Are you in the 20%?

I’m finally back after my computer died.

Question: Why do societies stratify into rich and poor? Why do people insist on believing that money is physical and limited? It all comes down to ambient hate and selfishness.

But who is hateful and selfish?

Let’s say that only one person in five is hateful and selfish, and that the other four are more or less okay. Under the Pareto principle of statistics, that one person will keep the other four people miserable. Twenty percent of people ruin things for the other eighty percent.

Let’s look at this…

If you have ever worked for an organization whose members are miserable, you naturally assumed that most of the people around you were assholes. But if you had thought very carefully about each individual in the organization, you would have realized that only 20% were assholes, and they ruined everything for the other 80% of the staff.  If there were 50 employees, then up to 10 of them (20%) were selfish, mean spirited maggots. So it is with society at large. (This post is titled, “Are you in the 20%?”)

Not all organizations are like thus. But if an organization is miserable, then 80% of its misery is caused by 20% of the staff.

In short, the Pareto principle states that, for most events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

For example, if you own a business, 80% of sales are generated by 20% of your salespeople, and 80% of your sales (and your complaints) come from 20% of your customers. 80% of the actual work is done by 20% of employees (most employees just coast along).

In any nation, 80% of the land  and the wealth is owned by 20% of the people. In an orchard, 80% of the fruit is produced by 20% of the trees. In any project, 80% of value is achieved with the first 20% of effort. In computers, 80% of software problems are caused by 20% of bugs.

Mathematicians have studied the Pareto principle for over a century. I could give endless examples.

Where am I going with this?

Today in Pakistan a tanker truck overturned and spilled gasoline onto the ground. Scores of villagers raced to the scene with fuel containers to gather the spilled gas. Suddenly the wreck exploded, engulfing people in a gigantic ball of flame as they screamed in terror. The explosion killed at least153 men, women and children. Dozens more were left in critical condition. When the flames subsided, bodies were everywhere. Many were burned beyond recognition. Many were skeletons. Those who survived had severe burns over eighty percent of their bodies.

How does this relate to the Pareto principle?

I assert that 80% of people in any society are okay (neither saints nor demons) but 20% of people are filled with hate and selfishness, and it is they who keep everyone in the lower classes enslaved.

The rich, the politicians, and the bankers only have power because of the toxic influence of the 20%, whose are like a eleven gallons of raw sewage dumped into a 55-gallon barrel of drinking water. (20% of 55 = 11.)

We can hear the voices of the 20% in reader reactions to the explosion in Pakistan. I shall quote some reader comments from the Washington Post…

[1] “Scores of villagers raced to the scene with fuel containers Sunday to steal the oil.” There, I fixed it for you.

[2] The Washington Post’s political correctness is nauseating. It should read… “Scores of opportunistic thieves raced to the scene with fuel containers to steal the oil.”

As an average American in the 20%, my life is more comfortable than the lives of average Pakistanis. Therefore the victims deserved to get roasted, including the children. Since they are desperately poor (because of assholes like me) they were “stealing” gas that had been spilled on the ground. And since I am a selfish, hate-filled asshole (a member of the 20%) I condemn the Washington Post as “politically correct” because it simply stated the facts. I have never been roasted, so…fuck ‘em.

The 20% are parasites on the 80%, yet they regard themselves as hosts for the 80%. And since the 20% spread hate, selfishness, and despair, they keep the lower classes in their place.

[3] Idiots! All these deaths for spilled gasoline?

[4] Think of it as evolution in action.  

I live a better life than do average Pakistanis. Therefore, in evolutionary terms, I am a superior life form.

[5] So being poor excuses you from the law and morality? Are you a liberal?

For the 20%, poor people are automatically evil and guilty. By contrast, a rich person is only guilty if all other rich people declare him so.

[6] These morons ran towards the crash to steal the oil. I can’t feel that bad when faced with such stupidity.

Fortunately I have never been desperate. Therefore I condemn desperate people as stupid. And, being an asshole, I claim that my privileges are “earned” and “deserved.”

[7] These are all Darwin Award winners. Rushing to the scene of a tanker accident in search of free fuel is one of the most stunningly stupid thing I have heard in my lifetime. Normally I’d be appalled by this kind of a death toll. Here? Just shaking my head…

As a selfish piece of shit, I am always looking for ways to ignore other people’s suffering. I condemn victims as stupid in order to distance myself from the stench of inferior people.

Then we see an intelligent comment, followed by a response from a “twenty percenter” who is a white supremacist…

[8] This is what the USA will look like after a few more years of greed controlling everything. People so desperate they die gathering needed fuel. . . . Thank you Koch Brothers, GOP and Trump.

Reader response: You are a nutball! Thanks to Obama we have riots in the streets and disdain for the police!

The fault does not lie with the Koch Brothers, or Republicans, or Trump, or Obama. The fault lies with the 20%, who are disease. Scumbag politicians are symptoms of the disease. The 20% are the reason why we cannot have Universal Medicare, for example.

CONCLUSION

Not all groups have an evil 20%. But when a group or society is miserable, 80% of the misery is caused by 20% of the population.

So if the U.S. population is 325 million, then 260 million Americans are more or less okay, while 65 million are scum. We heard from them above.