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pragmatist comments on How should negative externalities be handled? (Warning: politics) - Less Wrong Discussion

-5 Post author: nigerweiss 08 May 2013 09:40PM

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Comment author: pragmatist 09 May 2013 06:22:52AM 3 points [-]

Rich people do not harm the poor with their wealth: they simply may not help (aside from, say, putting their money into banks and loaning it out to less wealthy people).

Significant status differences in a society are correlated with all kinds of adverse outcomes. One causal hypothesis (with quite a bit of compelling evidence backing it) is that a lot of this has to do with the neuroendocrinological stress response triggered by the perception that others are higher status than oneself.

I don't know if I'd classify this as rich people harming poor people, but (if accurate) it is an example of entrenched social inequality harming poor (and other low-status) people.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 09 May 2013 06:36:50AM 1 point [-]

Envy is pain at the good fortune of others.

Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book II, Chapter 10

Comment author: pragmatist 09 May 2013 06:44:41AM -1 points [-]

Change the "good" to "better" and it would be more accurate.