I'll preface my thoughts and questions with a fact about me and my life:

I'm a civil engineer in Canada, and I work on a LOT of projects that are funded either through municipal or provincial (and sometimes federal) funding.

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I get the opportunity to work on a large variety of community infrastructure projects -- from potable water networks, waste-water collection and treatment, road networks, storm-water drainage, and more.

I've seen many people on here, both influential and some less so, speak to the idea that 'taxation is theft'. While I understand numerous points to the argument (not wanting to fund the war-machine, for example), I'm having a hard time rationalizing the idea that taxation is theft with the fact that there is an incredible suite of infrastructure that is needed to make liveable communities.

There is a vocal community that speaks to how "every human interaction" should be voluntary, and maintaing a non-aggression principle. I fully agree with the non-aggression principle (do unto others, and don't do unto others, etc...) . I'm curious to hear how all of this wraps together. I have a hard time imagining someone in an upscale neighbourhood 'voluntarily' providing funding for improvements to a water system in an adjacent community (despite the systems being literally connected and reliant on eachother), or roadways, or social services etc... If anything, this would shift into, in my eyes, a form of 'passive' aggression aimed at others that are unable to contribute as much -- punishing them for being subjected to the whims of an amoral marketplace.

Living in a system that is 100% voluntary may be all well and good and achievable if you're on your own piece of land living in the middle of nowhere, on your own water system, with a sanitary septic tank and disposal / treatment field of your own, and you're able to grow your own food, never have to drive anywhere and live with nobody downstream from you in your watershed -- but in an interconnected world, there are numerous types of public infrastructure that is needed, and needs constant operation and maintenance. But at the end of the day, life isn't perfectly fair, and sometimes, for the best interest of society or even yourself, sometimes you have to do something you don't necessarily want to do.

I do not deny that todays version of government / governance is an outdated relic from the 1930's where we all didn't have smartphones in our pockets which allow us each to have a voice and express our thoughts, wants and needs. Back in the day, the only way to form some sort of social consensus was to vote for an individual or party that you trust in having your best interests in mind. If one were to start things again, presenting that same system in today's world seems laughable.

Given that blockchains are largely about achieving consensus -- it seems to me that there should be some way to implement them to allow us to navigate ourselves out of this weird, relic governance model we're currently in, towards something that is substantially more accountable, transparent and just -- but I'm just not sure what that may look like.

So perhaps I'll end this with a question that kind of wraps the above thoughts together...

Whether or not you believe taxation is justified, or theft: In a 'fair and just world', in what way do you envision being able to pay for roads, water networks, water treatment, sewage treatment, emergency services, and the like? Would you maintain the status quo? Would you still rely on a totally 'voluntary' methodology? Or is the solution more of a new-age, decentralized consensus mechanism that we all leverage to constantly modify and update an actual 'social contract'?

I'm tagging a few people who's articles / blogs / thoughts I've linked to, as well as some others who I've seen speaking to the same philosophy. I'm keen to hear your thoughts, @adamkokesh, @lukestokes, @teamsteem, @dan (teamsteems article was referencing and paraphrasing an article by Dan Larimer), @everittdmickey... I'm certain there's more, and if you can think of someone that has some insight to this discussion, please tag them in the comments.