An oddity I saw in anthro worldbuilding

[Queshire]

I know that taxes are a dirty word for many, but the government does need to, ya know, fund those roads you drive on every day.

How they implemented things might've ended up making more work for themselves, but a tax on what amounts to a luxury good is hardly unusual.

 

[JBCrowson]

OK! So just today I found out that in the UK and various other former British empire countries, you have to have a TV license! I don't mean a license to broadcast TV, but to watch TV! So yeah, how are those places considered free countries? One of the stories I was talking about did take place in the UK, so I guess that explains it.

I'm now totally going for flying people being able to just fly around! If writers can influence culture, maybe I can encourage more freedom in the world.
Like the part of the US where I live, I don't even need a license to carry a handgun if I wanted! Try pickpocketing in my area and see what happens to you! More power for individuals, less for the government! That sounds good to me and thats what I'm going to portray!

The UK TV licence is a left over from the start of the BBC. The BBC has never had advertising during or between shows on its channels. Hard to imagine in North America, I know. From day one, if they showed a movie, for example, it had no commercial breaks. To pay for the content creation, news gathering and all those things the BBC does, it was originally funded through the licence fee. That was chosen because it meant only those who used the service paid for it, rather than everyone paying through general taxation (or the advertising costs being included in the price of stuff). As a result the BBC was not as driven by ratings as commercial reliant channels need to be. That in turn has meant the BBC has been free to produce niche and minority interest stuff, (and occasionally utter dross). It's also enabled it to be more experimental during some periods of its history.

As the BBC expanded it began selling its services to other countries. Over time the licence fee as a % of its income has steadily dropped to the point now where it is something like 10%. There has been much talk at various points of scrapping the licence fee and letting the BBC sell adverts like everyone else. The public never want to do that because actually, not having adverts every 10 or 15 minutes really improves your enjoyment of the shows. Think of it as being like having the paid version of you tube to lose the ads if you like.

As regards freedom, most Brits think the freedom not to be shot by someone who really isn't fit to own a gun, or not to have to sell your house to pay for your health care are quite important. Ideas of freedom, as most else, differ from place to place. Nowhere has a monopoly on what is right or best, just different interpretations. That the UK and US can decide for themselves which freedoms to prioritise is perhaps the most precious freedom of them all.

 

[Marscaleb]

A similar (and more reasonable) example I once saw was regarding travel laws, not flight itself.

In BNA there are anthro-people, and some are based on migratory birds. The character in this particular episode was an albatross, I think. And it is in their nature to just fly everywhere like vagabonds, with no real home but just constantly on the move.
This generated political problems in the modern world because they were flying into all kinds of nations without a passport, and so there was a conflict between them and political authorities who were trying to ban/restrict their travel.

I think requiring a "flying license" could evolve from something like that; where people are facing problems with flying-people who are flying into places they shouldn't be. I could absolutely see such a thing being done in an anthro world, especially one where flying people are a minority. however, such a requirement BEGS to show some kind of backlash, some kind of conflict! People have to be upset about this!
Although if it plays a small role in the story, I could certainly there being characters who just accept the flying license as being part of life, but for me, the story would HAVE to make it clear that they are accepting of it only because it has been engrained in them since childhood, not because it's "a normal thing people would expect."
As it has been said: "Birds born in a cage think flying is a disease."

 

[Marscaleb]

The UK TV licence is a left over from the start of the BBC. The BBC has never had advertising during or between shows on its channels. Hard to imagine in North America, I know. From day one, if they showed a movie, for example, it had no commercial breaks. To pay for the content creation, news gathering and all those things the BBC does, it was originally funded through the licence fee. That was chosen because it meant only those who used the service paid for it, rather than everyone paying through general taxation (or the advertising costs being included in the price of stuff). As a result the BBC was not as driven by ratings as commercial reliant channels need to be. That in turn has meant the BBC has been free to produce niche and minority interest stuff, (and occasionally utter dross). It's also enabled it to be more experimental during some periods of its history.

I've heard of this before, but it was always described to me as a tax. Brits don't have commercials, but they pay a TV tax.
I've never heard it called a license before; how does that even work? A tax makes sense because everyone pays it, but a license is something you have to apply for and pay to keep. Broadcasting (at least traditionally) is just a universal thing; anyone with an antenna and a TV can watch a broadcast. How can the authorities even stop you from watching TV if you don't have a license? Are cops just going to randomly raid homes and look for illegal TV's? What if I had a TV and stopped watching it and stopped paying the license? How is anyone going to prove that I watched anything?

 

[JBCrowson]

How can the authorities even stop you from watching TV if you don't have a license? Are cops just going to randomly raid homes and look for illegal TV's? What if I had a TV and stopped watching it and stopped paying the license? How is anyone going to prove that I watched anything?

They had TV detector vans - literally vans that drove round near addresses that had no license on file to see if a TV was being used. They would also look for aerials (UK term for what North Americans call antenna) on the roof. The license was payable if you had equipment capable of receiving the TV signals, regardless of how much you actually watched. When cable and satellite TV emerged, if your bundle included any BBC channels, that would also leave you liable to pay the license fee. The remnant of that is still present with the BBC iPlayer (theoretically) requiring a UK address (with a license paid) to sign up.

 

[Marscaleb]

They had TV detector vans - literally vans that drove round near addresses that had no license on file to see if a TV was being used. They would also look for aerials (UK term for what North Americans call antenna) on the roof. The license was payable if you had equipment capable of receiving the TV signals, regardless of how much you actually watched. When cable and satellite TV emerged, if your bundle included any BBC channels, that would also leave you liable to pay the license fee. The remnant of that is still present with the BBC iPlayer (theoretically) requiring a UK address (with a license paid) to sign up.

Wow, vans driving around to see if anyone was watching TV without paying for it?
I guarantee you that would NEVER had flown in the US.
I kinda like the idea of paying to have my TV with no commercials (especially since we just got cable and then had to pay and still get commercials) but the enforcement of this just throws it out the window.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I guarantee you that would NEVER had flown in the US.

Police men drive around in cars, looking for people violating traffic laws all the time. The tax office scans tax filings for errors and fraud. I don't really see how this is all that different.

And you have to keep in mind that this started in a very different era. The BBC started in 1922. Assuming the license fee started at the same time, then people in the US wouldn't have all that much issue with paying the thing either. And in the 60's or 70's would perhaps not have had as much issue with the government actually checking if you paid or not (and I think it wasn't all that popular in the UK either. Just because the government does something doesn't mean people like it...). Don't project your 2025 mindset on 1970's issues.

 

[pmmg]

I'm gonna say...I think mars has it right. That would never fly in the US.

 

[Queshire]

Well...
....
Yes. Different countries are different. =/

 

[Marscaleb]

Police men drive around in cars, looking for people violating traffic laws all the time. The tax office scans tax filings for errors and fraud. I don't really see how this is all that different.

And you have to keep in mind that this started in a very different era. The BBC started in 1922. Assuming the license fee started at the same time, then people in the US wouldn't have all that much issue with paying the thing either. And in the 60's or 70's would perhaps not have had as much issue with the government actually checking if you paid or not (and I think it wasn't all that popular in the UK either. Just because the government does something doesn't mean people like it...). Don't project your 2025 mindset on 1970's issues.

Because police don't go into your homes and look to see if you are violating laws; that would be a blatant violation of constitutional rights. This isn't a 2025 mindset, this is a 1789 mindset.
Police drive around in cars looking for people violating traffic laws on public roads, they actually have no jurisdiction nor authority to people driving on private property. If I have an acre or two of land, I can drive a car around on it all I want without a license.
Which is another big difference to bring up between the US and the US: size and open spaces. There are many people in rural areas that a government van cannot simply drive by and look for antennas. (You used to be able to get broadcast out pretty far, before we changed to digital TV and ruined it for anyone living more than a mile from the broadcast source.) And on the opposite side, you have apartment buildings in large cities with dozens of occupants that could all be using a single antenna. How could you be sure that no one is riding off of someone else's legally obtained antenna? This simply can't be properly policed without violating privacy laws that have been in place for over 200 years.

I know we've gotten off-topic here, but I find this a fascinating look into the differences of people's mentalities and what they accept, which is great material for writing fictional worlds. What are seemingly small changes in society and laws that lead to vastly different cultural expectations?
I was seeing posts online about people in the UK being arrested for posting opinions on Facebook. It is astounding to me that Brits could ever accept such a practice. I know people often counter such things with complaints about practices in the US, but these never seem like a fair trade-off.