Economic Inequality Is Worse Than We Think (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: Economic Inequality Is Worse Than We Think (2015)

#61

Post by DarkKomunalec » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 11:46 AM UTC

sambe wrote: post #55

DarkKomunalec wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a strawman - total equality (prison, grave) is not being advocated, merely reducing the current extreme inequality. And inequality is a good measure because the benefit of an extra N dollars is greater, the less money one already has. So, all else being equal, smaller inequality leads to greater average quality of life. Inequality is also a measure of for whose benefit a society is working - the benefit of th…

It's not a strawman. This topic is now so fashionable as a news item (regardless of your view) that people will target any kind of inquality in western democracies as inherently wrong. What counts as extreme? Has much really changed in the last few years since this became something discussed daily? Why do such articles ignore payments in kind and fail to address subtleties to do with the different measures (personal…

So because some people advocate total equality, it's not a strawman to respond to them, instead of to the article?

Do you always address only the arguments of the least reasonable people in some arbitrarily defined group?

Re: Economic Inequality Is Worse Than We Think (2015)

#62

Post by throw2016 » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 11:49 AM UTC

These threads are always depressing on HN. They reveal a worrying sociopathy that one can only hope is not reflective of a wider pattern and limited to a small subset of readers here.

This is why more power in the hands of SV companies like Google, Facebook and other VC funded startups become worrying as with power they will build a desolate soulless uncaring world.

Devaluing other human beings is like cutting the branch you sit on, you only devalue yourself. You can't build a healthy country or society without a collective and empathy. What happens during harder times?

One wonders if this is because of religious ideologies like calvinism and others in their ilk or some taking sociopathic ideologies by people like rand designed purely to appeal to egoistic individualism and the rich seriously.

Re: Economic Inequality Is Worse Than We Think (2015)

#63

Post by DarkKomunalec » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 11:50 AM UTC

averagewall wrote: post #53

I can tell this article is preaching to the choir because it doesn't bother to explain why inequality is bad. It just assumes that we agree it is. So why is it bad? Especially since most Americans don't even know about it, how can it be hurting them? Two possibilities I can think of: A) Jealousy B) Risk of revolution

"since most Americans don't even know about it, how can it be hurting them?"

By spending limited resources on yachts instead of schools and hospitals?

Re: Economic Inequality Is Worse Than We Think (2015)

#64

Post by autokad » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 11:53 AM UTC

Its really important to take a step back and see what they really mean. They are talking about NET WORTH. Its an almost guarantee that a fresh college student has a negative net worth, but does that mean they are poorer or worse off than an begger who just received a dollar? To use their logic, the day I broke 0$ net worth, I owned more than 50% of the nation's wealth.

hardly. The only thing that video shows me is people dont really think very hard about their expectations between the very top and the very bottom.

Re: Economic Inequality Is Worse Than We Think (2015)

#65

Post by arethuza » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 11:54 AM UTC

bmmayer1 wrote: post #41

arethuza wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one possible reason is that we may have an inbuilt sense of "fairness" - capachin monkeys have been demonstrated in experiments to get angry if they get unfairly rewarded. So might not people feel angry in the same circumstances? A valid criticism of socialism for running societies (rather than institutions) is that it doesn't align well with "human nature" - but it might also be the case where the "winner take…

It's key that monkeys, like humans, object to unfairness--not 'inequality.' Turns out that relative contribution matters a lot to how monkeys/people judge rewards.[1] [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0082

But inequality arguably leads to unfairness though - is it "fair" that someone who is successful can get better chances for their kids through better environment, schooling and connections?

I'd argue that inequality pretty much always leads to unfairness.

Edit: And I say that as someone who pays for their kids to be privately educated at a prestigious private school because it is obvious that doing so gives them an unfair advantage.

Re: Economic Inequality Is Worse Than We Think (2015)

#66

Post by ryanbrunner » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 11:56 AM UTC

bmmayer1 wrote: post #52

ryanbrunner wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends on what you want to optimize for. But for me, and I suspect a lot of people, the happiness of society seems like a decent starting point (let's assume for the moment that most Americans / 1st world citizens are at the point where base survival is not in question) The current rate of inequality is massively inefficient if you're trying to optimize happiness. The bottom 2 quintiles of Americans control s…

The bread analogy doesn't make any sense. Inequality is a relative metric, not an absolute one. If I only need one loaf of bread to survive, who cares if my neighbor has 100 or 1000?

That depends on whether one loaf (my example was slice, which is maybe a bit more evocative) is the bare minimum to survive or enough to be fully satiated. At that level, it (and wealth inequality) can be viewed as an absolute metric. I absolutely care if my neighbour has 100 loaves if I'm emaciated and unable to think about anything but hunger, even if I'm eating enough to survive.

My argument is, for the bottom 40% of Americans, it is at that level. The fact that the top 20% holds a vastly disproportionate share of the wealth isn't bad because the 40% are losing a dick-measuring contest, it's bad because the lack of wealth of the 40% has a real effect on their happiness.

Re: Economic Inequality Is Worse Than We Think (2015)

#67

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 11:56 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #18

ygaf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to the word "kill" in his post?

Preventing some arbitrary part of the population from having children is basically eradicating that population, long term. I just used "kill", for simplicity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

[deleted]

Re: Economic Inequality Is Worse Than We Think (2015)

#68

Post by grosbisou » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 11:56 AM UTC

viridian wrote: post #51

bjourne wrote: post #19

I think everyone should read Nickel and Dimed ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed ) by Barbara Ehrenreich. She goes undercover and tries to survive working minimum wage jobs. I don't think I'm spoiling the book by revealing that she wasn't able to. After three months she were so deep in debt that she had to abort the experiment.

I wonder if this is just a lack of knowledge on how to survive while poor. I'm in a good economic position compared to most of the US and certainly most of the world, but I can't see myself having much of an issue with this. Growing up there were times where my family was homeless, and my first job I was a carpenter's apprentice, paid under the table, for less than minimum wage. It's not that being poor is extremely…

Absolutely. It's not easy being on minimum wage. But most people don't know what they are talking about. A good example: https://twitter.com/gwynethpaltrow/status/586168041576116224...

Re: Economic Inequality Is Worse Than We Think (2015)

#69

Post by Quarrelsome » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 11:59 AM UTC

golergka wrote: post #42

ngrilly wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious?

Absolutely. Why not? Having children is a very expensive thing for the family and the society, but people can easily make this decision foolishly and then offload costs onto everyone else. Having children is a luxury, we only need to start treating it like one. RESPONSES (THANKS FOR THE ANTI-SPAM, HN! IT MAKES IT SO MUCH EASIER TO HAVE MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS) > Why are you focusing only on the financial aspect and…

because we can't even yet justify forcing parents to abort downs babies due to the freedoms we allow our peoples. At least wait for this topic until we've managed that.

Re: Economic Inequality Is Worse Than We Think (2015)

#70

Post by ygaf » Wed, Jun 07, 2017, 12:01 PM UTC

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #56

majewsky wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that equation of terms troubling. If I take that argument to its logical conclusion, we are all killers because we don't get as much children as previous generations. We're effectively killing our unborn offspring by refusing to procreate.

> We're effectively killing our unborn offspring by refusing to procreate. This is a completely false definition of "killing"

As is oblio's.