zzzzzzzzzman

I'm literally shaking. We can't let this keep happening on HN.

Thanks for the link, I saw this post yesterday and completely disagree with the "experiment".

You can see dang messed with one of my comment chains last week because my decent arguments "incited flame wars".

It's all fake and silly micromanagement over a non-existent problem

Why is the monkey being forced to pay for services already rendered to him that were paid for by taxes? Is there a budget shortfall somewhere?

This is like saying I need to pay Oracle $10,000 for all those years that my drivers license info sat on an Oracle database :)

You are correct. So then why do those same citizens yell at me to pay my taxes, when I am not concerned as they are, and don't want the sub-par and expensive defense services they are providing me :)

I appreciate your response :)

The real question is why are medical procedures so artificially expensive.

The only thing I would really need medical insurance for is a rare emergency procedure like an appendectomy. Information online says an appendectomy can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $150,000.

Why is there such a deviation? This is how insurance companies make their money.

When we consider that medical insurance in the USA is several hundred dollars per month, $1,500 out of pocket seems completely reasonable.

Thank you for your well-formulated points and civil response :)

Re: roads, I agree that not all roads are toll roads. The good news is that roads are relatively inexpensive to build and maintain (for example, the federal transportation budget is only 2.3% of total yearly spending, 28 billion dollars).

So, those who want to use roads, should be charged a fair price, and road companies should compete to lower costs where possible.

The argument that "if we don't pay taxes (which are ever increasing and are going towards services that are decreasing in quality), then everyone will go nuts and modern society will collapse!!!" is actually extortion and a clever diversion.

We all want cheaper, more effective services. We all want the poorest members of society to not be kicked when they are already down.

The issue is that world governments are run by an elite few people who funnel our taxes to their bank accounts through scams and poorly rendered services.

And when we figured out this scam and went public with the info, we were yelled at to keep paying our taxes ;)

Humans have contributed knowledge and technology both privately and publicly.

The real question is, why is it that today we have education and health care "systems" that have ridiculously ballooning costs, and dwindling quality?

I 100000% agree! The only issue is that on this Earth, far away = Antarctica, Bouvet Island, a barge in the ocean....

Surely there needs to be some middle ground where I can live in a relatively hospitable place without having to worry about being placed under surveillance and being forced to pay large income and property taxes ;)

I greatly appreciate your accurate and civil response!

I think it is achievable at some scale. The right number of course is somewhere between 5 monkeys on an island, and 7 billion monkeys on a planet.

You could conceivably take your money, buy a boat, load it up with 20 years worth of solar panels, greenhouse materials, medicine, guns, etc... and you can boat out to a cold desolate rock in the ocean like Bouvet Island, and you can live a complete life of anarchy and no taxes, etc etc.

But this is an extreme example, and shouldn't be what you have to do to live a life that is 100% free of being coerced into paying for the systems that are present in modern society.

An equally extreme situation, though, is being forced to pay an ever-increasing portion of your income in taxes, fines, levies, fees, and surcharges to the government... so that it can subsidize the wrong technologies and human behaviors.

Why is the average able bodied citizen unable to protect himself the local and national level?

Why don't the concerned citizens pool their funds together to pay for their own defence?

If we must pay taxes for these things, why must their be so much corruption and fraud (think of the expensive fighter jets and missiles that government agents purchase at inflated prices, from companies that funnel profits to a very select few rich individuals, who funded the campaigns necessary to get the government agents in power?)

I appreciate your POV, but why is this monkey not able to produce his own bananas from the trees and the soil?

I hope my POV can serve as a piece of history some day then :)

Now now now Mr. Monkey, these fighter jets are for your protection! And the blanket banana surveillance we conduct on you and your community is also important so that we can collect a banana salary while protecting you from people that want to hurt you :)

I am an American and I pay for all of my medical care privately, without insurance :)

"But since he does..."

This is a fatal assumption to make ;) I personally pay income taxes, do not have health insurance, and on the off times I require medical/dental care, I go to a private medical practice.

It is therefore immoral to force me to pay for a service I am choosing not to use :)

I appreciate your response and POV :)

Why can we not assume that the doctor monkey is operating a private medical practice, his daughter is sent to a private monkey school, and they drove together in a privately produced car on privately maintained roads?

In the USA, I pay income taxes, and I still have to pay for all of these things above (fees, fines, tolls, surcharges, sales tax...)

"If you live on a farm off the grid...."

I agree, the monkey that does what you described shouldn't be forced to pay taxes.

But I am still confused as to why the monkey and his family can't attend private schools, drive on private roads, receive medical services from a private doctor, and donate any bananas he voluntarily decides to contribute to right the wrongs of his monkey island :)

In my opinion, the other monkeys that are trying to force him to subsidize other monkeys' consumption habits are just trying to collect rent from him!

I actually completely agree, I would only use my version ("said to him") in formal/business settings where I am not very well-acquainted with the majority of listeners in the room!

But, I would probably stray from saying "and I was like, omg lol yes I will happily take your money" when I'm telling one VC about my last round of funding from another VC ;)

Also, "And I said to him, 'What are you doing here!'"

They are laughing yes, I don't want to speak for everyone at Dyn, but the people I know are laughing at how hard it is to escape Big Red!

I would say that we all have become numb to the negative aspects of this job, which as you can imagine, usually include:

1) (rightfully) angry customers 2) painfully arbitrary and illogical corporate procedures 3) any sort of purpose or mission that our products fulfill

Speaking for myself, I think it's very important to realize that this job is one of the best in town, is still decently well paid, and allows you the down time required to work on "real" projects.

The ones who were capable of leaving have left. The rest of us are waiting.

As an employee of Oracle that sells Sun stuff, it really isn't all that bad :)

But we are all lol'ing at the parallels here. A number of our colleagues went to work for Dyn recently, too haha...

I agree, but surely as a public company there needs to be some kind of vision somewhere :)

Wow, I really like Vine and am surprised that Twitter's visions for its path to profitability don't include such a flourishing community.

Sad news keeps coming today... :(