Alright, so about understanding the argument on taxing billionaires more and the idea that "if you take a risk and it makes you a billionaire why does that suddenly make you a bad guy?" or the argument that "the left wants to punish success!"

There are a variety of reasons...

to tax billionaires or millionaires more (including, btw, that plenty had a head start and weren't just plucky underdogs building something in their garage with five cents to their name, although some were) but I want to specifically address one aspect of this argument: Which...

is this question of taking a risk and being rewarded for it. Because the way this is sometimes put forward by people who make the kinds of arguments I started this thread with is often primitive (meaning with little thought behind it), circular, axiomated and quite...

short-sighted. If you take a risk you deserve to be rewarded for it. Because that's how you get people to take risks. Which is also why I, personally, have no problem with people becoming wealthy. Even becoming millionaires. But here's the important question: What is a...

proportionate reward? And for that, I think, we need to look at all of this on a more meta level. I think we all want to live in a world where we maximize our happiness and well-being. We are all intrinsically motivated, in one way or another, to do that. So what we really...

should want in the world around us, not knowing our futures (like whether we'll end up starting a successful business or being ruined by some sort of problem), is a world where there is the maximum amount of happiness for the maximum amount of people. So how do you create this...

sort of world? Well, you do need people to take risks. And in order to motivate people to take risks, you need to give them an incentive in the form of a reward. If people are risking losing something, they need an even bigger potential reward to still do that thing. And here...

we return to the crucial question of what a proportionate reward is. Well, as I stipulated earlier, we want to create a world that maximizes our happiness and well-being. So a proportionate reward should be one that helps make this world a reality. It should be a reward that...

motivates people enough so that they take the sort of risks which are required to have all sorts of beautiful art or innovative technologies (which can make a lot of people happier than if they were never created) but not SO large as to reduce overall happiness again. The size...

of the reward, after all, takes a certain amount of money that could be in the hands of many people and it is monopolized by that one person. It being taken from those other people reduces what they can buy materially. Which means it has the potential to reduce their...

happiness or well-being. So we see a balance here. The larger the reward the greater the chance of things being created that boost happiness, but the larger the reward the fewer things others can buy that make them happy. So logically, if we want a world that maximizes...

happiness and well-being, the aggregate reduction in the happiness created by the monopolization of money should be at least equal, but preferably lower, than the aggregate increase in happiness provided by whatever the person created or invented. That way people still create...

beautiful art and innovative technologies which make people happier but their reward does not take away so much from others as to make those others less happy on the aggregate. In fact, overall, total happiness has gone up so long as the monopolization of that money causes...

less unhappiness than the happiness the invention/art causes.

And why do I call the other view circular and axiomatic? Well, because it just assumes that what people get for what they do is what they deserve. That those things are equal. But there is no particular basis for...

that belief. And the main thing I would say to that principle is: It is a principle you hold... to what end? If having a certain principle makes the world worse, why would you want it? What is the reason for holding such a principle? In the case of what I'm advocating for it...

is quite clear to what end: Because it increases the happiness and well-being as much for as many people as possible. And why should we care about that? Well... that's actually a pointless question. It's just a fact that nearly every human is intrinsically motivated to pursue...

these things. We find happiness, pleasure, well-being, etc. desireable and their opposites undesireable (although not always in a simple sense, see sadomasochists). So we don't need to know why we care about it (although I'm sure that could be explained evolutionarily) because...

we can't not care about it. We don't NEED a "should" to care about these things. We don't need an argument to persuade us to care about them. It's just how we're programmed.

As for me and "the left" wanting to "punish success." No! That is utterly baseless. Firstly, because...

even if Bezos was taxed a lot more he'd still have gotten incredibly wealthy off of what he did. Even if 99% of his money was taken away (which I'm not advocating for, btw) he'd still be more wealthy than you could imagine. In other words, he was still rewarded for his...

contribution to society. It's just that he was rewarded less. So it's not a punishment, it's also a reward. And secondly this "argument" (and I'm being very charitable when I call it that, straw man would be more appropriate) misunderstands the intention behind this completely...

because it is nobody's desire (at least that I've ever talked to) to disincentivise people from being innovative or taking risks that help society. And that's what the word "punishment" implies. It implies the desire to disincentivise a behaviour. When, as I hope was clear...

from my lengthy explanation, that is not even close to the goal that I have (and that I would argue many people on the left have). My goal is to reward this sort of behaviour, incentivisize it, but in such a way that leaves EVERYONE better off.