UK Emergency Budget

[Caligastia]

Your post is nonsense.

You forgot to call me an idiot.

[Kuciwalker]

Obviously the problem is that such behavior doesn't maximize global welfare.

xpost

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Good rant. Needs only a basis in something approaching reality to be effective.

The fact that your support for foreign aid is contingent on internal progressivity is pretty damning.

Do you think it's unfair?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Oh, I forgot one last question:

Q. Should Laz mea culpa and apologize to HC for being a douche?
A. Yes.

Nope. I firmly believe a period of poverty will do Little Lord Fauntleroy Jr good.

However, in the interests of fairness and purely as an aside in the bigger question of overall worth as a human being I will just add that he strikes me as a tedious pipsqueak.

[Hauldren Collider]

Kuci, I really don't need an apology from this idiot. It will take more that someone *****ing about how dad makes money to damage my ego.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

I don't think I've ever mentioned your Dad. I sort of assumed you'd grown in a petri dish.

[Hauldren Collider]

Obviously the problem is that such behavior doesn't maximize global welfare.

xpost

...and if you don't care about global welfare as much as personal welfare, that doesn't inherently make you evil, just self centered like most people. As Asher said, the only thing you have in this world is yourself.

I personally do weight myself, my family and my friends higher on my list of priorities than others in the world, and I think this is perfectly morally justifiable.

[Kuciwalker]

Do you think it's unfair?

Do I think it's unfair that Western governments pay many orders of magnitude more attention to the welfare of their citizens than the global welfare? No, fairness is not a coherent concept independent of utility.

Do I think it's unfair that you, in particular, place a higher moral value on the welfare of your countrymen than on the welfare of foreigners? No, fairness is not a coherent concept independent of utility.

Do I think both of those things are bad, i.e. they are impediments to improving global welfare? Yes.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Good luck marketing those concepts in the real world.

[Kuciwalker]

Oh man - I hadn't realized until now, but you're right! There isn't massive popular support for sending huge amounts of our money overseas, especially if it involves potentially regressive policies. And my proposals certainly didn't ever mention caveats like "within the constraints of political plausibility".

Congratulations, Laz. You're officially retreating to an argumentum ad populum.

[Kuciwalker]

Your first mistake: objecting angrily when I proposed two claims that are manifestly true.

[Cort Haus]

Laz

[Cort Haus]

Disclaimer: I haven't actually read all this thread but I saw Laz's OP about HC.