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Comment by ethbr0 | Hacker News Reader

> Helping the [less] fortunate isn't a zero-sum game.

Yes, it is, and it's fine to be honest about that.

I'm not less fortunate.

I support helping the less fortunate more.

And I realize doing so is going to require sacrifice on my part -- I'm going to have to pay more in taxes/redress to fund that help.

The difference is that morally, I find it hard to have a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in at night, security provided, and food every day... and quibble over my marginal tax rate, versus someone who doesn't have those things.

But then, I've always looked at income as society's money rather than fundamentally mine. I am able to earn what I earn because I exist in a broader organization and society.

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People can add value to the system through their actions. This goes back to one of the reasons for the private property, market-based economic systems - the idea of improvements, of non-zero-sum benefits. The cliche of making the pie bigger instead of just fighting over the size of our individual slices.

Many paths more commonly taken by the less fortunate are themselves net negative to society as a whole. Like crime or drug addiction/disease that socialized programs end up paying for.

So if we could be effective in redirecting people from those paths to healthily contributing ones instead, we could get to positive-sum. I'm already paying a lot of money for "today's result" things like property insurance, incarceration, and first responders for people, in the long run is taking action to fight the root problem more expensive?

(One of today's problem is that we mostly try to intervene at adolescence or later, at which point a ton of damage has already been done.

Preemptive intervention has never been politically palatable in democracies. A concrete bad outcome is necessary to galvanize action.

Look how often even SNAP gets shade, and that's literally about feeding people.

But democracy worst form of government, except for all the other ones, etc. etc.

> Yes, it is, and it's fine to be honest about that.

No it isn't , it's usually framed that way for politically derived reasons.

Helping one less fortunate person doesn't have to take directly take from another less fortunate person, there are more than just the less fortunate in the game.

it's an often parroted point right now, but if the ultra rich were taxed at the same rate as everyone else ( in whatever region was appropriate ) there would be a large influx of money that could be used to improve public services, support networks, education etc.

I personally don't think it would be used for that in any meaningful way, the system as a whole is broken, but it could in theory.

> I'm not less fortunate.

> I support helping the less fortunate more.

Agreed, same

> And I realize doing so is going to require sacrifice on my part -- I'm going to have to pay more in taxes/redress to fund that help.

Also agreed, in principle, but what you can personally provide pales in insignificance when compared to the sheer grinding machine that modern capitalism has become.

It's similar to "no plastic straws to stop climate change", yes, but also how about the 80+ % of actual climate change caused by the fossil fuel industries. less of a "whataboutism" and more of a yes, but also fix the bigger fucking problem.

Two things can both be true.

It's a zero sum game, and it's the morally right thing to do.

Part of the annoying thing about the modern progressive movement is how they'll twist themselves in knots to market something, when they could just say "Yes, this sucks for some people. But it's better for everyone."

(Which, don't get me wrong, what passes for the modern conservative movement is even loonier about their marketing)

But christ, just call a thing what it is.

> Two things can both be true.

That two things can be true makes sense.

> It's a zero sum game, and it's the morally right thing to do.

These two things can be true, they aren't in this case, but they can be.

In case it's a misunderstanding i'm going to state clearly, with emphasis:

> Helping the ~ [less] fortunate ~ isn't a zero-sum game.

Helping all people everywhere might be ( i haven't really considered that enough to have a solid opinion ) but helping a subset of people without impacting another subset of people isn't zero sum when the sum of those subsets isn't the whole.

In numbers:

The whole = 10

-----

Less fortunate group a = 2

Less fortunate group b = 2

Others = 6

-----

It's possible to get group a to 3 without bringing group b down to 1, because helping the less fortunate groups isn't zero sum.

I'm simplifying here because the whole being a fixed 10 isn't accurate either, but it does illustrate my point.

> But christ, just call a thing what it is.

I will, thanks ?

edit: my tiny maths failed me, updated numbers

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