@JackToolsNet lmao I came here to say that, you beat me to it

@Frederick hey do you know you typed the same thing four times in a row?

I'm doing it now, I just got hired as a full time dev while finishing up my full time (online) degree. It's tough, but worth it.

@Shardj thanks!

@AlmondSauce im new to my cs career, why is accepting a counteroffer a bad idea?

Hey! atom is my favorite

@norman70688 true, true

@norman70688 perhaps absurd was hyperbolic, but i consider these unacceptable

@rendezvous so I definitely cant speak on things I do not know about (such as the situation in Franch), but i do agree that corporations are not always better, but I would argue that governments dont always have the best history either. You can point to falling bridges, and I can point to the literally absurd levels of broken, cracked, and unpainted streets in the US. Roads are one of the least private things in the states, and coincidentally they are not maintained well. Or the fact that "affordable healthcare" bancrupts people

@rendezvous i would like to point out there were a plethora of people who decided to just pay the fine for not having ObamaCare because the fine was more affordable than ObamaCare itself. And i would say that only works if thw government can perform well, which it cant (at least in the US) as a general rule of thumb here, anything the US do, a corporation is already doing cheaper, faster, and of higher quality.

@lastNick So I completely agree that they are necessary, i am just saying that the fact that the government has the authority to take whatever amount of money they chose from you without consent is a very dangerous game. I heavily believe in a balance of powers, and at least in the systems I have lived under, the government feels much less like a benevolent collection of democratic decisions, and more like an ominous entity that does what it wants. i do not think it is a good idea to write governments a "blank check" with the assumltion that they are working in our best interests.

@lastNick taxation is not theft, forced taxation is theft. transparency is not the same as fair. Telling someone ahead of time you are going to charge them money, doesnt change the fact that you are taking their money. And i do not believe the insititution that relies on taxes would allow the people to not be legally required to pay them

@Ubbe i think if your argument is that ina. World where only volunteers pay taxes, then no one would pay taxes, just proves my idea that forced taxation is theft, because no one wants it. And there are indeed things like private security forced, private prisons, and I would not be suprised to see such things as private courts.

@lastNick i mean name calling doesn't really make you correct, but okay

@Ubbe i mean I imho it is literal theft, so I would personally classify it as aggression. And I am anti-forced taxation, not anti-taxation, not anti-government, and certainly not pro-anarchy. Also, i would disagree, democracy is a system which favors mob rule at the expense of minorities. I am not just talking about ethnic minorities, in the united states we have political parties that are not-so-jokingly called a "waste of a vote."
This next part i will be honest and say I may not know what I am talking about because I have never lived under such a system, but it seems like multple major polotical parties would be just as bad, because lets say a party with 20% of a vote wins, well then wouldnt that mean that 80% of the voters are unhappy with the results?

@norman70688 you question was asking for an ideal country, I read that to mean a utopia in our eyes, if that was not your meaning, my bad. If you are talking about a country that exists nowadays, then I would agree, it doesnt exist.

@norman70688 one that does not forcibly steal money from its citizens, preferably wth opt-in taxation where you can only use public resources if you voluntarily pay the taxes. But it would also need to have plenty of free market competition for those that think taxes are a waste.

@lastNick ah yes, good ol' "if you don't like it, then leave". Generally its up to the aggressor to stop doing something bad, not on the victim for being in that situation. But to be fair thats a fairly subjective perspective. And also just because someone consented doesnt mean I consented. I am not sure how Germany's government works, but here in the states we have a representative democracy, which I would argue isn't even real democracy.

@lastNick which are forced upon you without your consent