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Another opinion piece about social consciousness and privilege. Of course, there's no suggested resolution. Nobody celebrates income inequality in and of itsel
by striking 11y ago
Another opinion piece about social consciousness and privilege. Of course, there's no suggested resolution.
Nobody celebrates income inequality in and of itself. I agree that we shouldn't write puff pieces about founders that speak solely about their determination when there are other factors at play. But even then, that's not really a celebration of income inequality. (it's also a really small issue, compared to income inequality itself)
It reads like a critique of capitalism, but with several acknowledgements as to the fact that getting rid of capitalism wouldn't help anyway.
And I abhor the acknowledgement of privilege (which I understand is not a popular opinion) because it reads like an acknowledgement of some kind of insoluble Original Sin. Why do you feel the need to mention that you were never physically abused? How does that make you privileged? It seems to be completely unrelated to the rest of your piece.
Some people are dealt a really crappy hand by life. We don't live in a just world. And I agree that we should give people an equal opportunity to succeed. But without a resolution, this piece is probably no more meaningful than the latest startup puff piece. It's fairly obvious that the poor have a disadvantage. So how are we going to fix it?
- narag 11y agoHaven't you read Paul Graham's essay yesterday? This seems a direct answer. The abuse thing is, among other cited circumstances, what could make a person not develop natural talents. In other words: some people are set in the bad part of the deal since their childhood. So there's a lot in the inequality problem that's not caused by relative merits.
- striking 11y ago(Haven't read the essay.) That's true. So what can we do to fix that? And is fixing this particular cause (child abuse) the best possible investment to guarantee equal opportunity/ undo the unfairness of economic inequality?
- narag 11y agoSome days or weeks ago a report about inequality was released showing it's growing. I guess there has been a lot of concerned opinions in the media. So pg's essays (there were a couple of them) have tried to present a contrarian opinion: inequality is not good in itself but it's kind of a natural state or a good sign or something... I couldn't finish reading the essay. As much as I like most of his writings, this one seems terribly wrong to me.