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@BrentHende36514 @Danny99634068 @wojinald @gweilonft @Geiger_Capital The point of social security is you can't opt out. It is a society-wide safety net. Before social security, senior poverty was a real issue. Look it up.

A public policy can not assume people will privately do what is best. Otherwise, why even have criminal laws.

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@BrentHende36514 @Danny99634068 @wojinald @gweilonft @Geiger_Capital Also, you talk about "chosen groups" as if they're about favoritism or some arbitrarily chosen groups. It is based on justice -- equal opportunity. These are our *founding* values. We take our values, look at what luck holds people back, and redistribute accordingly.

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@BrentHende36514 @Danny99634068 @wojinald @gweilonft @Geiger_Capital You keep talking like your resources are yours in a vacuum.

You acquire resources and hold onto them in a system that is dependent upon many publicly sourced goods: security, infrastructure, low-pay-worker-made goods, immigration system, laws/courts, research, etc.

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@BrentHende36514 @Danny99634068 @wojinald @gweilonft @Geiger_Capital Yes, of course we all benefit from being born here or brought here as children. It makes no sense to deny the fact of luck. It is a fact. Question is what to do about it.

There are whole theories of global justice that argue exactly what you propose.

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@BrentHende36514 @Danny99634068 @wojinald @gweilonft @Geiger_Capital That's not true. I grew up low-income. Benefited from school free lunch, science outreach programs, needs based Pell Grants in college, and graduate school loan programs.

Once in the high-earning tax bracket, I gladly pay taxes knowing that it supports those who have the least

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@BrentHende36514 @Danny99634068 @wojinald @gweilonft @Geiger_Capital If today we took away all government and let people decide based on pure private decisions, you wouldn't get fair decisions. You'd just get those who are born into the natural lottery getting a leg up.

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@BrentHende36514 @Danny99634068 @wojinald @gweilonft @Geiger_Capital Organic merit, beaurocracies targeting benefits to some group, and central authority are always there.

Question is to what extent we let private individuals determine what counts as merit, whether we should "help" some by giving benefits from our pooled resources

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@BrentHende36514 @Danny99634068 @wojinald @gweilonft @Geiger_Capital Dependency comes in degrees. You have the freedom to invest lots of your income into the private market and become very very rich even with social security.

The fact is most people don't do that consistently. SS is a way to ensure they do.

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@Lormif1 @mcuban @LordKilmarnock No. Why think in black and white? Everything is in degrees.

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@EricRoselles @mcuban @LordKilmarnock I'm talking about free+equal leading to a principle of substantive equal opportunity, which grounds policies of redistribution. What are you talking about?

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@coreyofthemtn @Geiger_Capital Justice is about which policy should be applied consistently and generally by the legitimate governing authority over a people.

Ro gives you an argument for a specific set of just policies.

Friedberg focuses on Ro's personality, his character. That's beside the point.

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@fuseboxx7 @ivars_auzins @MoosaTayler @Geiger_Capital What is the amount of fraud compared to the total amount of resources distributed?

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@fuseboxx7 @ivars_auzins @MoosaTayler @Geiger_Capital The funds are not pocketed by politicians. Budgets are strictly controlled and audited. Politicians make money via lobbying, speeches, consulting, turning connections into jobs, influence peddling.

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@fuseboxx7 @ivars_auzins @MoosaTayler @Geiger_Capital "intended effect would not occur": it depends on the effect. I personally benefited from many welfare policies - 1 of many.

There are lots of countries where the effect does in fact occur: taxes fund programs and the effect is more education, better health, more upward mobility

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@MarcusAVII @Geiger_Capital It is when his "hypocrisy" is besides the point.

This is a debate about just institutions.

What Ro does personally is beside the point.

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@fuseboxx7 @ivars_auzins @MoosaTayler @Geiger_Capital Using envy is wrong. Trump sometimes uses false claims or bigotry to support some good free market policies. Does that make the policies wrong?

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@Scopuli @grok @Geiger_Capital An ad hominem need not be insulting. It shifts to personal character claims, sidestepping the argument at stake because personal character claims are rhetorically helpful.

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@ivars_auzins @MoosaTayler @Geiger_Capital 1 and 3 are both about a PUBLIC GOOD delivered by a legitimate political authority on a consistent and general basis to all citizens.

2 and 4 are about what someone does in their personal life; they're about character and personal morality. Different claim than 1 and 3.

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@ivars_auzins @MoosaTayler @Geiger_Capital You misunderstand the dialectic.

1. Ro says govt should tax more to provide better benefits for the sake of fairness (equal opportunity).

2. Friedberg says Ro should do it personally.

3. Schools need funding to educate kids.

4. Someone says: Educate them personally

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@hereforthetesla @Geiger_Capital Elon takes from public goods. He benefits from publicly funded schools, an immigration system, research funding, literal government new technology grants, infrastructure.

The billionaires actually benefit from public resources the most. Because of their large footprint.