the main outcome of taxation and welfare is lifetime redistribution

Contrary to common misconceptions, the main outcome of taxation and welfare is lifetime redistribution – the transfer of money between different periods in someone’s life – rather than the redistribution of money between different income groups.

B. Duffy, The Generation Divide (2023), loc. 828

House numbers exist not to help you find your way, but rather to help the government find you

"The great enterprise of numbering the houses,” Tantner writes, “is characteristic of the eighteenth century. Without any trace of irony, the house number can be considered one of the most important innovations of the Age of Enlightenment, of that century obsessed, as it was, with order and classification.” House numbers were not invented to help you navigate the city or receive your mail, though they perform these two functions admirably. Instead, they were designed to make you easier to tax, imprison, and police. House numbers exist not to help you find your way, but rather to help the government find you.

D. Mask, The address book (2020), 91