How extreme can material inequality get before it's a problem? Well the Walton family have the same amount of money (wealth) as the bottom 160 million Americans. How much more extreme does it have to get before it doesn't become the issue?

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2013/dec/08/o...

Today, money is immaterial. Your argument, as poignant as it may be, doesn't follow.

Money is immaterial?!? As Homer Simpson once said (to his brain): "money can be exchanged for goods and services" - like healthcare, education, important stuff....

> immaterial

> 1. Having no matter or substance.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/immaterial

Pedantic and pathetic. I clarified what I meant by money, wealth.

which is not any less abstract and immaterial. There is no unit of wealth you could compare, or if there is, I'd like to know.

Postmodern bullcrap. Tell that to the homeless and malnourished in the US.

Is your idiocy also material? Maybe you should have it removed.

EDIT: Joking aside, the knowledge how to work a job is valuable, but immaterial. Undernourishment is often a matter of lack of the knowledge how to extract resources from the environment. Of course a lot of wealth is attained by theft. But what's theft of ideas, are ideas material wealth? Sure I'm talking semantics, I try to understand you. I don't assume you are totally wrong, I just tend to assume that my language faculty is sufficient to follow involved arguments. Often erroneously, but therefor I'm skeptic of others as well. I suppose the distinction between material and immaterial is largely immaterial, and the difference between abstract and concrete best hidden from conversation.

>I just tend to assume that my language faculty is sufficient to follow involved arguments

Spoiler alert - it's not. You didn't even use the right form of skeptic; you should have written 'skeptical.' Besides being a non-sequitur, your analogy is fatally flawed. It presupposes that it is possible to steal ideas, when in fact it is only possible to copy them. Furthermore, every homeless person knows how to extract resources from the environment: throw a brick in somebody's window and steal their stuff. Resources extracted. If by 'extract resources' you mean 'get a job and be a law-abiding citizen' then I question whether you have ever tried to rebuild a life from absolutely nothing while staying inside the confines of the law. It might be harder than you think.

Fair points, except I was thinking of technological supremacy, specifically the ability to build an aqueduct and that has to come before. It's supposed to be a metaphor for mind over matter and the asymmetry of life that has to be tolerated. Toll~ literally means to account, more or less, so I am not saying bigcorp exploitation was acceptable.

On skeptical, German has different grammar, but we share a large part of the vocabulary. Sometimes I have problems learning Idioms, other times I am unwilling to accept them because I think they are corrupt. I like talking semantics. Of course, the grammar has to be fit for that, so thank you. And please stop insulting other people on here. Don't take anything I say too serious, I am just bored and trying to get into a conversation, which is sad enough.