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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday July 15 2017, @10:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the status-quo dept.

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


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday July 16 2017, @11:30PM (3 children)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday July 16 2017, @11:30PM (#540079) Journal

    If I'm not mistaken, though, "Disagree" is a neutral mod, which does not affect post score. Parent was asking for a "-1, factually wrong" mod, which doesn't exist. Problem is that such a mod would likely be abused, just as "troll" or "flamebait" sometimes are already... so I'm not sure it would actually help things.

    On the other hand, it would be helpful in some circumstances, because sometimes posts get modded up by people who don't know better, and then someone comes along with actually references, links, etc. that show it was complete BS. That doesn't necessarily mean the parent was acting in bad faith (deserving a troll or flamebait or whatever). I suppose "overrated" is the general purpose mod for this scenario.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @12:26AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @12:26AM (#540091)

    Asked for "fractally wrong" not "factually wrong". Read again.

    Also, we have enough of an issue with modbombing going on. Giving people with an axe to grind yet one more hammer is highly unlikely to make anything better.

    • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday July 17 2017, @04:28AM (1 child)

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday July 17 2017, @04:28AM (#540174) Journal

      I can read and I saw the spelling the first time. Given the rest of the post and the fact that "fractally wrong" doesn't make much sense in that context (or really any context) I assumed it was a misspelling.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @04:32AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @04:32AM (#540176)

        The hint is in the following sentence:

        "That statement is wrong on every scale you examine it on."

        Fractals have a self-similarity characteristic, where they are similar to themselves in appearance at widely varying scales.