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> I'm still searching for a convincing argument as to why my neighbour's life getting better should make me unhappy. It's psychology, not logic; there need not

> I'm still searching for a convincing argument as to why my neighbour's life getting better should make me unhappy. It's psychology, not logic; there need not be a convincing argument why it should be so. It's easy to see that people care more about relative wealth than absolute wealth. We have more wealth now than ancient people could have imagined, our basic needs are easily satisfied, but we still work and compete for the power and status that comes from relative wealth.

roenxi 7y ago
'It doesn't need to be a logical reason' is a glib starting point that should only be arrived at after very carefully ruling out all the other options. What if there is a logical reason for people to feel economically threatened? There are a lot of arguments out there for things that could be good reasons. It is known [0] that people are terrible at estimating what the actual rate of inequality is. If they aren't using data to come up with their opinions, why would this psychological effect trigger now in the late 2010s instead of some other time? Feeling bad about gaps between your wealth and your peers is a real effect, but it doesn't scale up to societal levels because people by and large can't detect changes in inequality at that scale. They have no idea what the actual wealth distribution is. I don't actually know it, and I suspect if you wanted to actually say what it was you'd have to go look up the Gini coefficient or something. Psychological effects don't trigger at a large scale when people need to look up statistics to realise that they should be triggered. That isn't how psychology usually works. It seems much more likely something is happening locally in people's own lives or amongst their small social circle. [0] https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/09/28/actual-vs-estimated-u-s-wealth-distribution/ https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/09/28/actual-vs-e...
- leereeves 7y ago
  There surely are many logical reasons for people to feel economically threatened, but that doesn't mean people aren't also angry about inequality. > people by and large can't detect changes in inequality at that scale. They have no idea what the actual wealth distribution is Everyone knows how wealthy Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos are. They may not know the entire wealth distribution but they can detect the presence of the new robber barons. > why would this psychological effect trigger now in the late 2010s instead of some other time? It didn't just trigger in the late 2010s. It's been a major force since at least 2008.

roenxi 7y ago

'It doesn't need to be a logical reason' is a glib starting point that should only be arrived at after very carefully ruling out all the other options. What if there is a logical reason for people to feel economically threatened? There are a lot of arguments out there for things that could be good reasons. It is known [0] that people are terrible at estimating what the actual rate of inequality is. If they aren't using data to come up with their opinions, why would this psychological effect trigger now in the late 2010s instead of some other time? Feeling bad about gaps between your wealth and your peers is a real effect, but it doesn't scale up to societal levels because people by and large can't detect changes in inequality at that scale. They have no idea what the actual wealth distribution is. I don't actually know it, and I suspect if you wanted to actually say what it was you'd have to go look up the Gini coefficient or something. Psychological effects don't trigger at a large scale when people need to look up statistics to realise that they should be triggered. That isn't how psychology usually works. It seems much more likely something is happening locally in people's own lives or amongst their small social circle. [0] https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/09/28/actual-vs-estimated-u-s-wealth-distribution/ https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/09/28/actual-vs-e...

leereeves 7y ago
There surely are many logical reasons for people to feel economically threatened, but that doesn't mean people aren't also angry about inequality. > people by and large can't detect changes in inequality at that scale. They have no idea what the actual wealth distribution is Everyone knows how wealthy Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos are. They may not know the entire wealth distribution but they can detect the presence of the new robber barons. > why would this psychological effect trigger now in the late 2010s instead of some other time? It didn't just trigger in the late 2010s. It's been a major force since at least 2008.