[Terr_]

Kind of a strawman though, innit? If "civilization will stagnate and humans will be unmotivated blobs" is one extreme, then the other is something like "condoning economic genocide".

In reality, few are concerned that Alice has a much nicer car than Bob, compared to concerns that Bob will die without insulin. Get Bob his insulin, and he will still be motivated to have a nicer car.

[WalterBright]

> Kind of a strawman though, innit?

Not at all. It's the primary reason why communes fail.

[nixon_why69]

I think there's likely a steel man version of "solving inequality" that's a little less radical than "establish a commune".

Something like "arrest the trend towards upward accumulation which also reduces incentives to excel", maybe.

[WalterBright]

If we did that, we wouldn't have SpaceX, Nvidia, AI, etc.

[croon]

There are points in history where the productivity increases were more equitably spread, and we still got lasers, microwaves, MRI, mRNA, microchips, the internet, etc, etc, from national funding no less.

[WalterBright]

People are paid according to the value they produce - equity has nothing to do with it.

[tsunamifury]

This is painfully naive. People are paid by the value they produce minus the maximum extraction ownership can get.