Not even remotely where I've gone, nor where I'm going. You've read something in that is not even on the same planet.
It's merely what you actually ended up arguing. As I said, I doubted that such was your intent, but consequences are what they are.
Making things better, to me, does not include equal outcomes. Equal opportunity, yes. Reasonable accommodations, certainly.
"Trying to overcome the differences in starting point is a fool's errand." Reasonable accommodations is exactly that. Any and all efforts to allow people to have what's normally called a "fair shot" are exactly that. The concept invoked is entirely different than someone putting their figurative thumb on the outcome. More could be said, but there's no need to belabor the point much further here at the second.
This could very rapidly progress into the weeds, in which case I'm happy to request a split.
My position is that we *need* some degree of unequal outcomes in order to thrive. Competition is a fundamental aspect of nature, both inter- and intra-species.
Sure!
And competition produces unequal outcomes. This spans a whole host of concepts, but for the moment, let's limit it to incomes. My position is that if we all had equal incomes, innovation would stagnate and progress would disappear.
Stagnate to some degree? Quite likely. Disappear? That would depend on the larger picture.
It should never be forgotten that the government is behind a heck of a lot of innovation and that a lot of companies have profited off such as they buy it and then hoard the profits for themselves. The government can fairly be called a true hero for innovation, maligned as it may be by certain groups of people.
To go a bit further, though - in practice, both too much AND too little inequality cause real harm to innovation and progress. It is entirely fair to criticize the ideal of perfect manufactured equality. Even so, so long as one consistently only ends up criticizing efforts aimed at making it so that there's too little inequality in a situation where too much inequality is causing far more harm in reality and inequality is largely increasing, it might be worth considering whether one's focus is actually appropriate. That is the situation that we're living in, after all.
It's only by having at least some very wealthy people that risky endeavors can be undertaken. Innovation and the exploration of novel and challenging ideas can only occur when some few people have excess wealth enough that the marginal value of their multi-million dollar investment in something that might not pan out is worth the novelty to them. When wealth is evenly spread, the marginal value remains too high for venture investments.
As was just noted - the government has served in that role for a huge amount of innovation. Most basic research, for that matter, at last check, and quite a lot of applied research.
Certainly, the private sector's focus on profitable application is well worth noting, but even then, trying to reduce that to "some very wealthy people taking risky endeavors" sounds like a very distinct mischaracterization, to be polite. Besides the really obvious reasons why, there's also considerations like how very wealthy people have long also been likely to have rather entrenched interests that can and do act to try to stifle innovations that threaten their entrenched interests.
The trick is making sure that the disparity isn't so big that it suffocates the have-nots. I don't have an answer to that - I recognize it's a problem, I don't know how to solve it. The only thing I'm sure of is that equality of outcome is NOT a viable long-term solution.
Fair enough. It's entirely understandable to oppose any power putting their figurative thumb to scales to force a particular result, especially when one thinks that it will not be a favorable outcome for those they care about.
With that said, power *will* reside somewhere. Figurative thumbs *will* be put on scales when there's openings to do so. Much of the anti-government rhetoric on this general front originates from rich and powerful business owners that were very displeased that the government stepped in to limit their exploitation, abuse, and general power over those they employ, and has been amplified with various tactics, both subtle and blatant and both direct and indirect. The government is the ONLY real force that could effectively rein in the disparity to healthy levels, after all, or have a real shot at reducing many of the artificially manufactured disparities in opportunity and outcome.
