The age of minorities

[Husar]

Look, I know it’s hard to feel like you really know white people after doing a few interviews. But I understand now that we’re dealing with a deeply-ingrained instinct to feel threatened by any small bit of upward movement by black people in general. Because whiteness and blackness are social constructs with no real scientific meaning—they are political groups created to help rich white people maintain power by creating an underclass—then called Negroes—that was, by definition, lesser than poor whites. If the definition of blackness changes, if the sociological stock price of blackness goes up, then that changes not only the value of whiteness but its very meaning.

So basically a clash with reality then? Instead of fixing the actual problem of being poor due to rich people, some would rather fix the perception by being able to continue to view blacks as inferior.

That sounds like an example of 'wealth is relative'. It does not matter whether someone has two or three TVs, what matters is that someone else has fewer TVs.

[HopAlongBunny]

So basically a clash with reality then? Instead of fixing the actual problem of being poor due to rich people, some would rather fix the perception by being able to continue to view blacks as inferior.

Yes actually. It may be a simplification of a very complex dynamic, but it doesn't change the manifestation.
The explication of the power dynamic, and the manipulation needed to get there is at least as old as Huckleberry Finn.

[Husar]

Yes actually. It may be a simplification of a very complex dynamic, but it doesn't change the manifestation.
The explication of the power dynamic, and the manipulation needed to get there is at least as old as Huckleberry Finn.

There might be the problem that this is to some extent a biological trait and not just a manipulation.
Of course there is plenty of manipulation to reduce people to these lizard reflexes rather than make them question them using the rest of the grey matter they call a brain.

[HopAlongBunny]

There might be the problem that this is to some extent a biological trait and not just a manipulation.
Of course there is plenty of manipulation to reduce people to these lizard reflexes rather than make them question them using the rest of the grey matter they call a brain.

Nature/Nurture what?

[Husar]

I've finally found a relevant article after I previously didn't know what terms to look for, but here we go:

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan.../op-schermer13

Would you rather earn $50,000 a year while other people make $25,000, or would you rather earn $100,000 a year while other people get $250,000? Assume for the moment that prices of goods and services will stay the same.

Surprisingly -- stunningly, in fact -- research shows that the majority of people select the first option; they would rather make twice as much as others even if that meant earning half as much as they could otherwise have. How irrational is that?

[...]

Human as it sounds, loss aversion appears to be a trait we've inherited genetically because it is found in other primates, such as capuchin monkeys.

[...]

If there are behavioral analogies between humans and other primates, the underlying brain mechanism driving the choice preferences most certainly dates back to a common ancestor more than 10 million years ago. Think about that: Millions of years ago, the psychology of relative social ranking, supply and demand and economic loss aversion evolved in the earliest primate traders.

I recommend reading the entire thing, it's not too long.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I've finally found a relevant article after I previously didn't know what terms to look for, but here we go:

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan.../op-schermer13



I recommend reading the entire thing, it's not too long.

Seen a number of research pieces with this theme. I teach it in principles of conflict management. It is one of the things that exacerbates conflict to no end. because this emotional response tends to make conflict/no conflict decisions even more irrational.

In some ways this is the "best" argument against 'trickle-down' economics. Too many folks simply get angrier that others' lots in life is improving faster than theirs does even if they are experiencing substantial improvement themselves.

[Shaka_Khan]

In the United States, every ethnicity has been a minority for a long time.

[Husar]

Seen a number of research pieces with this theme. I teach it in principles of conflict management. It is one of the things that exacerbates conflict to no end. because this emotional response tends to make conflict/no conflict decisions even more irrational.

In some ways this is the "best" argument against 'trickle-down' economics. Too many folks simply get angrier that others' lots in life is improving faster than theirs does even if they are experiencing substantial improvement themselves.

Yes and no. I agree that it is important and can be irrational. What I'm not sure about it whether it is entirely irrational behavior.
First of all, I would think the root could be in Darwinism. Every organism could be inherently inclined to try and get an edge over others in order to ensure survival of its own line. The kind of affluence we have today hasn't existed nearly long enough to have any affect on this potentially ages-old genetic predisposition, even if it's not in every organism.

And secondly, one could argue that in today's economy, the wealth accumulated at the top is illogical itself according to the principles as taught by the elites themselves. It is practically impossible for one man to actually earn this wealth through his own work. I'm not aware of any one-man company where the owner is a billionaire. The argument that all the workers agreed to work for their wages and so on usually ignores the price elasticity or whatever elasticity else there is. A worker with a family is far less flexible in choosing a place to work than a billionaire investor who chooses where to invest. There is an inherent power imbalance that can explain seemingly bad choices by poor people via game theory (prisoner dilemma).

Basically two people apply for a job, there are four potential outcomes:
1) Both agree, one gets the job - 50% chance to win, lowest wage since the employer can negotiate
2) You agree, other guy declines - you win, get mediocre wage since you can negotiate a little
3) You decline, other guy agrees - you lose, get nothing, live under bridge, other guy gets low wage
4) both decline - the employer needs to offer more money (good wage) to one of them

Now option 4 would be the logical one to take for job applicants, but chances are that both are afraid of scenario 3 and would rather have a scenario 2 for themselves. This makes them most likely to end up in scenario 1.

A billionaire on the other hand does not risk anything by withholding an investment. If a billionaire refuses to give money to a project that does not seem lucrative enough, he does not have to live under a bridge after two months because he has so much padding that he could live just fine until the end of his life.
This obviously makesa trickle up effect of relative wealth far more likely than any trickle down. At best, "trickle down" delays the poverization of the lower levels of society. And due to rising prices aka inflation, it is not even given that the lower levels of society do see an absolute rise in wealth. Maybe in "things" that are bought with debt...
In the 50s it may have been different, but since then a lot has changed. In the 50s the relative income of a CEO was something like 20 times that of the average employee, nowadays it's 100 times that and more (don't have the exact statistic at hand).

Plus, the system of high wealth differences undermines democracy, since money provides more power and influence in the state and in elections, in the US more so than here. In that sense it is also logical to want to reduce wealth inequality, since democracy becomes oligarchy when 1% of the population gets to decide about 90% of the laws.

I could go on but that shall do for now.

[Montmorency]

Seen a number of research pieces with this theme. I teach it in principles of conflict management. It is one of the things that exacerbates conflict to no end. because this emotional response tends to make conflict/no conflict decisions even more irrational.

In some ways this is the "best" argument against 'trickle-down' economics. Too many folks simply get angrier that others' lots in life is improving faster than theirs does even if they are experiencing substantial improvement themselves.

Importantly, it's not just that people get angry at "someone" (i.e. anyone) improving their lot faster than themselves; depending on who you are, specific groups receive the brunt of the resentment.

Yes and no. I agree that it is important and can be irrational. What I'm not sure about it whether it is entirely irrational behavior.
First of all, I would think the root could be in Darwinism. Every organism could be inherently inclined to try and get an edge over others in order to ensure survival of its own line. The kind of affluence we have today hasn't existed nearly long enough to have any affect on this potentially ages-old genetic predisposition, even if it's not in every organism.

...

In some sense it may be immoral to maintain disproportionate wealth, separate or not from how wealth is obtained or accumulated. But from there things get tricky: is any billionaire acting immorally if they are not investing their whole wealth into undermining the wealth and power of all other billionaires and their economic system? From an absolutist perspective a wealthy individual giving half their net worth to charity may not be much better than a rapacious individual pillaging small countries and installing dictatorships.

If you end our current framework of money and exchange, then the nature of distribution and wealth also changes, so perhaps there is no longer money to regulate but there's still pure interpersonal power and influence to account for.

Anyway, referencing the "Robot Ibn Saud" thread:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Also consider the following regarding AI:

I see this thought experiment is a bad one for "AI", but if you look at it differently it it's just another way of describing our reality of perpetual-growth capitalism. You just have to make the connection to the capitalist maxim of "maximizing revenue":