Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

There is substantially more value for all of us in allowing more resources to be distributed to those who are able to do more with them.

And your definition of "fair playing field" is skewed because, again, you treat economics as a zero sum game. You are making the classic mistake of conflating equality of outcome with equality of opportunity.

In any case, this class warfare inspired policy of exhaustively taxing wealth won't fix a mismanaged budget or a broken scholarly culture. You are simply punishing the people who seem to have benefited most in the context of the system while ignoring merit.

Further, it is absolutely absurd to suggest that modern people in poverty dont live "good" lives. They have refrigeration, air conditioning, entertainment, access to the internet, emergency healthcare, they live like kings once did. Once again this is a problem of looking at other peoples' lives and concluding that only in comparison you deserve more for simply existing.

Taxation will not fix what is fundamentally a cultural problem.

Aside: Look at how absurd the entire argument is! We dont question in absolute terms how our poor are living, we focus entirely on the fact that the wealth is distributed unevenly. Like children complaining that their classmates have extra candy. The whole mindset is petty.




> There is substantially more value for all of us in allowing more resources to be distributed to those who are able to do more with them.

Don't you think that inheritance is a pretty bad way of achieving that? After all, traits like intelligence (which probably dominates the ability to use resources efficiently) are only about 50% heritable.


When intelligence is literally the trait which enables development of science and technology, who in their right mind would not spend money on children of intelligent adultst with a 50% success rate? Dont you realize someone on the high end of the IQ curve would be exponentially more beneficial to society if given resources? How much have a couple hundred visionaries shaped our daily lives?

Why dont we spend more federal funds on gifted children? We watch the trainwreck that is our school system as we fail to match pupils in other countries at senior high school level. The issue is, again, not taxation, on the contrary, we are not spending enough where it counts because of the greed of the entitled.


>You are making the classic mistake of conflating equality of outcome with equality of opportunity.

Outcome and opportunity is a false dichotomy. But if we were to go along with it, isn't a tax on inherited wealth a great way to maintain equality of opportunity?


I think you're reading a lot into the comment you're replying to that wasn't there. Sounds more like he's coming from a rawlsian perspective of what constitutes a just society.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: