Capability and Obligation
EthicsComments
Does the skill actually create the debt, or is it just the social pressure to be the hero that does? If we treat every expert as a public utility, we just incentivize people to hide their talents to avoid the tax.
This parallels the Good Samaritan laws in various jurisdictions. The law generally does not mandate a duty to rescue, but once you start helping, you are held to a standard of care based on your professional training.
I disagree that people would hide talents to avoid the tax. Social capital gained from being the fixer usually outweighs the cost of the labor in most professional or social circles.
This plays out constantly in city council meetings where the one person who actually knows how zoning laws work gets hammered with every single question. It is not a moral debate for them; it is just a way for the system to offload labor onto the most efficient person.
That is a classic example of the competence penalty. In organizational psychology, we see this where high performers are rewarded with more work, which often leads to burnout because the reward for efficiency is simply more labor.
Do you think there is a way for those communities to recognize that extra labor so it feels less like a tax and more like a shared investment? Maybe there is a path where the capability is acknowledged without it becoming a burden.
This reminds me of the Bystander Effect studies... but flipped on its head... because the presence of a known expert actually increases the pressure on that one person while everyone else checks out! It is like the responsibility does not distribute; it just concentrates.