Dias comments on Proportional Giving - Less Wrong

10 Post author: gjm 02 March 2014 09:09PM

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Comment author: Dias 05 March 2014 03:00:12AM 2 points [-]

If we didn't have a culturally accepted obligation for charity, we wouldn't give as much money to inefficient charities and religious institutions, and might be more willing to consent to a higher progressive tax.

And if people didn't naturally want to have sex, we might be more willing to consent to government-assigned reproduction!

Comment author: Tedav 05 March 2014 08:35:32PM 0 points [-]

Yes, that is true as well.

My point was that since our cultural instinct is to give, but in practice this is done inefficiently, [charities are wasteful, people don't give to charities to optimize utility but rather to charities that they think they like, and a flat percentage is probably worse than a progressive tax], and therefore it would probably be better for society if we didn't expect charity from people - this seemingly beneficial cultural obligation can be argued to be harmful.