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Level one sounds suspiciously close to actually paying taxes and let the social net built on it work its magic. Now come on, downvote me to hell.

me_me_me 6y ago
No that's exactly it. Don't give fish. Give fishing rod, fishing right and fishing classes to people who need it. Only morons think they are better off in society full of poor oppressed people. In a was a social net system is ultimate selfish move as it lowers crime increases productivity and so on. Instead of living in permanent danger akin to current Rep of South Africa.
zdragnar 6y ago
Similar effect, perhaps, but different cause. Taxes aren't voluntary. You don't choose how much you owe. Not all taxes go towards improving people's lives- in the US, many safety nets only kick in once you are impoverished, and can disincentivise work. As an example, the recent coronavirus add-on payments to unemployment often meant people at the lowest levels of opportunity would make more by staying home than if they got a job. This isnt to say tax funded social nets are bad; most aren't. They certainly shouldn't be confused with charity, though.
- secfirstmd 6y ago
  "often meant people at the lowest levels of opportunity would make more by staying home than if they got a job" Considering how low the Coronavirus add-on payments are, doesn't your point really mean that those at the bottom of the scale, where minimum rates have barely budged in the US - are vastly underpaid on a normal basis?
  - zdragnar 6y ago
    Wasn't the payout an extra $600 / week? That's equivalent of an extra $20 / hour of a 40 hour workweek after tax withholdings. Around half of income earners in the US make less than that from working, my wife's included. It should also be noted that a little over 2% only make the federal minimum wage. In fact, the NYT broke this down on a state-by-state basis: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/23/business/economy/unemployment-benefits-stimulus-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/23/business/econ... Aside from whether or not the minimum wage should be increased, it does seem to demonstrate easily enough that the stimulus is a perverse incentive. Bringing this back to the original point I was replying to, it utterly fails the definition of the top level of charity by encouraging people to become dependent on the largess of others. That's not to say it is therefore a bad thing, but it certainly isn't a reason to call paying taxes the highest level of charity.
gjm11 6y ago
On the one hand, I think your comment is correct, insightful and important. On the other hand, I have a firm policy of always downvoting comments on HN that say things like "I know I'm going to get downvoted for posting this", because I think doing that should be strongly disincentivized. I'm compromising by neither upvoting nor downvoting and leaving this reply.
- endymi0n 6y ago
  Have my upvote as well. I was still frustrated by a similar observation I recently posted that went negative, much to my surprise, and made me imply a pretty libertarian bias. Apologies for the bile, I‘ll engage in a more civil discussion tone going forward.
neilparikh 6y ago
There's one major difference: taxes and the social net only help those in your country. And if you're in a western country (where most people with wealth are), the people who most need your help are elsewhere. Concretely, you can help a lot more people with the same amount of money if you focus your giving on the global poor (ex. Africa), rather than those in the US. One way to do this is https://www.givedirectly.org/ https://www.givedirectly.org/

me_me_me 6y ago

No that's exactly it. Don't give fish. Give fishing rod, fishing right and fishing classes to people who need it. Only morons think they are better off in society full of poor oppressed people. In a was a social net system is ultimate selfish move as it lowers crime increases productivity and so on. Instead of living in permanent danger akin to current Rep of South Africa.

zdragnar 6y ago

Similar effect, perhaps, but different cause. Taxes aren't voluntary. You don't choose how much you owe. Not all taxes go towards improving people's lives- in the US, many safety nets only kick in once you are impoverished, and can disincentivise work. As an example, the recent coronavirus add-on payments to unemployment often meant people at the lowest levels of opportunity would make more by staying home than if they got a job. This isnt to say tax funded social nets are bad; most aren't. They certainly shouldn't be confused with charity, though.

secfirstmd 6y ago
"often meant people at the lowest levels of opportunity would make more by staying home than if they got a job" Considering how low the Coronavirus add-on payments are, doesn't your point really mean that those at the bottom of the scale, where minimum rates have barely budged in the US - are vastly underpaid on a normal basis?
- zdragnar 6y ago
  Wasn't the payout an extra $600 / week? That's equivalent of an extra $20 / hour of a 40 hour workweek after tax withholdings. Around half of income earners in the US make less than that from working, my wife's included. It should also be noted that a little over 2% only make the federal minimum wage. In fact, the NYT broke this down on a state-by-state basis: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/23/business/economy/unemployment-benefits-stimulus-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/23/business/econ... Aside from whether or not the minimum wage should be increased, it does seem to demonstrate easily enough that the stimulus is a perverse incentive. Bringing this back to the original point I was replying to, it utterly fails the definition of the top level of charity by encouraging people to become dependent on the largess of others. That's not to say it is therefore a bad thing, but it certainly isn't a reason to call paying taxes the highest level of charity.

gjm11 6y ago

On the one hand, I think your comment is correct, insightful and important. On the other hand, I have a firm policy of always downvoting comments on HN that say things like "I know I'm going to get downvoted for posting this", because I think doing that should be strongly disincentivized. I'm compromising by neither upvoting nor downvoting and leaving this reply.

endymi0n 6y ago
Have my upvote as well. I was still frustrated by a similar observation I recently posted that went negative, much to my surprise, and made me imply a pretty libertarian bias. Apologies for the bile, I‘ll engage in a more civil discussion tone going forward.

neilparikh 6y ago

There's one major difference: taxes and the social net only help those in your country. And if you're in a western country (where most people with wealth are), the people who most need your help are elsewhere. Concretely, you can help a lot more people with the same amount of money if you focus your giving on the global poor (ex. Africa), rather than those in the US. One way to do this is https://www.givedirectly.org/ https://www.givedirectly.org/