5 ms·

The most offensive part to me is that it tries to excuse obscene wealth as simply (shrug) a pesky, I mean "magic", byproduct of math. Regardless, can we talk a

The most offensive part to me is that it tries to excuse obscene wealth as simply (shrug) a pesky, I mean "magic", byproduct of math. Regardless, can we talk about the danger to society of having these resulting billionaires and how we ought to address that? I think that is in fact what "the politician" mentioned in the article was trying to address. (The new American Dream appears to be: be one of the 30 people every 21 years that finds themselves the head of a startup that succeeds.)

smallmancontrov 4mo ago
Let's put this math in a mirror and do the leftie version of the exponentials: "The purpose of capitalism is to pay rich people for being rich in proportion to how rich they are, thereby establishing, reinforcing, and perpetuating a class hierarchy where the people on the bottom must constantly pay to exist while the people on top constantly get paid to exist." Dear reader, if you bristled at how casually this statement ignored that compounding returns are a feature of the real world that we want our economy to model and encourage, now you understand how a normal person feels when a megacorp or megacorp cheerleader casually fails to account for everyone they displaced and stepped on in order to capture the value that they did. "Negligent accounting" is a strategy that points both ways.
- vrganj 4mo ago
  If you start with a mere two million and get really lucky, you, too, can be a billionaire! Now, if that isn't inspiring, I don't know what is! Some of my rich buddies got to be super rich following my advice! I really don't know why the average person hates the rich. Those poors are so out of touch!
  - haaz 4mo ago
    $2m is the standard seed round nowadays which is what he was as referencing. Anybody who has a good idea and can convince investors can raise this, hence how the new AI founders became billionaires without having $2m of their own.
- zozbot234 4mo ago
  > Let's put this math in a mirror and do the leftie version of the exponentials The plot twist is that the 'rightie' and the 'leftie' are both entirely correct. Which is why most developed economies try to remove sources of wasteful, unearned rent and also include significant amounts of redistribution/social insurance rather than relying on pure market outcomes. This doesn't erase the compounding dynamics altogether, but it hopefully ensures that folks at the lowest end of the distribution can keep a tolerable standard of living that doesn't have them 'paying' too much.
  - smallmancontrov 4mo ago
    Yep! The equation even has a "left" and "right" term that correspond to political left and right: gains = investment * rate_of_return Left term: rich people get paid for being rich in proportion to how rich they are. This is an exponential and it creates, reinforces, and perpetuates a class hierarchy where poor people must pay to exist and rich people get paid to exist. Capitalism is a Softmax function. Right term: capital allocation decisions are made with skin in the game. Every chunk of the economy has a responsible owner who is rewarded/punished and promoted/demoted for good/bad decisions. Capitalism is a Q-learning algorithm.
- JKCalhoun 4mo ago
  We also want a compounding (progressive) tax rate to address compounding wealth (and perhaps we need a wealth tax?).
  - smallmancontrov 4mo ago
    Yes, although I tend to think this produces better incentives and is easier to administer if we formulate it as progressive corporate taxation. This structurally discourages mega conglomeration and encourages spin-offs to enhance competition. Also, taxing at the source of profits obviates the need to track down the destinations of profit, who are far more numerous and easy to hide. The non-explosive way to do this is simply to set the heel above the megacorps today and let inflation push them into it. They will be able to avoid the heel by splitting at their leisure, slowly remediating the consolidation we have seen and restoring competition.
- JKCalhoun 4mo ago
  "leftie"… kind of a red flag when I see it in comments.

smallmancontrov 4mo ago

Let's put this math in a mirror and do the leftie version of the exponentials: "The purpose of capitalism is to pay rich people for being rich in proportion to how rich they are, thereby establishing, reinforcing, and perpetuating a class hierarchy where the people on the bottom must constantly pay to exist while the people on top constantly get paid to exist." Dear reader, if you bristled at how casually this statement ignored that compounding returns are a feature of the real world that we want our economy to model and encourage, now you understand how a normal person feels when a megacorp or megacorp cheerleader casually fails to account for everyone they displaced and stepped on in order to capture the value that they did. "Negligent accounting" is a strategy that points both ways.

vrganj 4mo ago
If you start with a mere two million and get really lucky, you, too, can be a billionaire! Now, if that isn't inspiring, I don't know what is! Some of my rich buddies got to be super rich following my advice! I really don't know why the average person hates the rich. Those poors are so out of touch!
- haaz 4mo ago
  $2m is the standard seed round nowadays which is what he was as referencing. Anybody who has a good idea and can convince investors can raise this, hence how the new AI founders became billionaires without having $2m of their own.
zozbot234 4mo ago
> Let's put this math in a mirror and do the leftie version of the exponentials The plot twist is that the 'rightie' and the 'leftie' are both entirely correct. Which is why most developed economies try to remove sources of wasteful, unearned rent and also include significant amounts of redistribution/social insurance rather than relying on pure market outcomes. This doesn't erase the compounding dynamics altogether, but it hopefully ensures that folks at the lowest end of the distribution can keep a tolerable standard of living that doesn't have them 'paying' too much.
- smallmancontrov 4mo ago
  Yep! The equation even has a "left" and "right" term that correspond to political left and right: gains = investment * rate_of_return Left term: rich people get paid for being rich in proportion to how rich they are. This is an exponential and it creates, reinforces, and perpetuates a class hierarchy where poor people must pay to exist and rich people get paid to exist. Capitalism is a Softmax function. Right term: capital allocation decisions are made with skin in the game. Every chunk of the economy has a responsible owner who is rewarded/punished and promoted/demoted for good/bad decisions. Capitalism is a Q-learning algorithm.
JKCalhoun 4mo ago
We also want a compounding (progressive) tax rate to address compounding wealth (and perhaps we need a wealth tax?).
- smallmancontrov 4mo ago
  Yes, although I tend to think this produces better incentives and is easier to administer if we formulate it as progressive corporate taxation. This structurally discourages mega conglomeration and encourages spin-offs to enhance competition. Also, taxing at the source of profits obviates the need to track down the destinations of profit, who are far more numerous and easy to hide. The non-explosive way to do this is simply to set the heel above the megacorps today and let inflation push them into it. They will be able to avoid the heel by splitting at their leisure, slowly remediating the consolidation we have seen and restoring competition.
JKCalhoun 4mo ago
"leftie"… kind of a red flag when I see it in comments.