# Do Capital Gains Screw the Poor? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 5, 2023, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-capital-gains-screw-the-poor/986644 "2023-07-05T14:37:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 150
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-capital-gains-screw-the-poor/986644/150 "2023-07-09T14:00:26Z")
In a bit of a cross thread, what @Banquet_Bear is describing (discussing a real world problem with real world implications, but with discussion grounded in a hypothetical that doesn’t reflect reality) is precisely why I have qualms about the trolley problem. IMHO, moral problems must be grounded in reality to be meaningful. I have no more conception of a billionaire who has earned their money through the passive investment of a mere $10k than I do standing at a junction and having to decide whether to throw a switch to send a trolley (with all its occupants) careening off the edge of a cliff on the one hand, or plowing through an innocent victim tied to the tracks on the other. Such are problems that do no manifest in reality. They are, therefore, not moral problems to me. I might posit a guess as to how they should be evaluated, but I cannot confidently draw any moral lessons from them because they bear no resemblance to reality as I have experienced it. > [@Is there a rational argument for Deontology?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-rational-argument-for-deontology/984590/38): > > The problem with the trolley problem (one of many problems, but I think the central one) is it attempts to take morality out of reality. It also ignores the process by which decisions are made by encouraging people to “solve” the problem in a vacuum. But the closer you get to injecting real world nuance into something like the trolley problem, the less of a “gotcha” it becomes for utilitarianism. False. A consequentialist—a rule utilitarian if you prefer—can easily justify declining to kill 1… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-capital-gains-screw-the-poor/986644)._