Thank you, that was very informative.
I don’t find the “probability of inclusion in final solution” model very useful, compared to “probability of use in future work” (similarly for their expected value versions) because
I doubt that central problems are a good model for science or problem solving in general (or even in the navigation analogy).
I see value in impermanent improvements (e.g. current status of HIV/AIDS in rich countries) and in future-discounting our value estimations.
Even if a good description of a field as a central problem and satalite problems exists, we are unlikely to correctly estimate it apriori, or estimate the relevance of a solution to it. In comparison, predicting how useful a solution is to “nearby” work is easier (with the caveat that islands or cliques of only internaly-useful problems and solutions can arise, and do in practice).
Given my model, I think 20% generalizability is worth a person’s time. Given yours, I’d say 1% is enough.
At the point of death, presumably, the person whose labour is seized does not exist. I think that’s a good point to consider, since I also estimate that a significant amount of resistance to the idea of no inheritance assumes the dead person’s will is a moral factor after their death.
I tend to agree that in such a world there would be more consumption rather than saving approaching old age, but I’m not sure that’s a problem or how big of a problem that is, and there are ways for governments to nudge that ratio through monetary policy.
I also don’t agree that you’re effectively limiting people’s power of affecting causes they care about to what the government would do with the money, since people have other causes they care about besides their offspring, even if to a lesser degree, and are free to spend their money while alive to advance those.
A relevant point I don’t have an opinion on is whether the offsprings of a person are better stewards of that person’s former wealth than the government. There’s the question of whether being the offspring of someone wealthy is casual for being more financially proficient than the average citizen, and the (major) question of the overhead in dissolving existing businesses and functional assets.