This thread is so brutal.

Do you have difficulty distinguishing between the society and the individual? Of course not, the distinguishment(sic) is clear.

Action is not "reserved" for anyone or anything.

When someone says a person is to blame, what organ are they talking about?

Both of those statements are wrong.

You people should realize that its really not you're call whether someone else is rich or not. And wtf do you care. Make your own money.

Also,

I like the liberal position that everything is nuanced, except the dollar amount that determines rich. lol

Still overwhelmingly agree right?

The confusion is more with the tax code. I'm fine with someone making 250k being in a higher bracket given our progressive tax code, but i think it's kind of silly to view someone making 250k should be in the same tax bracket as someone making 100mil+ annually. The dude making 250k likely has much more in common with someone making 60k than he does with someone making 100m, yet the tax code views the 250k the same as the 100m.

I'm assuming people are basing richness on their average in their country. $25k in their country is not rich. Worldwide yes it is pretty rich.

It's incompressible to me that a $250k salary to me is not considered rich. It's incredibly ignorant to say it isn't unless your going to nit up the semantics

Someone making 100 million in a year almost certainly pays a way lower rate than someone making 250k, at least in the US.

Yeah i know, buffet complains that uber rich like him only pay an effective rate of 19% or whatever...

The difference between investment income and wage income. Add in the fact that for people worth 10s of millions of dollars (Buffet worth way more) there is a huge incentive to use tax management services. The correct response is meh.

name something that society actually does. it's not as though society writes books, drives cars, shoots films, takes walks on the beach ...

fine then, name something that society does that isn't accomplished through acting individuals.

lol, mental gymnastics. what organ are they talking about! even in that sentence you allude to acting individuals (with the term they). lmfao

Societies produce, consume, grow, shrink, trade, war, etc.

Name something that an individual does that isn't accomplished through acting organs.

And you allude to acting organs with the term talking.

fyp

acting organs, lol. I guess you could say someone wouldn't have won a lottery without acting ping-pong balls as well... organs don't have a mind of their own anymore than ping-pong balls.

lol, acting organs.

FYP



Lol, acting people. Show me one way in which people act that organs and societies don't as well.

You're missing the point, GM. Collections of independently conscious and acting individuals cannot have collective qualities because if they could, leavesofliberty would not get to be all contrarian when someone mentions "society."

lets back up.

that kind of society obviously exists, but the way A_C_Slater frames it, as an entity that we owe our lot to, doesn't exist. society doesn't keep anything. society is the end result of order through interpersonal relations. society is a lattuce.

treating society as a single agent that someone owes success to and blames failure upon is wholistic idiocy. there is no single agency that can be pointed to that is said to act on behalf of the interrelations of millions to which we "owe" something to.

what happens all too often is that people somehow confuses the whims of society with the actions of the state, which is what A_C_Slater is doing, mistakenly, again and again.

I am pretty sure I owe some money to the guy that invented anti-lock brakes, intermittent windshield wipers, radio, heated seats, air conditioning, and airbags (among other things). I didn't pay ANY of those guys when I picked up my new car. Is there a list of paypal addresses or something that I can use to make it right???

Whoa there buddy, society does not have personal characteristics but it's whimsical now?

okay fine, the whims of the members of society... nit

This is a practice thread, pvn. You should save these brilliant insights for the game, the actual game, when it matters.

Rofl at 250k being rich. A family making that much can't even afford one full time servant ffs.

250k in Iowa can afford a couple 'full time servants' :P

I don't even know what obama's plan is. Just kind of dumbfounded by someone thinking that 250k is definetly not middle class. Standard rich guy stuff is like having a couple of 700/month leased cars, a million dollar house, a vacation home, flying first class, having a full time housekeeper, sending a couple of kids to private schools, etc. a family of four making 250k can't live anything close to that lifestyle.

I'm sure when you're making 40 or 50K a year 250K sounds super rich, but it isn't particularly filthy rich.

A 250K family is of course very well off and has lots of disposable income for things like vacations, a nice luxury car or two, a really nice house, has some money in the bank, etc. You can lead a very comfortable existence, with all of your needs and some of your wants taken care of.

But odds are they are also working a high stress, long hour job, trying to build a good nest egg for retirement, trying to put away money for their kid's college, etc.

People in that income range tend to be some of the smartest and hard working successful people IMO. They aren't super rich through inheritence or luck, they've tended to earn their station in life.