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Idk how we're so sensitive to sexual consent as a culture but seem to completely lack the concept of economic consent

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Aug 27, 2020

There is a looting in downtown Minneapolis every single day. Downtown is, in fact, a monument to looting. It doesn’t look like broken glass and missing mannequins. It looks like US Bank Stadium & the Wells Fargo Center & the high rises & city hall.

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It's hard to reason clearly about economic consent when your whole society depends on its violation. If the government collected sexual taxes there might be similar confusion about the importance of sexual consent.

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Taxes aren't a violation of consent, it's just that the consent happens at a much higher level - via our elected officials. We pay taxes for the right to enjoy the infrastructure that's given in return that makes a society where individual ownership is possible in the first place

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Idk man taxes are absolutely a violation of my consent. I don't want the government to take my money from me but I'm powerless to stop it. It's fucked up.

7:49 PM · Aug 30, 2020

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But would you want to live in a society where nobody paid taxes? The common infrastructure we need to facilitate commerce isn't possible without taxation. Without taxes and government, the best we could do would be a hunter gatherer type existence.

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I mean you do realize income tax is a pretty new thing in America? I do think some amount of taxation for stuff like national defense is necessary, but the rest could probably be done better by private companies. Best subway system in US was made by private companies!

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I totally agree. Sorta falls into Michael Huemer’s idea of implicit consent. There has to be a reasonable way to opt out for consent to be valid. We can’t not participate. Thereby the agreement is invalid, we are unwilling and unconsenting.