121–130 of 196 posts
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I agree with your comments, but I want to add to it. I agree that wealth inequality leads to power inequality. And I agree that curtails freedom. But I think it also tends to societal instability. Closing the loop, we care about wealth inequality because we don't want society to collapse.
Are there historical examples of societal collapse due to wealth inequality? (Honest question)
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For the purpose of this discussion, the precise definition of luck doesn't matter, and can be taken to be anything that isn't talent.
So where would you put what we call "determination?" When someone has 9 businesses/jobs/experiments/etc fail and gets "lucky" with the 10th one, it seems like there is another aspect other than luck and talent.
At the very list there's the issue of having enough resources to fail 9 times and not end up homeless. Most people can afford to fail maybe once.
>The simulations show that although talent has a Gaussian distribution among agents, the resulting distribution of success/capital after a working life of 40 years, follows a power law which respects the ”80-20” Pareto law for the distribution of wealth found in the real world.
As opposed to what? What kind of distribution might you expect? Based on the insanely simple model that was presented, what other possible outcome could have been drawn?
>In this paper, starting from very simple assumptions, we have presented an agent-based model which is able to quantify the role of talent and luck in the success of people’s careers.
No, you have not. You have presented an agent-based model which is able to quantify the role of talent and luck in a 2D roulette game with a completely contrived, non-empirical bias parameter you've named "talent". It bears literally no relationship to reality, where random massive doublings of wealth are the exception, not the rule.
It really bothers me that people write news articles about the impact of this "research".
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Yes. Therefore, ultimately, in a society without work, wealth should be distributed according to the happiness it delivers. If one person loves reading books and another person loves driving expensive cars, then it's clear how the money should be distributed. On the other hand, this might take the fun out of driving expensive cars, because in a society with such wealth-distribution, having an expensive car doesn't me…
It could also mean "I simply enjoy driving cars with a lot of power and/or comfort, because the sensations are inherently pleasurable to me". I love driving cars. Not to show off or because of prestige, I just really like driving, for some reason. I don't care if it's a 300hp grand tourer or a 60hp supermini, it's the act of driving that's enjoyable to me personally. Not everything is a matter of "keeping up with the…
Perhaps cars wouldn't be owned, but borrowed/rented whenever people would want to have an experience like you described.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with your comments, but I want to add to it. I agree that wealth inequality leads to power inequality. And I agree that curtails freedom. But I think it also tends to societal instability. Closing the loop, we care about wealth inequality because we don't want society to collapse.
Are there historical examples of societal collapse due to wealth inequality? (Honest question)
I still think the focus on wealth/income inequality rather than on absolute poverty is irrational. I've seen people justify it to me on the grounds that people care about relative poverty, which to me reads "people are jealous". But then the result is: 1) A focus on inequality is irrational. 2) People focus on inequality for irrational reasons. This means that if policy-makers and intellectuals fully give in to the p…
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@matte_black There's a big component in American culture at least, that assumes that the success in life is due to talent. It provides an excuse for inequitable distributions of resources, for example, by justifying the distribution as a natural consequence of individual talent, skill, and hard work. This study shows that this cultural assumption is not true, that talent or hard-work alone are not enough to achieve s…
Well, as an American, I can say that it isn't an assumption that success in life is solely due to talent. However, there is a belief that one can be successful with an entrepreneurial, hard-working attitude. Everyone knows that ultimate level of success is influenced by things out of one's control, but the American work ethic is more about making the most of what one has. People choose to control what they can, which…
> People choose to control what they can
Don't worry, everyone already does that. The difference is do you look down on other people (or even yourself) who are not doing as well?
I still think the focus on wealth/income inequality rather than on absolute poverty is irrational. I've seen people justify it to me on the grounds that people care about relative poverty, which to me reads "people are jealous". But then the result is: 1) A focus on inequality is irrational. 2) People focus on inequality for irrational reasons. This means that if policy-makers and intellectuals fully give in to the p…
Inequality is intensely tied to social mobility. Check out the Great Gatsby Curve or this talk on snowball inequality. The common sense way to think of it is that as the rich entrench themselves further and further apart from the rest of us, it becomes harder and harder to jump the gap, the rich stay rich, the poor stay poor and we move from meritocracy to aristocracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve…
I still think the focus on wealth/income inequality rather than on absolute poverty is irrational. I've seen people justify it to me on the grounds that people care about relative poverty, which to me reads "people are jealous". But then the result is: 1) A focus on inequality is irrational. 2) People focus on inequality for irrational reasons. This means that if policy-makers and intellectuals fully give in to the p…
> we'll accept decreases in wealth in exchange for more equality indefinitely. That doesn't necessarily follow, I imagine that there is a level of inequality where total wealth, or at least total utility, even for the rich, starts to go down. For instance once you start having to go to private school, and live in a walled off community to keep the unwashed proletariat out so they don't steal from you / kill you. You…
I think generally modelling life in 2d grid with simplifications such as talent = 0.0 - 1.0 and events doubling or halving capital with a deterministic number of "good/bad" events isn't going to give you anything real as output. I don't like this sort of science, it stinks of foregone conclusion. Running the model itself is irrelevant as the outcome is pretty obvious by the maths put into it. How far is it really fro…
So no, I wouldn't say the conclusion is foregone. It shows an example where something that can reasonably be called talent (the ability to capitalize) is not as important as luck (the chance encountering of an event where you can capitalize).