[ExI] Electoral College and 1177 BCE

[SR Ballard]

> Wealth is roughly the integral of income you don't spend.   The
concept mostly didn't exist in prior to storable food when income was
food, shared out and eaten before it spoiled.  It probably doesn't
have a direct connection to the human psychological traits that lead
to wars.

Well, maybe. But wealth is often used psychologically to determine
"safety", and I think THAT (desire for feelings of safety) is well selected
for.

On Sun, Sep 2, 2018 at 11:42 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
wrote:

> John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Real hourly wages in the USA peaked more than 45 years ago, in January
> 1973
> the average person made $4.03 an hour which adjusted for inflation would be
> equivalent to $23.68 worth of purchasing power today, but today the average
> hourly wage is only $22.65. And yet the country is vastly wealthier than it
> was in January 1973. If anybody thinks this trend can continue indefinitely
> without horrific social upheaval they are deluding themselves.  I said it
> before I'll say it again, one way or another *this will not stand*.
>
> I don't think the distribution of wealth is as much of a problem as a
> bleak outlook for identifiable subgroups of the population.  In order
> to estimate the psychological/social effect, you have to map income
> per capita back to game and berries in the stone age.  For a big
> sector of the population, predominately people who were union workers
> back in the 1970s, they have seen big declines in purchasing power and
> worse (from a social unrest standpoint) their future prospects look
> poor and the prospects for their children look even worse.
>
> In the stone age, a bleak outlook in the game and berry supply caused
> the rise of xenophobic memes and support for irrational leaders who
> would take the tribe into war with the neighbors.  This reliably
> solved the resource crisis by war reducing the population.
>
> This maps well into the (US) current leader and supporters of the
> current leader.
>
> Not to say that the social entities (nations) of today have a lot in
> common with tiny tribes of 100,000 years ago.  But then neither did
> Germany of the 1920s and 1930s.  However, human psychological traits
> are probably very similar.
>
> Dave Sill wrote
>
> > *even if you could convince me that wealth disparity is a real problem,*
>
> Wealth is roughly the integral of income you don't spend.   The
> concept mostly didn't exist in prior to storable food when income was
> food, shared out and eaten before it spoiled.  It probably doesn't
> have a direct connection to the human psychological traits that lead
> to wars.  On the other hand, it may have strong indirect connections
> if those who accumulate wealth increase the rate by actions that
> decrease income for others.  The subject is complicated and needs
> modeling.
>
> The selection for the psychological traits to accumulate wealth may be
> relatively new.  See the works of Gregory Clark.
>
> > I have learned something in the last few months, nobody around here
> really
> wants me to answer that. This is not the Extropian list of old, these days
> if I even attempted to address that question I would be attacked by nearly
> everybody on the list and be accused of spouting heresy and making
> shitposts.
>
> If you want to take such discussions off-list, that could be done.
>
> Keith
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