> within the limits of their abilities
That's the crucial distinction. Specifically, the ability to buy politicians and elections.
> This is the Internet and saying this is free.
Once again implying that I'm a liar...
You're talking to someone who spent N years, for uncomfortably large N, as a grad student in a philosophy PhD program, so it ought to be very obvious that I'm not a ruthless wealth maximizer. In fact, I still have student loan debt from that undertaking.
> There is no big distinction between the 'poor' and the 'rich' in terms of their behaviour to maximize their income while bending the rules as much as possible.
It's true that there are a lot of unethical poor and middle class people. (Also a lot of ethical poor and middle class people.) My earlier suggestion, though, is that there's a correlation between wealth and lack of ethics, because "our economic system tends to select for people who are unethical and ruthless".
> I maintain that you have no decent argument to make in defence of this opinion of yours. To claim that working harder is not correlated to financial reward is completely indefensible.
You still, after repeated prompting, resolutely refuse to explain exactly what you mean by "hard work", so how would it even be possible for me to make any argument or defense at all? It ought to be clear from how I earlier characterized hard work (e.g., manual labor) that there's no correlation. You claimed that my characterization was silly, but it's become ridiculous how you won't say anything more about it.
Perhaps what you want to say, or at least ought to say, is that some people have more natural abilities than other people, which is absolutely true, and thus some people are capable of accomplishing things that are impossible for other people, which is also true. But I wouldn't characterize that as "hard" work, at least not for the person with special abilities. To the contrary, things come easier to them. It's only hard for the people who don't have those natural abilities. I could work as "hard" as I possibly could, to the very edge of my abilities, and never become a professional guitar player or a professional tennis player (much to my dismay), because I simply don't have enough talent.
> I'm not sure why this would be imporant. Nuanced views are rarely 'in the majority'.
It's important because you seem to consider your own views as axiomatic and in need of no defense.
> You described anyone looking to be rich as simply greedy and basically mentally ill (I forget the exact term).
Pathological. But I didn't say "simply".
> would an electric car company, followed by a rocket company, be the obvious way to increase that wealth?
Why would it need to be "obvious"? There's no obvious way to become ultra-wealthy, otherwise everyone would do the obvious.
That's the crucial distinction. Specifically, the ability to buy politicians and elections.
> This is the Internet and saying this is free.
Once again implying that I'm a liar...
You're talking to someone who spent N years, for uncomfortably large N, as a grad student in a philosophy PhD program, so it ought to be very obvious that I'm not a ruthless wealth maximizer. In fact, I still have student loan debt from that undertaking.
> There is no big distinction between the 'poor' and the 'rich' in terms of their behaviour to maximize their income while bending the rules as much as possible.
It's true that there are a lot of unethical poor and middle class people. (Also a lot of ethical poor and middle class people.) My earlier suggestion, though, is that there's a correlation between wealth and lack of ethics, because "our economic system tends to select for people who are unethical and ruthless".
> I maintain that you have no decent argument to make in defence of this opinion of yours. To claim that working harder is not correlated to financial reward is completely indefensible.
You still, after repeated prompting, resolutely refuse to explain exactly what you mean by "hard work", so how would it even be possible for me to make any argument or defense at all? It ought to be clear from how I earlier characterized hard work (e.g., manual labor) that there's no correlation. You claimed that my characterization was silly, but it's become ridiculous how you won't say anything more about it.
Perhaps what you want to say, or at least ought to say, is that some people have more natural abilities than other people, which is absolutely true, and thus some people are capable of accomplishing things that are impossible for other people, which is also true. But I wouldn't characterize that as "hard" work, at least not for the person with special abilities. To the contrary, things come easier to them. It's only hard for the people who don't have those natural abilities. I could work as "hard" as I possibly could, to the very edge of my abilities, and never become a professional guitar player or a professional tennis player (much to my dismay), because I simply don't have enough talent.
> I'm not sure why this would be imporant. Nuanced views are rarely 'in the majority'.
It's important because you seem to consider your own views as axiomatic and in need of no defense.
> You described anyone looking to be rich as simply greedy and basically mentally ill (I forget the exact term).
Pathological. But I didn't say "simply".
> would an electric car company, followed by a rocket company, be the obvious way to increase that wealth?
Why would it need to be "obvious"? There's no obvious way to become ultra-wealthy, otherwise everyone would do the obvious.