[ExI] Acceleration of the wealth gap

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Jun 9, 2020, at 12:16 PM, Darin Sunley via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 
> People who, due to their circumstances, literally do not believe in the future, any future, frequently do things that can very reasonably be called "crazy".
> 
> When you hyperbolicly discount any projected future utility more than a month or so out down to zero due to genuinely real uncertainty about still being alive and healthy then, a lot of very extreme actions start to seem rational.
> 
> When a critical mass of the population of an area becomes this nihilistic, the nihilism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ever hear of Crinton Bane's _The Anatomy of Revolution_? I seem to recall him positing that revolutions happen when there are rising expectations -- rising hopes -- but the near-term prospects are being thwarted or seem grim. Sort of fits with your view, though it's not about seeing no future or no hope, but about seeing a better future being taken away unless they act. Or that's what I got from the book when I read it in high school. (If it's not what Bane meant, and I'm seeing the book is much older than I thought; I probably read a revised edition in paperback, but even the last revised edition is older than me. And add to this, I'm sure Bane is not the last word on the subject.)

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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