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autisticsperg67's avatar

I’m not sure why Matt thinks that “we must give money to poor people” logically follows from “you didn’t create the inputs that make you productive”. Geniuses of the past were the ones who created the “collective” knowledge, not the poor people Matt is thinking of. They were the ones who were under-compensated. If anything, this suggests we should retroactively reward both living geniuses and the descendants of ones who passed.

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Noah's avatar

He is saying that the idea of distribution in accordance to desert is false and impossible, so we need another theory of distributions. He's alternative is rawlsian and does not care about deserts thus uses the welfare state.

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autisticsperg67's avatar

You’re moving the goalpost from “your productivity is mostly due to uncompensated collective knowledge” to “redistribution is inherently good because you could be a recipient in this hypothetical”. I offered a solution you didn’t like.

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Noah's avatar

How is being the descendant of a genius imply you deserve the deserts of their labor? it would also be nearly impossible to calculate the time discounted value of these innovations

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autisticsperg67's avatar

I don’t need to justify inheritance. The value calculations seem more straightforward than whatever mental gymnastics you socialists do to justify your preferred policies. I don’t see why we can’t have a genius fund and vibe estimate the importance of innovations.

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Noah's avatar

So you don't know how. You're theory of entitlement doesn't work, so you don't have one. You just give money randomly to whoever you feel deserves on the spur. Sure. That's definitely how desert works

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autisticsperg67's avatar

I don’t see why we can’t have an LLM distribute it. Why are poor people deserving of my money? Arguing that I could hypothetically be one is like saying I could hypothetically be a cow or a worm.

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Dan Thrailkill's avatar

Is there a better way to digest this content other than via Substack? The embedded YouTube video is not listed on the Econoboi YouTube channel as a public video and I do not see it anywhere in podcast format?

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Tyler Wells's avatar

Am I wrong or did Matt make the claim that the economy was a fixed pie to be redistributed and Brian just never touched the issue? In the uncle case, if the uncle gets off his lazy ass and gets a job, is there any doubt that is helping the economic pie grow? Both as a whole and for the family?

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robc's avatar

I think not being a georgist libertarian hurt Bryan (just a little, he generally destroyed his opponent, in my opinion). He could have totally throttled him by agreeing on unimproved land and natural resources and distinguished productivity. Sure, tax the former, but there is no moral justification for taxing productivity.

And the big question is why, assuming any taxation is justified, that THE STATE is who should be receiving said tax revenue.

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The Delphic Mirror's avatar

“You didn’t build that” cuts both ways.

Entrepreneurs rely on public goods.

But modern socialists rely on a market order—and, in Norway’s case, oil rents—they didn’t create and don’t know how to replace.

New essay in response to the Bruenig vs. Caplan debate.

https://open.substack.com/pub/delphicmirror/p/you-didnt-build-this-either?r=5d3u3o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

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