Oh herro

[Azdgari]

I'm in a debate on SaS and ended up going quite a long way with this question:

If you could, through pure charity, provide 90 impoverished people with food and water, OR provide 100 impoverished people with food and water through a mandatory tax, which would you choose?

[Regulus]

[quote="Azdgari"]If you could, through pure charity, provide 90 impoverished people with food and water, [/quote]

This benefits 90 people, at a cost of none to those who are not willing to give up their money.

[quote="Azdgari"]OR provide 100 impoverished people with food and water through a mandatory tax, which would you choose?[/quote]

This benefits 100 people at a small cost to everyone. However, to keep things simple, we'll say that most of the people who are being taxed would have paid for the charity anyway. To keep things simple, we'll keep the same population size for both groups, so that it would be 90%.

So, what have we here?

90 people being helped willingly by 90% of a population, or 10 more people being helped by the other 10%.

So, it all boils down to this: should the 10% be forced to help?

If I say no, then that makes me a selfless jerk who doesn't care about people in need. If I say yes, then I'm a selfless jerk who doesn't care about other people's rights to do as they wish with their money.

I'll pass.

[DGFone]

[quote="Regulus"]
If I say no, then that makes me a selfless jerk who doesn't care about people in need. If I say yes, then I'm a selfless jerk who doesn't care about other people's rights to do as they wish with their money.

I'll pass. [/quote]

That.

[Azdgari]

That's disappointing. It's not meant to judge character, you know. It's not a "gotcha" question. I'm just looking for more perspective, that's all. C:

[Regulus]

The only perspective I see is that there's no right answer. In both situations, someone wins, and someone loses.

Now, if the question was more open ended, we could try to work out some alternatives. Maybe, instead of feeding 90 people, we can teach 200 people how to feed themselves. Or, we could trade them food and water for some other resource that we don't have large quantities of, which would negate the costs. That way, everybody wins.

[Azdgari]

There's no bargaining. That would defeat the purpose of the question.


What's more important to you? That people get that freedom, or that the people get fed? At the end of the day, that's a huge question in the way we run our world, wouldn't you say?

[DGFone]

The only right answer is that there is no right answer. Keep in mind this: People do not like to be handed things. Yes, there are people who are improvised and need help. But they don't want that help. What they do want is the ability to help themselves. If you are given money, no matter how much you need it, you will feel badly. But if you earn the same amount, you get a gratitude that you got rewarded for your work. And this is how the human race works: We don't want help. We want to take care of ourselves.

So the question of helping 90 people or 100 is the wrong one to ask. It's not "should we give charity to 90 or tax for 100?". It should be: "How do we get these 90 or a 100 to improve their own lives?"

And giving money (or food) away, whether it's charity or a tax, is either way the wrong move, because it won't help these people get back on their feet by themselves.

[Azdgari]

You're still missing the point.

If you could, through pure charity, provide 90 impoverished people with the ability and opportunity to care for themselves, OR provide 100 impoverished people with the ability and opportunity to care for themselves through a mandatory tax, which would you choose?

[Tora]

Uhh. I would first raise the question as to where are these people that are to receive the food? If they are within the country being taxed then I could maybe see it; although that would mean that it takes away from the people who are struggling to survive as it is. Taking tax from the incredibly broke only leads to more people being added to that list and therefor will result in more tax being needed. And who is to say who those 100 people are that get the help? The real problem is either way presents a problem. If you chose charity you are denying those 10 people food and water; although if you chose tax you are taking the rights of people away not to mention the poor people already living here having to pay the tax too. Honestly ethically I would say the charity because yes those 10 people lose out, but if you look at the whole picture more people would suffer with the tax than with the charity.
Correct me if I am wrong but how would taxing an entire nation even be close to a charity donation. The amounts would be substantially different.

[Regulus]

Need more information.

Are the delivery choppers going to be shot with RPGs?

If the food is safely delivered, will the starving people actually eat it?

If they eat it, will they die anyway due to other living conditions?

Would those receiving the food become even more reliant on it, and only make the situation worse in the long run?

How much will the tax affect those who are forced to pay it, but can't due to their own harsh living conditions?