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What if everyone carried around little thankyou notes and any time someone did something nice or improved their life in some way, they give/send them a thankyou

What if everyone carried around little thankyou notes and any time someone did something nice or improved their life in some way, they give/send them a thankyou note. Would you have an issue if someone eventually collected a billion thankyou notes?

skyyler 3y ago
I certainly would if those thankyou notes were the only way normal people could secure food and shelter and the collection of a billion of them was contributing to normal people being unable to obtain thankyou notes.
- jstanley 3y ago
  > the collection of a billion of them was contributing to normal people being unable to obtain thankyou notes. The reason poor people are poor is not that rich people are rich! The rich being rich and the poor being poor are 2 separate phenomena. It's not like there's some fixed pot of utility in the world, and the more one person has the less someone else has.
  - skyyler 3y ago
    >It's not like there's some fixed pot of utility in the world, and the more one person has the less someone else has. There is quite literally a finite amount of resources on this planet. Land, gold, oxygen, lithium... These things are limited. The more land one person has, the less there is for others.
    - jstanley 3y ago
      That's true about land (that's why we should have a land value tax and abolish all other taxes).
    - aeternum 3y ago
      There are either ways to make more, or alternatives for all of those things. We've never run out of a resource despite the constant fear of it happening.
johnnyworker 3y ago
They cannot give the note without taking it from someone else first. Money and land ownership are zero-sum games, for some to be rich, many have to be poor.
strangesmells02 3y ago
Would their kids inherit the thank you notes or would the kids have to start getting thank you notes on their own based on what they provide to the world??
erostrate 3y ago
Would you have an issue if that someone subsequently refused to part with 0.001% of their thankyou notes in order to save someone else's life? This is a terrible analogy because it captures the good reason why there are billionaires (we reward them for building something useful) and none of the problems that come with it (wealth and power inequality, economic externalities, etc.)

skyyler 3y ago

I certainly would if those thankyou notes were the only way normal people could secure food and shelter and the collection of a billion of them was contributing to normal people being unable to obtain thankyou notes.

jstanley 3y ago
> the collection of a billion of them was contributing to normal people being unable to obtain thankyou notes. The reason poor people are poor is not that rich people are rich! The rich being rich and the poor being poor are 2 separate phenomena. It's not like there's some fixed pot of utility in the world, and the more one person has the less someone else has.
- skyyler 3y ago
  >It's not like there's some fixed pot of utility in the world, and the more one person has the less someone else has. There is quite literally a finite amount of resources on this planet. Land, gold, oxygen, lithium... These things are limited. The more land one person has, the less there is for others.
  - jstanley 3y ago
    That's true about land (that's why we should have a land value tax and abolish all other taxes).
  - aeternum 3y ago
    There are either ways to make more, or alternatives for all of those things. We've never run out of a resource despite the constant fear of it happening.

johnnyworker 3y ago

They cannot give the note without taking it from someone else first. Money and land ownership are zero-sum games, for some to be rich, many have to be poor.

strangesmells02 3y ago

Would their kids inherit the thank you notes or would the kids have to start getting thank you notes on their own based on what they provide to the world??

erostrate 3y ago

Would you have an issue if that someone subsequently refused to part with 0.001% of their thankyou notes in order to save someone else's life? This is a terrible analogy because it captures the good reason why there are billionaires (we reward them for building something useful) and none of the problems that come with it (wealth and power inequality, economic externalities, etc.)