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Comment by wubrr | Hacker News Reader

I mean, it's pretty hard to predict what such a society would look like, but it's plausible you'd just be a slave from birth until death (because poor slaves don't get the immortality pill).

> I am not convinced though, wealth seems to dissipate over long periods (e.g. most billionaires today did not inherit their wealth).

The single most reliable predictor of wealth BY FAR is being born into wealth. And arguably, it dissipates because it gets decentralized as it gets split up between heirs as it passed down to future generations which are typically less ambitious and focused on maintaining that power and wealth.

Imagine if Ghengis Khan, Stalin, Mao, Rothschild, Rockerfeller, all of the kings/royals/despots/dictators were immortal and still running the world - I don't think most people would want to live in that world.

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> The single most reliable predictor of wealth BY FAR is being born into wealth.

I highly doubt that. I would guess that income and age would be much better predictors for example.

> I don't think most people would want to live in that world.

I would, if the other option was death.

Regardless, I doubt any of them would still rule the world had they not died of old age. Regimes survive despite the death of their rulers and fall while their rulers are still alive.

> I highly doubt that. I would guess that income and age would be much better predictors for example.

I'm talking about predictors of wealth for a new person. The age and income are both zero. If you have their income - you probably have their wealth already as well - nothing to predict.

And for the record, coming from wealth is the strongest predictor of future wealth. [0][1]

> I would, if the other option was death.

But you have no choice/option in my hypothetical scenario - you're born a slave and you die...

> Regardless, I doubt any of them would still rule the world had they not died of old age.

Really.... ? Why? All of the people I mentioned, maintained and grew their wealth/power their entire life up until their death. Having power/wealth is just a huge advantage if you're trying to gain/maintain power/wealth.

[0] https://www.ctpublic.org/education/2019-05-15/georgetown-stu... [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/29/study-to-succeed-in-america-...

> I'm talking about predictors of wealth for a new person.

That's almost a tautology then. If you only know one thing about someone, that's also necessarily the best predictor for anything about them. However, it doesn't tell us much about whether wealth does concentrate over time.

> Really.... ? Why?

Because regimes change all the time despite rulers being alive. The death of a ruler by old age rarely triggers regime change, they just get succeeded by someone else. It's usually another event that triggers regime change (peaceful and violent revolutions, war, etc.). Immortal rulers wouldn't be immune to those events.

The biggest cause of regime change seems to be the succession of power and the fears around change occurring during succession of power. A ruler dying through old age is a common source of regime change in history as people with varying interests start vying for that position and ensuring the new ruler holds their same interests.

It's the exception rather than the norm. Rulers are typically just replaced by their successors.

I mean, I gave you multiple examples of some of the most powerful people that ever lived, none of which fall into this category you call the 'norm'. You just completely ignored that and continued with your baseless fantasy.

Upon his death, Genghis Khan was succeeded by his son. Mao was succeeded by Hua Guofeng, vice chairman of the CCP. Stalin was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

And the power was less centralized after each of these deaths.

> If you only know one thing about someone

You can know a great deal about someone at birth, such as race, gender, country of origin, eye color etc. Yet you can accurately predict someone’s wealth at age 60 by looking at their parent’s wealth even though a babies income is generally 0.

Further wait until someone’s 10 and you can measure IQ, grades, etc and parents wealth is still #1. Wait even longer and high school GPA still isn’t nearly as useful.

> That's almost a tautology then.

No... it's not? Do you know what tautology means?

> If you only know one thing about someone, that's also necessarily the best predictor for anything about them.

Except it's not the only thing you know about them... so your point is kinda meaningless.

> However, it doesn't tell us much about whether wealth does concentrate over time.

There are soooo many studies supporting this, like the two I linked above, not to mention common sense.

It's like the most basic game theory + common sense - you have X people competing with each other, you give (0.001 * X) of those people massive advantages - who do you think is going to be winning?

Also the Chinese saying that goes "Wealth does not last beyond three generations". There are exceptions to this rule but it is fairly robust.

Part of it is wealth becoming diluted with offspring and secondly being raised in wealth diminishes people value of money until it is too late.

In the United States, the single most determinative factor for lifetime earnings and life expectancy is the zip code you were born in and grew up in, up to age 13 or so.

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