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Great illustration of systemic inequality
by darkerside 4y ago
Great illustration of systemic inequality
- political12345 4y ago
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoYep, the random part was interesting... Because in a "real" world, where you have people who are more competent and hard working than others, it is pretty much expected, that a few of them will offer services and slowly gather all the money from the rest, who just spend the money and don't do anything.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoAh yes. All those nurses, and bus drivers, and teachers and scientists, and retail staff just lording their enormous wealth over the poor people who merely inherited a bunch of houses. Your just world fallacy doesn't work when we're literally staring at an example of how blind luck is sufficient to lead to massive inequality.
- Applejinx 4y agoExactly. It's an experimental, easily reproducible, look into boundary conditions and wealth distributions in the total absence of merit or value. Basically a proof that simple exchange of value can and does produce massive immiseration that serves no purpose and signals no possible merit or value. Add any degree of either merit, or exploitation and criminality, to the mix and the distribution will just get even more ridiculous.
- guerrilla 4y ago> What more do you want For those who most can to help those most in need, regardless of how that came about.
- Dracophoenix 4y agoSo in your view slavery is the reward for success?
- guerrilla 4y agoExcuse you?
- Dracophoenix 4y agoYour statement is a rephrasing of the old Marxist slogan "[F]rom each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". How is that not enslavement to others merely for being more able?
- guerrilla 4y agoThe burden of proof is on you since you're the one making the nonsensical claim. How is helping people in any way slavery? That sounds insane.
- Dracophoenix 4y agoIn your ideal world, can people refuse to "help" or would they be forced against their will? If it's the latter then that is slavery.
- guerrilla 4y agoNo, that's just something you must have hallucinated, because it's clearly not something I said. You're arguing with spooks. Turns out anarchists aren't really into states, let alone states forcing people to do anything. Maybe prejudice as a mode of inference isn't that valuable after all. Who knew. Don't you dare put "help" in scare quotes either. People are starving and they need help.
- 4y ago
- spuz 4y agoYou are conflating equality with fairness. The simulation shows it's possible to have a fair game with unequal outcomes.
- Applejinx 4y agoA fair game with power-law distribution unequal outcomes. The idea of inequality of outcome isn't itself an issue: problem comes when you start drawing inferences from this that aren't supported. Just because the distribution produces ultra-wealthy doesn't mean those ultra-wealthy are any good. If actual merit is distributed as some percentage of the population, this experiment PROVES that allowing the power-law distribution to develop, means you are most likely taking resources from those with potential merit and awarding it, through random chance and the power-law mechanic, to an undeserving recipient, more often than not. That's because the ultra-wealthy is just as likely to be useless as the ultra-poor, but each ultra-wealthy consumes resources equal to hundreds or thousands or millions of ultra-poor, some of whom would be useful and capable if they weren't at that lower boundary (which is a pretty crippling condition, as anybody knows who's been there). Doesn't mean the ultra-wealthy can't be useful and capable… but the odds are increasingly against them, the farther up they are on the distribution.
- ginko 4y agoSurely this shows that even in a scenario where everyone is equal there will be people who succeed or fail purely by chance. The obvious takeaway should be that there needs to be a mechanism for wealth redistribution.
- chii 4y ago> The obvious takeaway should be that there needs to be a mechanism for wealth redistribution. it doesn't sound obvious to me - esp. if the starting point was equal. Luck is also a skill. It is only obvious, if the starting point was unequal.
- ginko 4y ago>Luck is also a skill No it's not.
- once_inc 4y agoIt sort of is. Given a game of chance, yes: luck is uniform. But people are people. Smart people don't waste their time/money on games where they don't have a significant chance to win. Lottery, sweepstakes, etc are all generally played by poorer people, and often in ways that aren't sustainable (gambling with borrowed money, for instance). Smart people invest their money wisely, which leads to 'lucky' breaks which compound over time.
- hhmc 4y agoUnfortunately, due to luck, you were born as a subsistance farmer in the Central African Republic. 'Smart investments' are no option to you. Better luck next life.
- francisofascii 4y agoWell, the first starting point was equal, but the subsequent starting points were unequal. To use a sports team analogy, when a team wins a game, the next game should start at 0-0. That team keeps the win, but that winning team should not be allowed to get a head start in the next game.
- SMAAART 4y agoLife is a game of chance where we control the odds.
- kwhitefoot 4y agoWho is we?
- cs137 4y agoWhat more do you want, or will you blame some specific demographic + sex + sexual orientation for this ? I'm not sure what you're getting at. Are you implying that all critics of inequality dislike cishet white males? Because I am a cishet white male and not only is that simply not true, but it misunderstands what we on the left are saying when we talk about systemic issues (e.g. systemic racism). To say there is systemic racism does not say that all whites are racist. It doesn't even say that most whites are racist. (I don't think it's true.) It doesn't even mean that most police are racist. (I don't think that's true, either.) It simply means that our society is configured in such a way that produces racist results, sometimes through emergence and sometimes through hidden intent. All that said, our society is way more classist than it is racist or sexist, but all those problems are intertwined, because the upper class benefits when the rest of us are divided.
- UncleMeat 4y agoThis is surely not sufficient. The probability matters. "You can always win the lottery" is obviously not enough to claim a system is equal.