I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

> ... so that they can choose their own avenues of success ...

At present 'success' in practice is basically synonymous with 'resource consumption'. At a guess that is going to be a very sticky connection that might even be wired in at the biological level; it seems to be quite consistent across the different cultures I know of.

It is not possible to liberate people to pursue success by improving the social safety nets. People who use their free time to advance society are as rare as hens teeth; even most of the productive people use their free time to advance their own interests or their immediate families interests.

I think there is a good argument for making sure everyone has few-questions-asked access to ~9,000 kJ/day of food and some sort of safe housing to live in. We live in wealthy times. But a social safety net isn't going to set people up for success in any way that is meaningful to most people.

You both should at least admit that the comment you're talking about is not, in fact, getting downvoted.

Many systems would be "better and more efficient for a nation as a whole" if everyone was 100% selfless and treated the welfare of others as exactly as important as their own welfare.

Sadly, the way the universe works, any such system is open to free riders who take more than their share.

Tragedy of the commons.

The only solutions we've found so far are:

1. Assign people control of what they create, so they can benefit from their own efforts, and are thus incentivized to make those efforts. Side effect: People who didn't/can't create much have a really hard time (this is what you're concerned about).

2. Assign control of what people create to a central authority that redistributes it evenly, and also have that central authority kill anyone who tries to change or exploit the system. This hasn't tended to work out well.

> Imagine where mankind could be if we had everyone being able to have the basics, and ample free time to think, to explore, to experiment, to create.

Western Europe has vast social safety nets going way beyond "the basics". Yet you don't see an explosion of innovation, culture, art, philosophy or what have you. They may not be related, or a full belly isn't hungry and doesn't look for ways to fill itself.

If you look back at any wealthy family’s history they all have this story, especially in the USA. The story basically goes like this: “A long time ago our great great grandfather lived in a dirt floor home and the family worked really hard and was frugal and did without and eventually luck came their way and they made good investments, or happened to be in the right place at the right for a resource boom, and made a lot of money”.

A lot of middle class Americans could take this path if they did without and the kids worked as soon as able for extra money for the family (you know like you have to when you have no other choice) but we have to have the nice home, white picket fence, big SUV, expensive sports, iPads and android phones, and as soon as the kids turn 16 they must have a car of their own, etc...

Modern life by design now (it is designed) requires more and more to get by. You need a car to get to work because of the awful thing called suburbia. You need a expensive cell to make sure you get the call for that job offer. Where you had to submit a PDF copy of your resume which you had to type on a computer somewhere and have access to Internet to send it.

The downside is you miss out on this fabled childhood luxury that has only been a thing for the last 80 years of human existence.