3 ms·

> Your needs and wants are not a claim on my life. My life is my own. If you want to feed your money into whatever you define good as, go ahead. Dont expect any

> Your needs and wants are not a claim on my life. My life is my own. If you want to feed your money into whatever you define good as, go ahead. Dont expect anyone to cater to your whims with the fruits of their labors though. This quote is interesting, as it supposes that you'll ever be in this position (and you may be. It's HN and I haven't opened your bio). Many people think the same way, which leads into my point: A lot of policy failures arise from voters being wooed away from the certainty of a social safety net by the idea of obscene wealth. And therefore we end up overborrowing for infrastructure when we should be taxing based on how someone benefits from it. > Everyone thinks they have a claim to goods and services they did not earn and hate people that earned them Not everyone, only the people who recognize that the infrastructure that enabled someone's success still needs to be paid for, and that many of those who thrive on such underlying infrastructure refuse to pay for it.

snapplebobapple 3y ago
I turned a very middle class upbringing into a fortune in the low tens of millions. I'm not in software or a traditional HN industry, I just enjoy technology. I don't plan on leaving much of it to my children, but that is and should be my choice and my choice alone. That quote doesn't suppose I'll be in any position, it supposes I am an individual and should be free to make my own choices regardless of your position (self inflicted or otherwise). That you are in some real or perceived negative situation does not mean I should be obligated to help you. Whether I help you or not is my own decision. That being said, because I enjoy helping people (and I enjoy the positive network effects of many policies indirectly) I am often willing and happy to help and/or pay taxes to provide services I don't get the full direct benefit of. I don't think you are right about a lot of policy failures stemming from people misjudging their ability to make lots of money. I think many policy failures come from idiotic first principles driving ideas around maximizing social welfare without taking into account who is paying for those policies because policy that has no/minimal direct or indirect benefit to the tax payer will be something the tax payer actively tries to avoid and often that avoidance comes in shitty political forms that only partly avoids the bad spending while also negating most of the benefit to the people not paying the taxes. Instead we should be making some reasonably conservative assumptions about what the benefit flow to each tax payer looks like, targeting a net positive benefit to every tax payer and maximizing social welfare along that indifference curve
- eganist 3y ago
  > That you are in some real or perceived negative situation does not mean I should be obligated to help you. Whether I help you or not is my own decision. Since it's a core belief of yours, you should keep voting that way, whereas I'll keep voting to make sure the social safety nets exist since fairness and successful bootstrapping are never guaranteed.
  - snapplebobapple 3y ago
    Your problem is you think you have the moral high ground on social safety net and you don't. I'm a fan of the social safety net, it just has to be way less idiotic than it is today. To have any interest in paying for it, it needs to have far greater returns to me while costing less. That means refocusing spending on metrics that more directly benefit the tax payer (more effectively keep my employees healthy, more effectively fire shite teachers and raise education standards, keep my streets safe, provide effective transportation for both my workers and my goods to market, remove stupid nimby BS actively making all these services cost more and be less effective, etc) Also, your vote is utterly ineffective other than annoying one time relocation penalties if the burden of dealing with this country becomes too high (not to mention, if you are in the usa both your options are coopted by people not good for me or for you). It would be far better if instead of thinking legacy social contract thoughts you started thinking in marginal cost and benefit terms.
    - eganist 3y ago
      I think you're assuming more about my policy preferences than I've let on. This conversation isn't likely to be productive as a result.
      - snapplebobapple 3y ago
        Ok, what's your policy preferences? You sound like a social contract kind of guy, which I obviously don't agree with. I would be more of a Rawlsian for legal system fairness and coercion minimization for social service provision (basically attempting to provide services that provide enough network effect benefit to the tax payer that the only coercion of the tax payer is for free loading avoidance rather than coercing tax payers into paying for things that are actively bad for them or negative value at current cost of provision)
jkic47 3y ago
I would like to discuss your phrase: "..voters being wooed away from the certainty of a social safety net by the idea of obscene wealth". Your preference for "certainty" may not be the OP's preference. The leap from their comment to "the idea of obscene wealth" is also troubling. It is entirely possible to have different preferences, without implying that the person wants "obscene wealth". To me, policy success would be that we get to make choices - whether they lead to us living modestly and having to deny our family opportunities that wealth might buy, or whether they lead to you living with the margins that allow you to provide your kids the leg up.
- eganist 3y ago
  Nowhere in my comment did I imply that everyone thinks this way, or that op specifically thinks this way.

snapplebobapple 3y ago

I turned a very middle class upbringing into a fortune in the low tens of millions. I'm not in software or a traditional HN industry, I just enjoy technology. I don't plan on leaving much of it to my children, but that is and should be my choice and my choice alone. That quote doesn't suppose I'll be in any position, it supposes I am an individual and should be free to make my own choices regardless of your position (self inflicted or otherwise). That you are in some real or perceived negative situation does not mean I should be obligated to help you. Whether I help you or not is my own decision. That being said, because I enjoy helping people (and I enjoy the positive network effects of many policies indirectly) I am often willing and happy to help and/or pay taxes to provide services I don't get the full direct benefit of. I don't think you are right about a lot of policy failures stemming from people misjudging their ability to make lots of money. I think many policy failures come from idiotic first principles driving ideas around maximizing social welfare without taking into account who is paying for those policies because policy that has no/minimal direct or indirect benefit to the tax payer will be something the tax payer actively tries to avoid and often that avoidance comes in shitty political forms that only partly avoids the bad spending while also negating most of the benefit to the people not paying the taxes. Instead we should be making some reasonably conservative assumptions about what the benefit flow to each tax payer looks like, targeting a net positive benefit to every tax payer and maximizing social welfare along that indifference curve

eganist 3y ago
> That you are in some real or perceived negative situation does not mean I should be obligated to help you. Whether I help you or not is my own decision. Since it's a core belief of yours, you should keep voting that way, whereas I'll keep voting to make sure the social safety nets exist since fairness and successful bootstrapping are never guaranteed.
- snapplebobapple 3y ago
  Your problem is you think you have the moral high ground on social safety net and you don't. I'm a fan of the social safety net, it just has to be way less idiotic than it is today. To have any interest in paying for it, it needs to have far greater returns to me while costing less. That means refocusing spending on metrics that more directly benefit the tax payer (more effectively keep my employees healthy, more effectively fire shite teachers and raise education standards, keep my streets safe, provide effective transportation for both my workers and my goods to market, remove stupid nimby BS actively making all these services cost more and be less effective, etc) Also, your vote is utterly ineffective other than annoying one time relocation penalties if the burden of dealing with this country becomes too high (not to mention, if you are in the usa both your options are coopted by people not good for me or for you). It would be far better if instead of thinking legacy social contract thoughts you started thinking in marginal cost and benefit terms.
  - eganist 3y ago
    I think you're assuming more about my policy preferences than I've let on. This conversation isn't likely to be productive as a result.
    - snapplebobapple 3y ago
      Ok, what's your policy preferences? You sound like a social contract kind of guy, which I obviously don't agree with. I would be more of a Rawlsian for legal system fairness and coercion minimization for social service provision (basically attempting to provide services that provide enough network effect benefit to the tax payer that the only coercion of the tax payer is for free loading avoidance rather than coercing tax payers into paying for things that are actively bad for them or negative value at current cost of provision)

jkic47 3y ago

I would like to discuss your phrase: "..voters being wooed away from the certainty of a social safety net by the idea of obscene wealth". Your preference for "certainty" may not be the OP's preference. The leap from their comment to "the idea of obscene wealth" is also troubling. It is entirely possible to have different preferences, without implying that the person wants "obscene wealth". To me, policy success would be that we get to make choices - whether they lead to us living modestly and having to deny our family opportunities that wealth might buy, or whether they lead to you living with the margins that allow you to provide your kids the leg up.

eganist 3y ago
Nowhere in my comment did I imply that everyone thinks this way, or that op specifically thinks this way.