TCBI #18 - The Pareto Problem

"Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them."

- Matthew 13:12

What a ruthless principle. Pareto Distribution (or "The Matthew Principle) can be found in almost any distributive dataset. 20% of people have 80% of the money in (almost all) economic systems. 20% of people have 80% of the power in (almost all) political systems. 20% of any language gets used 80% of the time in (all) languages. It's especially frustrating thinking about the Matthew Principle playing out beyond the 80/20 rule to the point where it seems like one person has all of the power and everyone else has none. It feels like this is what my relationship to politics looks like, and my relationship to the music industry, and to the world in general. I feel powerless.

When I think about this stuff it makes me feel extremely frustrated, and when I think about things and they make me frustrated, I take that as a sign that it's time to have a conversation with a trusted friend, so sat down with two people I trust (Connor and Evan) to try to figure out if my frustration is justified and what a meaningful response might be to that frustration. Surprisingly, we actually made a lot more progress unpacking this topic than I was expecting to (at least, I personally felt like I'd made progress in my relationship to the problem), though there's a ton more to keep thinking about. Let me know what you think of where we landed. 

Connor Howard https://www.instagram.com/connorjhoward/​

Evan Vandenberg https://www.instagram.com/evanskates/

Garrett Vandenberg https://www.garrettvandenberg.com/​​ https://www.facebook.com/garrettvandenbergmusic/ https://www.instagram.com/garrettvandenberg/ https://twitter.com/GarrettJVMusic​​/