What is one moral you have that most people don't agree with?
Example: I believe that IP is a direct contradiction of nature, sacrificing the advancement of humanity and the world for selfish gain, and therefore is sinful.
Edit: pls do not downvote the comments this is a constructive discussion
Edit2: IP= intellectal property
Edit3: sort by controversal
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I think inheritance of money is bad. It seems to be some agreed upon good, you should leave money and assets to your children. But WTF? This drives inequality, generational wealth accumulates and so does generational poverty. I think the world would be better if it was more use it or lose it, and you couldn't pass it on like that. Or not so much at least.
That is a controversial one, but my response also will be.
In that case, would it be better if someone were to gamble all their money and lose it all while they are still alive, rather than to pass it down to their children? Would someone die more peacefully knowing they gambled all their money away, rather than leaving it to their children, leaving their children's lives uncertain? Is passing down a home to stay for their children really such a bad thing, rather than forcing them to fend for themselves in a horribly inequitable world where people are often unable to afford housing?
Personally, I don't think making everyone have nothing or the equivalent of nothing is the solution to wealth inequality, I don't think that solves poverty.
Also, how much inheritance should be allowed? None? $250? $2,500? $25,000? $250,000? $2,500,000?
What about a rich relative leaving money to their disabled cousin who was on lifelong disability, is a significant lump sum inheritance of half a million dollars for said disabled cousin still bad? Does it become bad if said cousin instead weren't disabled in this example?
I'm not so sure it's as simple as all inheritance of money is bad.
How about we collect the potential inheritance of everyone that passes and then divide it equally to everyone who became 18 that year. Or it goes to a government fund that pays for a 30k bonus to everyone turning 18 (or 25, etc).
I am seeing this myself. I grew up in a Munich suburb and everyone was growing up in houses except my migrant ass and the other migrant asses, we were in rented apartments. Then, when we became young adults, guess who didn't have to pay for rent, who was rather worryless about their housing situation long term? Because everyone knew they would inherit the houses that were surging in value and are now between one and several million euros worth.
Now I am getting older and am friends with refugees. You want to tell me that the daughter of the guy who worked himself off after leaving Afghanistan at age 15, learning German but only managing to get a salesman apprenticeship, deserves nothing as inheritance? Because this is what it is going to be. His parents have worked their asses off raising 9 kids in a small home, they had no money but they gave it all.
We are all in our very early 30s and we can already extrapolate how differently our financial situations, our security nets, and our children's security nets will be. And we are lucky living in a social democracy.
So if you cap it to 30k, that still means that parents dying means that their children's lives are still left uncertain. There would still be the problem of people being unable to afford housing.
I'm not sure that no inheritance at all, or 30k for everyone at age 18 actually solves anything.
their children’s lives are still left uncertain
Fuck em. A lot of children's lives are uncertain.
Once a statement like that comes out, you've lost the plot completely.
We're reading different books. Mine is called Equality.
Masturbatory self righteousness more like.
2.5M sounds ok to me. Even 10M would get the 99.9% of the benefit. The important part is that it's capped.
Honestly, I agree with that. I think a 2.5 million cap is reasonable for pretty much everybody. Nobody ever needs more than that, and nobody could ever reasonably obtain more than that in their life normally.
I guess I just feel like the playing field should be a lot more even at the start. So if you have above whatever the threshold is when you die, all to taxes and all those into a pot sort of like social security, to go to every kid not just your kid. I don't know what the line would be, and do know that in this world, rich people would still find some loophole to financially advantage their kids, I just find it immoral.
If the world worked so that everyone could leave a windfall then that would be a different world. In this world yes I think it's bad, the results have been bad, and yeah I know that's an unpopular stance.
I don't think my mom owed me what she made with her life. It's not mine, I didn't earn it. I didn't have to support her, she spent her money and not more. That's fine.
The disabled cousin might not need the windfall if we didn't let people hoard so much. I'm just not sure how it's morally acceptable for those who have rich generous relatives to have a life so different from someone who doesn't, though.
I guess I just feel like the playing field should be a lot more even at the start.
But the playing field is never going to be equal. There are always going to be some people more disadvantaged than others, so having the same cap for everyone could leave people in unequitable situations.
I think a hard cap of like 2.5 million could be fair, because it at least balances some of the inequality by not having people be outrageously rich to the point where it's unachievable for anyone not born into it. Like, inheriting 250 million or more is far more than anyone could ever obtain in their life normally.
The disabled cousin might not need the windfall if we didn’t let people hoard so much. I’m just not sure how it’s morally acceptable for those who have rich generous relatives to have a life so different from someone who doesn’t, though.
So in that case, all disabled people should live in poverty because it's not fair if only some do? If we can't help everybody then nobody should be helped? I'm not sure that's a great goal to achieve.
So in that case, all disabled people should live in poverty because it’s not fair if only some do? If we can’t help everybody then nobody should be helped? I’m not sure that’s a great goal to achieve.
I'm not sure how you jumped to this. My point is that if more of the money went back into society in general, maybe all disabled people who could not work could get a more reasonable amount of money and care and live more comfortably, instead of the few who have a rich uncle.
We should make inheritance less powerful but also make it easier to build up your own financial security and have better social safety nets.
Generational wealth is in opposition to the idea of equality and egalitarianism.
Basically every economist and economy-philosopher agrees with this. Inheritance tax is by far the most effective tax out there.
I literally just argued the opposite with my FiL. I think property should be illegal to inherit. If you have multiple children, you usually end up with a disagreement on what to do with it and how to split it up. It allows the consolidation of property for wealthy families.
I think a lot of resistance to this is most people want their kids to be comfortable, and it's a lot harder to make sure that everyone is comfortable than just making sure what you have can be transformed into keeping your kids in a good spot.