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Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

nautil.us

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Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#21

Post by phkahler »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #19
phkahler wrote: post #10

Progressive consumption tax is ridiculous. It requires your tax rate at the point of sale to be dependent on all your purchases to that point in time. That's just not practical. Or it may require every purchase you make to be recorded for tax-time when you then pay the taxes. Either way it requires the government to know every purchase you make, or at least the price. This is not something anyone should want.

There are other approaches though – you could charge a sales tax for all purchases and institute a universal rebate, which would have the same effect with the addition that people underneath the spending threshold would have an effective negative sales tax rate.

That still requires keeping track of all purchases.

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#22

Post by kyleschiller »

_m8fo wrote: post #17
wyager wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "determinist" do you mean in the physical sense or some abstract social sense? Because if you mean in the physical sense, that has no bearing whatsoever on the role of hard work.

Sure it does. Physics -> (Chemistry -> Biology -> Physiology -> Psychology) -> Ability -> Success.

Yeah, I don't think the article is trying to make a claim about the existence of physical causality, it's about what attitude we ought to take to take.

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#23

Post by dv_dt »

I think this touches upon one of the biggest weaknesses of the current economic system. We systematically waste the human capability of millions of people because the system essentially randomly gives much better opportunity to some over others. Meritocracy somewhat exists but mostly to the extent that people can maximize the opportunity they've drawn as their lot in life.

I like the idea of Basic Income, but it's a somewhat limited solution to capping how far down someone can fall in society - what would really supercharge a future economy is opening up avenues to truly distributing equal opportunity. Wealth inequality suppresses this strongly, when people receive better margin of income over the absolute minimum economic allocation of their wages, they can then allocate their own wealth from their personal outlook in multiple ways - including starting businesses which may change the world.

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#24

Post by JackFr »

_m8fo wrote: post #2

I'm a strong determinist. Effort, hard work and skill is irrelevant (any relevance comes from the fact that you're already in your statistical band for expected success and are trying to maximize within that). I believe most of your success is determined before you even take one step on this planet. Step one is acknowledging the truth: your initial circumstances dictate your future. Once this is acknowledged, we as a…

> Note: I am not saying you shouldn't work hard.

What you are saying is that there is no 'should'. But then again, you couldn't have helped but say that...

(I am assuming by 'strong determinist' you mean 'hard determinist', that is the non-compatibilist view that free will is an illusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_determinism)

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#25

Post by kyleschiller »

minikites wrote: post #9

I think a lot of people are emotionally unable to deal with a world that is as dramatically unfair as ours is, so they fall back to the childish notion that people who have fallen on hard times deserve it and successful people controlled their own destiny to get there, because the alternative is too uncomfortable to think about.

Yeah, that's probably part of it, but remember also that the people controlling narratives are by definition in power, and that people in power have strong incentives to justify their position.

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#26

Post by minikites »

source99 wrote: post #11
minikites wrote: post #9

I think a lot of people are emotionally unable to deal with a world that is as dramatically unfair as ours is, so they fall back to the childish notion that people who have fallen on hard times deserve it and successful people controlled their own destiny to get there, because the alternative is too uncomfortable to think about.

Just curious what is your definition of fair?

It's evolving as I learn more on this topic but I think you could pick almost any demographic trait and find easy evidence of unfairness (race, gender [especially for people who don't fit into a culturally imposed gender binary], age, etc)

A common argument I've seen relating to fairness is that "government/society should ensure equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome" but we don't even do that:

"Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination": http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873

"Black people twice as likely to be charged with drugs possession": https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/21/ethnic-minorit...

"Seeing the poor cuts support for a tax on the rich - Visual reminders of poverty do not make make people more sympathetic to the poor." http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/encounters-with-poor-...

Instead of developing empathy, we cultivate and celebrate ruthlessness. In my opinion, the widespread lack of empathy is the root of most societal ills.

And these examples and opinions are just about the developed world (obviously, similar forms of them exist in all societies). Imagine the "luck" and "opportunities" you would have if you happened to be born into an impoverished nation or conflict area.

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#27

Post by qntty »

_m8fo wrote: post #17
wyager wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "determinist" do you mean in the physical sense or some abstract social sense? Because if you mean in the physical sense, that has no bearing whatsoever on the role of hard work.

Sure it does. Physics -> (Chemistry -> Biology -> Physiology -> Psychology) -> Ability -> Success.

Shouldn't the arrow that connects psychology to ability also pass through factors like effort, hard work and skill, if you expand that connection? Doesn't that imply the opposite of what you said? That effort, hard work and skill do cause success, but they just aren't the "ultimate" cause, whatever that means?

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#28

Post by dragonwriter »

jeffdavis wrote: post #20

Just like when people are trying to sell you something, they call it an "investment"; people trying to implement government spending programs call it "spreading opportunity". Some government programs really do spread opportunity, but that requires close examination and criticism; I don't just buy into it because a politician calls it opportunity. Is college an opportunity? It can be a huge opportunity to get ahead in…

> It's hard to tell the difference between spreading opportunity and spreading results.

That's because having an opportunity at time t+1 is a result at time t.

You can't spread opportunity without spreading results.

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#29

Post by kyleschiller »

dv_dt wrote: post #23

I think this touches upon one of the biggest weaknesses of the current economic system. We systematically waste the human capability of millions of people because the system essentially randomly gives much better opportunity to some over others. Meritocracy somewhat exists but mostly to the extent that people can maximize the opportunity they've drawn as their lot in life. I like the idea of Basic Income, but it's a…

At the risk of sounding too Paul Graham, how much of what you're talking about is due to poverty more than inequality?

Re: Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

#30

Post by fmihaila »

_m8fo wrote: post #2

I'm a strong determinist. Effort, hard work and skill is irrelevant (any relevance comes from the fact that you're already in your statistical band for expected success and are trying to maximize within that). I believe most of your success is determined before you even take one step on this planet. Step one is acknowledging the truth: your initial circumstances dictate your future. Once this is acknowledged, we as a…

> Step one is acknowledging the truth: your initial circumstances dictate your future. Once this is acknowledged, we as a species can begin focusing on making the initial conditions ideal for everyone.

The "we as a species can begin focusing on..." part seems to be framed like a choice. But if the choices of the species as a whole are the weighted sum of the choices of the individuals comprising it, and if the individual choices are strictly determined, then the future of the species is strictly determined too (that is, it is the result of society's strongly determined responses to a chaotic environment).

And I'm not saying it isn't (I don't know one way or the other). Just curious if this is what you meant.

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