4 ms·

Ooglr, Gnurgh and Borrr are three cavemen, each of them setting out on their path towards success. Ooglr gets himself a club, hunts down a few ratty creatures

Ooglr, Gnurgh and Borrr are three cavemen, each of them setting out on their path towards success. Ooglr gets himself a club, hunts down a few ratty creatures and thinks "that'll do for today, it is nice weather and I'd rather be oogling the cave girls than chasing those stupid ratty creatures so now that I have enough for tonight I'll stop chasing and start oogling". The next day he chases down a few more ratty creatures, calls it a day once he got himself a few and continued oogling. For some reason those girls did not seem to return his longing gaze, could they not recognise him for the successful hunter-of-ratty-creatures that he was? Gnurgh sees things differently. He finds himself a good-sized elk shoolder blade and starts digging a pit. When the pit is deep enough he covers it with branches and leaves and waits until his intended target - an aurochs - stumbles into the pit. You see, he scouted out aurochs trails until he found a spot where the ground looked good for digging a pit while the beasts could not avoid the spot where he intended to dig his pit. He also prepared a number of spears to dispatch whatever happened to stumble into his pit as well as some flint knives to cut his prey up into slivers. Did I mention the drying racks he made to dry the meat? Well, now I did. Knowing that meat spoils quite fast he started cutting up the oversized cow and worked through the night and the next night upon which he had himself a supply of meat enough to feed a family through the winter (it was a big aurochs). He had placed one of his drying racks next to his fire pit and found out the meat from that rack was more tasty than that from the racks further away from the fire and made a mental note to repeat that the next time with more racks. All the time Gnurgh was hard at work he was watched by some comely cave girls and before long he did have a family to feed through the winter. Borrr did not like chasing things with clubs. He did not like digging pits either. He half-heartedly tried to catch himself a fish in the stream but the water was cold and the fish slippery so it got away and was probably laughing at him somewhere. Besides, why would he bother? He could just go to one of Gnurgh's drying racks and pilfer some meat? Then, once sated he'd lie in wait for one of those girls. Is wealth inequality really inevitable?

immibis 2y ago
In your mind, yes. That's why studies are necessary. To quote codr7 without violating HN guidelines: > There's a concerted effort in this world to make all alternatives look worse.
- hagbard_c 2y ago
  In the situation I described there was no effort by anyone to make any of the alternative approaches look better or worse. Did you ever notice that in any field you might care to look at a small percentage of the people seem to end up outperforming the rest? In the arts, in sports (i.e. in ritualised warfare because that's what sports come down to), in the sciences, anywhere. One of the names this phenomenon is known under is the Pareto distribution (look it up or look at [1] for it application to wealth distribution). Avoiding inequality invariably implies taking from some to distribute to others. When done so voluntarily by the givers to takers who are really in need this is a good thing. When done so by forcibly taking from some to distribute to others who are not in need but have come to rely on handouts because they've always been available so there has never been an incentive to provide for oneself this is a net-negative for all involved and a burden on society. Wealth inequality will always exist and there's nothing wrong with that, it gives an incentive to dig that pit to trap the aurochs instead of always having to live on roasted rat. Excessive wealth inequality - where nobody but Gnurgh's descendents are allowed to trap aurochs because "the forest and all the animals in it are theirs" is another and certainly not inescapable story. Recognising the difference between "wealth inequality is a natural phenomenon which gives individuals incentives to work towards raising their own standards" and either "it is inescapable that nearly all resources end up in the hands of the 'elite' or 'nobility'" or "all wealth inequality is bad and resources should always be divided equally among everybody (i.e. "equity" or "equality of outcome" over "equality of opportunity") is where we seem to differ. [1] https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/Lecture%208%20-%20Pareto%20Income%20and%20Wealth%20Distributuions.pdf https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/L...
  - TFYS 2y ago
    I don't think many people have a problem with the kind of income inequality you describe. Natural inequality does not produce the level of inequality we are seeing today. This is the result of Gnurgh and his friends setting up rules that enable them to take a rat from Oogrl each day, lock Borrr in a cave and let their children inherit their position.
    - 2y ago

immibis 2y ago

In your mind, yes. That's why studies are necessary. To quote codr7 without violating HN guidelines: > There's a concerted effort in this world to make all alternatives look worse.

hagbard_c 2y ago
In the situation I described there was no effort by anyone to make any of the alternative approaches look better or worse. Did you ever notice that in any field you might care to look at a small percentage of the people seem to end up outperforming the rest? In the arts, in sports (i.e. in ritualised warfare because that's what sports come down to), in the sciences, anywhere. One of the names this phenomenon is known under is the Pareto distribution (look it up or look at [1] for it application to wealth distribution). Avoiding inequality invariably implies taking from some to distribute to others. When done so voluntarily by the givers to takers who are really in need this is a good thing. When done so by forcibly taking from some to distribute to others who are not in need but have come to rely on handouts because they've always been available so there has never been an incentive to provide for oneself this is a net-negative for all involved and a burden on society. Wealth inequality will always exist and there's nothing wrong with that, it gives an incentive to dig that pit to trap the aurochs instead of always having to live on roasted rat. Excessive wealth inequality - where nobody but Gnurgh's descendents are allowed to trap aurochs because "the forest and all the animals in it are theirs" is another and certainly not inescapable story. Recognising the difference between "wealth inequality is a natural phenomenon which gives individuals incentives to work towards raising their own standards" and either "it is inescapable that nearly all resources end up in the hands of the 'elite' or 'nobility'" or "all wealth inequality is bad and resources should always be divided equally among everybody (i.e. "equity" or "equality of outcome" over "equality of opportunity") is where we seem to differ. [1] https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/Lecture%208%20-%20Pareto%20Income%20and%20Wealth%20Distributuions.pdf https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/L...
- TFYS 2y ago
  I don't think many people have a problem with the kind of income inequality you describe. Natural inequality does not produce the level of inequality we are seeing today. This is the result of Gnurgh and his friends setting up rules that enable them to take a rat from Oogrl each day, lock Borrr in a cave and let their children inherit their position.
  - 2y ago