On 2/19/2012 3:40 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/18/2012 9:11 PM, George Plimpton wrote:

I do not think that most people would agree with your definition of
fairness. I think most people would agree that it is perfectly fair
for 1/2 the people to be poor and the other half rich , if all the
people have an equal opportunity to be rich.

See, Dan, you qualified your statement by saying if everyone had an
equal opportunity to be rich.

Everyone *does* have an equal opportunity to be rich.

Just like everyone has an equal opportunity to play in the NBA.

Yep. We don't all have an equal *likelihood* of playing in the NBA.


In other words if the
rich are rich because they earned the money and the poor are poor
because they prefered to not spend any time or effort in earning
money, then it is fair that some are rich and some poor.

That would be a much better argument, yes.

That *is* the argument.

I said "if" because

It *is* the argument.


But again, we know that it's
not just a matter of who puts out a good work effort and who didn't.

That's almost entirely the argument.

That's not the argument at all.

It is.


Because if it was then that would mean
Paris Hilton has put in far more work effort to earn money than you
have.

Nope. It means she has some innate market value that I don't have.