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Comment by robertlagrant | Hacker News Reader

This reasoning doesn't seem very sound. Infrastructure is far too broad, to the point of irrelevance. "Sounds like SBF" is also not reasonable.

How about this: the state is bad because it declares war and sends people to their deaths. Its projects often go astonishingly over budget, corruption is high in many countries, and its funding is unreliable, as it's prone to not keeping the promises of the people previously in charge.

That accurately describes almost every state that ever existed. If you have a similar list for all philanthropic institutions, that would be a good start in justifying your claim that philanthropy doesn't work, so we have to take the money and let the bureaucrats handle it.

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The state can do both good and bad things. Even in your war analogy, Russia (a state) can invade Ukraine and murder it's citizens, but Ukraine (a state) can defend it's citizens. USA can have no affordable healthcare for citizens, Sweden can have affordable healthcare for it's citizens.

A state can provide e.g safety or healthcare for millions, a philanthropist could not operate at that scale for a long time. Philanthropists also die on a shorter time frame than states and their successors may not want to continue to support the same things.

I don't think the claim was that philanthropy doesn't work. But it doesn't scale to the levels of what a state can achieve. And therefore it is an inefficient way to use the resources. For every billionaire philanthropist that builds a hospital wing there are 50 more who buy 2 yachts. Tax them all and you can build 51 hospital wings and they can all have a single yacht each.

>the state is bad because it declares war and sends people to their deaths

Wouldn't it make more sense to conclude war is bad, rather than states themselves?

>Its projects often go astonishingly over budget, corruption is high in many countries, and its funding is unreliable, as it's prone to not keeping the promises of the people previously in charge

All of this I agree with. But the solution isn't "less states" it's... Better states, surely? What am I missing here?

My point with the question about where a majority of our infrastructure comes from, (roads, schools, hospitals, water, electricity and sewage systems to specify as a start) the state or the benevolence of philanthropists was to demonstrate that there is quite a bit of evidence as to what structure is the better steward of societies, a bunch of rich guys, or a state with some mandate to do right by its constituents.

It sounds like you view the state as bad. Even when that state is democratic?

The less average a citizen is, the less accurately the democratic function approximates their interests.

Additionally, our democratic function has strange domain mismatches were it has been overfit on unusual cases. Anyone who is more agency seeking than average will likely confront some vogonic laws and develop conflicting feelings.

try the book Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal.

Alternatively, the farther away you are from average when it comes to wealth and resources, the more the state can benefit you.

People in the bottom percentile are tremendously well served by many modern democracies, despite your assertion to the opposite.

If I’m going to be severely disabled (extremely far from average), I would much rather do it in a modern western democracy, instead of any other form of government.

Those people will not be well represented by a democracy.

Blind people, cripples, and fetuses barely have a voter base.

You also need to specify in what direction someone is not average. (You meant below average). Wheras my point was just more general. Weirdos wont be represented, whether that means exentric inventor, amish orthodoxy, cripple, or homeless person.

I personally was responding to the other person who was asking why some people come to see the government as an enemy. Assuming they know that for some it is just culture, or indoctrination, I offered a relatable explanation for why an intelligent person might feel impeded by many laws.

I assume given their question they already know and believe democracies are better to live in than other forms of government lol.

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