free speech. but we’ll shoot you.
something is deeply broken in the west. if we don’t fix it, eventually everyone could be ushered at gunpoint to sign the proclamations of the Truth Ministers.
i’d argue you’re too easily moved by the choice words. “privilege” and “equality” are selected because they confuse the notion of fairness. another way to frame his statement “if you’re accustomed to succeeding due to hard work, ingenuity, risk/sacrifice, and, sure, some amount of luck, having the outcomes reset so that everyone is rewarded more equally feels unfair.”
is succeeding after making good choices, sacrificing personally, and working hard really “privilege”?
is it oppressive that everyone doesn’t get to the same place?
perhaps the real oppression is the loss of individual liberties when naively egalitarian philosophies mutate into marxism, denying opportunities for individual sacrifice, effort, and achievement to be rewarded.
framed as privilege v equality misses the mark.. equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are v different things. silicon valley’s most successful are the immigrants who found america as one of the only places on earth where an individual with zero baseline privilege can struggle and sacrifice and effortfully succeed. calling them privileged after the fact seems hardly the point. but an easy one to make.
I’m not big on identities, but I am extremely proud to be American. This is true every day, but especially today—I firmly believe this is the greatest country ever on Earth. The American miracle stands alone in world history.
I believe in techno-capitalism. We should encourage people to make tons of money and then also find ways to widely distribute wealth and share the compounding magic of capitalism. One doesn’t work without the other; you cannot raise the floor and not also raise the ceiling for very long.
The world should get richer every year through science and technology, but everyone has to be in the “up elevator”. I think the government usually does a worse job than markets, and so we need to encourage our culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. I also believe that education is critically important to keeping the American edge.
I believed this when I was 20, when I was 30, and now I am 40 and still believe it. The Democratic party seemed reasonably aligned with it when I was 20, losing the plot when I was 30, and completely to have moved somewhere else at this point. So now I am politically homeless. But that’s fine; I care much, much more about being American than any political party.
I’d rather hear from candidates about how they are going to make everyone have the stuff billionaires have instead of how they are going to eliminate billionaires.
The American experiment has always been messy. I am hopeful for another great 250 years. Happy 4th!
If you’d like to get rich or stay rich, I’d encourage you to develop the ability to change your mind.
Most ideas are shitty. So staying fixated on shitty ideas creates an anchoring bias that will weigh you down to the mediocrity of the masses. Learn to change your mind and skate to where the puck is going to be.
Others who can’t change their minds will constantly remind you of a former opinion. Ignore them. They want you to be down there with them so they can feel better about themselves. Don’t fall for it!