Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Poor Tim

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My interest in how wealth is distributed has grown over the years from non-existent to almost obsessive (check out the SocialTrade stack dedicated to Wealth Distribution). It’s particularly on my mind these days for two related reasons: (1) the staggering surge of wealth, particularly since the financial crisis; (2) the proximity of that wealth to me personally, since I am surrounded by Silicon Valley zillionaires.

I used to be very naive about money. In my teens, I thought it was a fairly accurate representation of one’s abilities and intellect……….a scoreboard of the meritocracy. Suffice it to say I don’t think like this anymore. In some societies, it is little more than a measuring stick of dumb luck or criminal abilities, whereas in others it is, at best, a very crude approximation of the value one has created in their lifetime. (more…)