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Yes, I suppose it implies that gigantic wealth gaps in a single society are a negative thing. You are imposing your moral model on the world. Your moral model

Yes, I suppose it implies that gigantic wealth gaps in a single society are a negative thing. You are imposing your moral model on the world. Your moral model is "the system works fine and anyone suffering from it should not try to alter the system in any way".

FredPret 5y ago
Fair point. In defense of my moral model, it's backed up by this idea: are things perfect? No. Is the system working? Yes, and astonishingly well. Is there a better way to get from here to there, where "there" is some improved state of prosperity and development? No. Human nature is what it is, and our systems must exploit our nature rather than combat it. It's all based on measurable positive outcomes, rather than some theoretical idea that being eye-wateringly rich is somehow bad - morally bad, or bad for society. That idea is rooted in the old, pre-growth, pre-industrial paradigm, when all wealth was seized by force in some way. Today, some wealth is from violence, but the overwhelming majority is new money that was created out of nothing but good old human intelligence. Here are some references backing up my idea that the system works. Here's one focusing on the most important metric, human development: http://hdr.undp.org/en/dashboard-human-development-anthropocene http://hdr.undp.org/en/dashboard-human-development-anthropoc... This one is from the World Bank. You have to go into the metrics and countries. There are metrics that aren't of interest here, but some are, like access to clean cooking fuels, or electricity. But it's easy to see that most of it is pointing in the right direction. https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indi... Here's a book about all the things that ordinarily fuel existential pessimism: https://www.amazon.com/Fewer-Richer-Greener-Prosperity-Population/dp/1119526892/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=fewer+richer+greener&qid=1634248133&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Fewer-Richer-Greener-Prosperity-Popul... Here's a book about how innovation progresses exponentially, and what it means for the masses: https://www.amazon.com/Abundance-Future-Better-Than-Think/dp/145161683X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=abundance&qid=1634248121&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Abundance-Future-Better-Than-Think/dp... Here's that classic video by Hans Rosling giving us some perspective on the progress over the last century: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo Here's another video on the same thing, by Kurzgesagt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ EDIT: here's another fun one: https://ourworldindata.org/human-development-index https://ourworldindata.org/human-development-index

FredPret 5y ago

Fair point. In defense of my moral model, it's backed up by this idea: are things perfect? No. Is the system working? Yes, and astonishingly well. Is there a better way to get from here to there, where "there" is some improved state of prosperity and development? No. Human nature is what it is, and our systems must exploit our nature rather than combat it. It's all based on measurable positive outcomes, rather than some theoretical idea that being eye-wateringly rich is somehow bad - morally bad, or bad for society. That idea is rooted in the old, pre-growth, pre-industrial paradigm, when all wealth was seized by force in some way. Today, some wealth is from violence, but the overwhelming majority is new money that was created out of nothing but good old human intelligence. Here are some references backing up my idea that the system works. Here's one focusing on the most important metric, human development: http://hdr.undp.org/en/dashboard-human-development-anthropocene http://hdr.undp.org/en/dashboard-human-development-anthropoc... This one is from the World Bank. You have to go into the metrics and countries. There are metrics that aren't of interest here, but some are, like access to clean cooking fuels, or electricity. But it's easy to see that most of it is pointing in the right direction. https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indi... Here's a book about all the things that ordinarily fuel existential pessimism: https://www.amazon.com/Fewer-Richer-Greener-Prosperity-Population/dp/1119526892/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=fewer+richer+greener&qid=1634248133&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Fewer-Richer-Greener-Prosperity-Popul... Here's a book about how innovation progresses exponentially, and what it means for the masses: https://www.amazon.com/Abundance-Future-Better-Than-Think/dp/145161683X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=abundance&qid=1634248121&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Abundance-Future-Better-Than-Think/dp... Here's that classic video by Hans Rosling giving us some perspective on the progress over the last century: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo Here's another video on the same thing, by Kurzgesagt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ EDIT: here's another fun one: https://ourworldindata.org/human-development-index https://ourworldindata.org/human-development-index