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Some of us think that a key aspect of society is that we take care of each other. If something terrible happens to you before you manage to amass a fortune, it’
by christophilus 9mo ago
Some of us think that a key aspect of society is that we take care of each other. If something terrible happens to you before you manage to amass a fortune, it’s nice to live in a society that won’t leave your family destitute.
- mlrtime 9mo agoThe problem I see is a meta problem to your statement. 1) We should do whatever it takes to take care of each other no matter the cost, equality 2) The actual details on how to do that for every person in every dimension is not affordable, meaning decisions have to be made to violate rule #1 So now we are back to politics and deciding which ones are more fair than others. So writing your sentence maybe true, but it's actually naive at the same time to think it can be done in every situation.
- christophilus 9mo agoTrue, but reductio ad absurdum is a good way to make any argument look silly without actually considering nuance. Of course, there's some limit to what society will do to save an individual. If someone is lost at sea, we'll try to save them, but we won't spend $1T rerouting all of our available naval capabilities to do it. How much should we spend? The math isn't clear, and thus the economics aren't clear. But, where we should fall is somewhere on a gradient between "Every man for himself" and "Save every individual at all costs." The question is, where do we fall on that gradient?
- SirMaster 9mo agoSome of us don't like paying for other people who make objectively bad decisions that cause them to need to be bailed out in some way. There's nothing wrong with taking care of others, but there has to be limits. Hopefully the limits are designed in ways that encourage objectively good choices and discourage objectively bad ones.