The obvious takeaway should be that there needs to be a mechanism for wealth redistribution.
When you then exploit the resources that have randomly piled up, turbo boost kicks in and exacerbates the condition as the wealthy throw their weight around to increase their weight and influence (as all classes will do within the context of what they're able to do)
I've been aware of this simulation (or earlier, simpler simulations) for some time, and consider it significant. Even in the total absence of merit, properties will emerge that will look like merit when they're not. Confirmation bias does the rest.
The take-away would appear to be 'eat the rich, but only when they insist they earned it out of their own obvious personal value'. The ones that are like 'lol, that's weird, how did this happen to me?' are probably okay ;)
Can I suggest you call this what it is: a set of positive feedback loops.
The idea that in real life the distribution would be way way 'worse'… is in fact heavily confirmed by observation of real life. I'm just trying to make sure people don't jump to the conclusion, 'it's positive feedback all the way down, this always represents merit'.
It's quite shocking how little it represents merit. I would say it is equally likely to represent criminality, as merit. So even the 'positive feedback' ends up being pretty much a wash: we revert to the merit-less state of the distribution, only with an even more extreme power-law curve.
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.
No it's not.
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.
Better luck next life.
For those who most can to help those most in need, regardless of how that came about.
Also, moneyed classes have working classes in lifelong slavery. The only escape from having to work your entire life to make someone else rich, is to be rich or to fall out the bottom of the system.
Meeting a need isn't a stochastic process anymore than having a need to be fulfilled is one. I assume you have an actual boss with actual needs and not a probabilistic representation of one. While this model assumes a random distribution as a driving force for wealth, that isn't representative of reality, where individual motivation and personal utility are much more significant factors.
It isn't luck that hands one money ,but dedicating one's efforts to discovery, invention, or labor in exchange for a resource or product that one finds more useful. In this scenario one has earned wealth by dint of his efforts and abilities, not by mere lottery. Yes, I do deserve my income. I earned it by trading my labor for money. I have the right to trade my money something that I find more worthwhile.
> You're falling straight into "if I have it,"....
I would change the statement to "I earned it, I have the right to have it, and therefore I deserve it more than you". This is essentially what it means to own property. Your original formulation makes no distinction between burglars and creators.
For example: It's likely that you're typing to me from a computer or phone that you currently have in your possession? Would you say this computer belongs to you or are you simply its steward? Is it wrong for someone to own a computer or must one share it with the world?
> Also, money classes have working classes in lifelong slavery.
Where does one draw the line at "moneyed"? Who in this country is "enslaved" when cashiers have more money and benefits than lawyers or doctors from half the countries of the world? Most people here can buy more computing power than the vast majority of humans every born on the planet. The only way for your premise to make sense is to assume that earning a salary is slavery in an of itself.
I concede that I've likely taken your statement the wrong way.
> Don't you dare put "help" in scare quotes either. People are starving and they need help.
Which people are starving? Where? How did they get into that position? Whenever I hear the word "help", it's for some pet project that is at best a bandaid and ,at worst, a con under the guise of a charitable act.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.