Thanks for writing this, but I don’t believe there’s broad agreement on either of your main examples.
I don’t know anyone who claims taxes should be only proportional to wealth or income. There are those who say it should be super-linear with income or wealth (tax the rich even more than their proportion of income), and those who say not to tax based on wealth or income, but on consumption (my preference) or the hyper-pragmatic “tax everyone, we need the money”. And of course many more nuanced variations.
Agreed that in both cases, some dimensions of power can distort the straightforward application of principles, but I argue that that’s true mostly BECAUSE the principles are not clearly agreed to by most people. Power exploits the disagreements by diverting attention toward the interpretations that favor the power. “Obscures information flow” is a misleading framing. It’s closer to “diverts attention toward different models”. And mostly on topics complicated enough that it’s hard to say what’s factually best, only what preferences are prioritized.
Are you arguing that in practice people blame the nearest person rather than the most powerful, or that this is theoretically or optimal, or some third thing? Because I agree that that’s what happens, my argument is that it is wrong. If you disagree, can you share your cruxes for why I am wrong/something else is correct?
I don’t know anyone who claims taxes should be only proportional to wealth or income. There are those who say it should be super-linear with income or wealth (tax the rich even more than their proportion of income), and those who say not to tax based on wealth or income, but on consumption (my preference) or the hyper-pragmatic “tax everyone, we need the money”. And of course many more nuanced variations.
I am confused why you are bringing this up. I see how the fact that there are multiple kinds of taxes and they are sometimes marginally increasing changes my points about taxes or power.
I don’t find either of your main examples (taxes or blame apportionment) particularly compelling, and gave some reasons for that. And this makes me less likely to accept your thesis that power allows an incorrect perception of moral distance, or that it (necessarily) obscures information flow.
There probably is a relationship in there—power as a measure of potential impact on almost any topic means that power can do these things. It’s not clear that it automatically or always does, nor that power is the problem as opposed to bad intentions of the powerful.
Thanks for writing this, but I don’t believe there’s broad agreement on either of your main examples.
I don’t know anyone who claims taxes should be only proportional to wealth or income. There are those who say it should be super-linear with income or wealth (tax the rich even more than their proportion of income), and those who say not to tax based on wealth or income, but on consumption (my preference) or the hyper-pragmatic “tax everyone, we need the money”. And of course many more nuanced variations.
I likewise don’t think that most blame goes to people had power but failed to stop a harm—it goes to people who were active in the harm ( ideally; but often people who are active near the harm, even if not causal. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YRgMCXMbkKBZgMz4M/asymmetric-justice ).
Agreed that in both cases, some dimensions of power can distort the straightforward application of principles, but I argue that that’s true mostly BECAUSE the principles are not clearly agreed to by most people. Power exploits the disagreements by diverting attention toward the interpretations that favor the power. “Obscures information flow” is a misleading framing. It’s closer to “diverts attention toward different models”. And mostly on topics complicated enough that it’s hard to say what’s factually best, only what preferences are prioritized.
I’m having trouble responding because I don’t understand your cruxes.
Are you arguing that in practice people blame the nearest person rather than the most powerful, or that this is theoretically or optimal, or some third thing? Because I agree that that’s what happens, my argument is that it is wrong. If you disagree, can you share your cruxes for why I am wrong/something else is correct?
Mostly that this is what happens, and it wasn’t clear whether you were describing the same thing, or your preferred configuration.
I am confused why you are bringing this up. I see how the fact that there are multiple kinds of taxes and they are sometimes marginally increasing changes my points about taxes or power.
I don’t find either of your main examples (taxes or blame apportionment) particularly compelling, and gave some reasons for that. And this makes me less likely to accept your thesis that power allows an incorrect perception of moral distance, or that it (necessarily) obscures information flow.
There probably is a relationship in there—power as a measure of potential impact on almost any topic means that power can do these things. It’s not clear that it automatically or always does, nor that power is the problem as opposed to bad intentions of the powerful.