I don’t think it will either. But, I actually hold hope for the future. Once people are held to standards of equality and fairness in race, gender, orientation and religion or lack of religion, I think the next step after that is a mentality of economic equality.
Dude. You’re all like a philosopher and shit. I feel you, man, I feel you.
Well, that’s why I tried to make a specific example. But your sarcasm doesn’t exactly win any arguments for you, it just indicates that you stand in opposition to my basic claim.
While luxury and materialism are an ugly thing, I think it’s still important for society to allow for rewarding of talent and skill.
A talented author who writes a best-selling novel that sells 10 million copies rightfully deserves to earn a million times more than a mediocre author whose book only sells ten copies apiece at the same price.
I would debate your belief on the economics of scale, namely that any writer could be a million times better and therefore deserve a million more bucks for the authorship, but then I’d lend pathetically small credence this pitiful poorly thought out and executed thread.
Wait, shit.
Do you have a website? I’d love to read more about your philosophies and ideas. 
You got my brain reeling tonight!
Okay, so you don’t have $100,000. Fair enough.
I don’t know how much money you have, but how many families are you paying rent for? Three? Two? At least one?
Or does your ethical system consist of just telling other people what they should be doing?
hmmmm… yeah but that sounds good as an idea, as Rhetoric, people should be rewarded fairly for hard work. How much money would an author make for selling 10 million books? Lets just say 20 million dollars to keep it simple… he could buy an Island in the Caribbean and build a mansion on it for 20 million dollars. Or he could maybe build a hospital. How much doe sit cost to build a hospital. Probably a lot more than 20 million dollars. But that could build a large apartment complex for poor people to live in. I really don’t know how to say what is really really fair in that situation. Before you respond… my point is nobody needs their own island with a mansion on it… but everyone needs a place to live.
Thank you, no, just keep reading this thread, I think it may get more interesting
Oh, I fall way short of what I should be doing.
Why are you here wasting time on the internet? Shouldn’t you be out there volunteering at a homeless shelter or something?
The truth? I’m depressed. It’s hard for me to even take a shower or brush my teeth or go shopping. But when I was feeling better, long ago in the past, I did hours and hours of volunteer work each month. I had to move in with my dad. I pay no rent. I have an income of almost 1,500 a month. I give 100 a month to charity. That’s not a lot, it’s not even 10% but it’s what I can manage to give.
Sorry to hear that. Hope you feel better soon.
The manufacture and assembly of those $100,000.00 cars provides an income for an awful lot of middle class workers. Just sayin.
I tend to agree with the OP, and I don’t follow through to the extent I feel I should on what I see as my ethical obligations. The answer I’d have to have for you is simply that I’m a pretty bad person.
Yep. Think of the person buying the car as providing groceries to 1,500 people for a week.
You realize by this scheme you are giving away not your money, but your father’s money, and keeping yourself dependent on HIS charity?
I have $100,000. And I have in my garage an expensive (not $100,000) car. I do give money to charity, but it isn’t my priority. My priority has been making sure that in retirement, I will be able to survive comfortably without having to rely on charity from friends, relatives, charitable organizations or the government. That my kids will go to college without needing to rely on the charity of grants, scholarships or loans. My priority is helping those closest to me, so they don’t need the charity of strangers, and charities that serve strangers are less burdened by those close to me. To this end, we owned a house that my brother in law lived in while he was dying of cancer, I’ve subsidized my daughter’s Girl Scout troop, made up of girls less advantaged than mine, with trips and events and camp, we’ve purchased uniforms for my son’s baseball team - also made up of primarily less advantaged kids, donated smartboards to our kids schools, helped finance school events, and pick up the dinner tab almost always when going out with friends.
My husband and I have both spent the vast majority of our time working in professional jobs. I could have stayed home, but I chose to work, not to fund charity, but to make sure my kids wouldn’t need it when college came around. My husband could have put his head down and chosen a career path that wouldn’t have involved the long hours and difficult work he’s done, but he didn’t, and he’s been well compensated. And in exchange, we have some luxuries in our life. For my husband, its that car. For me, it tends to be travel.
But hey, judge from where you are. When you are here - two kids heading towards college, retirement coming down the pike fast, it will very likely look different.
Sorry about the depression, I suffer as well. I’ve done thousands of hours of therapy, most of it useless. One of the hours that wasn’t useless was a psychiatrist who told me “stop worrying about things you can’t change, especially human nature and the wider world - there will always be kids starving somewhere.” This sort of philosophizing - it isn’t good for people like us in our down moments - wishing the world was a different place isn’t healthy when your chemistry is on its down cycle. You may find that some version of the serenity prayer is helpful - accept the things you can’t change, change the ones you can, and hope to be able to know the difference.
If I had 100K to spend on a car, I’d get a 25K car and invest the rest.
I took a business course as a freshman. This was in the textbook’s first paragraph:
“A Communist sees a mansion and says ‘no man should have this much.’ A capitalist sees a mansion and says ‘every man should have this much.’”
The rest of the book was a bit fuzzy on how that would transpire.
Excellent observation. So, I assume that you are doing whatever you can to make that extra $100,000. That way you can house those 7 families for a year. Otherwise, you are morally bankrupt. I guess you could scrape together $50,000, pay for half a year and be only half morally bankrupt.
Now get to work, Those families are counting on you!
Since we’re talking about the types of societies we may want, now about a society that people understand that they have to provide for themselves. That it shouldn’t fall to others to put food in your mouth or a roof over your head. How about a society in which no one has a child until they—alone—are able to care for that child properly. And in that type of society, when something extraordinary happens, it’s fairly easy to help out the odd case here and there. I think that anyone who does agree with this is morally bankrupt.