@sickburnbro I was unable to find it on his site, but Derbyshire had a (of course) Chinese parable related to this. It went that a man's family was suffering through yet another Chinese famine and their stretched resources were covering the care of his decrepit father. The man put his father in a box and resolved to dump the box over the cliff. As he was about to do so his father said "Wait! Keep the box, your son will need it".