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I find this mentality is always directed at rich people, but never applied consistently in anyone's life, so I have a hard time taking this opinion seriously. H

by toolz 2y ago

I find this mentality is always directed at rich people, but never applied consistently in anyone's life, so I have a hard time taking this opinion seriously. Hopefully, you can convince me otherwise, but I've never heard anyone suggest the best sports teams should stop competing when they've won enough, or that the best inventors should stop, or the best artists, and so on. Money isn't zero sum. We're constantly creating insanely large quantities of money. If the people at the top are accumulating that money from individual consumers making their own free choices, then would you suggest that the people at the end of the line be given things for free? Or maybe they should be disallowed from making the purchases? Or maybe you're suggesting the rich keep selling but they're forced to give the profits away? and who would they give it away too? The federal government controls more money than any entire private business, so obviously it controls orders of magnitude more than any individual. Should these wealthy individuals be forced to give their money to the largest money holders in the world? What value system would that make sense in?

deleted 2y ago
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- jfyi 2y ago
  > I can try. Have you ever played competitive sports against a kid? You start to feel bad after a while. Winning comes easy, but you're worried that the kid might hurt themselves in over-exertion. In truth, the kid literally cannot make a decision that will beat you. You're the best. You know this. It's not fair. If online gaming is any indication, what you are describing is largely not the way the most vocal people feel. It's more generally, "let's actively hunt down little kids to ruthlessly defeat and record it while mocking them so we can make ourselves internet celebrities!" and "if I can't do it myself, at least I can watch this other guy mow down kids with no chance of competing and cheer him on!" There are exceptions of real skill of course, but those exceptions are what the others are desperately trying to emulate by seeking out weaker opponents. Introspection is going to be a hard sell for those others.
andyroid 2y ago
> never heard anyone suggest the best sports teams should stop competing when they've won enough, or that the best inventors should stop, or the best artists While they want you to believe that, there’s no correlation between being rich and being best, or even good, at anything. You’re not the best athlete because your mom and dad were the best athletes. But if your parents were wealthy, you’re wealthy. If they want standards to be applied ”consistently”, great. They can start by paying their taxes.
- toolz 2y ago
  If you have issue with the taxes they pay then you have issue with the tax code, but that still doesn't address any problems or apply any consistent values. How does moving money from one rich person to the richest organization in the world achieve any goal?
scotty79 2y ago
Money is just a way of keeping track of to what fraction of future output of other people you are entitled to (as agreed upon by human race). Why shouldn't this quantity be softly capped at some value to prevent natural runaway towards 100%? What's wrong about capping it on the other side slightly above zero for the purposes of personal survival and preventing organic deterioration? > Or maybe you're suggesting the rich keep selling but they're forced to give the profits away? Obviously that. > and who would they give it away too? That is really irrelevant. The money they gave away can literally be burnt and it would still improve the situation. Money is not value. Money is just a score indicating how much value are you entitled to obtain in the future. > The federal government controls more money than any entire private business Is that true? Despite trillions of debt? There are national governments in the world (and not small ones) that currently owe more to businesses than they own assets. Completely unrelated but since you asked, I have nothing against capping athletes at the top level of success. Once you win everything you should step aside and let others have their fun. You shouldn't feel compelled to punish your body even harder for years to come and others shouldn't have to wait till your performance deteriorates.
- toolz 2y ago
  > Money is just a way of keeping track of to what fraction of future output of other people you are entitled to (as agreed upon by human race). I don't agree with this definition of money. The vast majority of money doesn't represent human output/labor and none of it is created by human labor. Probably the simplest to understand example of that is crypto. It represents trillions of USD in wealth and has almost no human labor input or output. That's a simple example, but certainly not the only example. > Is that true? Despite trillions of debt? Yes it's true. It's not even close. The US federal government spends in a single year more than the largest companies in this world would cost to buy flat out. They could save up for roughly 6 months and buy out the most expensive company in the world (apple). A company that has been growing their wealth for 50 years. This is why I struggle to find a consistent value system that claims we are solving problems by taking money from big earners and giving it to entities that already control many orders of magnitude more money. Moving money from the grossly rich to the insanely unthinkably rich doesn't make much sense to me. > Completely unrelated but since you asked, I have nothing against capping athletes at the top level of success. What problem does this solve? I don't have anything much against it either, but I can't find any reason to do this.

by toolz 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jfyi 2y ago
> I can try. Have you ever played competitive sports against a kid? You start to feel bad after a while. Winning comes easy, but you're worried that the kid might hurt themselves in over-exertion. In truth, the kid literally cannot make a decision that will beat you. You're the best. You know this. It's not fair. If online gaming is any indication, what you are describing is largely not the way the most vocal people feel. It's more generally, "let's actively hunt down little kids to ruthlessly defeat and record it while mocking them so we can make ourselves internet celebrities!" and "if I can't do it myself, at least I can watch this other guy mow down kids with no chance of competing and cheer him on!" There are exceptions of real skill of course, but those exceptions are what the others are desperately trying to emulate by seeking out weaker opponents. Introspection is going to be a hard sell for those others.

andyroid 2y ago

> never heard anyone suggest the best sports teams should stop competing when they've won enough, or that the best inventors should stop, or the best artists While they want you to believe that, there’s no correlation between being rich and being best, or even good, at anything. You’re not the best athlete because your mom and dad were the best athletes. But if your parents were wealthy, you’re wealthy. If they want standards to be applied ”consistently”, great. They can start by paying their taxes.

toolz 2y ago
If you have issue with the taxes they pay then you have issue with the tax code, but that still doesn't address any problems or apply any consistent values. How does moving money from one rich person to the richest organization in the world achieve any goal?

scotty79 2y ago

Money is just a way of keeping track of to what fraction of future output of other people you are entitled to (as agreed upon by human race). Why shouldn't this quantity be softly capped at some value to prevent natural runaway towards 100%? What's wrong about capping it on the other side slightly above zero for the purposes of personal survival and preventing organic deterioration? > Or maybe you're suggesting the rich keep selling but they're forced to give the profits away? Obviously that. > and who would they give it away too? That is really irrelevant. The money they gave away can literally be burnt and it would still improve the situation. Money is not value. Money is just a score indicating how much value are you entitled to obtain in the future. > The federal government controls more money than any entire private business Is that true? Despite trillions of debt? There are national governments in the world (and not small ones) that currently owe more to businesses than they own assets. Completely unrelated but since you asked, I have nothing against capping athletes at the top level of success. Once you win everything you should step aside and let others have their fun. You shouldn't feel compelled to punish your body even harder for years to come and others shouldn't have to wait till your performance deteriorates.

toolz 2y ago
> Money is just a way of keeping track of to what fraction of future output of other people you are entitled to (as agreed upon by human race). I don't agree with this definition of money. The vast majority of money doesn't represent human output/labor and none of it is created by human labor. Probably the simplest to understand example of that is crypto. It represents trillions of USD in wealth and has almost no human labor input or output. That's a simple example, but certainly not the only example. > Is that true? Despite trillions of debt? Yes it's true. It's not even close. The US federal government spends in a single year more than the largest companies in this world would cost to buy flat out. They could save up for roughly 6 months and buy out the most expensive company in the world (apple). A company that has been growing their wealth for 50 years. This is why I struggle to find a consistent value system that claims we are solving problems by taking money from big earners and giving it to entities that already control many orders of magnitude more money. Moving money from the grossly rich to the insanely unthinkably rich doesn't make much sense to me. > Completely unrelated but since you asked, I have nothing against capping athletes at the top level of success. What problem does this solve? I don't have anything much against it either, but I can't find any reason to do this.