[knowhy]

> I think that the Pareto Principle is technically true in a lot of fields, but I also feel our society would be a lot better off if we didn’t know about it.

I doubt that. From what I understand Vilfredo Pareto introduced it to describe the existing allocation of wealth in Italy on the brink of fascism. He claimed that the crops in his garden followed this principle. I highly doubt that that can be replicated. Ever since people refer to the Pareto principle when they observe a 80/20 distribution. Like it is some kind of natural law. But it is not. At least I have yet to see a scientific explanation why a 80/20 distribution would have any kind of special meaning. Just because some distributions are 80/20 doesn't mean there is anything special about it, a lot of distributions are not 80/20.

So I think society would be better off if people would stop acting like it is a natural law and there is nothing to change about it.

Paereto distribution is dangerous since it is applied to justify hierarchies in society. And it is just not a good justification.

[marcosdumay]

Hum?

There's pretty much a mathematical rule that states that variables free to have any values tend to distribute themselves like that, just like the one that states that variables that are bounded tend to distribute themselves normally.

Or are you talking about the specific numbers? Because yes, the specific numbers are almost never correct.

[knowhy]

Pareto distribution can be expressed in mathematical terms. So what? That does not explain why a specific distribution should follow this rule.

[prmph]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle#Mathematical_...

[dutchbookmaker]

This all is the most minor aspect of Trattato di Sociologia Generale. Treatise on General Sociology, the translation is the 4 volume The Mind and Society.

The whole point is that we have these arbitrary subject divisions of knowledge for convenience. Physics, economics, biology, chemistry, etc. Then he spends 4 volumes trying to describe what he sees as the mechanics of society without worrying about these divisions of knowledge.

I have been stuck on volume 2 for years. It is brutal read.

A Pareto distribution is a type of power law distribution.

80/20 is Joseph Juran's pathetic simplification. It is something MBAs can easily remember. It is like the most minor and trivial of Pareto's thought.

The main idea of his thought is that society is largely based on types of "non-logical conduct". Pseudo-logical conduct. The best I have been able to understand it is that Pareto believed society operates on unthinking, almost quasi religious beliefs, then after the fact we invent logical and scientific sounding reasons for the action/behavior and fool ourselves into believing the action/behavior was logically arrived at from the start.

His work is trying to catalog these non-logical conducts like a butterfly collector collecting types of butterflys.

Basically, nothing much at all to do with 80/20 or fascism.

Pretty sure all the big Italian political philosophers from that time believed in the Iron Law Of Oligarchy politically. Democracy being basically a type of performance art while it doesn't matter the system, you always get oligarchy in reality.