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 Originally Posted by boost
Awesome post wufwugy-- I think this type of bridging the gap thinking needs to be employed far more.
And I'd like to ask, at the risk of opening a western front, what you think the social implications of an ever expanding wealth gap are? I was working my way towards this in the other thread, but we hadn't quite gotten there yet. However, it seems to fit here now.
I'm not sure it is expanding or if it matters. Wealth and income are far more abstract than more concrete measures like consumption. I think that much of the recent measurement that suggests inequality is increasing has cherry picked what it wants to add to the wealth measure. For example, people with lots of assets, like Bill Gates, look to be far wealthier on charts than they are IRL. If you account for all of Gates' assets, he's like a thousand or whatever times wealthier than average, but his access to technology is only like one or two times higher than average. This shows there is a discrepancy between the idea of income and what it can actualize in real value. IIRC, studies have shown that happiness levels peak at about 75k income per year. Given the consumption capacity of that compared to much higher incomes, it makes sense that higher incomes don't really improve lives.
I'm of the mind that wealth hubs are essential to innovation and advancements, yet higher than maybe 2x average income does nothing to improve individuals' lives. This suggests to me that the kind of goals we should strive for are not ones that are worried about wealth hubs, but access to mobility from poverty to middle class. That access doesn't appear to be hindered by wealth hubs at all (I think it's aided by it, honestly), but is hindered by some policy issues (like in healthcare, education, and construction) and cultural issues (let's be honest, first generation immigrant parents demand their kids get good grades, while many anglo and black Americans teach their kids that schools are lying to them and the cops are out to get them or any such nonsense)
BTW a few days ago Renton told me a fantastic point I hadn't thought of: people with "too much wealth" provide an essential service to society by being the first test subjects for new products. It's like how the first cell phones were really shitty and expensive and the only people who bought them were the rich. Well, the fact that there were people rich enough to up the demand for those inefficient yet valuable products has over a decade turned them into paradigm changers, with all sorts of new capabilities, available to most people on the planet
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