd say that's a net-gain), there are plenty of good-will projects from the military.

Like GPS, Nuclear Power, and more.

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