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Re:Land value tax in online games and virtual worlds by robertlagrant on Friday June 14, 2024 @07:12AM (#40679664)
> > "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

> That's literally in the constitution and not just that of the USA.

I don't see how this is relevant to whether the state is synonymous with the population of a country.

> Do you consider yourself inferior to them? Then why wouldn't you care?

I don't consider "inferior" to be "I don't have a Porsche and they do". Or even "I can't force taxpayers to pay for a $10m operation and followup treatment and someone else can afford it out of the value they've created", which I think is what you're thinking I should say.

Is that what you're saying? Happy to discuss, but you seem to be talking in emotive language rather than speaking plainly, and I'm just trying to get at the a plain description of what you mean.

Re:Land value tax in online games and virtual worlds by IX-103 on Friday June 14, 2024 @09:04AM (#40680533)
In a functional democracy, the state is working in the best interest of the people. And your assertion that GP is arguing that the state is "synonymous with the population" is a straw man, as they didn't say that.

Let's look at the phrase "value they've created" that you used. That's a bit of an idealistic way of thinking. After all those with money and power in society have historically used that money and power to get more money and power. Does a king sitting on a throne produce more "value" than the farmers that feed his cities? Does the hedge fund manager choosing stocks to buy and companies to liquidate produce more value than doctors who save people's lives?

Re:Land value tax in online games and virtual worlds by robertlagrant on Saturday June 15, 2024 @04:30PM (#40692494)
> We should remember that we are the state, in theory. It's the whole point of a state. If that isn't the case anymore, we should fix it.

Who is the "we" in this?

Re:Land value tax in online games and virtual worlds by ossobuco on Tuesday June 18, 2024 @05:34PM (#40722368)
Us. It's a figure of speech, no need to take it so literally.
Re:Land value tax in online games and virtual worlds by ossobuco on Friday June 14, 2024 @09:42AM (#40680837)
> I don't consider "inferior" to be "I don't have a Porsche and they do".

You keep fixating on luxury cars for some reason, I'm talking about fundamental rights recognized in the universal declaration of human rights. I couldn't care less about owning a Porsche or a Tesla.

I care about the health and education of my family and I don't want to live in a society where people die because of lack of treatments. You say "a $10m operation", I'm sorry to say that shows again you're out of touch. People die every day because they can't afford insulin, which costs about $3 per vial to produce.

Re:Land value tax in online games and virtual worlds by robertlagrant on Monday June 17, 2024 @06:34AM (#40704158)
> You keep fixating on luxury cars for some reason, I'm talking about fundamental rights recognized in the universal declaration of human rights. I couldn't care less about owning a Porsche or a Tesla.

I'm not fixating - there's no point introducing pop psychology. They're just an easy way to explain a mechanism. I also mentioned hyper-expensive medical treatments, and corrective lenses. If you only saw luxury cars in that list, I don't think you should be diagnosing anyone else with fixation.

> People die every day because they can't afford insulin, which costs about $3 per vial to produce.

This isn't a human rights issue; nor is it a rich people bad issue. It's an economics/corruption/bad regulations issue. People get rich by making something lots of people want for $3 a go. People want to do that.

Re:Land value tax in online games and virtual worlds by ossobuco on Tuesday June 18, 2024 @06:47AM (#40716170)
> It's an economics/corruption/bad regulations issue

And who's going to fix that if not the state?