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nyralech comments on The Bedrock of Fairness - Less Wrong
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"whether they're worth the cost of keeping alive." and this highlights the differences in our views.
our point of difference is in this whole basis of using practical "worth" as The way of deciding whether or not a person should live/die.
I can get trying to minimise the birth of new people that are net-negative contributors to the world... but from my perspective, once they are born - it's worth putting some effort into supporting them.
Why? because it's not their fault they were born the way they are, and they should not be punished because of that. They need help to get along.
Sometimes - the situation that put them in their needy state occurred after they were born - and again is still not their fault.
Another example to point out why I feel your view is unfair to people: Imagine somebody who has worked all their lives in an industry that has given amazing amounts of benefit to the world.. but has only just now become obsolete. That person is now unemployed and, due to being near retirement age, unemployable. It's an industry in which they were never really paid very well, and their savings don't add up to enough to cover their ongoing living costs for very long.
Eventually, there will come a time when the savings run out and this person dies of starvation without our help.
I consider this not to be a fair situation, and I'd rather my tax-dollars went to helping this person live a bit longer, than go to the next unnecessary-war (drummed up to keep the current pollies in power).
I think this shows the underlying problem. You would also rather have all your tax money go to give a cute little puppy more food than it will ever need, simply because war is a terrible alternative.
But that doesn't mean it's the best thing you can do with your money, or even anywhere near that standard. And neither is, one could argue, giving money to an obsolete person in a country where the cost of living is very high comparative to other countries in the world.
If I were magically put in charge of distributing the next year's federal budget - I would still allocate resources to domestic welfare (supporting others that, through no fault of their own, have fallen on times of hardship), even though a larger portion went to foreign aid.