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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Human beings largely object to income inequality and are willing to correct injustice—unless, of course, it rattles their status quo.
That's the conclusion of a recent study looking at how far people would go to redistribute resources between the haves and have nots. Participants fiercely objected to "when winners become losers and losers become winners," researchers note in the paper, published in the latest issue of Nature Human Behaviour.
Researchers initially recruited Indian, American, and Chinese participants take part in an experimental game they called "the redistribution game." The gist of the game was simple: Participants were given a number of scenarios that would redistribute a fixed sum from a richer person to someone poorer. Participants were told the original standing of wealth was assigned randomly.
In the first scenario, participants had to decide if they wanted to transfer two coins from person A (who already had four coins) to person B (who had one). Researchers note the "transfer would reduce inequality," (as there's less of a gap between them), but person B would end up one coin richer than person A, reversing their status.
In the second version of game, participants were asked whether they'd transfer one coin to person B (where person A ended up with three coins and person B with two coins). Researchers ran a third and fourth scenario that allowed participants to transfer coins from person A to B, where the outcome still left person A with significantly more coins.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday July 16 2017, @12:32AM (15 children)
Do it again, but with one person getting 1,000,000,000 coins, and the other one gets 1 coin.
I bet you'd see people wanting to have that wealth distributed better..
The difference between the ultra ultra rich and the very very poor is widening more than 4 coins can show.
1 coin, 2 coins: who cares: much more and much less coins and you'll see people caring about distribution more.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Entropy on Sunday July 16 2017, @01:00AM (14 children)
Actually, no. Not if the 1 coin person is a drain on society in every sense of the word, and the (whatever higher number coin) person creates jobs, products, scientific knowledge, and other things.
Some people really are worse than useless: They are actively destructive and a net negative for society. What the bottom percentage is? Who knows...But it exists. Probably something like 10%.
It's unfortunate that the top 1% of minds that drag us kicking and screaming into the next age of science are not rewarded more than they are.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mth on Sunday July 16 2017, @02:22AM (1 child)
Just because someone has managed to acquire a lot of wealth doesn't mean they made a net positive contribution to society.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by julian on Sunday July 16 2017, @03:30AM
And it often means nothing more than that their parents were wealthy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @05:08AM (2 children)
The useless eaters are dragging us down. [regent.edu] "Would you, if you were a cripple, want to vegetate forever?"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 16 2017, @05:14AM (1 child)
Stephen Hawking fans will hunt you down...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @06:14PM
In what? A laser-equipped shit-seeking wheelchair?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 16 2017, @05:11AM (1 child)
So, that bottom 10%, should they be homeless, denied medical care, maybe just shot on sight because the world is better off without them?
The bottom 10% of caribou calves are eaten by wolves, improving the genetic quality of the herd, if what you care about are calves that get up and run fast at birth.
A big part of humankind is defined by the fact that we don't treat our less fortunate like those slower caribou calves. A big part of what makes the better parts of the world better is that they take care of the bottom 10% well enough that they don't feel forced to prey on the more fortunate as they are able to out of necessity. When there are people around who are left in desperate conditions, the rich end up living in fear, which is both expensive and unpleasant for everyone involved.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @06:20PM
Actually, you're partially defining civilization, not humanity. The history of humankind is full of tribal culturally-accepted of abandonment of the aged and infirm. Along with ceremonial sacrifice, genocide, and cannibalism. The first humans were, by necessity, a pretty nasty lot.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday July 16 2017, @10:37AM (2 children)
Many or most of the people having actively destructive effects on society would likely be less destructive if they had a basic income and a home of basic quality. If you force such people to do work that they are not competent at then their incompetence will have that net negative effect you describe. Further, if completely deprive them of all sources of income or a home, they will often be driven to crime which again is that net negative. Emotions of resentment, anger and hopelessness are also factors in this behavior.
Sometimes taking care of people at a basic level is simply the least expensive option for society.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Entropy on Sunday July 16 2017, @04:58PM (1 child)
We already give jobless baby factories on welfare free money. We can either spend additional money on "helping" a useless segment of the population, or on the most intelligent scientists in our population. I vote the latter, but the former is certainly more popular these days.
I'm not saying everyone in need is useless, but there's a certain significant segment of them that really seem to be. Just like there's a segment of the top wealthy that is actively destructive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @07:26PM
We also have sociopathic pieces of shit like yourself. Make no mistake, if we go down the chopping block route people such ad yourself will be given the boot.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday July 16 2017, @10:58AM (1 child)
A person who uses their wealth and power to change laws to their favour in order to increase their wealth and power are just as much a 'drain on society'.
Yes, some people ARE a drain and are a net negative: but the top 1% of minds are NOT dragging us kicking and screaming... they are STEALING from everyone else for their own benefit.
Usually this ends in revolution, which seems to be coming one way or the other.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Sunday July 16 2017, @04:47PM
Honestly I consider the top 1% to be the brilliant MINDS that drag us forward into the next generation of civilization. Those minds are usually under-rewarded and certainly not regularly the wealthy elite.
There is a percentage, perhaps even a high percentage of the wealthy elite that are actively destructive.
(Score: 1) by YeaWhatevs on Sunday July 16 2017, @12:43PM (1 child)
The goal of the rich is to get rich, nothing more. The capital choir would say that enlightened self interest is the best way to improve society, but I only really see engineers taking up that mantle; capital does what capital does and tries to shut down any real improvements so they can make a buck and steal ownership. You probably imagine yourself as one of those engineers, but don't mistake those guys for the ones pulling the strings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @06:23PM
You win the internets today.