Jordan Peterson - Pareto Distributions
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it for an accessible explanation of why wealth and creative output are so unevenly distributed.
What it is
A short clip of Jordan Peterson explaining Pareto distributions, using Soviet farm collectivization and the resulting famine as context. It also covers how outcomes concentrate in a few people.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2017 to 2021.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec Aditya_Garg · 2021-05 · on “Writing books is not really a good idea”
This is expected and falls under the Pareto distribution. All human creative endeavors follow this distribution (movies/ tv shows/ music) at different scales. Even some weird ones like most commonly used words follow this. Jordan Peterson has an excellent lecture on describing this phenomenon. [this video]
Recommends macleod2486 · 2017-07 · on “Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism”
What she didn't realize what she ended up demonstrating was the reality of pareto distributions. Dr. Jordan Peterson does a good detailing of this phenomenon. [this video]
Cites the_grue · 2018-12 · on “Facebook removed post by ex-manager who said site 'failed' black people”
Actually, the poverty level doesn't continue to rise, it's been stable around 13.5% for the last 30 years. The reason why it stays that way instead of shrinking is probably related to the Pareto distribution problem. [this video]