[roenxi]

I'd estimate that at least 1/1000 people are capable of running this gauntlet; so in my opinion this is a little pessimistic. That being said, the gentleman is hitting the message like a carpenter in a hurry.

> ... the vast majority of people being leeches ...

Yeah, but unfairly pejorative. Babies and old people are technically leeches too but we love them and shouldn't call them that.

It is fairer to be accurate and say most people don't create much in the way of resources. You can see this play out pretty straightforwardly if you assume a dollar in savings represents about a dollar of value created that wasn't then consumed. Most people struggle to get that metric positive.

That is fine though. Capitalism forces people not to be outrageous resource drains and even tilts the scales in the micro so that someone with no savings still probably made a positive contribution to the overall wealth of the nation.

[juliendorra]

Ressources are not all, tho. Maintenance and care is very important to society and including social maintenance and care. It’s mostly invisible and “cost”, not “surplus” but society couldn’t work without it. One part is the invisible work (mostly done by women) to care for others unpaid, but there’s also the cleaning, fixing, etc.

[travisjungroth]

> You can see this play out pretty straightforwardly if you assume a dollar in savings represents about a dollar of value created that wasn't then consumed.

I think this assumption is false to the point it invalidates the results. Because savings is marginal, if the relationship between value and dollars is off by only a little, the delta between net value and savings becomes huge. A good hint this assumption is wrong is if it were true, the value produced by a slave would be zero.

[tgv]

> most people don't create much in the way of resources

Then nobody would pay them for their labor.

[juliendorra]

I’ll also add that very successful people always have a group of people supporting their success without themselves being seen as ‘productive’ (often a spouse is part of it, but also secretaries, students, etc.)

[Chris2048]

> Babies and old people are technically leeches

They are leeching, but I'd say "a leech" is someone who's lifetime average contribution is negative.

> assume a dollar

Hmm, at risking falling into a "glassmakers fallacy" type complexity, I feel money is transactional, and what it represents wrt "value" is complicated and cannot easily be divorced from the transactional nature (though it is handy shorthand for value in limited ways). From the perspective of an individual, a dollar earned via say, labour exchange is a dollar "created", but in general wealth was not really created, just transferred. I don't think individuals need to be on the hook for true wealth creation (humanity gets it for free, probably from the sun), but rather fair distribution - the things money buy are resources, much like one's personal time, and resources should in general be balanced, but not in a strict communist style, rather more than equal opportunity to acquire resources, with a market-led definition of value.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Define "negative."

Include externalities.

[Chris2048]

I think negative has a pretty clear definition in this context, if you want to say more about "externalities" maybe I can talk about it.