@tp4tissue - Although things have taken quite a tangent, I just wanted to address some of your points. I can't say I am well versed with Japanese society though so I am not addressing all facets of your last reply at this time.
"I don't think you've spent anytime with the lower proletariat class."
Based on what?
"There is immense creative potential in these people."
I totally agree. The struggle people have is real and breeds innovation, rather than some trust-fund kid whose future is set in stone and so has little concern.
"Look at Japan as a society, Why would a salary man making 70-100k USD equivalent kill themselves."
Simply put: Mo' Money Mo' Problems
"However, it's inevitable, And we MUST take a deeper look at societal inequality.
Price's law is bull****, and its interpreted presumptions are wrong..
People are all more or less equivalent machinery with the same capacities. What one machine is not programmed with at any point in time, it can learn.
Achievement and productivity is not quantifiable.
You have 100 papers.. ok, so 50 is written by 5 authors..
The other authors did not write as many papers..
However, perhaps the other authors raised children, or cooked, or cleaned.."
I feel you have placed a bit of emotion into all this. Life is not fair and very few things are distributed evenly. Perhaps Price’s law is BS and not applicable is this discussion, but can you deny observable, quantifiable phenomena?
All human effort is effort…yet not all effort is equal when it comes down to an observable result. Let’s say Chyros and I each spend 12 hours a week making YouTube videos or podcasts about keyboards. We each work hard and delivery quality content, but Chyros’ videos start having more views or downloads and soon this success begets more success and this success then grows exponentially. The fact viewers gravitate to Chyros’ content instead of mine is not fair to me if I have applied the same effort is it?
Effort does NOT always translate to achievement or productivity, it sure helps though. You also need the right stuff. Smart people who also conscientiously put the effort into a given endeavor have a dis-proportionally higher chance of succeeding than someone with a lower IQ or someone smart and pathetically lazy.
Consider the Pareto Principle which although is not an immutable law is applicable in many cases, just like the distribution of income. So the 80/20 is oft applied (20% of the population controls the 80% of the money) but the main takeaway is that most things in life are not distributed equally.
20% of the input creates 80% of the result
20% of the workers produce 80% of the result
20% of the customers create 80% of the revenue
20% of the bugs cause 80% of the crashes
20% of the features cause 80% of the usage
And on and on…
“Why are the efforts of mothers or nurses or garbage men less important..”
Who is saying one job is better than the other? These are different competitive landscapes. Not everyone can be a classical composer (that people will listen to) or an NBA basketball star (that people will pay to see). Instead there is a diversification of productive games. So if one person is not successful in one domain they might be successful in another. Consider a presumably ancient society which has not articulated the practice of agriculture. Let’s say one member is much faster or is able to run for longer distances and is therefore more effective at running down prey. This becomes important when there is a shortage of game. Now another member of this society that is not successful as a hunter could develop skills making the most kick-ass bows that do not break or fashioning the slickest of spear points which the hunter then uses to get more game.