@amiloradovsky we have fridges and air conditioners

@newt oh, I meant closed systems

@amiloradovsky economy isn’t a closed system either. Neither it is a zero sum game.

@newt Indeed economy is not. The point of the comparison was that though theoretically it's possible the probability is so small that we practically call this impossible. Just like in the case of reversed heat flow.
Believing in self-made billionaires is like refusing to accept the second law of thermodynamics.

WRT games, yes, not all of them are 0-sum, some are negative-sum~

@amiloradovsky the odds of any given person to acquire that wealth is negligible. But there’s a lot of people, so it’s only bound to happen. And I’d say, the odds are greater than spontaneously reversing entropy in a given patch of space.

@newt yes, winning a lottery, not self-made

there are only 7 billion people, less considering age groups, and both are incomparable to Avogadro number — theoretically this should make rare events more likely, but still

@amiloradovsky not exactly. Lottery requires luck and maybe 20 bucks or how much a ticket costs. Becoming a billionaire requires both luck and talent. Arguably, it’s worse.

@newt My point is that one can only increase their wealth so much in one generation. Then it may be accumulated over multiple generations to become really big, chances are. One cannot become super rich from nothing and within a single lifespan. Talent and luck considered. So the latter can't lecture anyone about hard work and fairness.

@newt Context: I'm just tired of Top 123 persons being shown as examples and regarded as authorities. If anybody deserves a respect is their grandfathers, possible, not necessarily.