Wealth redistribution in order to help those who are unfortunate enough to have lost their bet [referring to ArisKatsaris’s example of identical people betting and losing and then being in a unequal position to bet again] get another chance at betting or the below average to get intelligence enhancements/training/treatment/whatever will improve their performance is something I would firmly support however I think job distribution is a very poor way of doing this, it seems intuitively obvious that it reduces the overall amount of wealth a society has.
If everyone gets a bigger slice of the cake in absolute terms than they would otherwise, then some greater relative inequality is not problematic. Actually as long as everyone is as a result better off in absolute terms its wrong (according to my values) to slow down the growth of the cake.
However let me again emphasise that I think we are dangerously close to mind-killer territory. On second thought I already feel I’ve crossed the line and in a sense regret my previous post, but don’t feel it fair to delete it considering others have commented on it already.
Edit: Its late here and I misread your questions. I don’t think redistributing material wealth for new generations will slow “society” down people once we get to real self-improvement tech. Providing a safety net will slow us down but I think most people value risk aversion, heck I prefer not to be cut off from advancement just because the odds didn’t work out in this branch of the multi-verse too! So I consider slowdown caused by that to be acceptable.
Also natural is I think a imprecise word in this context.
OK. Thanks for replying; I’ll respect your regret and leave it there. If it helps at all, my political preferences are, I think, relatively consistent with yours.
Do you think that redistributing the non-natural and non-cultural stuff won’t set us back (or, rather, slow us down)?
Or are you willing to tolerate the slowdown in one case but not the other?
Or… ?
If everyone gets a bigger slice of the cake in absolute terms than they would otherwise, then some greater relative inequality is not problematic. Actually as long as everyone is as a result better off in absolute terms its wrong (according to my values) to slow down the growth of the cake.
However let me again emphasise that I think we are dangerously close to mind-killer territory. On second thought I already feel I’ve crossed the line and in a sense regret my previous post, but don’t feel it fair to delete it considering others have commented on it already.
Edit: Its late here and I misread your questions. I don’t think redistributing material wealth for new generations will slow “society” down people once we get to real self-improvement tech. Providing a safety net will slow us down but I think most people value risk aversion, heck I prefer not to be cut off from advancement just because the odds didn’t work out in this branch of the multi-verse too! So I consider slowdown caused by that to be acceptable.
Also natural is I think a imprecise word in this context.
OK. Thanks for replying; I’ll respect your regret and leave it there. If it helps at all, my political preferences are, I think, relatively consistent with yours.