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But you don't necessarily increase poverty by decreasing utility and increasing inequality. I'm asking about values, not specific world conditions. Sometimes t
by yummyfajitas 11y ago
But you don't necessarily increase poverty by decreasing utility and increasing inequality.
I'm asking about values, not specific world conditions. Sometimes the world lets us get everything we want - e.g., globalization and capitalism so far have reduced poverty and inequality together.
But sometimes the world doesn't give us the easy case. That's when we actually need to understand our values, and answer questions like "how many people will I push into poverty to reduce GINI by 1%?" If your answer is zero, you agree with me completely and don't care about inequality. Are you agreeing with me that inequality is irrelevant now?
- tomp 11y agoI agree that equality is not important as a goal, but it's important as a means - I think (i.e. based on my observation of reality) that inequality results in bad outcomes (i.e. takes us further from the goal of "less poverty" or "better lives"), hence my drive to oppose and fight it. Of course, it would be even better if I/we could simply reduce poverty and improves lives directly (without the detour of fighting inequality), but currently I don't know how (and neither does anyone else). One of the best, if unrealistic, solutions I see are robots; but between now and when we invent really useful robots, I think it's important to strive to prevent outcomes as displayed in the movie Elysium (or the alternative future in the story Manna).