Compared to real-world data, these are extremely hypothetical experiments that ignore major variables in the U.S. system. The success rates, esp on the very top, seem to be where you were born, what your parents had in skill/money, near what jobs, schooling, and so on. There’s usually both social skill for success in groups and skill at doing things that output economic activity, usually separate. Some get prominent positions almost entirely through social skill in ways that are negative for those with business skill. The elites seem to select their own from among themselves with a huge social element: almost nobody out of their class ends up where they are with the ingroup from elite families and/or schools.
In pay, the people with less social skill, but work skills, usually get a market rate determined by those with more social skill than work skills. The ones in top position get rates several to 300x higher. While those with work skills saw wages go down, the elites on top saw them climb. They also control wage setting. The elites and people who achieved mostly through social skill usually form cartels or even cartels of cartels to increase their gains while suppressing opposition. In market, they block skilled opposition with monopolistic or oligopolistic practices. In government, they bribe politicians whose gains came from huge, social skill in specific locations. Politicians pass laws to reward what social champions are doing at expense of others with social or work skills. End result is a plutocracy where almost all money and power is in few hands coming from highly-skilled underclasses.
I’d like to see a model that shows that. Especially the cartel patterns or the concentration of wealth away from those with output-driving skills toward tiny few with massive social skill. Especially with separate groups so we can see how mobility barely happens. Most simulations that make forums I read seem to think it works the opposite way assuming we all have a shot if it’s mix of hard work, luck, and so on. They leave out social status, bribes, and blocking competition. And the media, but modelling that might be too hard for first round. :)
That said, it made me happy to see somebody at least trying to model all this stuff under various scenarios, and giving a concrete explanation of their experiments. At least then we have a way of saying “Aha, but you left out factor!”
It’s not perfect, but it serves as a good starting point. :)
The things I would’ve liked to have seen were:
Better modeling of hierarchical relationships…e.g., if bad luck befalls, say, the owner of a store, they might liquidate holdings and fire employees, causing knock-on effects to those folks
Modeling of consumption habits
Better modeling of depreciation of goods by quality
More flavors of skill/luck supported for modeling (e.g., here’s what happens when you have roughly blue-collar skills vs white-collar vs media skills vs finance)
That said, it made me happy to see somebody at least trying to model all this stuff under various scenarios, and giving a concrete explanation of their experiments. At least then we have a way of saying “Aha, but you left out factor!”
I like that, too. I also agree especially on hierarchical and skill flavor modeling. Those by themselves might show some interesting patterns. The hardest thing to model might be how groups getting in power change the rules to benefit them. That has to be abstracted out somehow.
It’s painfully ironic how, sixty years later, some of us are just starting to grasp the intended meaning of a word coined to critique the still dominant social order.
I find it entirely appropriate that interpretations of that word succeed or fail on their merits rather than on what someone in the right class declared to be the “right” meaning.
Compared to real-world data, these are extremely hypothetical experiments that ignore major variables in the U.S. system. The success rates, esp on the very top, seem to be where you were born, what your parents had in skill/money, near what jobs, schooling, and so on. There’s usually both social skill for success in groups and skill at doing things that output economic activity, usually separate. Some get prominent positions almost entirely through social skill in ways that are negative for those with business skill. The elites seem to select their own from among themselves with a huge social element: almost nobody out of their class ends up where they are with the ingroup from elite families and/or schools.
In pay, the people with less social skill, but work skills, usually get a market rate determined by those with more social skill than work skills. The ones in top position get rates several to 300x higher. While those with work skills saw wages go down, the elites on top saw them climb. They also control wage setting. The elites and people who achieved mostly through social skill usually form cartels or even cartels of cartels to increase their gains while suppressing opposition. In market, they block skilled opposition with monopolistic or oligopolistic practices. In government, they bribe politicians whose gains came from huge, social skill in specific locations. Politicians pass laws to reward what social champions are doing at expense of others with social or work skills. End result is a plutocracy where almost all money and power is in few hands coming from highly-skilled underclasses.
I’d like to see a model that shows that. Especially the cartel patterns or the concentration of wealth away from those with output-driving skills toward tiny few with massive social skill. Especially with separate groups so we can see how mobility barely happens. Most simulations that make forums I read seem to think it works the opposite way assuming we all have a shot if it’s mix of hard work, luck, and so on. They leave out social status, bribes, and blocking competition. And the media, but modelling that might be too hard for first round. :)
I agree with the gist of your observations.
That said, it made me happy to see somebody at least trying to model all this stuff under various scenarios, and giving a concrete explanation of their experiments. At least then we have a way of saying “Aha, but you left out factor!”
It’s not perfect, but it serves as a good starting point. :)
The things I would’ve liked to have seen were:
I like that, too. I also agree especially on hierarchical and skill flavor modeling. Those by themselves might show some interesting patterns. The hardest thing to model might be how groups getting in power change the rules to benefit them. That has to be abstracted out somehow.
It’s painfully ironic how, sixty years later, some of us are just starting to grasp the intended meaning of a word coined to critique the still dominant social order.
I find it entirely appropriate that interpretations of that word succeed or fail on their merits rather than on what someone in the right class declared to be the “right” meaning.