Rich People are NOT Special

[Martin Hash]

My perspective of "rich people" is quite different than most. A lot of folks think rich people somehow earned their money; they were the best at what they did, or worked hard, or some other bullshit that made them more special than you. Well, there's lots of people who are the best but they ain't that much better than each other. In fact, I've never actually met anyone who was "better" than me. I have a patent on the Hewlett Packard “Deskjet” print-head technology, Ed Catmull was on my PhD research advisory committee, I worked indirectly for Bill Gates in 1993 at the height of Microsoft power, and have been considered "the best" during my career. I'm one of only a handful of people in the world with a Degree Trifecta (doctorates in law, medicine & science), so if there's a master race of metahumans, I either am one or would have met them. Nope. Luck. Capitalism breaks down when money gets too concentrated. WE NEED PROGRESSIVE TAXATION.

[Desert Rat]

What struck me most about the Keltner and Piff Monopoly experiments was not the conclusions "the rich are meaner" or "the rich lack compassion", but that players knowing they were playing a rigged game attributed their success to theur own capabilities.

[Martin Hash]

I rarely, if ever (?), meet anyone who doesn't attribute their modicum of success to their own efforts. Of course there's a component of skill, and an even larger component of perseverance, but really, it all comes down to luck.

"I'd rather be lucky than good." - Lefty Gomez