I mostly agree with you but there are certain useful functions. It’s an optional service the state provides to many many* people with negligible transaction fee, as with, for example, maintaining the roads, air traffic control, or food safety. Those things help you even if you never leave your home or never fly.
First it’s a default mechanism for saying things like “if I get hurt this person can come see me in / ask questions about me in the hospital”. Also “we have joint economic activity so friction should be removed”.
Second, kids can’t necessarily articulate for themselves so it’s a default way of saying “here’s a couple of people who are helping me and others can be disregarded by default”
And it acts as a dash pot for both entering into and especially leaving these set of default rights and obligations.
* Marriage should be universally available. I’ve never liked saying that I “supported gay marriage” — the correct phrase is that “I want us to stop discriminating against people in the case of marriage”
> It’s an optional service the state provides to many many*
This is essentially the power of attorney portion of my post. Perhaps it would be more inclusive if we just had a way to grant certain checkboxes and options to certain individuals. eg I could grant financial decisions to my mother, friend, cousin, and could even give a time limited grant to a girlfriend like "For the next year you can make life and death medical decisions for me" or whatever.
Sadly i dont see it happening because our government is so archaic
First it’s a default mechanism for saying things like “if I get hurt this person can come see me in / ask questions about me in the hospital”. Also “we have joint economic activity so friction should be removed”.
Second, kids can’t necessarily articulate for themselves so it’s a default way of saying “here’s a couple of people who are helping me and others can be disregarded by default”
And it acts as a dash pot for both entering into and especially leaving these set of default rights and obligations.
* Marriage should be universally available. I’ve never liked saying that I “supported gay marriage” — the correct phrase is that “I want us to stop discriminating against people in the case of marriage”