Extremistan vs. Mediocristan

These are the terms that Nassim Nicolas Taleb uses to describe two very different distributions of wealth. In Mediocristan, everyone has a roughly equal distribution of assets. Statistical observations work because the outliers won't unduly affect the observation. But in Extremistan, the distribution is orders of magnitude higher for a very few. Statistics don't work well as predictors because of the disproportionate influence of the few. It's very hard to predict what will happen in extremistan.

Taleb makes a convincing argument that we live in Extremistan. For instance, as an author, Taleb is familliar with the publishing industry's winner-take-all mentality; most book sales are from the same few books. Harry Potter is an example of a book that hit it big, whose author has profited far more than most. Extremistan is an exciting place to live, because there is more opportunity -- or, as Taleb likes to say, illusion of opportunity, because rocketing to the top is an improbable occurance.

As isolated hunter-gatherers, humans lived in Mediocristan, but with the rise of civilizations and global communication I think that genie is out of the bottle. In any discussion of fairness between people, I think we have to assume that there will be "outliers" who command far more money/power/fame than the rest.

Here's a speech by Taleb explaining some of these ideas in more detail:
A Crazier Future

This is just an introduction of some ideas; applying them to the problem of how to devise "fair" societies is still a puzzle.

HR 3245: Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act

There is a bill in Congress that may correct a long-standing disparity in sentencing between cocaine and crack. Though both are forms of cocaine, the mandatory minimums for possessing crack are equal to those for possessing 100 times the amount of cocaine. Since most people arrested for crack are black, this has also had the effect of creating a racial disparity in how justice is administered. To read more about the bill and follow its progress, visit the "Families Against Mandatory Minimums" page on this issue:

FAMM - H.R. 3245

This editorial in the Washington Post is also a good read:

Cocaine Justice

A fair system should punish equal crimes with equal penalties, and it is nice to see some movement in that direction with this bill.