When did we ever live in age where "facts and science and raw data are used to drive decisions" ? I don't know of such age. Both West and East are driven by ideologies and powerful people whims for a long time.
> zero tax and society would fall apart because of it
How do you know this? Society is a very general concept, why would it fall apart just because of different economics? Instead of taxes, the government could just print more money, or we could completely change the government so it works on donations instead of taxes. It is hard to predict what would happen, society falling apart is one of them, but not the only one. Structural change of society does not mean it has to fall apart.
IMHO that was the case from something like the 70s to the 00s, but it could be rose colored glasses.
> How do you know this?
Without taxes there are no Police. No schools, no publicly funded roads, water, electricity or anything like that (street sweeping, snow clearing, etc.). That's just the very beginning.
No EPA. Nobody making or enforcing any kind of order. Nobody even making sure the food for sale is some kind of food. I think it's safe to say without taxes society as we know it would fall apart very rapidly. Sure, would there be LaMOE's (Last Man On Earth) defending their Idaho ranch with all their guns... but in the broader sense everything we know today would stop.
Indians were living fine before they ever heard of taxes. They had different organization, but they did have one. The same can happen in the future. A set of local communities with local order based on merit and seniority, without a bureaucracy somewhere far away trying to direct people's lives.
As I mentioned most of the stuff we have now simply wouldn't exist. Would we do other things? sure. But don't imagine we can have this level of luxury and ease.
But if those individuals want to live among other people, they must obey by the rules and behave in a manner that is acceptable for all, and doesn't infringe on anyone else's rights.
Although "god" created us without any clothes (if you believe in that kind of thing), you can't walk down the street right now naked. You can't take food from the store because you're hungry (or even pick it off a tree a-la Eve) and you can't even just sleep wherever you want.
Individual rights are not the be all and end all when you live in a society.
If you don't like it, you're perfectly free to go live extraordinarily far away in the wilderness and never have anything to do with society. I lived in the Yukon. I know quite a few people doing that. It's a perfectly valid option. They hunt their own food, grow their own vegetables and go into town at most once every six months. They despise it.
We've moved past the "information age" where facts and science and raw data are used to drive decisions, and we're in some kind of "selfish wants" age.
I don't know if it's a problem with democracy though - we've known for a long time now if you let regular folk vote on it a huge number would vote for absolutely zero tax and society would fall apart because of it, but they'd go down chanting how free they are because they're not paying tax.
I wonder if it's a lack of education about critical thinking, or maybe just a few decades of being told we can have whatever we want, making (most/some) people very entitled and self-centred.
I'm locked in a quarantine hotel for 14 days right now (entering Australia) and I'm live vlogging it across social media. I'm getting a TON of comments from people who are outraged that this is a violation of my rights, etc. etc. It doesn't occur to them that I had to agree to this quarantine long before I could even book a plane ticket, and I personally think it's a very good protective measure and I'm happy about it. Their outrage about what is happening to me is apparently more relevant and important than my own thoughts about what is happening to me.
People seem to think their own personal rights are more important than the rights of society as a whole.