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[Eagle_eye]

Well, if you want to go down the Brave New World route, anarchism could work very well, as long as the first generation can be convinced. After that, it's all brainwashing.

As for my opinion on the wealthy; They're all bad people, or ignorant. If you allow people to starve, live in dirty hovels, and die of easily treatable diseases while you eat whatever you want, have multiple houses, and get a heart transplant when you're seventy, you are a terrible person and a parasite on society. I don't care how much of a contribution you make, noone has the right to put their own comfort over another's survival.

[lordcooper]

I don't care how much of a contribution you make, noone has the right to put their own comfort over another's survival.

I assume you're posting this from a public library, having sold your PC and donated the money to a worthy charity?

[Loud Whispers]

How do you view the wealthy?

Through a window

[Eagle_eye]

I don't care how much of a contribution you make, noone has the right to put their own comfort over another's survival.

I assume you're posting this from a public library, having sold your PC and donated the money to a worthy charity?

So I'm a hypocrite. That doesn't make my point any less valid, and I donate a hell of a lot more money relative to what I have than most people do.

[MaximumZero]

So I'm a hypocrite. That doesn't make my point any less valid, and I donate a hell of a lot more money relative to what I have than most people do.

Well, you could always stop being a hypocrite. There are two options here:

A) live a totally ascetic life. Give away anything you own that isn't directly vital to your survival, and give it directly only to people that you know are in dire need. Work as hard as you can for as long as you can to provide for the poorest of the poor. Give only by hand, because organizations are inefficient and sometimes corrupt, and they cannot guarantee a direct transfer of wealth to those who need it. Or...
B) Realize that unless you go to Africa or South America or 22nd St yourself and hand out money, most of what you donate is just never going to get there, and even if you do, a sizable quantity of that wealth is going to wind up in the wrong peoples' hands (warlords, cartel kingpins, drug dealers, etc.) Also realize that many ultra-wealthy people are already making huge contributions to charity, well over what they would need to give to make use of tax loopholes (Read: Gates, Buffett.)

[Zrk2]

Well, if you want to go down the Brave New World route, anarchism could work very well, as long as the first generation can be convinced. After that, it's all brainwashing.

As for my opinion on the wealthy; They're all bad people, or ignorant. If you allow people to starve, live in dirty hovels, and die of easily treatable diseases while you eat whatever you want, have multiple houses, and get a heart transplant when you're seventy, you are a terrible person and a parasite on society. I don't care how much of a contribution you make, noone has the right to put their own comfort over another's survival.

But society cannot function using need as its sole means of valuation; it leads to hate as all you create is taken away because someone else needs it.

[Jervill]

How do you view the wealthy?

Through a window

LW: Peeping through the wealthy's windows for 1000 years.

[Frumple]

But society cannot function using need as its sole means of valuation; it leads to hate as all you create is taken away because someone else needs it.

Largely bullshit, sorry. Needs are a fairly small subset of all we produce, and we as-a-species are more than capable of providing for our needs far above and beyond what we currently require. Even with limiting yourself to, say, the US, it's entirely possible to produce what we need to feed, shelter, and care for our population and still have a tre-freaking-mendous mountain of leftover productivity -- it is a small fraction of all that we create that would taken for someone else, if we decided such a project was worth it. But we don't, because

[Johnfalcon99977]

I generally hold the belief that holding the kind of Money to qualify you as "1% rich" requires you to be somewhat of an asshole. I understand spending money on your own personal needs and desires, no one is the perfect white knight crusader of ultimate justice, but preferring to buy a gold-plated Diamond encrusted toilet seat over feeding a few thousand starving children tends to classify you as a total douche bag.

But regardless, in our world the distinction between the "Rich" (Or to be more accurate, "The Powerful") and the "Poor" is impossible destroy, barring a complete and total reconstruction of our society and its basest values. So there isn't really a point to trying to bring it down. We can, however, do our best to make the gap as small as possible.

[Flying Dice]

Y'know what's surprisingly effective at closing gaps? Pitchforks and torches. For some reason they manage to get rid of inequality (for a while, anyhow) and bring people together at the same time.

[kaijyuu]

Those pitchforks and torches pierce and burn indiscriminately.

[mainiac]

I think the rich are delicious.

[Eagle_eye]

Those pitchforks and torches pierce and burn indiscriminately.

Is the status quo any different? If we kill a hundred thousand people now to save a million later, it's worth it.

[kaijyuu]

Same argument could be made for something like eugenics.

Who are you to judge whom is going to be the sacrifice for the greater good?

[Descan]

To be honest, that's the only thing getting in the way of me supporting eugenics. Well, not killing people, but either genetically uplifting them and their children, or sterilization. But all I would really need is an objective indicator of who is "unworthy" for me to support it.

Yeah, I'm a terrible person. Y'all can hate me now.

PTW.