My Reasons (Read this Stag)

Why I am now against income inequality

There are various arguments for a system where economic and social inequality is not only allowed to persist but encouraged. These arguments are:
1. It results in way faster economic growth than, say, communism or socialism.
2. Different people have different levels of skill, different people work harder than others, some people make smarter or dumber choices than others, etc. Thus some people deserve to have more than other people.

Well, these two arguments were pretty compelling to me for a long time.
But then I recently asked myself a question: are your merits really your own doing? Think about it: people are born into different homes and raised by different people, which affects work ethic, what level of job opportunities you'll get, talents, intelligence, etc. The question I asked myself is effectively "Do human beings have free will?" My answer to this question is either "no" or "yes, but their actions are also hugely influenced by factors outside of their control". Thus, people are not (at least they aren't for the most part) responsible for their own actions, good or bad. So how can you say this guy "earned what he got" and that guy "deserved that bad thing which happened to him"? How can you say that? Is it not so that you simply ended up with a better fate than some others did?

Now, of course if you simply give people who tend to make bad decisions stuff and take it from those who tend to make good decisions and leave it at that, you'll be ruined. This is why in the past there was really no way to get around the first argument for capitalism and inequality. In the past, even with the above in mind it was still pretty much necessary to have an unequal society. Especially considering that on an economic level every nation was competing against others to achieve a higher GDP.
But a new age is dawning. One where computer programming for the "computer" which is the human brain will become a widespread thing (or at least it'll have the immediate potential to become widespread). Whenever this happens, we'll be able to change people so that they're no longer prone to regularly making destructive decisions, where people tend to work hard, where people tend to act smartly and where job skills can simply be downloaded to a person's mind in the same way that a program is downloaded onto a computer.
Once this idea becomes a reality we should, at least for the most part, do away with inequality.

Dassault Papillon: Think about it: people are born into different homes and raised by different people, which affects work ethic, what level of job opportunities you'll get, talents, intelligence, etc. The question I asked myself is effectively "Do human beings have free will?" My answer to this question is either "no" or "yes, but their actions are also hugely influenced by factors outside of their control".
This is an old question in the debate between socialism and capitalism.

Capitalism doesn't do away with class structure. People are still born into different lifestyles. What it does offer is a chance for everybody to transcend social classes, being that the common folk is only subdued to monetary wealth and not blood in defining one's place in society

A child can be born into a rich family and get a top of the line education. At the same time, a child can be born into a poor family and attend an inner city school. Usually the first kid is the one who will become a corporate officer and get a scholarship to Harvard, but in our society the child born to the poor family can reach above and beyond others depending on his willpower and motivation. It is an imperfect system, but it is the best that societies willing to consider.

My answer to this question is either "no" or "yes, but their actions are also hugely influenced by factors outside of their control".
Other people have influenced the way I think, but overtime we start to develop minds of our own. I am now influencing the very people who initially influenced me.
I mean, my ideological label has been flipped over a dozen times, and I know a lot of people who are in the same boat.

Not everyone has what it takes to think for themselves, and if anything that is an argument for why everyone should not be treated the same. Your actions and your views are your responsibility and yours alone, since we all have the capacity to be independent individuals.

So how can you say this guy "earned what he got" and that guy "deserved that bad thing which happened to him"? How can you say that? Is it not so that you simply ended up with a better fate than some others did?

Shit happens. I try not to blame people when something that is considered "bad" happens to me

I get it. We as humans aren't used to thinking two steps ahead when we commit to an action. I've understood this, and I began to look at life a long time a go like a game of chess.

I make decisions every day, and other individuals make their own choices in response to my own. It is a much more enlightened lifestyle when if something negative happens to you, to not shift the blame, but to take full responsibility for what happened.

That is my main qualm with today's society. Too many people shifting the blame and not enough people accepting it for themselves. When shit hits the fan, hose the fan down and continue playing ball.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that it doesn't really matter if you are given a few bad cards in life, or that you've made a couple of mistakes. If you have the motivation to keep playing on, you will always be successful. That's how it has always been. There hasn't been a determined man on earth who has undertook a mission without succeeding or dying first.

One where computer programming for the "computer" which is the human brain will become a widespread thing (or at least it'll have the immediate potential to become widespread). Whenever this happens, we'll be able to change people so that they're no longer prone to regularly making destructive decisions, where people tend to work hard, where people tend to act smartly and where job skills can simply be downloaded to a person's mind in the same way that a program is downloaded onto a computer.
Okay, so it seems your whole ideological shift is based on technology existing in the future which currently doesn't exist today.

I consider that null territory for debating. I am very doubtful whether computer chips will replace the human brain, and I would be very against that if it were ever possible, but I guess we can cross that bridge when it comes.

Blackflag: You apparently misunderstood by what I meant whenever I said "Free Will". People don't have this quality; nothing in the Universe does. Such an idea contradicts all known science.
Your genetics and environment determine your tendencies. Violent tendencies are often based off genetics. If not, then by environment. Choices are also determined by previous choices, which at its core was due to factors outside of your control.
It's very difficult to explain and I am not a scientific expert by any means, but you don't truly make your own choices. Nobody does. Even if it feels just like free will it really isn't. You literally have no choice as to how you end up in life. If nobody can ACTUALLY make their own choices, why should some people end up better off than others?
That's plain unjust.

My solution is based off a currently non-existent technology. That doesn't mean anything; it will exist, almost certainly within our lifetimes, provided we were both born sometime from 1990-2000 give or take 5 or so years and we both live to be at least 60.
In the meantime capitalism should continue, because in the short term a lack of capitalism is destructive.

And of course, that other thread also explained why technology will make capitalism an overall detriment to the everyday experiences of the majority.

You apparently misunderstood by what I meant whenever I said "Free Will". People don't have this quality; nothing in the Universe does. Such an idea contradicts all known science.
Maybe in some retrospect free will doesn't exist under its classic interpretation, but I and everyone else in the world are under the impression that we can make decisions independently, and that represents some kind of will, constrained or not.

Your genetics and environment determine your tendencies. Violent tendencies are often based off genetics. If not, then by environment. Choices are also determined by previous choices, which at its core was due to factors outside of your control.
Yes, that's the raw human being. We can and already have trained ourselves philisophical concepts in which we can define ourselves. Children are prone to their animistic tendencies, while the mature have domesticated themselves.

You literally have no choice as to how you end up in life. If nobody can ACTUALLY make their own choices, why should some people end up better off than others?
That's plain unjust.
I don't accept your premise that we don't make our own choices, but consider the fact that everyone believes their actions are not pre determined, but chosen by themselves independently.

Ignorance is bliss, no matter which one of us is correct.

That's plain unjust.
This ironic.

You are pointing out that no one has any control over their state of well being, but are proposing a system attempting to control the state of well being of everybody, by putting them on an equal level.

The irony aside, a lot of social justice warriors actively tear up society in the name of fairness. Life doesn't play fair, and that has never stopped anyone who is determined from winning.

That doesn't mean anything; it will exist, almost certainly within our lifetimes
I HIGHLY doubt it, but we'll see.

If such a day ever came, I would be against that technology and I am pretty sure billions of others would join my cause. Replacing reasoning humans with cold functioning machines, turning the cogs of a syndicalist nation state, is what communists are trying to do, whether they do it with a computer chip or not.