[winston_smith]

> I'd absolutely sign up for a wealth-proportional share of a tax

Very gracious of you to be willing to help but only if all of society signs up to do it with you.

> system that's designed to punish me for doing so above and beyond the intrinsic cost of providing for the kid

Bullshit. Nobody's going to punish you for giving to charity.

[Dylan16807]

> Very gracious of you to be willing to help but only if all of society signs up to do it with you.

Or in other words: being willing to help if it will make a significant difference.

Negotiated collective action is a good tool.

[renewiltord]

Ah, since $1000 will save a life, and you believe that giving $1000 will not make a significant difference, then one must logically conclude that it is untrue that saving a life is making a significant difference. From there, it does not take very much to conclude that human lives are not significant to you either.

[Dylan16807]

Or you could opt not to be super pedantic just to score points against me.

When it comes to ridding the world of severe poverty, donating enough to help one person is not _________. If you object to the term "significant", then go ahead and pick a better term.

[renewiltord]

I don't object to the term. I think any thing that fills in the gap that implies value will lead to the same conclusion. I don't think that's surprising since the evidence is really strong in favour of that conclusion: arbitrary human life has very little value. It is certainly true that almost all individuals behave in a manner consistent with this being true, at least.

I personally believe it is nearer zero, but it is clearly less valuable than whatever value most individuals ascribe to ten hundred dollar bills.

[Dylan16807]

The value depends on context. The punishment for hurting someone is much higher than the amount it takes to help someone. And spending a thousand dollars to help an anonymous person, who is in a sea of people not getting help, and will fall back into that sea soon enough, feels like tossing it into a black hole when the donation is all by itself. But if there's enough donations together, they feel more meaningful.

You're measuring value in just about the weakest possible context.

People want to make a difference that's visible when looking at the entire problem.

[chordalkeyboard]

> People want to make a difference that's visible when looking at the entire problem.

This sounds a lot like saying its not worth it to help one person.