4 ms·

The fundamental flaw in human nature is the universality of the thought "I'm a nice person, I'll never do what they did!" Yet, few of us forego our comforts an

The fundamental flaw in human nature is the universality of the thought "I'm a nice person, I'll never do what they did!" Yet, few of us forego our comforts and vacations when that could measurably help many with basic life necessities. If you contribute 20% of your salary to charity, you're already in the significant minority, leave alone higher ratios. Many here work in facebook, or Palantir, and find ways to justify how it's not that bad a company. Other tech companies too, but the point is made more clearly with these examples. On a far simpler example, a few years back, most everyone in this forum probably used to pirate movies. Whatever Robinhood justification we all used, in the end we broke the law. Probably because we thought it didn't matter, that we somehow deserved what we took, and that we won't caught. That's the first rung in the ladder that after a very large number of steps leads to where this family has ended. If you were ready to break a small law to just watch a movie, is it that unfathomable that these people will do dastardlier things to keep billions?

snarf21 6y ago
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked
danans 6y ago
> Yet, few of us forego our comforts and vacations when that could measurably help many with basic life necessities. Paying for those comforts helps pay for the basic life necessities of those who provide the comforts. > If you contribute 20% of your salary to charity, you're already in the significant minority, leave alone higher ratios. Few common workers can afford to contribute 20% to charity without living paycheck to paycheck. This is what progressive taxation is for. The marginal utility of money for funding the basics of life diminishes as you move into the .1% of the income/wealth distribution, which is the argument for taxing those people more. The marginal utility for political power, however scales up with wealth, which is an even more compelling argument for strongly progressive taxation.

snarf21 6y ago

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked

danans 6y ago

> Yet, few of us forego our comforts and vacations when that could measurably help many with basic life necessities. Paying for those comforts helps pay for the basic life necessities of those who provide the comforts. > If you contribute 20% of your salary to charity, you're already in the significant minority, leave alone higher ratios. Few common workers can afford to contribute 20% to charity without living paycheck to paycheck. This is what progressive taxation is for. The marginal utility of money for funding the basics of life diminishes as you move into the .1% of the income/wealth distribution, which is the argument for taxing those people more. The marginal utility for political power, however scales up with wealth, which is an even more compelling argument for strongly progressive taxation.