[humanrebar]

I mostly agree with your thoughts, if not your tone. However:

> Just how are tech billionaires "destroying" communities?

The bottom line is that CEOs could be tracking things like the average cost of living and average commute times of their employees. Keeping both of those as low as possible is, I would argue, an ethical issue if not a moral one. How can you pay $10/hour to the breadwinner of a family in San Fransisco? Aren't you asking for an inhumane lifestyle (yes, insane commutes times count against a sensible lifestyle)?

So can we pay $10 in a safe area with an ultra-low cost of living? Or can we pay a living wage so people can live a reasonable commute from work?

> Blame the republicans for equating "social programs" with "socialism" and therefore "communism" and therefore "evil".

Left or right, white collar workers that aren't giving a significant portion of their income to charity (as in, measured by percentage points) are not living ethically and sustainably. Things like hospitals, orphanages, shelters, and soup kitchens used to be funded by voluntary donations from middle class professionals to service organizations (unions, Lions Club, Episcopal Church, etc.). At some point (probably about the time neighborhoods disintegrated), people stopped taking responsibility for each other. Right, left, or middle, people can keep pointing fingers and voting the same way or they can leverage their passions into helping real people for a change.

[ryan-c]

> Left or right, white collar workers that aren't giving a significant portion of their income to charity (as in, measured by percentage points) are not living ethically and sustainably.

By this logic I don't see how anyone not giving away everything they don't need to live can be considered "ethical".

This is not to say I don't feel I should be contributing to these things - I would just prefer that it be dealt with via taxes. People have a very hard time being generous to people outside of their communities, and as you said neighborhoods are no longer communities.

[humanrebar]

It's not worth unpacking the ethics here, but I think there's common ground. I would suggest that if someone has an income greater than the median and expects someone else to pay to support the poor, his math is off.

[ryan-c]

I do not expect "someone else" to pay for it. As best as I can figure at least 20% of my gross income is going towards social programs already via compulsory contributions (income taxes). Required contributions to these programs based on peoples' ability to pay seems like a good solution to me, though the allocation of those funds could be done a lot better.

As far as voluntary contributions go, I do make some, but a big issue is finding and vetting charities where donations would do the most good. Psychology plays a bit into it too - "We currently have W and need X to meet demand for services. Every Y above X lets us also do Z" is more appealing than "Every dollar helps!" with no transparency.