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The article does a good job of shining some fresh ideas in the discussion. The most interesting part for me is this paragraph: As losers are excluded from the
by arturhoo 11y ago
The article does a good job of shining some fresh ideas in the discussion. The most interesting part for me is this paragraph:
As losers are excluded from the game, they are not allowed to learn. The divide between winners and losers grows constantly. Losers multiply as winning behaviors are replicated in the smaller winners’ circles and losing behaviors are replicated in the bigger losers’ circles. This is why, in the end, the winners have to pay the price of winning in one way or another. The bigger the divide of inequality, the bigger the price that finally has to be paid. The winners end up having to take care of the losers. Before that two totally different cultures are formed in society, as is happening in many places today.
I believe the issue that needs to be tackled is not income inequality but access to resources inequality, resources being health, education and so on. As long as a part of society doesn’t have reasonable access to those resources they’ll never be able to contribute to a bigger wealth pie.
This is important because I do agree that some people prefer to take risks on their careers and that those should get a bigger reward. Not necessarily in terms of money, but IT IS OK if it is in terms of money. After all, entrepreneurs are driven by the desire to make an impact on society.
The next part of the article distills the idea that a good way to reduce inequality is to promote cooperation and relationships over individuals and companies racing for a single prize. It’s a nice concept but difficult to translate into a series of real steps that we can take now.
Again, I think a less ideological first step is ensuring everyone in a society has reasonable access to resources, allowing them to make conscious decisions of how to drive their professional careers and have a minimum understanding of how those with political and economical relevance use their influence.
Naturally, achieving such a thing isn’t easy as governments are corrupt and a big chunk of those with economical and political relevance now don’t way their “free” wealth pie to end (and those are not startup entrepreneurs). But to complement what Esko said, there is still a middle fragment of society (we here on HN for example) that has power to drive this change, especially with the advent of technology and means to easily talk about it.
- rewqfdsa 11y agoWhat happens after we guarantee all access to learning resources and inequality persists? At what point will you accept the science that tells us how intelligence is mostly hereditary, immutable, and important? The dream of stamping out inequality is built on the factually incorrect notion that we are all born with equal abilities. It's much easier to explain outcome differences as ability differences than to come up with increasingly unlikely forms of oppression. As technology improves, low-IQ contributions become increasingly less valuable relative to machines, increasing inequality.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoActually as technology improves, people are freed to do fewer technological tasks. Technical IQ becomes less important. Ultimately most folks can return to reading, writing, art and leisure. As we used to call it, utopia. The challenge is to redistribute resources fairly once the concept of 'working' is no longer pertinent.
- rewqfdsa 11y agoThe need to capture increased productivity as increased leisure time is the reason I support a basic income --- or a "technological divided", to put it differently. But we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that everyone is capable of making an equal contribution to society and that wage disparity somehow reflects unfairness.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoAgreed, like that name 'tech dividend'! The rest depends on the definition of 'contribution'. A grandmother involved in raising grandkids is a significant contribution that is uncompensated at present. We could fix things like that. Definitely room for improvement in our antiquated economic system.
- rewqfdsa 11y agoSure. What really bothers me is equating pre-redistribution income differences with unfairness, -isms, discrimation, and so on. I resent being called a terrible person when all I've done is do my best work. Post-redistribution income is another story.
- arturhoo 11y agoI agree with everything you've said and I'm really sorry if it seemed that I was implying we are all born with equal abilities. I agree that intelligence is partly hereditary, immutable and important, the same way that is the willingness to take risks. If there is an equality of access to resources (not only learning) the degree of income inequality will eventually be balanced. The problem, again, is that there is an increasing portion of society that is born intelligent but never able to develop it, put it in practice and finally contribute to the bigger wealth pie. Income and wealth inequality will and should persist.