3 ms·

Well, I think you've found the answer to your original question: why not ignore inequality? As you said: the "cycle of elites climbing to the top and being ove

• marginalia_nu 4y ago
  I've seen no credible evidence it can be improved, all attempts at doing so, and we've been at this for over a hundred years now, all attempts at doing so have sucked for those involved, in a real dystopian boot-stomping-on-face-forever sort of a way. The problem is that while you can convince someone briefly that your new utopia is a good idea, as the years go by, people start having other ideas, they start wanting things. Self-interest never really went away. So you need to stop them from thinking wrong and wanting the wrong things and having the wrong ideas, and the only way to do that is through oppressive totalitarianism. Human institutions ossify and start to serve the ends of their own power accumulation, no matter how noble their initial ideals and goals were.
  • leereeves 4y ago
    The original proposal wasn't "we should enforce a socialist utopia", it was: > If you have the benefit of this inequality, you should use it to ensure the availability of life’s necessities That's an individual decision, not an oppressive dystopian institution. In fact, one way we could start working on reducing inequality is to reduce the oppressive dystopian elements of our current institutions. And toward that end, we should note that any elite privileges you may enjoy ultimately rest on the ability to call on the government to use force on your behalf.