[FRIAM] Patriotic Millionaires

Mon Mar 7 12:51:39 EST 2022

Pick a cause if you want, or just send your money to the government if the
point is that you think the government should have it.  ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

<echarles at american.edu>
A Javelin missile costs $175,203 according to Wikipedia. 4 years of college
education is cheaper than that at most institutions. *Any *millionaire
could just cover one of those, if they thought that was the best use of
their money. *Any *millionaire could cover 4 of them, and still have a
significantly higher net worth than the median American under 40. We need
to stop pretending otherwise. If someone has several million, they could
cover a whole lot more and still be doing just fine.

"Look, man, I think helping kids go to college is a morally crucial
activity and that those who have an obligation to support it should do
so... But I won't help with that unless I know a legislature is forcing
lots of other people to help kids go to college!" Well.... ok.... but
that's a pretty shitty position to take.

Maybe you think it's so important that you want to help yourself, and you *also
*you think others should be forced to help. Sure. I don't like that
position, but it is sensible, and you can morally ground it in all sorts of
ways. But no level of moral importance should exist as a category where you
won't help unless everyone else is forced to as well. Yes, people take that
position all the time. But it is a morally shitty position, and we should
treat it that way.

Phrased differently: Having the government pick up the slack when
individual action is insufficient can often make sense. Claiming that only
government action should happen, and then acting as if that claim somehow
relieves individuals from any obligation to live up to their purported
moral values, is crap.

If you think it is important to support local kids getting a college
education, then step up. You are in absolutely no sense "a bum" or "a
sucker" if you help someone afford a college education and your neighbor
doesn't. That's not how moral action works. Not at all. The correct
response to someone trying to act that way is to try to force them to admit
the obvious truth, which is that they have chosen not to support whatever
the cause is that is in question.

Again, if they *are *supporting the cause, and adding on top of their
individual support a statement that they also think others should do more,
that's a much more defendable position. Statements like "I think the arts
should be supported, which is why I donated $XX,XXX to The Kennedy Center,
while lobbying my federal congressperson for more tax support" is perfectly
reasonable, as is "I think we need to better support local kids going to
college, which is why I provided 5 $X,XXX local-kid scholarships this local
high school graduates, while also talking with my state congressperson
about upping state funding to state schools."

Do a survey of the "Patriotic Millionaires" and ask them how much more they
paid in taxes than what they owed. My guess is that you would find $0 as
the across the board answer. If it's not $0 across the board, certainly the
median will be $0.

On Mon, Mar 7, 2022 at 9:47 AM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:

> Let’s say it is not a box of cookies but a four year college scholarship
> or a Javelin missile launcher.  The millionaire might be able to pay those
> individually, but no one else.  In that situation there is no sales for the
> individual girl scouts to perform.  At best a few heroic medium-sized
> donations.
>
> Some purchases will be out of reach without spreading the cost around,
> even over thousands of millionaires.
>
> On Mar 7, 2022, at 6:04 AM, Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> 
> Marcus,
> Let's say you have a neighbor who's always talking about wanting to
> support the girl scouts, and who even goes so far as to set up a web page
> about how important it is to support the girl scouts, and pays to have
> signs printed and distributed around town about how important it is to
> support girl scouts. You have a cousin in the girl scouts, so you send her
> over with the girl-scout cookie order form. The neighbor takes a look at
> the forms and tells your cousin "While I *do *think I should support girl
> scouts, I am not going to give you any money unless everyone else in the
> neighboorhood is forced to give you money too. Don't ask me to be a chump."
>
> What would we make of that?
>
>
> <echarles at american.edu>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 11:13 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Facebook had advertisements on TV for a few months talking about their
>> efforts to review content for fake news.   They advocated government
>> regulation.   Commonality being that a taxation or regulation impacts them
>> and their competitors in the same way, so their effective power and
>> influence won’t be negatively impacted.   “Don’t ask me to be a chump.”
>>
>> On Mar 6, 2022, at 8:02 PM, Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> 
>> Frank,
>> That all seems 100% positive to me.
>>
>> Do you also routinely publicly complain about how legislatures are lax in
>> not forcing you to do more of that sort of thing, because you strongly
>> think that you should do more, but are unwilling to without the government
>> forcing you to?
>>
>> THAT is what the Patriotic Millionaires are doing.
>>
>> <echarles at american.edu>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 9:43 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I probably shouldn't volunteer to be a case in your argument but...
>>>
>>> I do make donations to universities and a church.  Today my wife and
>>> grandson Matthew assembled packages of hygiene products for Ukrainian
>>> refugees which included things like towels, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap,
>>> shampoo etc.  This was done at United Church of Santa Fe.  As for financial
>>> contributions we spend $20k per year for tuition at Matthew's school which
>>> is a Montessori school for kids with executive function problems.  There
>>> are a number of scholarship students whose families wouldn't be able to
>>> send their kids there without help.
>>>
>>> The church group put together 137 packages this morning.  We donated
>>> funds for the purchase of some of the stuff.
>>>
>>> Melinda Gates said that if you're a billionaire you can donate half of
>>> your assets without any impact on your lifestyle.  But that's a different
>>> question.
>>>
>>> Frank
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>>
>>> 505 670-9918
>>> Santa Fe, NM
>>>
>>> On Sun, Mar 6, 2022, 7:24 PM Eric Charles <
>>> eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> While some of the goals of groups like "Patriotic Millionaires" are
>>>> admirable, I can never get past the blatant hypocrisy of it all. Maybe
>>>> "hypocrisy" isn't exactly the right term. You could also see the part
>>>> that bugs me as a bizarre worship of the benefits of authority over
>>>> individual choice. Let me rephrase their primary claim: "I, as a rich
>>>> person, recognize that I really *should *give more of my money to
>>>> certain causes, but I adamantly refuse to do so unless forced to do so by
>>>> the federal legislature."
>>>>
>>>> What is anyone really to make of that position? Is it any different
>>>> than trying to look virtuous by saying that you know you should stop using
>>>> child labor in your mine, while also publicly refusing to stop unless the
>>>> government makes you?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 3:08 PM glen <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Obviously, I'm either procrastinating or unclear on how best to do
>>>>> actual work today because here is yet another thing I meant to talk about
>>>>> with someone, anyone, awhile back:
>>>>>
>>>>> https://patrioticmillionaires.org/about/
>>>>>
>>>>> A salon participant recently asked whether "greed" was our most
>>>>> nefarious trait as a species. It's a great question for sparking
>>>>> discussion. My answer was that the most nefarious trait of *all* species is
>>>>> myopia, the inability to reason over externalities, from pond scum to the
>>>>> Trust <https://raised-by-wolves.fandom.com/wiki/Trust>. But to
>>>>> de-emphasize what people think of as "greed", I said "Trying to ensure you
>>>>> have enough money to live out your life in relative comfort is not greed.
>>>>> Greed is, after acquiring billions of dollars, you feel the need to acquire
>>>>> more billions of dollars."
>>>>>
>>>>> I found Patriotic Millionaires prior to that conversation. And it
>>>>> seems legit ... a set of outwardly greedy people who recognize limits to
>>>>> their greed ... a recognition that there's a spectrum of merit, some luck,
>>>>> some effort, some systemic infrastructure, etc. Overall, [m|b]illionaire
>>>>> philanthropy (and especially effective altruism) seem like jokes to me,
>>>>> very postmodern jokes. "Here, let me given you a billion dollars without
>>>>> fundamentally rewriting your genetic code." Pffft. Give anyone enough money
>>>>> and you'll corrupt them fundamentally, often against their will.
>>>>> Philanthropists know this. Effective Altruism is an oxymoron. You can't
>>>>> both be coercive and altruistic at the same time. >8^D
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, I'd welcome any opinion on Patriotic Millionaires.
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> glen
>>>>> When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.
>>>>>
>>>>>
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