3 ms·

Then you just want to take people's stuff for fun, not to solve any problem? Is that supposed to be better?

by imgabe 4y ago

woodruffw 4y ago
No, I think I'd be happy with somewhere between "all" and "any."
- imgabe 4y ago
  And the solution to the problems is to give more and more money to the government that already spent trillions of dollars and didn't solve the problem. You don't see a problem with that? You don't think that maybe we should get the government working effectively with what we already give it before we decide to give it more? The government spent $6.8 trillion last year. Do think at some time in November they were like "Damn, we were just about to end homelessness, but we came up $100 billion short. Oh well!" Imagine if you had an employee who wasn't doing their job. Is the solution to give them a raise?
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    Again: this is very breathless. I don't have to be any particular fan of how the US Government spends its money to observe that taxing wealthy people, even aggressively, is the civically appropriate thing to do. Edit: it's also worth nothing that this reasoning is perfectly symmetrical. Why in the world should I continue to allow a billionaire to profiteer, at the cost of immense civic damage?
    - imgabe 4y ago
      > Why in the world should I continue to allow a billionaire to profiteer, at the cost of immense civic damage? 1. Because creating a valuable company that provides a useful service is not profiteering. 2. Because creating a company did not cause civic damage in the first place. 3. Therefore confiscating the value of that company and transferring it to the government could not reverse any civic damage. 4. Destroying the engine of wealth creation in our society would cause immensely more civic damage. This is also symmetrical in that once you realize this will not solve any problems - and that it will in fact create many more problems, you can then conclude it is not a civically appropriate thing to do. Even if it gives a sense of satisfaction to envious people "intuitively reason" that knocking people down a peg is "civically appropriate".
      - woodruffw 4y ago
        You're using terms of anger and envy ("satisfaction," "knocking down a peg"), when neither is present. I'm really just interested in taxing them a bit more, because I don't think it's healthy for democratic, pluralistic societies to have such large wealth gaps. There are enough things to dislike about each other without bringing in immense, unspendable amounts of money.
        imgabe 4y ago
        Making rich people poorer doesn’t do anything to help people who are poor. We could instead work on ways to make poor people richer, which would actually make their lives better instead of making someone else life worse, and would also reduce the wealth gap. Somehow none of the “tax the rich” crowd seem interested in that.
        woodruffw 4y ago
        I'm pretty sure I (speaking metaphorically) could take some of Brin's wealth, while still leaving him fabulously wealthy, and make some poor people less poor. This is a not uncommon thing for governments to do, and in most of the developed world it works relatively well. Sociologically speaking, we have decent evidence that eliminating privation can break generational cycles of poverty. Our own (broadly successful!) attempt at it is still within living memory, as is its dismantling[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society
        imgabe 4y ago
        Well good news, the government already takes a portion of everyone's wealth, especially Brin, via capital gains, income, property and other taxes. The Great Society happened just fine without a wealth tax and the government collects far more in taxes today than it did in the 1960s. You're also pinballing between "the government needs more money to give to poor people" and "we should just take rich people's money because it makes poor people feel bad that some people are rich and it will make them feel better if the rich aren't so rich". Does the government actually need the money or not? People might be temporarily helped by handouts, but they won't rise out of poverty until there's work available for them to support themselves. That is hampered by discouraging investment in productive enterprise via excessive taxes.

Then you just want to take people's stuff for fun, not to solve any problem? Is that supposed to be better?

by imgabe 4y ago

Then you just want to take people's stuff for fun, not to solve any problem? Is that supposed to be better?

woodruffw 4y ago

No, I think I'd be happy with somewhere between "all" and "any."

imgabe 4y ago
And the solution to the problems is to give more and more money to the government that already spent trillions of dollars and didn't solve the problem. You don't see a problem with that? You don't think that maybe we should get the government working effectively with what we already give it before we decide to give it more? The government spent $6.8 trillion last year. Do think at some time in November they were like "Damn, we were just about to end homelessness, but we came up $100 billion short. Oh well!" Imagine if you had an employee who wasn't doing their job. Is the solution to give them a raise?
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Again: this is very breathless. I don't have to be any particular fan of how the US Government spends its money to observe that taxing wealthy people, even aggressively, is the civically appropriate thing to do. Edit: it's also worth nothing that this reasoning is perfectly symmetrical. Why in the world should I continue to allow a billionaire to profiteer, at the cost of immense civic damage?
  - imgabe 4y ago
    > Why in the world should I continue to allow a billionaire to profiteer, at the cost of immense civic damage? 1. Because creating a valuable company that provides a useful service is not profiteering. 2. Because creating a company did not cause civic damage in the first place. 3. Therefore confiscating the value of that company and transferring it to the government could not reverse any civic damage. 4. Destroying the engine of wealth creation in our society would cause immensely more civic damage. This is also symmetrical in that once you realize this will not solve any problems - and that it will in fact create many more problems, you can then conclude it is not a civically appropriate thing to do. Even if it gives a sense of satisfaction to envious people "intuitively reason" that knocking people down a peg is "civically appropriate".
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      You're using terms of anger and envy ("satisfaction," "knocking down a peg"), when neither is present. I'm really just interested in taxing them a bit more, because I don't think it's healthy for democratic, pluralistic societies to have such large wealth gaps. There are enough things to dislike about each other without bringing in immense, unspendable amounts of money.
      - imgabe 4y ago
        Making rich people poorer doesn’t do anything to help people who are poor. We could instead work on ways to make poor people richer, which would actually make their lives better instead of making someone else life worse, and would also reduce the wealth gap. Somehow none of the “tax the rich” crowd seem interested in that.
        woodruffw 4y ago
        I'm pretty sure I (speaking metaphorically) could take some of Brin's wealth, while still leaving him fabulously wealthy, and make some poor people less poor. This is a not uncommon thing for governments to do, and in most of the developed world it works relatively well. Sociologically speaking, we have decent evidence that eliminating privation can break generational cycles of poverty. Our own (broadly successful!) attempt at it is still within living memory, as is its dismantling[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society
        imgabe 4y ago
        Well good news, the government already takes a portion of everyone's wealth, especially Brin, via capital gains, income, property and other taxes. The Great Society happened just fine without a wealth tax and the government collects far more in taxes today than it did in the 1960s. You're also pinballing between "the government needs more money to give to poor people" and "we should just take rich people's money because it makes poor people feel bad that some people are rich and it will make them feel better if the rich aren't so rich". Does the government actually need the money or not? People might be temporarily helped by handouts, but they won't rise out of poverty until there's work available for them to support themselves. That is hampered by discouraging investment in productive enterprise via excessive taxes.