let's see if this works
*nvm

Invocations (promote) cannot be called by acesulfameable because acesulfameable is not privileged - sorry.

excellent video
...obviously smarter than I am (deserves a promote)

I think we are very lucky that we can get to view these vids, they are really good

Moving this video to NetRunner's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

*promote

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued - promote requested by original submitter NetRunner.

Fantastic.

I think I've watched every on-line lecture of his available and they're all gold.....

One thing that popped into my head was in regard to the whole Jordan/Letterman+taxes vs incentive discussion.

If you argue that high taxes decrease your incentive to work hard for some goal, isn't that highlighting your goal as one that doesn't necessarily have an overall purpose? That is, as you increase taxes, doesn't it expose those goals which people first abandon as "not worth it now" as lacking greater purpose for the world? If you truly believe in what you're doing, isn't that motivation enough to continue?

This is not to say that greater purpose should be considered necessary for all human pursuits...clearly sometimes accidental discoveries come from seeking purely superficial goals, but shouldn't we be concerned with discouraging business pursuits that serve no overall purpose?

"Those at the bottom are no less worthy simply because they werent born with the talents a particular society rewards, Rawls argues."

Right, all the STD-collecting hippies at Burning Man make just as large a contribution to society as the founders of Google or Youtube (on which this video is hosted).

>> ^chilaxe:

"Those at the bottom are no less worthy simply because they werent born with the talents a particular society rewards, Rawls argues."
Right, all the STD-collecting hippies at Burning Man make just as large a contribution to society as the founders of Google or Youtube (on which this video is hosted).


I think you missed the point Rawls was making -- STD-collecting hippies became STD-collecting hippies largely due to factors not of their own choosing. Even if they did, it's not their fault they came to live in a society that calls them STD-collecting hippies and not greatly revered spiritual leaders worthy of great respect and admiration.

It's an argument against the libertarian argument that economic inequalities that arise through free exchange carry some sort of moral force that's beyond reproach. It's an argument against the Ayn Randian philosophy of saying that people who won't bend to the will of the market morally deserve to starve and die.

It's ultimately an argument that demands we respect the basic dignity of every human life, and their ability to freely choose how to use that life, even "STD-collecting hippies".

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^chilaxe:
"Those at the bottom are no less worthy simply because they werent born with the talents a particular society rewards, Rawls argues."
Right, all the STD-collecting hippies at Burning Man make just as large a contribution to society as the founders of Google or Youtube (on which this video is hosted).

I think you missed the point Rawls was making -- STD-collecting hippies became STD-collecting hippies largely due to factors not of their own choosing. Even if they did, it's not their fault they came to live in a society that calls them STD-collecting hippies and not greatly revered spiritual leaders worthy of great respect and admiration.
It's an argument against the libertarian argument that economic inequalities that arise through free exchange carry some sort of moral force that's beyond reproach. It's an argument against the Ayn Randian philosophy of saying that people who won't bend to the will of the market morally deserve to starve and die.
It's ultimately an argument that demands we respect the basic dignity of every human life, and their ability to freely choose how to use that life, even "STD-collecting hippies".

Interesting response, Netrunner. I do disagree on some points.




1. "STD-collecting hippies became STD-collecting hippies largely due to factors not of their own choosing."

--This isn't an abstract subject to me. I work 60 hours a week and in my off time, instead of doing stupid things, I do thinks like read everything and re-build my personality every month. That's the only reason most of the people at my 10 year high-school reunion were comparative simpletons.

2. Even if they did, it's not their fault they came to live in a society that calls them STD-collecting hippies and not greatly revered spiritual leaders worthy of great respect and admiration.

--Problem solving and labor contribute to the world. It's not arbitrary that we don't reward people for smoking pot.

3. It's ultimately an argument that demands we respect the basic dignity of every human life, and their ability to freely choose how to use that life, even "STD-collecting hippies".

--Yes, people can do whatever they want, but asking serious people to subsidize the loafers in my high school class doesn't reasonable. (I do literally subsidize them; I pay far more in taxes for our local roads etc. than they do.) Indeed, the only reason we're talking right now on computers and doctors can re-grow our organs is because society in the past didn't treat dumb things with respect.



In the big picture, I think the problem of unequal contributions to society will be solved once we build the technological ability to have greater control over the brain. Loafers and STD-collectors are a temporary phenomenon.

@chilaxe

For one, saying Netrunner's rsponse is "interesting" sort of indicates you didn't pay a lot of attention to the video, because that's exactly what was discussed in the lectures.

You're still missing the argument, I think, and it seems that is because you don't respect the dignity of those people you see as "STD-collecting hippies". That's your right, but I'm willing to bet that's based on a vast misunderstanding of those people rather than any facts or moral judgement. Yeah they seem like crazies, and yes I'm sure you've seen some videos, but you're generalizing and stereotyping, which is annoying as hell in moral arguments because it obfuscates the issue with subjective crap. You're also making the assumption that the people who attend the burning man thing do nothing the rest of the year.

Also, the whole "I pay more taxes" thing doesn't hold water. If you own a business and your taxes pay for a bus system you don't use, someone who works for you might use that bus system. If you own a business that has a fleet of 100 trucks, you're using up the roads a lot faster than the average person. There are a ton more examples that apply to all sorts of situations. Your success is built upon the people who make less than you, and you benefit from their existence whether you think they're lazy scum or not. Not to mention, they purchase products as well, which increases demand for things.

I mean, why do you think cheap credit has been such a problem in the US/UK? Real wages haven't increased for most people in decades, but cheap credit and rising home prices allowed people to keep buying things. But, the credit bubble just burst and people are trying to live within their means...hello recession. So, keep on with your philosophy, but realize it bites everyone in the ass.

As for "unequal contributions", that was discussed in the lecture as well. Your "contribution" to society depends on your skill set. Which skills are valued depends on the society and local culture. So, in a given society (especially one where success is defined by profit), some skills will be inherently valued more than others. Therefore, some people will gain more money than others. But, if you eliminate people and/or their ways of thinking from your society, what happens when a new demand arises for their skills in some unforeseen way?

What happens when a company like Lehman Bros. fires people who say things like, "Housing prices can't always go up!" and replaces them with more people who go with the flow? We know the answer to that. ...and your brain control comment, that's just awful. Are you suggesting those people will be eliminated from society through some sort of forced brain manipulation? Where will the money for that come from?

@mgittle

I'll limit my reply to the point I care most about.

"...and your brain control comment, that's just awful. Are you suggesting those people will be eliminated from society through some sort of forced brain manipulation? Where will the money for that come from?"

Most people wouldn't mind having an IQ of 150... most people have trouble and they wouldn't mind having less trouble. Most people would enjoy being able to program their brain to enjoy math. The money for it will come because people will want it.

95% of the people I know are liberals. I was once one of them. I understand them. Most of them love Burning Man. What I think they don't get is that there is purpose to human civilization and everything will change.

@chilaxe

Limiting your reply to the only thing that was really off-topic...how convenient for you I realize I wrote a lot, but c'mon...if you really cared as much as you appeared to, you'd find some time to argue your point instead of speak in absolutes.

Fine, if you're unwilling to discuss the actual topic, which is the content of the video, I'll ask you this: If there's purpose to human civilization, what is it and who defines it?

@chilaxe, I would agree with mgittle, it doesn't seem like you watched the video.

The idea here isn't so much that we shouldn't allow people who do have the fortune to have been blessed with the ability and inclination to provide value to society to reap rewards from it. Instead it is the observation that perhaps they haven't earned their great wealth due to having merely made better choices as an individual. More than individual choice, it is likely that their wealthy is due more to their pure luck to have been born to the right parents, and into the right environment, and that therefore they shouldn't feel as if they have some special claim to the rewards of their value to society that exceeds all other concerns.

To someone like me, this puts quite eloquently my own intuitive sense that I am not successful because I made better choices in life than other people, as much as it was that I was born to wealthy, intelligent parents who gave me opportunity and genes not available to everyone. If anything, I feel I have failed to live up to the potential they gave me.

It is this basic sense of humility, the sense that my abilities were a gift, some sort of fortunate accident, that drives much of my political and moral views of the world. I do not feel that I, as an individual am superior to others, and therefore deserving of superior reward. Instead, I feel that whatever abilities I posses come with an overriding obligation to use them to help society as much as possible, and that much of the material reward I receive from doing so is another lucky accident, one that I have a fairly weak moral claim to.

In fact I struggle to understand the mentality of people who see themselves as some sort of John Galt, an Atlas who deserves some sort of wealth all out of proportion to the rest of their human kin simply because accidents of birth and circumstance led them to greatness.

This isn't a cry for absolute equality -- those who do serve society to a greater degree do have a reasonable expectation of entitlement to greater reward for their service. But they do not have some absolute, inviolate claim to the wealth they create, especially when faced with the prospect of something like a progressive tax structure designed to aid those who are less blessed.

@mgittle

"Limiting your reply to the only thing that was really off-topic...how convenient for you "

Ha. Glad you have a sense of humor about it. I think once one debater has given a pro, and the other has given a con, there are diminishing returns to going deeper. I think as long as people's basic temperaments can't change, debating the details generally doesn't help much.

"If there's purpose to human civilization, what is it and who defines it?"

I think we can define the purpose in the big picture, or in the small picture. In the small picture, people will probably give a variety of answers, but in the big picture, things are determined by the larger structure within which our species exists.

Give people control of their brains and you fix economic inequality. Until you give people control of their brains, you're just playing around with band-aids and pretending things might work out.

Advance medicine and you save millions of lives this year and every year for as long as human civilization will exist. Eventually, you cure the disease of aging, and things fundamentally change.

Get closer to human level AI and things fundamentally change.

I could give predictions for 2020, 2030, 2050, etc, but there are already great books on these topics. Kurzweil gives good overviews of the field. His predictions from 1999 for 2009 were pretty accurate. It's useful to have an idea where we're going. These things are beyond the control of hippies and religious fundamentalists to shut down.


People who want everything to stay the same forever are going to be disappointed.

@NetRunner

I'd be happy to share more with society if they engaged in the sacrifices I engage in. Humans aren't genetic robots incapable of making sacrifices. Here are the 5 big ones I engage in:

1. Work at least 60 hours a week. Working hard but not smart doesn't count.
2. Don't have any hobbies. Spend your off time in quantifiably productive endeavors. Don't waste time watching sports. Don't engage in social activity unless you have quantifiable incentive to do so (for example business networking). Generally, don't waste time in romantic or sexual relationships unless you're raising children or specifically getting practice.
3. Read at least 3,500 news articles every year, much of them in the sciences, which are not always as interesting as lighter fare.
4. Take notes every day on how you can improve your abilities.
5. Systemize every area of your life. Create a paleo-diet of mostly raw plants and some meat (or go vegetarian if you wish). Calorie-rich flavoring, like most salad dressing, is unnecessary. Exercise at least briefly but rigorously every day. Whenever you travel anywhere on foot, sprint. The mouth-breathing masses will look at you curiously.


As soon as all 5 of those practices reach greater than 51% of the population, it seems reasonable to be concerned for the masses' welfare. On other hand, if 51% of the population engaged in those practices, most of our problems would be solved.

In the meantime, however, merely being good at your job generally benefits the rest of society, and the better you are at your job, the more they benefit. That seems to me to be an adequate contribution to the masses that satisfies the moral concerns you advanced.

@chilaxe and you feel exempt from the argument that accidents of birth and circumstance led you to choose those sacrifices?

You feel that your sacrifices in particular should exempt you from responsibility to lesser humans?

@NetRunner

1. In my case, I think you're right that it was mostly accidents of birth that led me to those sacrifices. However, it seems to me that the less intellectual potential normal humans have (ruled by accidents of birth instead of being free to improve their minds), the more it's for the common good for rationalists to have larger influence on society.

2. It does seem like a useful model to assume humans have at least some responsibility for their actions. If humans live their lives like the grasshopper instead of the ants who prepared for the winter, they're free to receive the effects of their actions, meaning it's not your or my responsibility. If they have no responsibility for their actions, however, in my view that just strengthens the need for rationalists to have larger influence on society. That's how rationalists can be most responsible for humans, not by giving away their resources (and thus their influence).

@chilaxe to point #1, I would agree, I would like a society where rationalists would have a larger influence on society, but I'm not sold on the idea that we have an effective way to discern the rational, moral and wise from everyone else. Even if we did, I'm not comfortable with the idea of giving such hypothetical supermen some sort of inviolable authority over mere mortals like myself -- the kind of power that would flow from a strict libertarian view of property rights and contract enforcement.

To point #2, I agree that humans should not only merely have "at least some responsibility for their actions," but a tremendous amount of responsibility for their actions. I think the point Rawls is making is that whether you become rich or poor depends on so many arbitrary factors that you can't really make a claim that you morally deserve your precise economic status, because very little about how much you make for a living has to do with choices you actually make yourself.

I'd also add that it's not like failure in a market economy is some sort of moral failing that justifies the punishment of poverty. Yes, it's important to have feedback in the system for failure, but I think once you start stripping away basic necessities like food, shelter, clothing, medical care -- things it would be considered unconscionable to deprive prisoners of -- you're crossing into a territory where you've lost sight of people's fundamental human rights.

@NetRunner: interesting.

1.
I think we agree on the basic principle that rationalists should have a larger influence on society, but we might have different visions of where the precise balance should be.

2a.
Regarding guaranteeing other people necessities, I think we're playing a sleight-of-hand shell game. US society would be having little trouble providing continually advancing high tech 21st century medicine to everybody, except that we continually import poverty and poverty's repercussions, as if we didn't have enough, expanding the number of people for whom society's rationalists are now responsible.

This isn't some abstract point... it's why here in California, despite having some of the highest taxes in the country, among the highest paid teachers in the country, and a strongly liberal population, we've gone from being one of the best off states to being literally last out of the 50 states in some measures of education.

2b.
Re: " very little about how much you make for a living has to do with choices you actually make yourself."
This isn't an abstract argument to me. My high school friends and I started off with mostly the same advantages. They even had some substantial advantages over my position. Since our graduation, I've watched them mostly build lives of loafish and unintellectual mediocrity focused on short-term thinking, while I built a life of unusual sacrifice and long-term thinking. The economic inequality within my high school class appears to be completely just and deserved.

@NetRunner
BTW, I've sifted the Grasshopper and the Ant video, but I don't see your vote for it.

Behold it's glory

http://videosift.com/video/Classic-Disney-The-Grasshopper-And-The-Ants-1934

>> ^chilaxe:

1.
I think we agree on the basic principle that rationalists should have a larger influence on society, but we might have different visions of where the precise balance should be.

Perhaps that's true, but I think the other disagreement between us has to do with how much confidence we have in our ability to actually identify "rationalists" in a systematic way, and also I would contend that there's a lot of things purely rational people could easily disagree with, especially on the question of justice.

>> ^chilaxe:
2a.
Regarding guaranteeing other people necessities, I think we're playing a sleight-of-hand shell game. US society would be having little trouble providing continually advancing high tech 21st century medicine to everybody, except that we continually import poverty and poverty's repercussions, as if we didn't have enough, expanding the number of people for whom society's rationalists are now responsible.

You're being a bit too abstract here -- are you saying the US won't be able to afford Universal Healthcare because it's not doing enough to stop illegal immigration?

>> ^chilaxe:
This isn't some abstract point... it's why here in California, despite having some of the highest taxes in the country, among the highest paid teachers in the country, and a strongly liberal population, we've gone from being one of the best off states to being literally last out of the 50 states in some measures of education.

Again, you're not really making yourself clear as to what you think the cause of the issue is.

>> ^chilaxe:
2b.
Re: " very little about how much you make for a living has to do with choices you actually make yourself."
This isn't an abstract argument to me. My high school friends and I started off with mostly the same advantages. They even had some substantial advantages over my position. Since our graduation, I've watched them mostly build lives of loafish and unintellectual mediocrity focused on short-term thinking, while I built a life of unusual sacrifice and long-term thinking. The economic inequality within my high school class appears to be completely just and deserved.


Lucky you, I suppose. I started off with less advantages than my peers in school, but vastly greater advantages than my friends in the neighborhood I lived in. My observation was that my peers in school went on to make vastly more money than me, despite their loafish and unintellectual mediocrity and ethically shallow outlook, while the people in my neighborhood went on to make vastly less money than me, despite their innate industriousness, untapped intellectual depth, and generally virtuous outlook on the world.

But then, you're making an easy enough mistake. A man who'd never lived anywhere but an isolated tropical island would deny snow exists, much less is something which people would need to stockpile salt and sand for...

>> ^chilaxe:

@NetRunner

BTW, I've sifted the Grasshopper and the Ant video, but I don't see your vote for it.

I haven't seen that since I was a kid. It's an interesting fable to bring up in the context of our discussion.

Ultimately the ants saved the grasshopper, and the ant government (teh queen) gave him a "job" that allowed him to exist as he had originally, only with more food and shelter.

What was the moral we should take from the story? The ants are evil socialists worthy of our scorn? The ants had no moral obligation to save him, feed him, and find some way to gainfully integrate him into their society?

If they find another fiddling grasshopper freezing to death, would it be moral for them to leave him to die, since they don't have enough demand for fiddling to warrant hiring another one?

For that matter, did the grasshopper really do anything to deserve the rewards he received from his new "job," or was that mostly luck and circumstance coming together fortuitously?

@chilaxe @NetRunner

I've been stupid busy all week, but would've loved to talk about this stuff with you two.

About importing poverty...have either of you heard of this thesis? I gather that it has been tested, but I haven't seen that evidence myself.

Dopamine, a pleasure-inducing brain chemical, is linked with curiosity, adventure, entrepreneurship, and helps drive results in uncertain environments. Populations generally have about 2% of their members with high enough dopamine levels with the curiosity to emigrate. Ergo, immigrant nations like the U.S. and Canada, and increasingly the UK, have high dopamine-intensity populations.


It's been cited numerous times in things I've read, including in the infamous citigroup plutonomy memos:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6674234/Citigroup-Oct-16-2005-Plutonomy-Report-Part-1

High dopamine is also associated with risk-taking. The citigroup guys were obviously citing it as though being an immigrant nation was going to save us in uncertain times. However, regardless of which theories or hypotheses you subscribe to or hear about, there's something quite different about people who emigrate. Taking that idea further, you have to separate people who emigrated en masse because of rather forced conditions (tons of Irish people during the potato famine, Polish/Lithuanian people in the early 1900s, etc) and individuals who emigrate simply because they're after more money/opportunity.

I've also read some stuff that indicates dopamine levels affect your perception of time. Schizophrenics have really high dopamine levels, which causes their internal clock to speed up, and it alters their perception of time. This is interesting in relation to the dopamine/emigration theory because of Philip Zimbardo's work on perception of time and how it relates to personality.

Plus, Zimbardo's work is just interesting, period:
http://videosift.com/video/The-Secret-Powers-of-Time
http://fora.tv/2008/11/12/Philip_Zimbardo_The_Time_Paradox

Another article about time perception with a few mentions of dopamine, drugs, etc.
http://delontin1.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/stretch-time/

Anyway, not to derail things, but it's mostly on topic with all the earlier discussion of brain stuff. I really think perception of time affects our personality in profound ways, and it's clear that brain chemistry affects our perception of time. I also think there's evidence that there can be overall brain chemistry trends in populations which have interesting implications.

Hi @NetRunner,

I like immigration in general. However, importing poverty doesn't seem wise. The more poverty we import, the larger a burden it is on the rest of society. Hence California's catch 22: either reduce social services, close state parks, etc, or go bankrupt. Even very high taxes are no longer enough to allow California to behave as if it is a well-off state.

@NetRunner: "My observation was that my peers in school went on to make vastly more money than me, despite their loafish and unintellectual mediocrity and ethically shallow outlook, while the people in my neighborhood went on to make vastly less money than me, despite their innate industriousness, untapped intellectual depth, and generally virtuous outlook on the world."

@NetRunner: "But then, you're making an easy enough mistake. A man who'd never lived anywhere but an isolated tropical island would deny snow exists, much less is something which people would need to stockpile salt and sand for..."

@NetRunner re: The Grasshopper and the Ants


I find the moral to be that short-term thinkers suck.

I like Christopher Hitchens, but I think he was a grasshopper in this case... it was predictable that his life would likely be cut short because of his unhealthy irrationalities. (Alchoholic, obese, probably bad diet, maybe a smoker at some point in his life, etc.)

@mgittle :
Interesting about the Plutonomy Report. It seems pretty straight-forward to say Plutonomies like the US, the British Empire, and the Roman Empire brain-drain the rest of the world. That's why the young creator of Chatroulette recently moved to Silicon Valley, instead of staying in Russia,* same as Google's Sergey Brin.

I remember a study from a few years ago that concluded when human were migrating out from Africa, each group that kept moving to a new location had slightly higher novelty-seeking genes than the group that stayed... fascinating... with the end result being in places at the end of the longest migration paths, like the Americas and the Pacific Islands there were significant differences. However, the paper connected that with higher rates of attention-deficit type learning disabilities in those areas, rather than with higher rates of entrepreneurship.

Ultimately, though, there are myriad differences between groups, so looking at just one trait or theory, as seems to be done in the Plutonomy Report, isn't necessarily very helpful in the big picture.

@mgittle :
Interesting article about time perception. I think it's a good reminder to practice mindefulness in daily life... and I see they mention the Dalai Lama in that article

Last part first, since I obviously need to clarify what I meant.

>> ^chilaxe:
I've spent around 1/3 of my life living beneath the poverty line. I understand the value of a dollar.


I didn't mean that you've never known poverty directly, but that you claimed to have never seen any sort of economic injustice -- never seen someone undeservedly rich, nor undeservedly poor. I spent most of my childhood surrounded by (alternatively) the undeservedly rich, and the undeservedly poor. There were a few who clearly deserved where they ended up, but they seemed the exception to me, not the rule.

For example, does Judge Judy deserve to make vastly more money than Sandra Day O'Connor?

>> ^chilaxe:

That's really a big part of inequality... some folks tap their own depths, and other folks wait for others to tap their depths for them.
When we say people are unable to better their situations, we don't mean they're physically incapable of it... we mean they're ideologically incapable of it. They can't make the sacrifices I make because they're ideologically incapable of doing so. They must watch sports, make bad sexual and marriage decisions, and must generally waste their time in innumerable ways because their ideology is ineffective and they won't change.

[snip]

It seems backwards to ask us to subsidize other people's predictably bad ideologies.

This is just a restatement of the libertarian assumption, not really an argument for its veracity.

Is Sandra Day O'Connor weighed down from success by her "predictably bad ideology"? Is she watching too much sports, making bad sexual and marriage decisions, and wasting her time in innumerable ways?


>> ^chilaxe:
I find the moral to be that short-term thinkers suck.
I agree, that is the apparent intended moral of the story. But what about the questions I raised about what it has to say on the topic of social justice?

I think it's safe to say we both agree that superior resource planning should be encouraged over no planning or inferior planning, but that's a pragmatic question, and not one of the moral weight involved in economic distribution.

Thanks for the reply, Netrunner.
>> ^NetRunner:
For example, does Judge Judy deserve to make vastly more money than Sandra Day O'Connor?
They both knew the rules of the game, and one of them is in greater compliance with those rules. However, most wealth is created by being savvy, rather than getting lucky as an athlete or an entertainer.
>> ^NetRunner:
This is just a restatement of the libertarian assumption, not really an argument for its veracity.
That seems like trying to distinguish 'making an argument' from 'making an argument'. Aren't your positions simply a restatement of the liberal assumption?
>> ^NetRunner:
Is Sandra Day O'Connor weighed down from success by her "predictably bad ideology"?
She's just one more government bureaucrat, and probably has a terrible personal life and terrible general intellectual life beyond law. She willingly chose a limited (but still extraordinary) path, knowing the range of outcomes that could occur, so she deserves whatever she gets.


Here's the type of deal I'd be happy to commit to: If people like this http://videosift.com/video/Spring-Break-Couple-Dance-Fail bring sports, alcohol, smoking & drug consumption, and protesting (http://videosift.com/video/G20-Protest-that-was-Stolen-from-the-Peaceful-Majority?loadcomm=1#comment-1028436) down to 10% of current levels, start reading at least 1000 science articles per year, getting rigorous exercise daily, and eating a paleo diet, I'll agree to re-distribute the fruits of my labor.

@chilaxe, I sorta have to ask you, did you watch the video up at the top of this comment section?

I'm just curious, because all the arguments you raise were directly addressed within it, and you're not responding to the central argument presented, even when I try to ask you leading questions to try to get you to engage it.

Even in your answers that reject the premise of my questions (e.g. that Supreme Court Justices probably provide a more valuable service to society than TV stars), you're actually confirming the underlying argument -- you referred to athletes and TV stars as being "lucky", as opposed to most people who obtain wealth through "savvy".

The beginning of understanding the idea Rawls puts forward is to consider that perhaps being "savvy" is a matter of luck as well, since it isn't really something you make a decision to have or not have.

Also luck: having the combination of innate desires and personal experiences that drive you to do things like read science articles, exercise daily, and eat a (presumably) healthy diet.

It also seems to me that if the government passed a law that required everyone receiving UI benefits to read articles the government told them to, exercise the amount the government told them to, and eat a diet set by government dietitians, and then it had the right to levy as much taxes as it needed to pay for all the applicants in good standing, you'd be screaming "Tyranny!" almost as loudly as I would be.