5 ms·

The point of being nice it seems that people were not repremended for bad behavior. That’s not a good thing for the culture because it’s demotivating for peopl

The point of being nice it seems that people were not repremended for bad behavior. That’s not a good thing for the culture because it’s demotivating for people who do things the right way as there is very little incentive in doing so.

ansible 6y ago
People in general are hugely sensitive to perceived unfairness. This is a critical thing to maintain in any organization. For example, you can take a group of five billionaires. Give the first four a little tax break for something, which totals up to only be a million each. No big deal, right? All these people are the 1% of the 1% of the 1%, the pinnacle of wealth in the world. There's no way that little tax break would prevent the 5th billionaire from buying the private island he always wanted, or whatever. In practice, though, that 5th billionaire will be pissed he didn't also get the tax break. He will spend a lot of time either angry at the situation, or spending that time also trying to get a tax break. Is that a good use of his time? He would be happier driving around on his 80ft yacht... if he could focus on that instead. But that's not how our brains are wired.
- bshacklett 6y ago
  It's not just humans. This behavior seems to go pretty deep: https://phys.org/news/2017-02-animals-unfairly-dont.html https://phys.org/news/2017-02-animals-unfairly-dont.html
  - _jal 6y ago
    The cool thing is that cheat detection/unfairness detection seems to happen at the semantic level of reasoning. You can see this with kids - one example I recall is a friend's 5 year old being upset at seeing another kid with ice cream. $Parent said it was that kid's birthday (who knows), and her kid immediately got over it. So if only billionaires were human, we could just suggest their semantic categories were wrong. <rimshot>
    - 0xdeadbeefbabe 6y ago
      Maybe something about a previous life?
      - jaifraic 6y ago
        I'm fairly sure "it's their birthday, so they get a tax break" won't work.
        xmprt 6y ago
        Are we sure? Maybe no one has tried yet...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - snthd 6y ago
    The monkey experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg&t=71 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg&t=71
- kbutler 6y ago
  While I agree this is common human nature, 1) you seem to be speculating about billionaires without actual evidence, even anecdotal, and 2) individuals differ - some may have the maturity and perspective not to worry about it. However, in support of your point, while Bill Gates and Warren Buffett both say billionaires and other "better off" people should pay more taxes, to my knowledge, they haven't been unilaterally sending checks to the government for the difference between current taxes and their ideal amount. They seem to believe that their private foundation can make better use of their excess money than the government can. They're willing to advocate additional taxes for groups, rather than just for themselves.
  - seankimdesign 6y ago
    Let's replace the term "billionaires" with "rational actors" then
    - kbutler 6y ago
      "emotional actors"
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - eloff 6y ago
    What kind of idiot pays more than they owe in taxes? I'm sure you don't either. I don't know why some people seem to expect that of billionaires. It's not rational behavior for them or anyone else, so why do you think they should be behaving that way. I've seen this more than a couple times in HN comments and it always befuddled me.
    - mbay 6y ago
      marginal utility is much higher for the government (and the public) than for you
      - kbutler 6y ago
- flingo 6y ago
  > He will spend a lot of time either angry at the situation, or spending that time also trying to get a tax break. It is a good financial decision to spend up to "$1M * <odds of success>" to get that tax break, or another better one. (especially if the ~$500K spent on retainered-lawyers sets you up to pay less due to future tax hikes.) Economics gets weird when any of the numbers get really big, or really small. I don't like this example though, as it doesn't detail why the tax break was so specific. Did 4/5 of them have no taxable income that year? Do all of these billionaires live in a despotic-shithole where the rule of law doesn't apply equally to everyone? (to be fair, most billionaires do. /s)
  - tripzilch 6y ago
    It's a good financial decision for a business that is supposed to maximise profit for shareholders or employees or something. But this example is not about that. First to answer your last question, it's the despotic shithole kind. The point being, the reason is completely arbitrary. This is about a billionaire who can already buy whatever they want, regardless of said tax break. It won't make them directly happier because it doesn't allow them to buy anything they couldn't otherwise buy. The point of the example is that given this is the case, we still have a built in biological desire for "fairness" and if this billionaire would realise and observe this desire having no logical basis, they would not fight it. (assume fighting it is not as enjoyable to spend their limited life time as they could be doing something else with the money they already have) In an analogous situation, five people go to a fancy restaurant and for some reason four of them get 10 plates of food, and one gets 9 plates of food. Assume the restaurant is so generous one person can't possibly eat more than 2 plates anyway. Why is it easier to imagine simply not making a big deal out of it and enjoying your meal(s), in this situation? (Especially considering that the meal example is 100x more unfair)

ansible 6y ago

People in general are hugely sensitive to perceived unfairness. This is a critical thing to maintain in any organization. For example, you can take a group of five billionaires. Give the first four a little tax break for something, which totals up to only be a million each. No big deal, right? All these people are the 1% of the 1% of the 1%, the pinnacle of wealth in the world. There's no way that little tax break would prevent the 5th billionaire from buying the private island he always wanted, or whatever. In practice, though, that 5th billionaire will be pissed he didn't also get the tax break. He will spend a lot of time either angry at the situation, or spending that time also trying to get a tax break. Is that a good use of his time? He would be happier driving around on his 80ft yacht... if he could focus on that instead. But that's not how our brains are wired.

bshacklett 6y ago
It's not just humans. This behavior seems to go pretty deep: https://phys.org/news/2017-02-animals-unfairly-dont.html https://phys.org/news/2017-02-animals-unfairly-dont.html
- _jal 6y ago
  The cool thing is that cheat detection/unfairness detection seems to happen at the semantic level of reasoning. You can see this with kids - one example I recall is a friend's 5 year old being upset at seeing another kid with ice cream. $Parent said it was that kid's birthday (who knows), and her kid immediately got over it. So if only billionaires were human, we could just suggest their semantic categories were wrong. <rimshot>
  - 0xdeadbeefbabe 6y ago
    Maybe something about a previous life?
    - jaifraic 6y ago
      I'm fairly sure "it's their birthday, so they get a tax break" won't work.
      - xmprt 6y ago
        Are we sure? Maybe no one has tried yet...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- snthd 6y ago
  The monkey experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg&t=71 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg&t=71
kbutler 6y ago
While I agree this is common human nature, 1) you seem to be speculating about billionaires without actual evidence, even anecdotal, and 2) individuals differ - some may have the maturity and perspective not to worry about it. However, in support of your point, while Bill Gates and Warren Buffett both say billionaires and other "better off" people should pay more taxes, to my knowledge, they haven't been unilaterally sending checks to the government for the difference between current taxes and their ideal amount. They seem to believe that their private foundation can make better use of their excess money than the government can. They're willing to advocate additional taxes for groups, rather than just for themselves.
- seankimdesign 6y ago
  Let's replace the term "billionaires" with "rational actors" then
  - kbutler 6y ago
    "emotional actors"
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- eloff 6y ago
  What kind of idiot pays more than they owe in taxes? I'm sure you don't either. I don't know why some people seem to expect that of billionaires. It's not rational behavior for them or anyone else, so why do you think they should be behaving that way. I've seen this more than a couple times in HN comments and it always befuddled me.
  - mbay 6y ago
    marginal utility is much higher for the government (and the public) than for you
    - kbutler 6y ago
flingo 6y ago
> He will spend a lot of time either angry at the situation, or spending that time also trying to get a tax break. It is a good financial decision to spend up to "$1M * <odds of success>" to get that tax break, or another better one. (especially if the ~$500K spent on retainered-lawyers sets you up to pay less due to future tax hikes.) Economics gets weird when any of the numbers get really big, or really small. I don't like this example though, as it doesn't detail why the tax break was so specific. Did 4/5 of them have no taxable income that year? Do all of these billionaires live in a despotic-shithole where the rule of law doesn't apply equally to everyone? (to be fair, most billionaires do. /s)
- tripzilch 6y ago
  It's a good financial decision for a business that is supposed to maximise profit for shareholders or employees or something. But this example is not about that. First to answer your last question, it's the despotic shithole kind. The point being, the reason is completely arbitrary. This is about a billionaire who can already buy whatever they want, regardless of said tax break. It won't make them directly happier because it doesn't allow them to buy anything they couldn't otherwise buy. The point of the example is that given this is the case, we still have a built in biological desire for "fairness" and if this billionaire would realise and observe this desire having no logical basis, they would not fight it. (assume fighting it is not as enjoyable to spend their limited life time as they could be doing something else with the money they already have) In an analogous situation, five people go to a fancy restaurant and for some reason four of them get 10 plates of food, and one gets 9 plates of food. Assume the restaurant is so generous one person can't possibly eat more than 2 plates anyway. Why is it easier to imagine simply not making a big deal out of it and enjoying your meal(s), in this situation? (Especially considering that the meal example is 100x more unfair)