10 ms·

Ah, yes, threatening to murder people you're jealous of. This is the content I come to Hacker News for!

by ellyagg 6y ago

iaHN 6y ago
The underlying counterargument is that tax dodging is a form of violence against the poor.
- cltby 6y ago
  Rich guy: “Mind keeping your hands off my stuff?” Confiscationist: “he’s attacking me!”
  - iaHN 6y ago
    The underlying counterargument was that it was never completely "your stuff" to begin with.
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
      Background reading: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery
    - daenz 6y ago
      And we should leave the allocation of who is allowed to own how much stuff to who exactly? Politicians? Your average person on the street? Who are those economic geniuses who will distribute everything with objective correctness? That is the alternative that it sounds like you are promoting.
      - damnyou 6y ago
        I share your concerns about centralized management, which is why the money should be redistributed in the form of a UBI to enable decentralized decision-making.
        sixstringtheory 6y ago
        The decision about how much UBI is enough and from whom it is drawn and by how much is the critical part of the equation, and that is necessarily centralized.
        damnyou 6y ago
        Indeed, only the state can succeed at decentralization. That's why we need some amount of centralized, democratic decision-making as well. But redistributing wealth as UBI is a good way to redistribute power across society (an unalloyed good -- power should be broadly distributed) while avoiding most of the worst parts of central planning.
adjkant 6y ago
I can't say I have much time to engage today, but since this seems to have some support and a fundamental misunderstanding, I want to address this one. Hatred towards the ultra-rich is not based in jealousy but in a moral stance. The argument is not "I want your 30M" it is that "people having this much wealth is bad for all of society". See: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/opinion/abolish-billionaires-tax.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/opinion/abolish-billionai... There's much debate to be had over where that line of "too much wealth that it can't possibly be moral" is, but this is where the cultural conversation is. You're missing the point if you think it's jealousy. As an example, I never plan to have more than about 2M (in today's dollars) of personal wealth. I'm not supporting this tax because I want the 30M, I'm supporting it because I think it may have positive effects on reigning in the human instinct for greed by aligning societal incentives with personal ones. I'm trying to keep this narrow as I'm not trying to claim I'm correct that this specific iteration of the tax will work, or even of the form, but hopefully my point about the targeted issue is clear!
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  >Hatred towards the ultra-rich is not based in jealousy but in a moral stance. there is nothing 'moral' about hatred. or covetousness. one wealthy person has created more jobs and taxes and created benefits for society in goods and services than the 99% that already benefit from them. see that smart phone in your hand? the blazing internet speeds? the nice roads? the electric car rebate you get. the cheap cheap food we enjoy. thats what we get from wealthy people. if you had money after killing the golden geese and noone motivated to create this paradise we live in, we'd move elsewhere. 20 years ago..and i am old enough to remember it...life was so much different. maybe segregation is the answer. ghettos and mansions. eta: is america the land where children are not taught to take things that dont belong to them? its not your wealth. you didnt create it. you cant take it. move on. make your own money. happiness is free. do men go to a woman and grab her breasts because she has them and they dont. they want it and she doesnt? same thing. you cant touch without consent. i wouldnt go as far as to say that taxation is rape..but it is theft and punitive. best to measure the inherent power of taxation and only use it sparingly and prudently. other's wealth is not for the govt's to distribute. are we going to start forcing everyone to study, educate themselves and work next? i didnt think so.
oblio 6y ago
Where is he threatening to kill anyone? He's just highlighting a fact of life. You can't have people starving next to people having 7 course meals. I can't complain about my financial situation and this is precisely why I would support a fairer redistribution. I'm willing to sacrifice a bit so that others have a decent life, too. Because otherwise you can step on others only for so much, and at some point losing your possessions is the least of your concerns. If you're a true conservative (not in the US sense of the term), you should understand this. Heck, Bismark, the grandfather of conservatives understood this.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Ah, yes, threatening to murder people you're jealous of. This is the content I come to Hacker News for!

iaHN 6y ago

The underlying counterargument is that tax dodging is a form of violence against the poor.

cltby 6y ago
Rich guy: “Mind keeping your hands off my stuff?” Confiscationist: “he’s attacking me!”
- iaHN 6y ago
  The underlying counterargument was that it was never completely "your stuff" to begin with.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
    Background reading: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery
  - daenz 6y ago
    And we should leave the allocation of who is allowed to own how much stuff to who exactly? Politicians? Your average person on the street? Who are those economic geniuses who will distribute everything with objective correctness? That is the alternative that it sounds like you are promoting.
    - damnyou 6y ago
      I share your concerns about centralized management, which is why the money should be redistributed in the form of a UBI to enable decentralized decision-making.
      - sixstringtheory 6y ago
        The decision about how much UBI is enough and from whom it is drawn and by how much is the critical part of the equation, and that is necessarily centralized.
        damnyou 6y ago
        Indeed, only the state can succeed at decentralization. That's why we need some amount of centralized, democratic decision-making as well. But redistributing wealth as UBI is a good way to redistribute power across society (an unalloyed good -- power should be broadly distributed) while avoiding most of the worst parts of central planning.

adjkant 6y ago

I can't say I have much time to engage today, but since this seems to have some support and a fundamental misunderstanding, I want to address this one. Hatred towards the ultra-rich is not based in jealousy but in a moral stance. The argument is not "I want your 30M" it is that "people having this much wealth is bad for all of society". See: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/opinion/abolish-billionaires-tax.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/opinion/abolish-billionai... There's much debate to be had over where that line of "too much wealth that it can't possibly be moral" is, but this is where the cultural conversation is. You're missing the point if you think it's jealousy. As an example, I never plan to have more than about 2M (in today's dollars) of personal wealth. I'm not supporting this tax because I want the 30M, I'm supporting it because I think it may have positive effects on reigning in the human instinct for greed by aligning societal incentives with personal ones. I'm trying to keep this narrow as I'm not trying to claim I'm correct that this specific iteration of the tax will work, or even of the form, but hopefully my point about the targeted issue is clear!

jelliclesfarm 6y ago
>Hatred towards the ultra-rich is not based in jealousy but in a moral stance. there is nothing 'moral' about hatred. or covetousness. one wealthy person has created more jobs and taxes and created benefits for society in goods and services than the 99% that already benefit from them. see that smart phone in your hand? the blazing internet speeds? the nice roads? the electric car rebate you get. the cheap cheap food we enjoy. thats what we get from wealthy people. if you had money after killing the golden geese and noone motivated to create this paradise we live in, we'd move elsewhere. 20 years ago..and i am old enough to remember it...life was so much different. maybe segregation is the answer. ghettos and mansions. eta: is america the land where children are not taught to take things that dont belong to them? its not your wealth. you didnt create it. you cant take it. move on. make your own money. happiness is free. do men go to a woman and grab her breasts because she has them and they dont. they want it and she doesnt? same thing. you cant touch without consent. i wouldnt go as far as to say that taxation is rape..but it is theft and punitive. best to measure the inherent power of taxation and only use it sparingly and prudently. other's wealth is not for the govt's to distribute. are we going to start forcing everyone to study, educate themselves and work next? i didnt think so.

oblio 6y ago

Where is he threatening to kill anyone? He's just highlighting a fact of life. You can't have people starving next to people having 7 course meals. I can't complain about my financial situation and this is precisely why I would support a fairer redistribution. I'm willing to sacrifice a bit so that others have a decent life, too. Because otherwise you can step on others only for so much, and at some point losing your possessions is the least of your concerns. If you're a true conservative (not in the US sense of the term), you should understand this. Heck, Bismark, the grandfather of conservatives understood this.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]