Bitcoin as a new way to embrace taxes

[Kouye]

Not all taxes can be defined as "an exchange for Government provided services"

It should, and that's the problem bitcoin solves, precisely.
And I'm not talking about government, but about public services. No government involved. Just people agreeing.

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[guybrushthreepwood]

What happens when these crowd-funding communities get bigger and start wasting your money on crap or diddling their expenses and start buying themselves mansions. The problem here is to put into a system or government where your taxes are spent on infrastructure and services and not wars and crap.

Easy. They die from the lack of hospitals, ponder how to cross that river when trying to go to work, cry for 6 weeks vacations to go visit their families using horses, wonder why they don't have water/electricity/internet at home, etc.

Until they realise they have to fund some public services, or live without it.

This is it. People just cry "fuck the government" but offer no alternative workable solutions apart from this crowd-funding thing but they haven't thought it through at all. Government is crowd-funding, it's just not working perfectly, but I can guarantee you if we do away with taxes and gov all together it'll work a hell of a lot less well. If it's broken; fix it. Don't destroy it and hope enough people will then volunteer their time effort and money to help rebuild it to an inferior level.

[Kouye]

Another, completely opposite approach, would be to forget about taxes, and just pay for what you use + related projects tied to it (which you voted for).
For example:

You enjoy using the airport close to your home, you pay to maintain it each time you use it. But you also pay for a second related layer that all other users (including you) have decided to tie (by BTC-voting) to airport taxes. Such as space exploration, transport innovation, etc.

You are reassured by this excellent hospital in your vinicity, everytime you need to use it, you pay to maintain it, and also pay for related stuff (which you voted for), such as doctors in hostile zones, free medecines for poor people, etc.

You fancy that nice highway to get to your job quickly? You pay when you use it, and it covers both the price to maintain it, and also maintain/create new roads in the countryside, because you decided to vote for that related project.

I'm just thinking aloud, don't mind me.

You know sites such as musicmap ?
I think a way to pay for community services using such a model would be great. (where you pay a central node of your choice and some of your payment gets spread out to close nodes, where node's neighborhood are decided by the community).

I would be glad too if it applied to musicmap. If I pay for a ministry album, I'm ok if Revolting Cocks get 1% of it.

[BitDreams]

Great thread!

So let's assume we have to sell this idea to the powers that be. We need our foot in the door. So with Tax Choice, if we are a conscientious voter we decide where our taxes go. A project could have a cap, once reached, the project refuses contributions.

/salesman mode: (in order to get foot in door) sell this to the powers that be as, 'taxpayers have a bill, they just get to choose where it is spent, but if they don't contribute early and they've picked a popular project it may already be funded and they have to pick another project'.

Taxpayers might be lazy and elect autofund. There should always be more projects requesting funding than taxes are available. Use the term 'creative destruction', many in government love that concept. The unfunded simply goes away.

So start with rules that encourages government to believe they are in control. Most bitcoin protocol fans know that math is really what is in control and math wins in the end. We trust the machine because the machine keeps its promise and we know the rules from the start of the game. Humans are manipulative and bend the rules. When talking to any government or corporate interest always sell them on the concept that those in power have more control. Assist them in learning the controls. Personally, I'm bombarding the IRS with the blockchain addresses and look forward the day when the IRS simply surfs the blockchain and bitmessages me that 'we mad - pay up!'

They believe they are buying a machine they can control but we know it is the machine that controls them. At some point it comes down to citizens positioning themselves under whichever set of rules has the most integrity.

[lucaso]

Kouye please go to your nearest university and ask a random economics student if your ideas will work at any point.

When for small communities this may somehow work then for bigger (starting of town scale) it just won't work at all.
If that is your imagination of country then I for sure don't want to live in anything similar. I just care about my future and my family - thats most important.

[Kouye]

Kouye please go to your nearest university and ask a random economics student if your ideas will work at any point.

When for small communities this may somehow work then for bigger (starting of town scale) it just won't work at all.
If that is your imagination of country then I for sure don't want to live in anything similar. I just care about my future and my family - thats most important.

That's actually part of my point. To acheive this, we need to break up into much smaller units, and forget about huge nations.
The only way to participate in "efficient" taxes is local, of course.

Which is why I attached a "tax-map" idea, also voted by tax-payers.
And when you pay for your local hospital, you also pay for research for cancer cure, for example. You have no choice, because cancer-cure have been attached, through voting, to local hospital funding.

I might be dreaming. But it looks pretty realistic, if you forget about what's happening now and focus on what could be happening.

[Kouye]

To be more accurate, let's look at the
"I want everyone to have electricity in my vinicity"

If people don't like the fact humanity will survive after them, this "root" project will be tied to "Let's make more nuclear plants!".
If people around prefer to use safe energy, it'll be attached to "Use more solar energy, at least to heat up water".

Then the "Use more solar energy, at least to heat up water", will itself be tied up to "Let's use more photovoltaic panels", but also to "solar ovens are the way to go".

So when you vote for "I wan't everyone to have electricity in my vinicity", you also vote for all the attached projects (and fund them).
But you could have chosen to vote for "Let's use more photovoltaic panels", and thus fund only this and children, attached (by popular votes) projects.

Still thinking out aloud, but that looks promising to me.