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Anime and Manga
One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic; 6 billion is funny!
— Sir Isaac Ray Peram Westacott, Date A Live
People can't be seen on a map. Without any emotion, they're just erasing one small island off the map.
— Nico Robin describing the Buster Call, One Piece
Your population is six billion nine hundred million right now, and ten more of you are born every four seconds, so why do you make such a big fuss over the loss of just one of you?
— Kyubey, Puella Magi Madoka Magica
"When wars are dehumanized, both victory and defeat become miserable, and God no longer lends a helping hand."
— Treize Khushrenada, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, "Takeoff Into Confusion"
Comic Books
"It's easier when the victims are strangers, merely names on a police report, acompanied by an out-of-focus snapshot. That way the emotions don't get in the way of the job. Your judgment stays clear. Of course, I wasn't thinking that way the night we found Kate's poor mutilated body."
—Batman, Batman
Karolina: We have a saying on Earth: "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."
Xavin: That's idiotic! A million deaths is a million times more tragic than one! It's simple arithmetic!
Xavin: That's idiotic! A million deaths is a million times more tragic than one! It's simple arithmetic!
— Runaways
A Decepticon kills an Autobot, you hate him. But a million Autobots? A billion? It's meaningless. That's the problem: the greater the crime, the harder it is to process a response.
— Getaway, Transformers: More than Meets the Eye
Fan Works
All planet 824 facilities and defensive vessels destroyed. Total losses since initiation of hostilities with Galactic Empire: 21 planets, 856 vessels. 163.24 billion Borg. Redirect all available vessels to attack on Imperial power base. All other priorities rescinded. Assimilate Imperial forces. Priority level 10.00.
[...]
Cumulative losses to Imperial forces: 745 planets, 12 trillion drones, primary unicomplex, 29000 ships. Species 3387, Species 1242, Species 6211, and 35 other species have now allied themselves with Imperial forces and launched attacks on Borg planets since destruction of Unicomplex.
[...]
Cumulative losses to Imperial forces: 745 planets, 12 trillion drones, primary unicomplex, 29000 ships. Species 3387, Species 1242, Species 6211, and 35 other species have now allied themselves with Imperial forces and launched attacks on Borg planets since destruction of Unicomplex.
— Conquest
He had a name, and a family, and hopes and dreams for a future. He goes into the Capitol records as Hunger Games death #558.
—On the District 12 Boy voted into the First Quarter Quell, Quell
They built Shepard Stadium about 2011 for sports shows. They upgraded it in 2019 as a makeshift shelter in case of ion storms. Capacity was about forty thousand people. Three weeks into TW3, it was filled with three hundred thousand.
They didn't mind. None of them. They were all in black bags.
They didn't mind. None of them. They were all in black bags.
— Anonymous GDI medical worker, Tiberium Wars
Film — Live-Action
Y'know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying. If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang-banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan." But when I say that one little ol' mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!
— The Joker, The Dark Knight
Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?
— Harry Lime, The Third Man
General, you are listening to a machine. Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
— Steven Falken, WarGames
Sergeant: Sir! Sir! Sir! The attack's over, sir! The Zulus are retreating!
Ainsworth: Oh, jolly good. Mhm.
Sergeant: Quite a lot of casualties, though, sir.
Ainsworth: M-hmm.
Sergeant: C-Division wiped out.
Ainsworth: Yes.
Sergeant: Signals gone.
Ainsworth: Yes.
Sergeant: Thirty men killed in F-Section.
Ainsworth: Yes. I see.
Sergeant: I should think about a hundred— hundred and fifty men altogether, sir.
Ainsworth: Jolly good.
Sergeant: I haven't got the final figures, sir, but there's a lot of seriously wounded in the compound.
Ainsworth: Yes. Well, the thing is, Sergeant, I've got a bit of a problem here. One of the officers has lost a leg.
Sergeant: Oh, no, sir!
"If you kill one, you're a murderer. If you kill a hundred, you're a hero!"
"You know what I hate about fucking banking? It reduces people to numbers. Here's a number: every 1% unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die. Did you know that?"
—Ben Rickert, The Big Short
"A hundred and forty million human beings are born every year, give or take. Worldwide population is approximately 7.8 billion. Every second, 1.8 people die. While 4.2 are born into that very, same, second. Nothing I've ever done will make any dent in these metrics."
Literature
Strange, I think to myself, how we have seen so much death in the wars and we know that two million of us have fallen in vain - how come we are so stirred up by this one man and have almost forgotten those two million? But that's just how it is, because one man is always the dead - and two million is always just a statistic.
— The Black Obelisk
A splendidly inept thing, the human capacity for grief. It just isn't capable of providing an adequate emotional response once the dead exceed a few dozen in number. And it doesn't just level off — it just resets itself to zero. Admit it. None of us feel a damn about these people.
— Dan Sylveste, Revelation Space
He took no delight in the fact that the destruction of the bacta would cause the deaths of millions, even billions. As odd as it seemed, even to him, their lives meant nothing. Since he did not know them, they were numbers, and Kirtan Loor had never been one to be terribly emotional about numbers.
Pitt couldn't bring himself to leave without one final shot.
"Mapes?"
"Yes?"
A thousand insults swirled in Pitt's mind, but he could not sort out any one in particular. Finally, as Mapes's expectant expression turned to puzzlement, Pitt spoke.
"How many men did your merchandise kill and maim last year, and the year before that?"
"I do not concern myself with what others do with my goods," Mapes said offhandedly.
"If one of those gas shells went off, you'd be responsible for perhaps millions of deaths."
"Millions, Mr. Pitt?" Mapes's eyes hardened. "To me the term is merely a statistic."
"Mapes?"
"Yes?"
A thousand insults swirled in Pitt's mind, but he could not sort out any one in particular. Finally, as Mapes's expectant expression turned to puzzlement, Pitt spoke.
"How many men did your merchandise kill and maim last year, and the year before that?"
"I do not concern myself with what others do with my goods," Mapes said offhandedly.
"If one of those gas shells went off, you'd be responsible for perhaps millions of deaths."
"Millions, Mr. Pitt?" Mapes's eyes hardened. "To me the term is merely a statistic."
— Vixen 03, by Clive Cussler
The books diverge and radiate, as fluid as finches on isolated islands. But they share a core so obvious it passes for given. Every one imagines that fear and anger, violence and desire, rage laced with the surprise capacity to forgive—character—is all that matters in the end. It's a child's creed, of course, just one small step up from the belief that the Creator of the Universe would care to dole out sentences like a judge in federal court. To be human is to confuse a satisfying story with a meaningful one, and to mistake life for something huge with two legs. No: life is mobilized on a vastly larger scale, and the world is failing precisely because no novel can make the contest for the world seem as compelling as the struggles between a few lost people.
[…] it's more interesting and dramatic to save a small number of people (the mud-slide will wipe out the whole village!) than the whole impersonal world (but Doctor, the instability could blow up every star in the universe!).
Can you imagine how long it must have taken to erect a self-sustaining, Steam-powered city such as this? A living, breathing metropolis soaring through the Kinematic Envelope; a thing that has had the time to become a civilization, despite all the cruel vagaries of the world outside... And the pity is, if I scrubbed this city clean out of existence, nothing would change. Infinity would still be infinite. Perhaps some perishing few of the countless trillions would turn their heads or shed a few tears—but then those tears will dry, because the Kinematic Envelope is always in motion, and things are always disappearing when they can no longer keep up. Time will seal the wound I deliver, and then it will be as though this sad little snail city never existed in the first place. The cycle of life will continue unabated."
—Mr. Hive, Chasing Butterflies
Hearing the number from the battle — forty thousand dead — Tai, when young, had been unable to even picture what it must have been like. That was no longer the case.
Shen Tai, Under Heaven. (This is after almost two years of performing burials for those left behind.)
Live-Action TV
Angel: Thousands of people are dead because of what you've done.
Jasmine: And how many will die because of you? I could've stopped it, Angel. All of it. War, disease, poverty. How many precious, beautiful lives would've been saved in a handful of years? Yes, I murdered thousands to save billions. This world is doomed to drown in its own blood now.
Jasmine: And how many will die because of you? I could've stopped it, Angel. All of it. War, disease, poverty. How many precious, beautiful lives would've been saved in a handful of years? Yes, I murdered thousands to save billions. This world is doomed to drown in its own blood now.
— Angel
6 billion lives on Cirana, 3 billion lives on Centauri Prime. We have enough ships to take a stand at one of them, so which do you choose? It's numbers. Cold, unsympathetic numbers.
— Marcus, Babylon 5, "Into the Fire"
Porridge: I feel like a monster some days.
Clara: Why? Why do you say that?
Porridge: Because instead of feeling sorry for a billion trillion dead people, I just feel sorry for the poor blighter who had to push the button.
Clara: Why? Why do you say that?
Porridge: Because instead of feeling sorry for a billion trillion dead people, I just feel sorry for the poor blighter who had to push the button.
John Oliver: But perhaps the most incredible thing about our drone program - which, again, a majority of us support - is not how little we know about who the government is killing, but how little they themselves seem to know.
Male Reporter: (from video clip) NBC News has examined classified documents detailing 114 drone strikes. They also reveal what U.S. officials don't know, like how many killed: between 7 and 10 in one strike, 20 to 22 in another. It suggests U.S. officials don't always know exactly how many or who they're killing.
John: That is a little disturbing, because the question "How many people have you killed in drone strikes?" is not one of those questions where it’s OK to say, "I don’t know.". It’s not like asking someone, "Who was the voice of Disney’s Aladdin?" or "What are Skittles made from?". It's different. It's different than that. And the crazy thing is, it has literally always been like this.
— Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, discussing drone warfare
Death... destruction, disease, horror... that's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided. You've made it neat and painless. So neat and painless, you've had no reason to stop it.
— Capt. James T. Kirk, Star Trek: The Original Series, "A Taste of Armageddon"
I've noticed that about your people, Doctor. You find it easier to understand the death of one than the death of a million. You speak about the objective hardness of the Vulcan heart, yet how little room there seems to be in yours.
— Mr. Spock, Star Trek: The Original Series, "The Immunity Syndrome"
When I did this in my universe, it didn't wipe out the Klingons. A decent number should be able to save themselves. Plus, they'll have an advantage — no Terran ships firing on them as they try to escape.
— Mirror Philippa Georgiou, Star Trek: Discovery, "Will You Take My Hand?"
Ever notice... you can wipe out whole platoons of solders... no one cares. But you kill one collie...
— Dr Johnny Fever, WKRP in Cincinnati
Stand-Up Comedy
If somebody kills someone, that's murder, you go to prison. You kill ten people, you go to Texas, they hit you with a brick, that's what they do. Twenty people, you go to a hospital, they look through a small window at you... forever. And over that, we can't deal with it, you know? Someone who's killed 100,000 people, we're almost going... "Well done! Well done! You killed 100,000 people? You must get up very early in the morning. I can't even get down to the gym."
Tabletop Games
Visualize a football stadium that seats fifty thousand. Imagine you're in the top bleachers and the playing field starts piling up with bodies, about 1.5 meters tall, 20 cm thick and 40 cm wide. Kinda small on average, because we're factoring in the kids. The corpses fill the field and head past the first row of bleachers. Not seated—just pile them flat, end to end, like planks of wood. But they compress more, so adjust for that. Keep stacking. They reach your feet at about 20.5 million.
— StatsMan, Cyberpirates pg 93, Shadowrun
For every hero commemorated, a thousand martyrs die, unmourned and unremembered.
— Imperial Proverb, Warhammer 40,000
Video Games
Hildern is a good example of "big picture" obsession gone too far. At some point he became so fixated on large scale results that he lost the concept of "the common good" along the way. It's an inhumane kind of public service when people and the basic resources they need become numbers in a ledger.
— Arcade Gannon, Fallout: New Vegas
What do you think you're gonna achieve with this interview? You think somebody in the Pentagon's gonna read it and come after me? Shit no. I'm a necessary evil. They want me here. They're glad I'm here! Because if I wasn't, they might have to come try to stem the tide. It will be thankless and worthless, and once the bodies started coming home in bags, they're screwed. A dead twenty-three-year-old from Iowa gets more air time than the death of fifty-thousand people he gave his life to protect. So even if they did give a shit, their own media prevents them from taking action.
— The Jackal, Far Cry 2
He may end up destroying a planet or two, but such is life.
— Star Dream, Kirby: Planet Robobot
The turians lost twenty cruisers. Figure each had a crew of around 300. The Destiny Ascension, that asari dreadnought we saved, had a crew of ten thousand. [...] The Alliance lost eight cruisers. Shenyang. Emden. Jakarta. Cairo. Seoul. Cape Town. Warsaw. Madrid. And yes, I remember them all. Everyone in the Fifth Fleet is a hero. The Alliance owes them all medals. The Council owes them a lot more than that. And so do you.
— Commander Shepard to Khalisah al-Jilani, Mass Effect 2
Shepard: Are you calling [your nephew] because you're worried we won't make it back?
Mordin: No. Aware survival unlikely, but actually contacted him for family connection. Hard to imagine galaxy. Too many people. Faceless. Statistics. Easy to depersonalize. Good when doing unpleasant work. For this fight, want personal connection. Can't anthromorphize galaxy. But can think of favorite nephew. Fighting for him.
Mordin: No. Aware survival unlikely, but actually contacted him for family connection. Hard to imagine galaxy. Too many people. Faceless. Statistics. Easy to depersonalize. Good when doing unpleasant work. For this fight, want personal connection. Can't anthromorphize galaxy. But can think of favorite nephew. Fighting for him.
Ten billion people over here die, so twenty billion over there can live. Are we up for that? Are you?
— Garrus, Mass Effect 3
Leon: Put your gun down, Chris. She's a key witness, we need her.
Chris: A witness?! She's the one who did all this!
Leon: No. It wasn't her, it was Simmons - the National Security Advisor.
Chris: I LOST ALL MY MEN BECAUSE OF HER!!!
Leon: And I lost over 70,000 people! Including the president because of Simmons!
Chris: A witness?! She's the one who did all this!
Leon: No. It wasn't her, it was Simmons - the National Security Advisor.
Chris: I LOST ALL MY MEN BECAUSE OF HER!!!
Leon: And I lost over 70,000 people! Including the president because of Simmons!
I know this sounds strange, but in the world of humans, if a person kills one man, he is a murderer. But if he kills 100 people, then he is praised as a hero.
— King Magrid, SoulBlazer
Webcomics
Yes, we just trivialized the destruction of several video game universes.
Think about it. If you're watching a movie, which makes you hate a bad guy more - watching him press a button and casually remark that he's just leveled Des Moines, or watching him throw a golden retriever down an elevator shaft? Logically, you are aware that the city of Des Moines, Iowa contains dozens, if not hundreds, of innocent golden retrievers. And yet, that toss - particularly the audible thud in the darkness, perhaps followed by a pitiable whine - that solidifies him as the baddest of bad guys, someone we're going to root for the hero to vanquish.
— Mason Williams, Leftover Soup, #585
Captain Kevyn: Do we really need to resort to mind-ripping?
Petey: Just this morning you were willing to launch an all-out assault on thousands of F'Sherl-Ganni installations, likely killing tens of thousands of them in horrible ways. Yet you now appear to be uncomfortable with the idea of torturing and killing ONE F'Sherl-Ganni in order to save countless trillions of lives.
Captain Kevyn: Are you saying I'm being hypocritical?
Petey: No. I'm suggesting that you're more comfortable when people die as blinking lights on a tac-screen than bleeding, screaming heaps in front of you on the floor.
Captain Kevyn: Please tell me a mind-rip isn't that messy.
Petey: Just this morning you were willing to launch an all-out assault on thousands of F'Sherl-Ganni installations, likely killing tens of thousands of them in horrible ways. Yet you now appear to be uncomfortable with the idea of torturing and killing ONE F'Sherl-Ganni in order to save countless trillions of lives.
Captain Kevyn: Are you saying I'm being hypocritical?
Petey: No. I'm suggesting that you're more comfortable when people die as blinking lights on a tac-screen than bleeding, screaming heaps in front of you on the floor.
Captain Kevyn: Please tell me a mind-rip isn't that messy.
General Kerchak: ...Summary: This would be the perfect time for one of those high-energy, punch-through-anything teraport extractions you're known for.
Petey: Do you have any idea just how much energy goes into those extractions?
Kerchak: I don't know. Petawatts?
Petey: Petawatts are chump change. But rather than attempt to describe my energy budget by contenating increasingly ridiculous prefixes, I shall share the terrifying opportunity cost. If I spend the power to rescue our friends, an entire world full of innocent people will die. You might regard that as merely a horrible tragedy in some distant place, but I can hear every heartbeat. Which is of course why I cannot deliver our friends using my usual deific finesse. That is also why I employed you in the first place. I gave you huge amounts of money because I cannot spare the huge amounts of power.
Kerchak: Oh, well... Do you have any more of that money?
Petey: I have a team of accountants whose job is to count the accountants who keep track of my accountants.
Petey: Do you have any idea just how much energy goes into those extractions?
Kerchak: I don't know. Petawatts?
Petey: Petawatts are chump change. But rather than attempt to describe my energy budget by contenating increasingly ridiculous prefixes, I shall share the terrifying opportunity cost. If I spend the power to rescue our friends, an entire world full of innocent people will die. You might regard that as merely a horrible tragedy in some distant place, but I can hear every heartbeat. Which is of course why I cannot deliver our friends using my usual deific finesse. That is also why I employed you in the first place. I gave you huge amounts of money because I cannot spare the huge amounts of power.
Kerchak: Oh, well... Do you have any more of that money?
Petey: I have a team of accountants whose job is to count the accountants who keep track of my accountants.
"Good news everyone! I just killed about fifty thousand complete strangers. And now I'm all alone with the people I actually hate."
— Tagii, Schlock Mercenary
"Hooray! All the people whose names I know are saved!"
—Elan on an Allosaurus rampaging in a packed arena, The Order of the Stick
Web Original
The Janeway/Borg Queen scenes continue to lack any tension or chemistry. They seriously need to rethink this hero/nemesis relationship because it has never been exactly riveting, but now Mulgrew and Thompson sound like bored housewives who are trying to convince each other that their child is the more gifted one... In these scenes the Queen is literally murdering thousands of people to make a point to Janeway that she will no longer allow even one silent drone to pollute the Hive but Kathryn barely batters an eyelid, apparently unmoved despite the Queen's attempts at psychology. Surely we should feel something during these scenes? It feels like the Queen is ticking off a shopping list...
— Doc Oho on Star Trek: Voyager, "Unimatrix Zero Part II"
on Star Trek: Voyager, "Unimatrix Zero Part II"The fact, complained about several times throughout this entry, that nobody ever deals with Nyssa's anger at the Master or with the extermination of billions, perhaps trillions of people across the universe is an appallingly large problem that requires some thought about how it was allowed to happen... That there are people who openly prefer the series in this era to the supposed silliness of Gareth Roberts blowing Cybermen up with love. This is inscrutable. Whatever overdone sentimentality Roberts's tendencies may have, surely it is preferable to this amnesiac sociopathy. Surely an excess of an emotional core to a story is preferable to none whatsoever. It cannot be called a victory that the show so bloody rational-minded that it forgets to find any emotional content in genocide, treating it as a purely intellectual exercise in thermodynamics.
The death of Miracle Day is a death of a thousand little blows. There isn't one big, resounding moment that can be pointed at to explain where the death narrative went off the rails... In "Categories of Life," words like "vivisection" and living "petri dishes" are tossed around and we are meant to be horrified and disgusted that the governments would do this to living people but even the damn story doesn’t treat them as living people, they're more props than anything else.
— Jill Burrato on Torchwood: Miracle Day
Torchwood: Miracle DayGranted, destroying the entire world would be the single greatest act of dickery he's performed yet, but somehow the slaughter of six billion anonymous people seems to lack that personal touch we get when he kills Lois or ruins Jimmy's life.
Killing the orc horde by drowning them all at once is heroic. Killing them by drowning them one at a time is an alignment check.
Wakandan Soldier #1 (neck ripped out): It was sure noble of the Avengers to choose [fighting Thanos' army] over just blowing up Purpaul.
Wakandan Soldier #2 (torn to pieces): Yes, hundreds of us will perish today, and if we lose then trillions will die across the galaxy, but at least Elizabeth’s boyfriend is fine!
Wakandan Soldier #2 (torn to pieces): Yes, hundreds of us will perish today, and if we lose then trillions will die across the galaxy, but at least Elizabeth’s boyfriend is fine!
— The Editing Room’s abridged script for Avengers: Infinity War
It's really easy to see history as a row of facts dates and numbers, and sometimes these numbers are so incomprehensibly big that they dwarf the real meaning behind them. This is especially true when speaking of the casualty figures during World War II. So, let's remind ourselves that one human killed is not just a bagatelle and when tens of thousands die, another ten dead are not "only" ten dead. They are husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends that have lost a loved one. Death is suffering and there is no such thing as only a few killed, there is only many sufferers for every death.
— Spartacus Olsson, World War II, "War Against Humanity" Episode 3 - "The Strategy of Terror Bombing"
"Think about this the next time you get really pissed off in traffic, when you start throwing finger gestures and wedging your head out of the window to scream, "LEARN TO FUCKING DRIVE, FUCKER!!" Try to imagine acting like that in a smaller group. Like if you're standing in an elevator with two friends and a coworker, and the friend goes to hit a button and accidentally punches the wrong one. Would you lean over, your mouth two inches from her ear, and scream "LEARN TO OPERATE THE FUCKING ELEVATOR BUTTONS, SHITCAMEL!!"
Western Animation
Lisa: (reading sign) On this battleground in 1881, fifty-six Indians lost their lives, and four brave Americans lost their hats.
Homer: (whimpering) Those poor hats...
Homer: (whimpering) Those poor hats...
It's too late! Steven, I'm sorry I couldn't save you or the billions of other life-forms that matter far, far less to me!
— Peridot, Steven Universe, "Gem Drill"
Real Life
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people onto the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
You cannot stop me, I spend 30,000 lives a month.
Three million souls can be starved and murdered in the Congo, and our Argus-eyed media scarcely blink. When a princess dies in a car accident, however, a quarter of the earth's population falls prostrate with grief. Perhaps we are unable to feel what we must feel in order to change our world.
— Sam Harris, The End of Faith
One single Anne Frank moves us more than the countless others who suffered just as she did, but whose faces have remained in the shadows. Perhaps it is better that way: If we were capable of taking in the suffering of all those people, we would not be able to live.
— Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved
A cyclone struck Bangladesh in November 1970 and killed 225,000 people. (And it sometimes seems, when writing about Bangladesh, that I could put any number in that last sentence and people would believe me. I could say a million people died in a Bangladeshi train wreck, and readers would scrunch their brows and shake their heads in little mimes of concern, then wonder if Ortho-Novum can't be sprayed from planes.)
— P.J. O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone and you are a god.
— Jean Rostand, Thoughts of a Biologist
The war? I don't think it's so bad! The death of one man: a catastrophe. A hundred thousand dead: a statistic!
— Kurt Tucholsky, 1925
Why is a man punished when he kills another man? Why is the killing of a million a lesser crime than the killing of a single individual?
— Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish lawyer responsible for coining the term "genocide"
And the reason is because our emotions, reactions, choices, are not always (and that is putting it generously) directed toward what philosophers and economists call the “optimific” outcome. Our systems routinely run interference against a simple utilitarian calculus. The belief we all share that a thousand lives should be prioritized over one runs headfirst into the emotional impact of witnessing the suffering of the one up close and personal. But this does not mean that we think one life should be seen as more valuable than a thousand.
— Berny Belvedere, in The Washington Examiner
, in The Washington ExaminerThere are not ten people in the world whose deaths would spoil my dinner, but there are one or two whose deaths would break my heart.
— Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1833
But no one, in at least any meal event I’ve ever been a part of, has proposed dividing the bill up by one’s income. [...] But try that out the next time you have lunch with friends and see how it goes over. I would wager that it would not feel fair to anyone. Maybe that’s because we know the people and have to look them in the eye. The unidentifiable “rich” are easier to castigate and make pay more. Whenever I hear “the rich” and how everyone agrees to tax them more (not you) due to “fairness,” I wonder who these people are exactly? Yes of course, it’s the hedge fund owners, the Bezos, Gates, and Zuckerburgs of the world, but it is much wider than that. Some of these rich people may actually be normal and likeable.
— Alan Calandro, in favor of a flat tax
, in favor of a flat tax