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tardedmemetoday at 9:58 AM1 replyview on HN

Capitalism incentivizes risk taking because the payoff is enormous - the most successful risk takers get to own the world 50 years later.

The problem: there's a second phase 50 years later, where the risk takers from 50 years ago own the world and do their best to prevent further rewards flowing to new risktakers. We are in that phase now.

The other problem: when the reward is so great, you do everything to get ahead, even illegal things, because the expectation value (winning*P(winning) + prison*P(caught)) is still positive.


Replies

WalterBrighttoday at 6:42 PM

> the most successful risk takers get to own the world 50 years later.

Musk creating wealth has taken nothing from me. How about you?

> there's a second phase 50 years later, where the risk takers from 50 years ago own the world and do their best to prevent further rewards flowing to new risktakers. We are in that phase now.

Did you know that Hackernews is run by wealthy people who fund startups?

What illegal things did Bezos do to get rich? Jobs? Gates? Musk?

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