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> Power law distributions are not inevitable. They can be stopped. But that takes political will and the institutional power to implement it. This sentence is
by dustingetz 6y ago
> Power law distributions are not inevitable. They can be stopped. But that takes political will and the institutional power to implement it.
This sentence is busted for me. Power laws are inevitable and acknowledging this is the starting point to finding a solution. You can't fix it from within.
- Robotbeat 6y agoLay social science, even if common among techies, is hardly what I’d call “inevitable,” just because it might have “law” in the term. EDITed to address regionalism.
- dang 6y agoPlease keep regional swipes out of your posts here. It's needlessly provocative. HN's community is distributed all over the world; only 10% of it is in SV last I checked. The odds are higher that you're talking to someone who's geographically closer to you than either of you is to SV.
- Apocryphon 6y agoSV has become not just a place, but a way of thinking endemic in software engineers and/or tech entrepreneurs. See the Californian Ideology for a similar related phenomenon.
- dang 6y agoWell, if you want to go that route, HN has a great many members who don't subscribe to that ideology, including many who are on the cutting edge of critiquing it (or at least closely follow those who are), including many who are physically in SV. It's complicated.
- buzzkillington 6y agoIt wasn't too long ago that there was a power law in owning people. Somehow that inevitability is no longer with us. It's almost like once we broke the political will of the slave owning class we removed the need for slaves too.
- Supermancho 6y agoI'm not sure what "power law" you are referring to, although I suspect it's something like "the power of law". That's not the power law being referenced. Re: pareto principle. The idea that the Pareto principle can be up-ended or flattened is fantasy. All you can do is change the logarithmic scale or how you measure.
- buzzkillington 6y agoYes, if you look up ownership statistics for slaves they indeed followed a power law, to the point where the majority of southern whites did not own a slave but felt having the option of owning one was worth starting a civil war over. It also used to apply for numbers of wives before Christianity killed that particular power law. Applying descriptive social statistics as prescriptive policy is idiocy.
- Supermancho 6y agoI'm having trouble following. >>> Power laws are inevitable and acknowledging this is the starting point to finding a solution. >> It wasn't too long ago that there was a power law in owning people. > if you look up ownership statistics for slaves they indeed followed a power law, Your first statement is incomplete, at best. Thank you for explaining. As it stands, not sure how that explanation applies to the assertion. > Applying descriptive social statistics as prescriptive policy is idiocy. Not sure what that has to do with the topic either. The issue is with the articles' assertion that you can avoid the power law via political will, akin to "equality in outcome" or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2081_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2081_(film) Social statistics have to be taken into consideration, or solutions are broken conceptually.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kthxbye123 6y agoThat's a completely groundless assumption.