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Comment by eganist | Hacker News Reader

> Imagine all the "nudges" that could easily be introduced. You're buying too much [bad thing], card declined. You're costing the health care system too much by being overweight so we'll restrict your food allowance. Your carbon emissions are over the limit this month, we'll have to deny your flight purchase. A gas station charges "too much" for gas, payment declined.

Why would they do this when they can (and already do) use taxes and tax breaks to dis/incentivize behavior?

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> Why would they do this when they can (and already do) use taxes and tax breaks to dis/incentivize behavior?

Because they can. You have never heard of government abuse before?

A lot already happens, from a super complicated tax code and things like cities banning fountain drinks above a certain size. But a lot of these things are not practical. I don't know if we have the legal infrastructure to mandate gas may not be sold above a certain amount. Now do that with millions of business, many of them too small.

Digital currency is a general solution for absolute control. It's much easier to control and impose and change arbitrary rules on spending or target individuals solely through the administrative state. No laws have to be passed, no congressional hearings, no one you can vote out of office. Just a single bureaucrat you've never heard of flipping a switch and upending your life.

The dis/incentive aspect is already abused, imo. If a small percentage of society participates in one activity, eg. smoking, it's too easy for the majority to tax the crap out of them to fund whatever activities they want.

I'm really not sure invoking smoking as your boogeyman here is making the point you want it to. It's already very well known that the reason it remained unrestricted for so long is because the tobacco giants actively suppressed the studies that clearly showed how deadly it was, both for smokers and for the people around them.

I don't think using something like sin taxes to discourage doing something that actively harms both you and anyone who has to share your air can reasonably be called an abuse of government power, unless you're one of the people who thinks that anything (besides maybe enforcing property rights) is an abuse of government power.

You're missing the point. It's too easy for the majority to support taxing the minority over anything like this, cause it's no skin off their back. [Not to mention there are already laws pretty much everywhere restricting smoking to places where secondhand smoke isn't an issue- people can smoke at home you know. If you are worried about air quality, then driving in the city should be taxed, but it wouldn't be b/c the majority does it regularly]

There's a massive difference between taxing something like "being black" or "renting an apartment", where it's either an immutable part of who you are or something very difficult for many to change due to something like socioeconomic status, and something like smoking, which, while yes, it's addictive, is still a choice.

And, again, it's a choice that is actively harmful to the smoker and everyone around them. So if you really want to make a point, I strongly encourage you to find a different example, because this one just sounds like you're a smoker who's angry that they have to pay more in taxes to continue to be able to pollute the air with carcinogens.

The point is people support taxing whatever is convenient for them. Another of the many conforming effects of overgrown democracy.

If you can show an actual example of that, rather than an example of people taxing objectively negative behaviour in an attempt to reduce it, then I might take your point more seriously.

In countries with socialized health care, the high tax on tobacco does not cover the costs of treating cancer patients : https://www.science-environnement.com/modes-de-vie/les-taxes...

It's a mistake to believe the tax is here to fund "whatever activities"

I've seen reports like this from anti-smoking campaigns before. It's hilarious they don't account for the estimated costs of treating those dead patients had they lived to old age. Calling BS on that one.

This just sounds like punishing people, not incentivizing. People just want to see others punished, they would never want to use such a system themselves.

Still, why wouldn’t they?

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