5 ms·

I want to run an experiment: build a town that's equal in all ways: everyone has the same house, the same car, the same clothes, the same bank all provided for

I want to run an experiment: build a town that's equal in all ways: everyone has the same house, the same car, the same clothes, the same bank all provided for them. Give them a monthly stipend. Give them all the same job doing anything (breaking rocks, whatever). I would love to see what the wealth distribution looks like after a year.

rayiner 14y ago
I agree we should run that experiment, but until then abandon the pretense that our society is really meritocratic.
BrianEatWorld 14y ago
I never played but could you be talking about Minecraft?
- nickzoic 14y ago
  Nothing says "disposable income" like a diamond hoe.
spc476 14y ago
I recently wrote a very simple economic simulator. Given X actors, each starting with $Y (for a total money supply of $(X * Y)). For each "tick," two actors are selected, a buyer and a seller. The buyer gives the seller a random amount of money (if the buyer didn't have that said amount, no transaction happened). That's it. No skill. No talent. No fraud. Just random transactions between a fixed number of actors and money. Even after a few hundred transactions an interesting pattern emerged---a power law distribution of money, with the average amount of money per actor less than the starting amount of money (generally, about 66% of the starting amount). The results were similar regardless of the number of actors, the amount of starting money, and the amount per transaction (even a fixed amount exchanged per transaction would result in a similar result). I think the result would the same for your hypothetical town.
- rayiner 14y ago
  Do you mean median?
  - spc476 14y ago
    Possibly, it's been awhile since I last ran the code.
    - patmcguire 14y ago
      Yeah, if it's a closed system with no people or money added or removed the average would stay the same.
- tomjen3 14y ago
  That is also too simplified to be applied to the real world, since the interactions we have we other people are very far from random.
yen223 14y ago
I want to see the reverse version: get 2 18-year-old guys, both equally smart and hardworking. Give one guy $10, and the other guy $10,000,000. See who earns $1,000,000 first. If hard work is all it takes to succeed, then both should earn their first $1,000,000 at the same time, right?
- rayiner 14y ago
  This is a far more relevant comparison for our own society.
- Domenic_S 14y ago
  This right here is the sinister truth about conversations like this -- though clothed in the holy robe of "equality", you're not looking for equality of opportunity, you're looking for equality of outcome. It shocks me truly because we see the reality every single day. Two people, same job title, same responsibilities, same home life situation, and one far outperforms the other. The outperformer gets the bigger bonus, the bigger raise, and the promotion. Factored out 10 years, the outperformer ends up far "richer" than the other guy, and the other guy calls it inequality. Yes, inequality happens. Yes, some people get a big head start. Yes, some people can tap family connections. But look around you, and I guarantee you'll observe my scenario 1,000,000 times before you observe your scenario once.
  - yen223 14y ago
    This right here is the sinister truth about conversations like this -- though clothed in the holy robe of "equality", you're not looking for equality of opportunity, you're looking for equality of outcome. I'm not sure where you get that idea from. The purpose of my thought experiment is to show that outcome is inextricably tied to opportunity. That guy who received $10,000,000, he's going to have a lot of opportunities. He gets to buy himself an education; he gets to invest in businesses that won't pay out for a few years, without having to worry about where his next meal will come from. He gets to treat minor ailments, before they fester into something more serious. Too many people assume that the outcome is only dependent on effort alone. Too many people like to think that a person is destitute only because he is lazy, not because he didn't have any of the opportunities offered to those of us who grew up in a well-off environment. In a perfect world, your financial outcome will be tied only to the amount of effort you put in. I'm trying to point out that the real world is hardly perfect.

rayiner 14y ago

I agree we should run that experiment, but until then abandon the pretense that our society is really meritocratic.

BrianEatWorld 14y ago

I never played but could you be talking about Minecraft?

nickzoic 14y ago
Nothing says "disposable income" like a diamond hoe.

spc476 14y ago

I recently wrote a very simple economic simulator. Given X actors, each starting with $Y (for a total money supply of $(X * Y)). For each "tick," two actors are selected, a buyer and a seller. The buyer gives the seller a random amount of money (if the buyer didn't have that said amount, no transaction happened). That's it. No skill. No talent. No fraud. Just random transactions between a fixed number of actors and money. Even after a few hundred transactions an interesting pattern emerged---a power law distribution of money, with the average amount of money per actor less than the starting amount of money (generally, about 66% of the starting amount). The results were similar regardless of the number of actors, the amount of starting money, and the amount per transaction (even a fixed amount exchanged per transaction would result in a similar result). I think the result would the same for your hypothetical town.

rayiner 14y ago
Do you mean median?
- spc476 14y ago
  Possibly, it's been awhile since I last ran the code.
  - patmcguire 14y ago
    Yeah, if it's a closed system with no people or money added or removed the average would stay the same.
tomjen3 14y ago
That is also too simplified to be applied to the real world, since the interactions we have we other people are very far from random.

yen223 14y ago

I want to see the reverse version: get 2 18-year-old guys, both equally smart and hardworking. Give one guy $10, and the other guy $10,000,000. See who earns $1,000,000 first. If hard work is all it takes to succeed, then both should earn their first $1,000,000 at the same time, right?

rayiner 14y ago
This is a far more relevant comparison for our own society.
Domenic_S 14y ago
This right here is the sinister truth about conversations like this -- though clothed in the holy robe of "equality", you're not looking for equality of opportunity, you're looking for equality of outcome. It shocks me truly because we see the reality every single day. Two people, same job title, same responsibilities, same home life situation, and one far outperforms the other. The outperformer gets the bigger bonus, the bigger raise, and the promotion. Factored out 10 years, the outperformer ends up far "richer" than the other guy, and the other guy calls it inequality. Yes, inequality happens. Yes, some people get a big head start. Yes, some people can tap family connections. But look around you, and I guarantee you'll observe my scenario 1,000,000 times before you observe your scenario once.
- yen223 14y ago
  This right here is the sinister truth about conversations like this -- though clothed in the holy robe of "equality", you're not looking for equality of opportunity, you're looking for equality of outcome. I'm not sure where you get that idea from. The purpose of my thought experiment is to show that outcome is inextricably tied to opportunity. That guy who received $10,000,000, he's going to have a lot of opportunities. He gets to buy himself an education; he gets to invest in businesses that won't pay out for a few years, without having to worry about where his next meal will come from. He gets to treat minor ailments, before they fester into something more serious. Too many people assume that the outcome is only dependent on effort alone. Too many people like to think that a person is destitute only because he is lazy, not because he didn't have any of the opportunities offered to those of us who grew up in a well-off environment. In a perfect world, your financial outcome will be tied only to the amount of effort you put in. I'm trying to point out that the real world is hardly perfect.