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PGs argument unfortunately ignores that its the majority that makes it possible for the few to create things. He doesn't seem to understand that instead of bein

PGs argument unfortunately ignores that its the majority that makes it possible for the few to create things. He doesn't seem to understand that instead of being bolstered by the success of the few, the opposite is happening and the majority is being left behind. Its sad to say, but his current social position is definitely influencing his thought process. The author of this essay does the opposite. He ridicules the advancements that start ups have created by focusing on things like Candy Crush. What about Dropbox and Uber. Those have had a profound impact for the positive. What we should be saying is that income inequality is occurring because there is a skew in the system. The growth we are creating isn't being equally distributed back to the growth generators. We make Candy Crush worth billions, but that billions doesn't do anything for the majority. Nurses and janitors are vital jobs, no arguing that, but we need growth generators as well. It sad that no ones sees this to be the issue and instead we all pick our extreme corner and then drive points to bolster ourselves.

maxsilver 11y ago
Yes, exactly! No one is arguing against technology or progress. But there is a legitimate issue here; our economic system currently punishes society for progress when it should reward it. For instance, If automated driving becomes a viable technology, we have just eliminated most of the labour force in the trucking industry. This should be a good thing for society (we've freed up lots of time and labour, likely reduced error, increased efficiency, potentially even eliminated some accidents and saved lives, etc). But in practice, self-driving trucks would be devastating to the nation. There's close to 1 million people in the US who drive trucks for a living -- it's literally the most common job in nearly every state. (http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-t...). All of these people would be unemployed. Many would likely be shunted into minimum wage, poverty-level employment for the rest of their lives (whatever poverty-level employment is left by then -- those jobs are rapidly disappearing to automation too). If we continue on our current course without changing something, it will eventually be impossible for companies to create value at all -- so many people will be so poor, that it will be impossible to sell anything to them. How highly can Candy Crush be valued in the future, when 99% of it's ad viewers have zero spending money? How much value can AirBnB capture if 99% of the population is too poor to travel? The reply that "these people should all just start highly successful businesses" is a cop-out, in much the same way that telling a poor person to "just become a movie star" or "just become a pro basketball player" is. It's simply not possible for most people to do that, regardless of how hard they try. (Startups already have a 90%+ failure rate today. Adding 1 million otherwise untrained individuals won't help that figure). And it's grossly irresponsible of us as a society to shove people into poverty for failing to meet this wildly-unrealistic expectation.
- ericd 11y ago
  And I don't think anyone is arguing that the poor should all go out and try to start businesses once they're automated out of their current job, that would be a very naive viewpoint. PGs essay is saying that society should be discussing how to solve poverty, rather than how to solve economic inequality. I'm strongly in favor of things like basic income, extensive free retraining programs, and a lot of social support to make sure that every citizen can be free of the desperation of true poverty, and we can maintain social and economic mobility, but there are a lot of ways that attempting to stamp out economic inequality could go really horribly wrong.
  - FreedomToCreate 11y ago
    Out of curiosity, what could go wrong by attempting to stamp out economic inequality. The argument that the top job creators and innovators would leave because they don't have massive income incentives is an extreme in case that is an example.
    - ericd 11y ago
      Becoming an unattractive place to come for ambitious people. Becoming an unattractive place for ambitious/wealthy people to stay. Causing inequality to take subtler forms, like power, political influence, personal connections. Civil unrest, as the social contract between people and between government and the people to be radically altered. There are a lot of potentially very severe problems, and it's dangerously naive to think that true equality between all people is something actually achievable unless humanity and human nature undergoes some fundamental changes. We should be trying to fix poverty, and giving more people an opportunity to be ambitious and take risks without risking ruin, we shouldn't be making it unattractive to be ambitious.
      - FreedomToCreate 11y ago
        I am not advocating for true equality. I am saying that we can distribute wealth to better represent how people contribute to the system. No one is at the top without the support of the millions who pushed them there. Everyone is not ambitious in the business sense. Everyone can't be Michael Jordan, but Michael Jordan wouldn't be with everyone.

maxsilver 11y ago

Yes, exactly! No one is arguing against technology or progress. But there is a legitimate issue here; our economic system currently punishes society for progress when it should reward it. For instance, If automated driving becomes a viable technology, we have just eliminated most of the labour force in the trucking industry. This should be a good thing for society (we've freed up lots of time and labour, likely reduced error, increased efficiency, potentially even eliminated some accidents and saved lives, etc). But in practice, self-driving trucks would be devastating to the nation. There's close to 1 million people in the US who drive trucks for a living -- it's literally the most common job in nearly every state. (http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-t...). All of these people would be unemployed. Many would likely be shunted into minimum wage, poverty-level employment for the rest of their lives (whatever poverty-level employment is left by then -- those jobs are rapidly disappearing to automation too). If we continue on our current course without changing something, it will eventually be impossible for companies to create value at all -- so many people will be so poor, that it will be impossible to sell anything to them. How highly can Candy Crush be valued in the future, when 99% of it's ad viewers have zero spending money? How much value can AirBnB capture if 99% of the population is too poor to travel? The reply that "these people should all just start highly successful businesses" is a cop-out, in much the same way that telling a poor person to "just become a movie star" or "just become a pro basketball player" is. It's simply not possible for most people to do that, regardless of how hard they try. (Startups already have a 90%+ failure rate today. Adding 1 million otherwise untrained individuals won't help that figure). And it's grossly irresponsible of us as a society to shove people into poverty for failing to meet this wildly-unrealistic expectation.

ericd 11y ago
And I don't think anyone is arguing that the poor should all go out and try to start businesses once they're automated out of their current job, that would be a very naive viewpoint. PGs essay is saying that society should be discussing how to solve poverty, rather than how to solve economic inequality. I'm strongly in favor of things like basic income, extensive free retraining programs, and a lot of social support to make sure that every citizen can be free of the desperation of true poverty, and we can maintain social and economic mobility, but there are a lot of ways that attempting to stamp out economic inequality could go really horribly wrong.
- FreedomToCreate 11y ago
  Out of curiosity, what could go wrong by attempting to stamp out economic inequality. The argument that the top job creators and innovators would leave because they don't have massive income incentives is an extreme in case that is an example.
  - ericd 11y ago
    Becoming an unattractive place to come for ambitious people. Becoming an unattractive place for ambitious/wealthy people to stay. Causing inequality to take subtler forms, like power, political influence, personal connections. Civil unrest, as the social contract between people and between government and the people to be radically altered. There are a lot of potentially very severe problems, and it's dangerously naive to think that true equality between all people is something actually achievable unless humanity and human nature undergoes some fundamental changes. We should be trying to fix poverty, and giving more people an opportunity to be ambitious and take risks without risking ruin, we shouldn't be making it unattractive to be ambitious.
    - FreedomToCreate 11y ago
      I am not advocating for true equality. I am saying that we can distribute wealth to better represent how people contribute to the system. No one is at the top without the support of the millions who pushed them there. Everyone is not ambitious in the business sense. Everyone can't be Michael Jordan, but Michael Jordan wouldn't be with everyone.