You certainly don’t know that, what an arrogant thing to say. Do you think garbage truck drivers work for personal edification?

I don't think garbage truck workers would throw in the towel and stop working because income taxes or wealth taxes went up. They're working because they need to eat.

If ohaideredevs is in such a place that he's able to stop working and not have to worry about being able to pay for housing, food, clothes, insurance, and all the other necessities of daily life, then that's great for him, but I guarantee you absolutely that the vast majority of the people in America would neither stop trying to make money, nor stop trying to make more money, just because some taxes went up. More money—even if a higher percentage of it would go to the government—just makes too much of a difference in the day-to-day life of most people for those kinds of concerns to be anywhere near strong enough to make it look unappealing.

So if someone who already has so much money that they don't need to work another day in their life stops trying to make money...or even if it's someone who makes so much that making more wouldn't reduce their stress in daily life no longer trying to increase their income...I don't think that's a net loss to us in any meaningful way.

You act like everyone is capable of doing everything. If ohaideredevs is a world class computer scientist, it would be devastating. The economic contribution of someone who can enrich our knowledge of data science or algorithms is thousands of times higher than blue collar labor. And you cannot just ask a worker in sanitation to start developing new deep learning techniques after you lose someone who can.

That's a pretty strong insult to someone for whom you have no idea what he does.

...why?