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You go from "this argument is based on logic" to "here's a moral stance regardless of logic". What you're proposing - an uber socialistic/communistic society ha

You go from "this argument is based on logic" to "here's a moral stance regardless of logic". What you're proposing - an uber socialistic/communistic society has been proven again and again to not work out. Unless you consider maoist China and Soviet Russia (USSR) to be models you'd like to emulate, ethical capitalism is the only moral system that truly helps those who want to help themselves. Then there's the whole concept of community. The Mormon church, for instance, raises more in charity than the net worth of many billionaires. If you truly want to help the poor, enable them to help themselves. Or, collectively raise enough for charity, like the Mormon church. Taxing the fuck out of people, and enabling a lobbied-to-death politician to spend the said tax on any whimsical thing has NEVER worked out in history.

mankash666 9y ago
TLDR - no one's stoppig you or any other non-billionaire from pledging 10% of your income, banding together and funding whatever program you want to. My guess is you've never really been active philanthropically, but, you feel entitled to take away Theil's money on taxes, though he earned his money in the exact same fashion as you earn yours. You've convinced yourself of false morality where punitively taxing the wealthy is completely ok
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Peter Thiel does not earn his money "in the exact same fashion" as me since my income, like most people, is almost entirely constituted of wages.
emodendroket 9y ago
Every ethical argument ultimately follows from premises you can gum up the whole thing by rejecting. That's just the nature of the discipline. For instance, all the stuff you're writing doesn't really move someone if they don't accept the libertarian arguments about how taxation is theft or is evil. If you want to start dragging historical examples into the discussion, the Hoover years pretty well discredited the idea that voluntarism and charity were sufficient means to deal with privation.

mankash666 9y ago

TLDR - no one's stoppig you or any other non-billionaire from pledging 10% of your income, banding together and funding whatever program you want to. My guess is you've never really been active philanthropically, but, you feel entitled to take away Theil's money on taxes, though he earned his money in the exact same fashion as you earn yours. You've convinced yourself of false morality where punitively taxing the wealthy is completely ok

emodendroket 9y ago
Peter Thiel does not earn his money "in the exact same fashion" as me since my income, like most people, is almost entirely constituted of wages.

emodendroket 9y ago

Every ethical argument ultimately follows from premises you can gum up the whole thing by rejecting. That's just the nature of the discipline. For instance, all the stuff you're writing doesn't really move someone if they don't accept the libertarian arguments about how taxation is theft or is evil. If you want to start dragging historical examples into the discussion, the Hoover years pretty well discredited the idea that voluntarism and charity were sufficient means to deal with privation.