Comment by munificent
7 days ago
Beautiful article.
I think the "agency" the article talks about is really just "willingness to take risks". And the reason some people are high outliers on that scale is a combination of:
* Coming from such a level of privilege that they will be completely fine even if they lose over and over again.
* Willingness to push any losses onto other undeserving people without experiencing guilt.
* A psychological compulsion towards impulsive behavior and inability to think about long-term consequences.
In short, rich selfish sociopaths.
Some amount of risk-taking is necessary for innovation. But the level we are seeing today is clearly unsustainable and destructive to the fabric of society. It's the difference between confining a series of little bangs to produce an internal combustion engine versus just throwing hand grenades around the public square. The willingness to take chances needs to be surrounded by a structure that minimizes the blast radius of failure.
> * A psychological compulsion towards impulsive behavior and inability to think about long-term consequences.
To be a little more generous, this third point is actually a classic symptom of ADHD. I've known some (non-CEO) folks like this and the kind of risks they take in their personal lives seemed completely alien to me.
Interesting to compare to 2008. At least here, I think we're building something? Whereas then, it was pure, unabashed, siphoning as much as possible out of the financial system from the average American into the pockets of a privileged, self-righteous few, followed by an immediate burning down and parachute out of the whole thing once the cracks started to form.
It occurs to me a highly-automated UBI future should increase risk tolerance for average people. We (probably) won't have to work to survive with a baseline level of comfort, but it would be meagre.
If there's nothing but upside to enterprising, and less opportunity-cost (vs subsistence), we might see some innovative or very strange things.
Yes, one of the most well-known arguments in favor of a social safety net is that it can help spur innovation.
Unsurprisingly, people are more willing to try starting a business if doing so and having it fail doesn't mean you might lose access to healthcare and die from an easily curable malady.