3 ms·

an unjust world where some nosy stranger decides "intergenerational wealth is bad" and "everyone is fed, housed and educated" takes precedence over you working

an unjust world where some nosy stranger decides "intergenerational wealth is bad" and "everyone is fed, housed and educated" takes precedence over you working towards your children or your children's children's future because they feel justified in using political oppression to take what you've earned for your family. Not sure what kind of dystopia you're setting up where politicians will always use the greater good of everyone else to justify any actions against individuals.

kennywinker 4y ago
You can't just pass a law against inter-generational wealth. It's too easy to work around, too many ways of passing money without directly inheriting it. The only way it could possibly work is if had cultural buy in. If everybody thought it was a good idea and believed in it, at that point the laws just codify and re-enforce the existing beliefs. So I'm not setting up a dystopia where politicians swoop in and rob the elderly. I'm suggesting what if we radically restructured our society so we ACTUALLY gave everyone an equal opportunity, instead of allowing inequality to accumulate generationaly in the ways it does.
- LegitShady 4y ago
  >The only way it could possibly work is if had cultural buy in. disagree. there are lots of unpopular laws that get passed as part of other bills, under the urging of activists or lobbyists against popular opinion, etc. >I'm suggesting what if we radically restructured our society so we ACTUALLY gave everyone an equal opportunity, instead of allowing inequality to accumulate generationaly in the ways it does. The details matter. Big sweeping statements like the above don't mean anything until you get to details - they sound like moral soundbites but they ignore the details of the actions required to get to that point. That way you never have to deal with negatives arising from your ideas, because you never discuss the details enough to get to the negatives, just the platitudes.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    > disagree. there are lots of unpopular laws that get passed as part of other bills, under the urging of activists or lobbyists against popular opinion, etc. Not saying it couldn't be made a law without cultural buy-in, I'm saying the law wouldn't be effective. There are too many workaround. You can give your child your stuff while you're still alive. You can put it all into a trust. You can create a scholarship where the criteria is being this one person. You can put it all in gold bars and bury it in the backyard. Etc. etc. etc. but if there is a cultural consensus that doing that is WRONG, people will by-and-large not do it. > The details matter. Indeed they do. But if we can't agree that the goal would be a good one, there's no point in getting into the details. It seems that there are a lot of people on here who don't think we should be seeking to create a society that actually provides equal opportunities - in that context, debating how to achieve that goal is pretty useless. If we all agree that it would be good, then we can discuss specific plans and proposals to get closer to that goal.
    - LegitShady 4y ago
      >Not saying it couldn't be made a law without cultural buy-in, I'm saying the law wouldn't be effective. The bureaucracy would expand to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy, and enforcement mechanisms would be created like every other tax rule, enforced at the end of a gun like every other tax rule. >But if we can't agree that the goal would be a good one, there's no point in getting into the details. On the opposite - without the details the goal is just a meaningless sound bite, used as a weapon to justify things many won't agree to by saying 'but didn't you agree goal x is important?'. The answer is 'depends on the cost'. If the cost is empowering equality of outcome proponents, or creating communist style political commissar enforcement mechanisms, then no, not worth it. That's why I say details of plan first, not last. it's easy to say "what if we had equal opportunity" and get head nods but ultimately meaningless. The details are what matter, and if you can't present what you think is a good plan, you don't have one - you just have a platitude to justify wide future actions that I probably wouldn't support.
      - kennywinker 4y ago

kennywinker 4y ago

You can't just pass a law against inter-generational wealth. It's too easy to work around, too many ways of passing money without directly inheriting it. The only way it could possibly work is if had cultural buy in. If everybody thought it was a good idea and believed in it, at that point the laws just codify and re-enforce the existing beliefs. So I'm not setting up a dystopia where politicians swoop in and rob the elderly. I'm suggesting what if we radically restructured our society so we ACTUALLY gave everyone an equal opportunity, instead of allowing inequality to accumulate generationaly in the ways it does.

LegitShady 4y ago
>The only way it could possibly work is if had cultural buy in. disagree. there are lots of unpopular laws that get passed as part of other bills, under the urging of activists or lobbyists against popular opinion, etc. >I'm suggesting what if we radically restructured our society so we ACTUALLY gave everyone an equal opportunity, instead of allowing inequality to accumulate generationaly in the ways it does. The details matter. Big sweeping statements like the above don't mean anything until you get to details - they sound like moral soundbites but they ignore the details of the actions required to get to that point. That way you never have to deal with negatives arising from your ideas, because you never discuss the details enough to get to the negatives, just the platitudes.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  > disagree. there are lots of unpopular laws that get passed as part of other bills, under the urging of activists or lobbyists against popular opinion, etc. Not saying it couldn't be made a law without cultural buy-in, I'm saying the law wouldn't be effective. There are too many workaround. You can give your child your stuff while you're still alive. You can put it all into a trust. You can create a scholarship where the criteria is being this one person. You can put it all in gold bars and bury it in the backyard. Etc. etc. etc. but if there is a cultural consensus that doing that is WRONG, people will by-and-large not do it. > The details matter. Indeed they do. But if we can't agree that the goal would be a good one, there's no point in getting into the details. It seems that there are a lot of people on here who don't think we should be seeking to create a society that actually provides equal opportunities - in that context, debating how to achieve that goal is pretty useless. If we all agree that it would be good, then we can discuss specific plans and proposals to get closer to that goal.
  - LegitShady 4y ago
    >Not saying it couldn't be made a law without cultural buy-in, I'm saying the law wouldn't be effective. The bureaucracy would expand to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy, and enforcement mechanisms would be created like every other tax rule, enforced at the end of a gun like every other tax rule. >But if we can't agree that the goal would be a good one, there's no point in getting into the details. On the opposite - without the details the goal is just a meaningless sound bite, used as a weapon to justify things many won't agree to by saying 'but didn't you agree goal x is important?'. The answer is 'depends on the cost'. If the cost is empowering equality of outcome proponents, or creating communist style political commissar enforcement mechanisms, then no, not worth it. That's why I say details of plan first, not last. it's easy to say "what if we had equal opportunity" and get head nods but ultimately meaningless. The details are what matter, and if you can't present what you think is a good plan, you don't have one - you just have a platitude to justify wide future actions that I probably wouldn't support.
    - kennywinker 4y ago