this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
520 points (96.6% liked)

You Should Know

44431 readers
563 users here now

YSK - for all the things that can make your life easier!

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with YSK.

All posts must begin with YSK. If you're a Mastodon user, then include YSK after @youshouldknow. This is a community to share tips and tricks that will help you improve your life.



Rule 2- Your post body text must include the reason "Why" YSK:

**In your post's text body, you must include the reason "Why" YSK: It’s helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. **



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-YSK posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-YSK posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

If you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- The majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Rule 11- Posts must actually be true: Disiniformation, trolling, and being misleading will not be tolerated. Repeated or egregious attempts will earn you a ban. This also applies to filing reports: If you continually file false reports YOU WILL BE BANNED! We can see who reports what, and shenanigans will not be tolerated. We are not here to ban people who said something you don't like.

If you file a report, include what specific rule is being violated and how.



Partnered Communities:

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

Credits

Our icon(masterpiece) was made by @clen15!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The simple math of the Yard-Sale Model shows that if everybody started out with equal money in a fair economy, the outcome tends toward one person holding all of the money. The cool graphical simulations on this page demonstrate why.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 4 points 5 hours ago

I'll share this here - my explanation of why capitalism inevitably leads to fascism

--

I'm afraid that it is absolutely inevitable - let me explain why

Basically, the issue with capitalism is that the more wealth you have, the easier it is for you to make more money. And since money can be used to buy goods, services and influence, there is always a way to use money to gain more political and social power. With that political and social power, you can push society and the legal system in the direction you want to go. So you can use your wealth to gain power, and then you can use your power to change laws and society so that you can make even more wealth and power. It's a positive feedback loop.

Obviously, though, if the billionaires and ruling class are accumulating more and more of our society's wealth, that inevitably means that there's less for everyone else to go around - therefore, working class people feel poorer and poorer. Meanwhile, the economy is going absolutely great for rich people, so inflation continues to go up - everything gets more expensive, but wages don't increase. The wealthy just keep more and more of the wealth for themselves. To accumulate more and more wealth, they change the laws so that they can avoid paying taxes, so public services collapse. Politicians are lobbied to ensure that public funds are diverted away from where it is most needed - housing, healthcare, transportation, infrastructure - and instead into industries where their class interests most benefit from it, such as weapons manufacturing and extractive industries such as fossil fuels and mining.

The working class are bound to notice that their lives are getting shittier and shittier, and if that situation is left unchecked, the working class would realize that the ruling class are fucking them over, rise up, and overthrow their rulers. Obviously, the ruling class need to do something about this, but there's no solution that the ruling class can offer. They're causing all of the problems, to fix them they'd have to give up some of their wealth and power - and that's not something they're going to do. So they need to find someone else to blame the problems we have in society on. Unfortunately, though, no matter who they blame the problems on, and no matter what they do to "fix" it, the issue will continue to persist, because the material conditions underlying the issues are, very intentionally, never addressed.

So, the conundrum returns: The ruling class said that minority A caused all of the problems, minority A is persecuted and oppressed, but society doesn't actually get any better. Either the problem wasn't minority A, or minority A just hasn't been oppressed enough yet. So the ruling class can either escalate the oppression, or they can shift the focus to another minority group. The division continues to escalate in terms of how vitriolic and extreme it is, and it also continues to divide the working class into smaller and smaller groups.

To get the working class to buy into this hateful message, they need to take advantage of our worst instincts, and one of those instincts is the in-group bias. The majority are manipulated into being suspicious, then intolerant, then hateful, then violent, then genocidal, towards whatever the targeted minority of the day is. Anything that can be used to divide the working class - sexuality, nationality, immigration status, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity, age, all of these will be used as wedges to keep the working class split apart and not working together, because they know that if the working class actually unite against them, they are completely and truly fucked.

That's exactly how fascism manifests. It's because it's possible for people to accumulate power through wealth. This is why capitalism must be abolished. If we do not abolish capitalism, fascism will always return. It's just a matter of time.

[–] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 2 points 6 hours ago

Increasing wealth inequality is a feature of capitalism

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 17 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Capitalism is working exactly as intended, which is the reason why it needs to be totally dismantled.

Note: I said capitalism, and not the free market. The two are not the same thing. You could have a completely free market under socialism and even communism, as those are economic systems that ensure workers actually earn the value they produce. Neither system says anything about command economies - that’s an Authoritarian shtick.

[–] valgarf@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 18 hours ago

The title of the post is a little misleading. The model presented here does not require many parts of a capitalist system. If you can own stuff and have a free market this model predicts extreme wealth inequality. This happens by pure chance.

The model is not a good argument against capitalism. It can be used as an argument for taxing rich folks and against the "trickle down" idea.

[–] BigDiction@lemmy.world 7 points 17 hours ago

Super slick web experience on mobile. One of the best I’ve seen in a while.

[–] melfie@lemy.lol 50 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Hard work does not create wealth. The only thing that creates wealth is wealth, and we have it, and you don’t.

This quote from Horrible Bosses 2 always stood out to me.

[–] fallaciousBasis@lemmy.world 6 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Wealth is not the same as power. Wealth is owning money. Power is owning souls.

House of Cards... Paraphrasing Frank.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

But one seems to always grant the other. You don’t get just the power, or just the money.

[–] Naz@sh.itjust.works 8 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] chuckleslord@lemmy.world 11 points 18 hours ago

Winning 60% of the rounds, and you still haven't more money than the player who started with more. Is that not proof of the concept?

Also, yes, this game tickles in a good way.

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 4 points 17 hours ago

In light of the pedofile parasite class raping and killing children and funneling all of our money to Israel I think it’s pretty obvious that the system needs to come down

[–] StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago

In this thread: I don't like this article and it's stupid. I can't tell you why, but it is, and anyone that disagrees with me is stupid too.

QED

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 3 points 18 hours ago

That people in the middle and bottom support it and consider it normal is the problem.

[–] TheFogan@programming.dev 63 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Another simulation... that's mainstream in american society... Landlords Game -- IE what's now Monopoly. By definition everyone starts with the same amount of money, and it ends with one person massively ahead and everyone else going bankrupt.

[–] FearMeAndDecay@literature.cafe 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

It’s even more realistic when the banker is stealing money!

[–] TheFogan@programming.dev 2 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

True, but the point of the simulations is basically debunking the idea that even when capitalism "works". IE the hypothetical perfect scenereo where everyone starts off with the same, has the same chances of getting good and bad opprotunities, that the the fairness systematically fades out of the system the longer the game runs.

I recall an economics class once where they started out playing monopoly, but giving everyone different starting amounts of money.... and basically demonstrating that well over 90% of the time... the advantages basically determined the game.

Realistically the everyone starts at a different value, is far more realistic to life... but even when you remove that realism, it still ends the same way, one person starts taking a lead... and that that inequality only grows the longer the game continues.

[–] Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Well yes, but have you tried just throwing the board across the room when that one person gets massively ahead and you land on Pacific avenue with a hotel on it?

[–] oyzmo@piefed.social 14 points 1 day ago

Yup! That is why salary increase always is in percentage; the more you have, the more you get! 😡

[–] AntiBullyRanger@ani.social 27 points 1 day ago

Yard-Sale model also explains the Network Effect: People will flock to where the masses are because they will have a higher access to interact with folks than in isolated networks. Thus silos will eventually emerge: See Meta+Discord, etc..

This is why you want fewer ultra rich people in your country.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 32 points 1 day ago

Yes, if you make your economy "people with money gain more money" then this is the endgame

[–] calamityjanitor@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)
[–] OctopusNemeses@lemmy.world 32 points 1 day ago

You've demonstrated exactly how the system works. Statistically a few players will be lucky and become very rich. They'll be looked at as "built different". All the other poor players will try to emulate them as if they can beat the system by achieving some virtue like working hard enough or having innate skill rather than realize the system is mathematically impossible to beat.

[–] Taldan@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

The probability of you getting 74 (or more) wins in 122 fair coin flips is ~1.16%

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The highest highs, the lowest lows.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] piwakawakas@lemmy.nz 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And you only had to win at a 60% rate. Less than I expected

[–] Taldan@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

The odds of that are still ~1.1%. He got very lucky

[–] piwakawakas@lemmy.nz 3 points 19 hours ago

Yea, I tried quite a few times, the most I got up to was $400 before losing it all

[–] favoredponcho@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I think the fact is most people wouldn’t do certain work if they were wealthy enough to have a choice in the matter. The system relies on extreme poverty in order to coerce people into taking jobs they otherwise wouldn’t.

[–] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Any work that wouldn't be done if we had a UBI should either be automated away or sufficiently well-paid that it would find workers even without the threat of poverty.

We don't need to ritually kill a homeless person just so someone will pick up our trash any more than we need to do so for someone to tended to our elders dying of cancer.

[–] chuckleslord@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not a fact, an assumption based on an assumption baked into this economic system.

If I could live on the salary, I would prefer a manual labor job.

[–] Taldan@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

If I could live on the salary, I would prefer a manual labor job.

Wouldn't your anecdote then be supporting the premise?

That means you're doing your current job out of economic necessity. The fact you make more with your current role means free market proponents have deemed it more necessary, so have you not been economically coerced into taking a job you otherwise wouldn't?

I don't think people should be coerced into work they otherwise wouldn't do, but there is some level of truth to it. If nothing else the wealthy and powerful want us to be mostly effective workers, so they can have more wealth to siphon off

[–] chuckleslord@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago

No, what?

The premise is "people wouldn't choose to do certain work unless they were coerced into". I retorted "I want that work you think I'd have to be coerced into doing"

Manual labor is undervalued, making it "one of the jobs that people have to be coerced into doing". By stating my desire to do it above "high value, mental labor", I undercut their assertion that there are jobs that require coercion to get performed. There are people who want to clean, cook, do manual labor, do administrative work, accounting, cleaning up shit, building, basically everything a society needs to exist. Coercion need not apply.

[–] Sektor@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] SupahRevs@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

Make choices that support the alternative economy. Find a CSA, use a credit union, use the library, support local businesses. Better yet, put money into things like the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast https://cooperativefund.org/

[–] SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 5 points 1 day ago

There are a lot of people out there who still believe in trickle-down, Galtism, or the primacy of hard work. Idiots, dupes, or both, we still need to recruit them, or at least stop blocking change. Easily-digestible information like this needs to become widespread.

[–] 0li0li@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

Hard not to keep reading with such a nicely built article! Thsnks bud :)

[–] D_C@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago

Oh, this is very good. Thank you for this.

Great article thanks for sharing!

[–] nixfreak@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It’s baked in because we choose capitalism

[–] SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Absolutely, and the headline here is~~n't~~ (e: whoops) that extreme wealth inequality is not the result of human nature, greed, or anything. It's actually an emergent mathematical property of the system itself. It's unavoidable, even if everybody acts honorably. Proof by physicists that capitalism is wack.

load more comments
view more: next ›