4 ms·
I'd love to see your model. Criticizing a model is relatively easy, coming up with something that describes the reality (in this case, Pareto distribution of we
by js8 9y ago
I'd love to see your model. Criticizing a model is relatively easy, coming up with something that describes the reality (in this case, Pareto distribution of wealth) yet better is much harder.
> As opposed to what? What kind of distribution might you expect?
For one thing, they might have expected the result not to be dominated by luck.
> It bears literally no relationship to reality, where random massive doublings of wealth are the exception, not the rule.
I don't think this will help to control the luck as opposed to talent. I suspect the problem is in the "leverage". Having more wealth makes it easier to accrue more wealth in the future, however, the same is not true for talent. Having more talent doesn't help you get much more talent.
So eventually, regardless how big your talent can be, the accrued wealth will dominate the end of the distribution. The rate at which the wealth is accrued doesn't matter, it will only reduce social mobility.
Addendum: Interestingly, the model actually shows what we would expect for low to middle end of income distribution, that talent there is more important than wealth. Which is in line with my explanation.
- b4lancesh33t 9y agoI don't think that's how it works. A model doesn't become a good model simply because it's hard to or nobody has bothered to make a better one.
- js8 9y ago> A model doesn't become a good model simply because I agree, and > nobody has bothered to make a better one So bother! I have made 4 comments here and all of them ask the same question. What would you improve and how do you think it would affect the outcome? Sometimes the simple model is (almost) as good as any in answering a simple question. For example, some people do not accept climate models (and probably never will), ostensibly for reasons that they are not good. I see the opposite - the models have gotten much better and much more realistic in the past 60 years. Yet, the same basic outcome (Earth will warm roughly 3 degrees by doubling CO2) was foretold by very crude models that even don't have the circulation.
- nahom1 9y agoI find this a really flawed logic, just because someone doesn't have an alternative doesn't mean he just accepts whatever is thrown at it. There are many situations where "I don't know" is acceptable.