You may not agree with it, but its not arbitrary to say that the economy should strive to give people credit for what they choose to do, rather than what you luck into. Its a distinction based on a well-defined criterion.
I'm not really interested in discussing outliers like Michael Jordan, or tiny segments of the economy like sports or entertainment. I'm talking about how we distribute the proceeds of our industrial economy, or at the very least, how we assign moral culpability to people based on things they have little control over.
That is to say, it might be inevitable that pretty people or smart people will have advantages. But the only difference between attractiveness and intellect is that on places like HN, its socially acceptable to be smug about the latter.
I'm not really interested in discussing outliers like Michael Jordan, or tiny segments of the economy like sports or entertainment. I'm talking about how we distribute the proceeds of our industrial economy, or at the very least, how we assign moral culpability to people based on things they have little control over.
That is to say, it might be inevitable that pretty people or smart people will have advantages. But the only difference between attractiveness and intellect is that on places like HN, its socially acceptable to be smug about the latter.