[extropy-chat] Inheritance

[The Avantguardian]

--- Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> Since
> these are just your  
> notions and not subject to rational analysis that
> would proof their  
> correctness I was surprised you would appeal to
> rationality and even  
> something as straightforward as "2 + 2 = 4" to
> support your scheme.   
> The above doesn't answer my inquiry at all but is
> the flimsiest of  
> devices.

     I am sorry I misinterpreted your question. The
point is to make the economy fairer for all
individuals. Let me explain how I came to the
conclusion that it is unfair to begin with, which is I
think your real question.
It comes from my studies of the game-theory and
probability involved in games of chance.

     Let's say we have an ultimately simple game of
chance. A third party flips a fair coin and we each
bet a dollar on the result. Now if the rule of the
game is that we play until one of us is broke, then
the odds of me winning at the end are 1/2^(your
starting money), that is the probability of me winning
once for each dollar you posses, divided by 1/2^(my
starting money), the probability that you will win
once for every dollar I possess. This simplifies to
2^(my starting money - my starting money). Thus if I
started with 20 dollars and you started with 5
dollars, the odds of me cleaning you out is 32,768:1. 

     Now I understand that the economy of life is not
a pure game of chance. But it is not what
game-theorists call the opposite, which is a game of
perfect information either. A game of perfect
information is like chess where all possible moves by
both players are able to be known in advance and it is
a game of pure strategy. Instead it is what game
theorists call a mixed game with elements of both
strategy and chance.

      Although life is a mixed game, the chance
component to it gives people who start out life with a
huge amount of wealth an unfair advantage, no matter
how poor or wise their moves. The advantage of wealth
belongs to whoever is good at the strategy and has a
few lucky breaks. Ergo earning a million dollars means
that a person deserves that advantage because she has
earned it. Inheriting a million dollars means that
person has an unearned advantage that will contribute
to preventing people who are better at the game from
actually winning it. 

> Your willingness to enforce your notions
> by power of  
> government has nothing to do with democracy.

     Well there is an egalitarian notion of fairness
at the heart of democracy. You will alsonotice that I
did not say that there should be no inheritance at
all. So I am softening up my proposal from the purely
rational version. This allowance I think is fair
because parents should be able to contribute something
to the survival of their children. Although no
inheritance at all would be the ultimate in
mathematical fairness, essentially allowing every
generation to play the "game" on equal footing.

    Such a measure is too drastic in my opinion, ergo
the "cap". I am not advocating the government enforce
it, but people can't be expected to give up an unfair
advantage on their own. If you think that fairness is
at all a virtue, then why is this notion so bad?
 
> But money is not heriditary power in the sense
> despised by the  
> enlightenment at all.   It is not armed force or
> coercion by the  
> state or other bodies privileged with the use of
> legal force.

Which of these things cannot be routinely bought with
money? How do you think any of these things come about
in a "free society"? 

> It is  
> you who are proposing using such force to strip
> citizens of their  
> property.

No the act of dying is what strips these citizens of
their property. Their children are not them.

> if they become in your eyes too successful
> or do not dispose  
> of their wealth as you wish.

It is not about me at all. I would be subject to these
very same restriction, not that I would have to be,
because I know better to turn over a billion dollars
to the fruit of my loins, when he or she doesn't have
any first-hand knowledge of what it took me to earn
it. That is assuming of course I earn it, which is
pretty unlikely. 
 
> 
> But you seem to have a peculiar notion of abuse. 
> Using legal means  
> to protect one's own property from those who would
> take it hardly  
> qualifies in my mind as "abuse".  It is rather an
> attempt to avoid  
> being abused.

     But this assumes that you are still around to
have your property taken. Once you are gone it,
belongs to whoever you wanted it to belong to. In
essense, since you have no way of knowing how ANY of
your heirs will spend the money, consider it like
investing in the stockmarket. You want to diversify
your investment portfolio by giving to as many
different people as possible but not so many that it
overly dillutes your total investment. Your hoped for
ROI is simply, at least in some sense, shaping the
world you leave behind.

     Would it change your mind if I had a billion
dollars and I was proposing this? Do you doubt me when
I say that I would still propose it if I had a billion
dollars?

     Also as a minor point, not willing a huge fortune
to your children would discourage them from trying to
murder you before your time to collect their
inheritance a la the Menendez brothers.


The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson


		
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