are capable of. We REALLY care about (perceived) unfairness.
Wealth (or income) inequality can be measured by a metric called a GINI coefficient – a GINI of 0.0 means everyone in a state/nation/society has equal wealth. A GINI of 1.0 means that one person has all the wealth and everyone else has nothing. GINI coefficients have been going up in the developed world for the past few generations, but especially in some countries, like the USA. There is no single statistic that describes the current tear in our social fabric, but it is clear that being poor is one thing, but being less rich when there are lots of richer people feels REALLY BAD, to the point of being the cause of many maladaptive behavior problems: drugs, alcohol, mental illness, homicide, mortality etc. 161 Even in a world of surplus stuff, getting signals that others are doing much better, without a viable path for us to join them, creates intense anxiety, felt by nearly all (other than that small group that is doing much better). TaaL: “Those who have, get” - this human proverb has always contained truth, and always will. Any organism which has an advantage will tend to use that advantage to acquire more advantage, causing power-law relationships to show up throughout human and natural systems. It’s one of the characteristic signatures of life. The universe IS unfair by hominid standards, and the nature of unfairness more complex from an energetic and ecological point of view than from your evolved tribal distribution
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