“Letting people keep their stuff if it was earned honorably, unless they are obsenely rich while a lot of people are still in poverty”
Downvoted for obviously begging the question about what the standard here is.
If ‘obscenely’ is defined as ‘whatever the largest mass can get angry about’ then you’re proposing mob justice, not rule of law, which is broadly anti-civilization and bad.
If you have an actual definition of ‘obscene’, then we can discuss what the consequences will be—are you proposing that nobody can have over $100,000 while there are people starving in Africa? A million? A hundred million? We can talk about how each of these would have historically been devastating to the growth of the world’s leading economies, that have done the most to bring people out of poverty.
Downvoted for obviously begging the question about what the standard here is.
I don’t think this is a fair description of what I’m doing. Which of my conclusions am I assuming?
I’m not rigorously specifying what exactly is meant by “obsenely rich” and “poverty” here, because the whole point is that people can have different generalizations of the principle and different definitions. It’s indeed the case that same of these definitions will lead to civilizational collapse. However some will not. Can we agree this much?
I’d also like to mention that while actual mob justice is bad and anti-civilization, counterfactual mob justice has a lot of civilization-building advantages. And then there are instances of what can be described as mob justice which establishes the civilization in the first place, i.e. French Revolution.
I don’t think this is a fair description of what I’m doing. Which of my conclusions am I assuming
You’re slipping in the assumption that there’s a level of wealth present today that is ‘obscene’, without making any argument for that conclusion, and resting on that as a key reason why it is okay for the government to take people’s stuff. I take the common stance that inequality is not obscene (though poverty is).
That was really not what I’ve been trying to communicate here.
My point was that people can have some notion of “obscene wealth” and you would not even know about it before this mark is reached. Therefore saying that we definetely have a social contract 1. is unjustified.
I’d also like to know what do you consider weak or poorly reasoned in my point about counterfactual mobbing and French revolution. Or at the least what you disagree with.
Downvoted for obviously begging the question about what the standard here is.
If ‘obscenely’ is defined as ‘whatever the largest mass can get angry about’ then you’re proposing mob justice, not rule of law, which is broadly anti-civilization and bad.
If you have an actual definition of ‘obscene’, then we can discuss what the consequences will be—are you proposing that nobody can have over $100,000 while there are people starving in Africa? A million? A hundred million? We can talk about how each of these would have historically been devastating to the growth of the world’s leading economies, that have done the most to bring people out of poverty.
I don’t think this is a fair description of what I’m doing. Which of my conclusions am I assuming?
I’m not rigorously specifying what exactly is meant by “obsenely rich” and “poverty” here, because the whole point is that people can have different generalizations of the principle and different definitions. It’s indeed the case that same of these definitions will lead to civilizational collapse. However some will not. Can we agree this much?
I’d also like to mention that while actual mob justice is bad and anti-civilization, counterfactual mob justice has a lot of civilization-building advantages. And then there are instances of what can be described as mob justice which establishes the civilization in the first place, i.e. French Revolution.
You’re slipping in the assumption that there’s a level of wealth present today that is ‘obscene’, without making any argument for that conclusion, and resting on that as a key reason why it is okay for the government to take people’s stuff. I take the common stance that inequality is not obscene (though poverty is).
That was really not what I’ve been trying to communicate here.
My point was that people can have some notion of “obscene wealth” and you would not even know about it before this mark is reached. Therefore saying that we definetely have a social contract 1. is unjustified.
I’d also like to know what do you consider weak or poorly reasoned in my point about counterfactual mobbing and French revolution. Or at the least what you disagree with.