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Is Inequality Inevitable?

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#421

Post by akiselev »

BurningFrog wrote: post #411
akiselev wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...by extracting more and more of those resources until they're gone.

A popular idea among misanthropes. Here are some facts showing the opposite: https://reason.com/2019/10/09/the-economy-keeps-growing-but-...

We're "dematerializing" by externalizing our costs.

This topic has been litigated on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21020682

Key quote: Finally, and speaking of stepping in to fill the void: ctrl-F - "China" - 1 match. The single mention is to refer to it as a developing country, not to acknowledge it as the present-day location of much of the USA's manufacturing.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#422

Post by war1025 »

solveit wrote: post #349
hector_vasquez wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you defining a "calorie"? The number printed on the package? Because that number is basically meaningless.

That number happens to be remarkably accurate. More accurate than required by law in fact. It also happens to accurately predict changes in a person's weight if you know everything they're eating.

A question I've had that I never really looked into or found an answer to:

How does calories in vs calories out work regarding the energy left in food that is not extracted (i.e. the caloric value of poop basically).

Is digestion / energy extraction pretty consistent throughout the population or do the specifics of people's digestive systems play a role in how many calories are actually available to the body?

Basically, would a constipated person's digestive tract pull more energy out of the food since it is in the intestines longer?

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#423

Post by anm89 »

michelinman wrote: post #300
anm89 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is totally incoherent. What are you trying to say?

Apologies, I'll try again. At both ends of the human spectrum you have people who are so basic human life means nothing to them. In both respects these people want power over others. I suggest the least intelligent are the serial killer types but the most dangerous are the rich and powerful. Wiki commodities brokers.

Fair enough. I think people are people and good and evil are probably normally distributed between the poor and the wealthy more or less. There are certainly bad people at both ends.

I'm familiar with what commodities brokers are and don't see anything wrong with it. I'm quite happy for the existence of modern financial markets.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#424

Post by Mikeb85 »

Of course inequality is inevitable. Some people are bigger/stronger/faster than others. They will naturally out-compete the others for resources. And once they have those resources, they will then use them to accumulate even more wealth, buy off politicians and institutions to siphon even more off, etc...

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#425

Post by dragonwriter »

defterGoose wrote: post #352
sdfin wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the trends of relative deprivation? I know it's not a defined and studied concept, but if the relative deprivation is in a decreasing trend, I believe that it would mean we are in a good direction. Anyway, if the problem is relative deprivation we should focus on that, instead of focusing in inequality. I believe it would be more productive to improve things. Is inequality the "cause" of relative deprivation…

See my comment above, but in response to this, doesn't "relative deprivation"=="inequality"?

Basically, yes. But, for a longer answer (and an entry to a vastly longer one...)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5638129

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#426

Post by akiselev »

reilly3000 wrote: post #395
akiselev wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...by extracting more and more of those resources until they're gone.

more like until they are no longer profitable to exploit, which of course is a function of global state. That is what underlies the fallacy of peak oil, which I was personally susceptible to. Resources don't vanish, they become incrementally more expensive to extract until the marginal benefit of doing so becomes negative.

In any reasonable discussion about economics, I would assume that "until they're gone" means "no longer profitable to exploit" as we're all aware that short of extinct species that are beyond our technological capability to recover, nothing is truly "gone" as long as there is someone capable of expending gargantuan amounts of money and tangible resources flying to another solar system (or galaxy or galactic supercluster) where those elements are still easily available. Really, then, it's a function of universal state.

Regardless, here on Earth, eventually we will either reach a point where growth in energy production is practically infinite or we will be faced with the rather herculean task of converting all of our waste back into usable material, ad inifintum, with less energy available than was put into the system to create that usable material to begin with. At that point entropy comes knocking on the door.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#427

Post by cryptonector »

ska wrote: post #100
cryptonector wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound as though the economic pie is fixed and economics zero-sum. But that's clearly not the case, otherwise we'd still be living with stone age per-capita GDP (i.e., ~0). And it's not just that "those that are better at competing will have more property". Every person is free to make a variety of choices for themselves, including how much they prioritize wealth creation. Since each one of us has only one…

Isn't it also important to note that wealth acquisition activities and wealth creation activities are not the same thing?

It's difficult to acquire wealth without creating it. The most obvious way is inheritance / gifts, or else crime (fraud, theft). Most wealth is created though, not inherited. E.g., most notable American billionaires (Gates, Buffet, Bezos, ...) of today created most of their wealth. Down the ranks from billionaires we might find more inheritance / less wealth creation, but I suspect that in general you'll find that in mature, open, liberal market economies, wealth is mostly created, not "acquired".

EDIT: Ah yes, rent-seeking is a problem. That was identified by Adam Smith, and it's a problem that's as yet unsolved.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#428

Post by ativzzz »

_7fvc wrote: post #200

I come from Eastern/Asian culture. I'm surprised to see Western culture swings. When I first got to live in Western culture, everyone was talking about equality as truth. There was equality everywhere: gender, income, race, marriage, geography. Now we talk about inequality as, maybe, the accepted truth. People talk about tail, asymmetric risk taking. I think Eastern philosophy has a balanced view on this. There're Yi…

Because real life and philosophy are often in conflict with each other. On top of that, cultural values change and fluctuate with time.

> Stop swinging, start living.

Swinging is living. Life is constantly changing, or "swinging". It is inevitable.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#429

Post by JoeAltmaier »

cryptonector wrote: post #427
ska wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it also important to note that wealth acquisition activities and wealth creation activities are not the same thing?

It's difficult to acquire wealth without creating it. The most obvious way is inheritance / gifts, or else crime (fraud, theft). Most wealth is created though, not inherited. E.g., most notable American billionaires (Gates, Buffet, Bezos, ...) of today created most of their wealth. Down the ranks from billionaires we might find more inheritance / less wealth creation, but I suspect that in general you'll find that in…

I think that's terribly, terribly naïve. Most wealth was skimmed from other's work through manipulation of stock, bonuses, grants and other executive-suite routines. There's no longer any amount of skimming that's considered egregious. Its ramping up and up without limit.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#430

Post by pdonis »

Retric wrote: post #237
pdonis wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Though valuing ancient goods at equivalent modern prices is debatable, it seems like a reasonable metric. No, it's not a reasonable metric at all, because it ignores the fact that the vast majority of per capita GDP growth between the Stone Age and now is not that we have improved the quality of items that existed then. It's that we have invented a huge number of new items that Stone Age humans could not have even…

You’re just describing what makes up that ~100x growth. We still create beef because beef has value to us. So, sure the basket of goods created back then is less valuable than what we create today. But, that does not somehow mean the value created back then is meaningless. In the end combine harvesters are more efficient than hand tools, but they both end up harvesting gains.

> You’re just describing what makes up that ~100x growth.

I don't think it's 100x; I think it's a lot more. I was giving reasons why I think that.

> the basket of goods created back then is less valuable than what we create today. But, that does not somehow mean the value created back then is meaningless.

I never said it was.

> combine harvesters are more efficient than hand tools, but they both end up harvesting gains.

Yes, but combine harvesters greatly multiply the productivity of a single human at harvesting grain, which frees up many more other humans to invent so many other things that didn't exist before.

Also, combine harvesters are only one of the things I mentioned.

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