Billionaire binge

Greetings patrons,

It’s time for another research update. In this letter, two things:

1. A billionaire binge

2. Playing with pi-hole

A billionaire binge

For the last few months, I’ve been on a binge, crunching numbers about the social pests that we call ‘billionaires’. Since the binge is set to continue, I thought I’d give you a sneak peak of what’s ahead.

Let me start by saying that Twitter critics are predictable beasts. Earlier this week, I tweeted the chart below, which shows the astonishing rise of Forbes 400 wealth.

When you post a chart like this, you can count on a ‘helpful’ tweeter to point out the obvious. In this case, a fellow named Bryant came to the rescue:

Oh, the joys of Twitter. Never mind that in the post, I emphasized exactly the same point, writing:

each colored line in Figure 1 tracks the net worth of a particular wealth rank (and not the net worth of a specific individual)

That’s okay. I’ve come to expect that Twitter critics won’t read my articles before clicking the reply button. So this is par for the course.

What’s funny, though, is that this Twitter exchange anticipates my next post on the richest Americans. In it, I’m going to document the rat race among the richest of rich.

Below, for example, is the net worth of the richest American. As we all know, the top spot has been occupied by different individuals over the last four decades. But regardless of who tops the chart, the richest American has gotten richer.

The same goes for the second richest American; many different people have filled that role. But that doesn’t change the fact that the second richest American has gotten richer.

Same thing for the third richest American. The rat race has been intense. But the third richest American has gotten richer over time.

Looking at the rich-person rat race, we arrive at a key distinction between conservative and leftist worldviews. Conservatives look at competition among the rich and see fairness. Leftists, however, ignore individuals and look at the structure of society. Regardless of who’s occupying the position, the richest American has gotten richer.

What’s interesting is that there’s a scientific way to connect that two worldviews. Yes, individuals compete to occupy society’s upper echelon. And so there’s always turnover among the richest of rich. That said, the turnover is not constant. Looking at the United States, I find that turnover among the richest Americans has slowed with time. What’s more, it’s slowed at precisely the same time that the rich have gotten richer.

I’ll save the details for my upcoming post. But for now, know that this pattern is expected. It turns out that social mobility is inversely related to social inequality. In other words, as the rich get richer, rags-to-riches stories become more rare. Instead, the rich are born rich and stay that way.

(The relation between social immobility and income inequality is sometimes called the ‘Great Gadsby curve’. Here’s an interesting study of it in Canada.)

Playing with pi-hole

Now to a personal adventure. After several years of it sitting on my to-do list, I finally installed Pi-hole on my home network.

Backing up a bit, Pi-hole is network-wide ad-blocking software that was originally designed to run on a Raspberry Pi (a cheap single-board computer). Hence the name; Pi-hole is a sinkhole for adware that runs on a Raspberry Pi. At least, that’s how it started.

Since the pandemic, Raspberry Pi’s have become a scarce commodity. And so installing Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi is no longer a good option.

Fortunately, Pi-hole software is now device agnostic. To install it, all you need is an internet-connected device that runs Linux. As it happens, I’ve got one of those. (I love Linux!) I installed Pi-hole using Docker. In less than 10 minutes, I had the thing up and running.¹

So why run Pi-hole? If you’re like me, you already have an ad-blocker running in your web browser. (I use uBlock Origin.) So you’d think that running Pi-hole would be unnecessary. And that’s true to an extent. Since putting Pi-hole on my home network, I haven’t noticed any difference in my browsing experience.

The thing about the internet, though, is that it’s not just your browser that’s surfing the web. Almost every app you run is connected to the internet. And because these apps aren’t part of your browser, ad-blocking extensions don’t work. That’s where Pi-hole comes in. Because it blocks adware at the network level, it works for any app running on any device.

For me, the issue came to a head this summer. My eight-year-old daughter spent a lot of time playing a paint-by-numbers game that would, at random intervals, bombard her with obnoxious video ads. After installing Pi-hole, those ads are gone.

What’s also gone is a host of trackerware that was silently running in the background. In fact, watching the list of blocked domains (visible on the Pi-hole web interface) has been the most eye-opening aspect of running Pi-hole. The list of blocked domains includes trackerware from Disney Plus, Google Ads, Google Analytics, Microsoft, and Apple. (There’s also a host of more obscure offenders.) It’s fascinating to see the apps that are (no longer) phoning home.

Now to the larger question: why should you care about this kind of tracking? For me, it’s a sociological issue rather than a personal one. I could personally care less what big tech knows about my online behavior. That said, I’m vehemently opposed to the business model of hoarding information and selling it to the highest bidder. The end result, as Cory Doctorow puts it, is the enshittification of the internet. So I’m happy to do my part to block these back-end trackers.

On a more technical note, if you’re thinking of installing Pi-hole on your home network, I recommend pairing it with Tailscale — an easy-to-use VPN (virtual private network) that’s free for up to 100 devices. The reason I recommend using Tailscale is that normally, a Pi-hole only works on your home network. So if you leave your house, the ad blocking stops working. However, if you connect to the Pi-hole with Tailscale, it works anywhere.

To get Pi-hole running on Tailscale, follow these instructions.

Thanks for your support

Well, that’s it for this update. Stay tuned for more billionaire research. And thanks again for your support!

Best,

Blair