Contest to solve wealth inequality
Peter Walsh wrote 04/11/2022 at 16:36 • 1 pointI was considering funding a HAD contest about solving wealth inequality. (I have money set aside for the prize.)
Basically, a completely fair trade simulation will show that wealth inequality will eventually arise, even when the trade is completely fair, and this indicates that such inequality is a feature of the mathematics and not from some unfairness that we have in our existing economy. This is shown by these simulations and the corresponding paper:
physics.umd.edu (slash) ~yakovenk (alsah) econophysics (slash) animation (dot) html
I reimplemented the simulations from that page on github so that anyone could download/compile and run it, with hooks in places where people could insert their own code, and was considering funding a challenge asking for the best way to modify the simulation to avoid wealth inequality. Is there a taxation mechanism that can help? UBI of some form? Lottery wealth?
My take is that HAD wouldn’t be interested in a software-only challenge (ie – with no physical component such as a PCB).
I’d be interested in any feedback people have on the idea. Is there a better site that would host the challenge?
(There are restrictions on possible solutions. For example, a solution must always encourage people to earn, so you cannot just implement a maximum total wealth cap. You cannot have a solution that’s too complicated to implement in the real world, &c.)
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Just to add, I don't think here is anything administratively against running a software only contest on Hackaday.io (Projects have always had a Software category), if you wanted to use it as the platform. I'd assume community wise, there should be interest.
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