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Inequality in Equalland

daemonology.net

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Re: Inequality in Equalland

#61

Post by lysium »

lsd5you wrote: post #38
cperciva wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not as though all that money in mommy’s and daddy’s bank account makes their kids magically more intelligent. (But it can pay for private schools or for private lessons and so on.) FWIW, numerous studies have found that the vast majority of correlation between parental income and the academic success of children can be explained by a third factor: Parental education. Educated parents both earn more and provide f…

I feel that you are omitting genetics as a possible (probable) significant cause of academic success, which because of the corelation with the parents own academic success will be hard to disambiguate as a variable. According to horizon (a main stream medium-high brow documentary series in the UK), separated twin studies show that as much as 50% of 'measured intelligence' can be attributed to genetics - which was fai…

What's your point? Because '50% of measured intelligence (whatever that is) can be attributed to genetics' nothing/little/less can/should be done about it? Or because only 50% is determined by genetics, we should do more about inequality in educational systems? I don't get it.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#62

Post by rue »

r0s wrote: post #57
cperciva wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone agrees that some wealth disparity is a good and necessary part of a healthy economy. But there is a lot more going on here than the straightforward "some people are older, some people save". Of course. And if you read to the bottom of my post, you'll see that I agree that there's too much inequality in the world. The point of this post isn't to argue that the existing level of wealth inequality is appropriat…

Honestly almost any disparity would be acceptable if all citizens had basic needs met, like healthcare and housing.

Absolutely not for me. Arguably, if all citizens had basic needs met (including "luxury" items that enable participating in society as equals – cell phones and internet connections, for example) and had equal opportunity to advance, that would be acceptable. Not what I consider to be a fair society, but acceptable.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#63

Post by bad_user »

lsd5you wrote: post #38
cperciva wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not as though all that money in mommy’s and daddy’s bank account makes their kids magically more intelligent. (But it can pay for private schools or for private lessons and so on.) FWIW, numerous studies have found that the vast majority of correlation between parental income and the academic success of children can be explained by a third factor: Parental education. Educated parents both earn more and provide f…

I feel that you are omitting genetics as a possible (probable) significant cause of academic success, which because of the corelation with the parents own academic success will be hard to disambiguate as a variable. According to horizon (a main stream medium-high brow documentary series in the UK), separated twin studies show that as much as 50% of 'measured intelligence' can be attributed to genetics - which was fai…

From your recollection of that UK documentary series ... you haven't told what percent of the population has bad genetics.

My wife works in a kindergarten: lots of kids have problems assimilating concepts / participating in games. But for most of those kids, their ability to follow the rules and learn can be attributed to a problem at home: i.e. parents that lost control over them (think Dennis the Menace) or parents that don't provide harmony in their family (fighting a lot, getting separated, etc...).

And really, the difference between kids with parents that work/play with them and that provide a balanced home environment versus those with problems at home is striking.

Even if %50 of intelligence can be attributed to genetics, that doesn't say a lot.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#64

Post by monos »

ugh wrote: post #31

This is a nice demonstration that ‘raw’ inequality data is not very useful. “X% have Y% of the wealth!” really doesn’t tell you very much. I’m actually only concerned about the consequences of inequality (which could be positive or negative), not about inequality itself. What do I care if 1% of the population have 99% of the wealth if there are no consequences to it? I certainly don’t want to reduce inequality out of…

> What do I care if 1% of the population have 99% of the > wealth if there are no consequences to it? I certainly > don’t want to reduce inequality out of spite.

You might want reduce it because the lowest x% don't have enough to eat. Share the cake.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#65

Post by barrkel »

lsd5you wrote: post #54
jshen wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just want to point out that you are assuming that everyone has access to decent public schools. I'll bet genetics is far less important if that weren't the case.

Not at all. That would be part of the other 50% ... going with that number. In fact your remark is quite confused. 50% is the variation in a 'typical' population. If everyone had access to public schools genetics would be more important. Since that would eliminate one of the major factors which accounts for the other 50% (again, going with that number).

He said genetics wouldn't be so important if everyone didn't have access to decent schools. In other words, he's saying genetics is more important if the school inequality is equalized. You're actually agreeing with him.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#66

Post by coffeeaddicted »

johngalt wrote: post #13
j_baker wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you don't. Money is a terrible motivator. If the only thing that is keeping you from working hard is the prospect of making more money, might I suggest that you've chosen the wrong career? I'm not saying that Equalland is desirable. I'm just saying that I think you're overestimating the effect money has on how productive people are.

Can I hire you? Money doesn't motivate you right? Minimum wage, no benefits and 80hr weeks are required.

You wouldn't get me to work 80hr weeks even if you offered me a lot of money. Money wouldn't be enough of a motivation to do that.But I did 80hr weeks for minimum wage already because of other benefits (keeping rights on the source-code which I wrote in that time).

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#67

Post by praptak »

johngalt wrote: post #13
j_baker wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you don't. Money is a terrible motivator. If the only thing that is keeping you from working hard is the prospect of making more money, might I suggest that you've chosen the wrong career? I'm not saying that Equalland is desirable. I'm just saying that I think you're overestimating the effect money has on how productive people are.

Can I hire you? Money doesn't motivate you right? Minimum wage, no benefits and 80hr weeks are required.

"Can I hire you? Money doesn't motivate you right?"

You failed to provide any alternate motivation. Some people actually take conditions similar to ones you described but they work in the greatest labs on the most interesting problems of contemporary science. They also usually get a phd after a few years.

There is also no implication from "Money is a poor motivator for me" to "80 hr week is not a demotivator for me".

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#68

Post by JosefK »

maeon3 wrote: post #14
j_baker wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you don't. Money is a terrible motivator. If the only thing that is keeping you from working hard is the prospect of making more money, might I suggest that you've chosen the wrong career? I'm not saying that Equalland is desirable. I'm just saying that I think you're overestimating the effect money has on how productive people are.

Money is a terrible motivator? lol. What's this nonsense? Give me your name and address, I'll write you a check for $1500 free and clear to take back what you just said.

Clearly you're more motivated to win an argument on the internet than to keep $1500. That would seem to belie your argument.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#69

Post by tjansen »

jshen wrote: post #43
MrDunham wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that was the promise of communism - which failed due to most people's inherent desire to be better than others or to excel. Also, people realized that they could/should do the absolute minimum, as there was no benefit for working harder. They did end up adding incentives (in the USSR) which started looking more and more like capitalism.

I'm so glad linus did the minimum when working on Linux, you know, since he wasn't getting paid and there was no perceivable financial gain in it. This meme that money is the only significant benefit from ones efforts should be plainly false. Why smart people believe it is beyond me.

Linux is not a good example, because many (most?) good programmers love their work and would do it without payment.

But this is not the case for many (most?) other workers - they would rather do something else and only work because they have to, or because their job pays better than other alternatives.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#70

Post by lucasjung »

Great post! It provides a good gedanken for sorting out how much inequality results from age and how much results from other factors.

If you made this scenario a little bit more complex, you could demonstrate how other forms of "inequality" are based, in part, on age:

1: Have everyone start with equal $50,000 salary at age 22, then get a raise of $3,000 per year until they hit 65. Everyone would still have equal lifetime earnings, but you would find significant income "inequality" when looking at the population as a whole.

2: Instead of a flat $3,000 per year raise, everyone gets a 3.5% raise each year until they hit 65. This is closer to real life than the scenario above, and would produce an even more "unequal" income distribution.

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