Aren’t the “free market”, capitalism and money all man-made inventions that our government regulates, not things that are encoded in our DNA at birth? Why do they sometimes feel so beyond reproach that only tweaks are suggested, instead of taking a harder look at making systemic modifications to how we live?

Can we agree that having such wide income disparity is a bug/cancer/structural flaw (depending on your background) of the system we’ve designed? While we’ll never have true income equality, when certain members of our society can throw $1M birthday parties while others can’t afford to buy groceries, should that be a system that’s celebrated?

If we’re honest with ourselves, isn’t the system we have today a reflection of what we value?

Doesn’t value, by definition, require an arbiter and means different things under different lenses? When investors say something is valuable, that means that it will generate financial profit for them, but do you have to deem it valuable if it provides no value to you?

Why do we seem to value net worth the most? Is net worth so revered because it’s the true meaning of success, or because it’s just an easy way to quantify it? Perhaps, we’re taught to celebrate money by people who already have a lot of money and need to validate themselves by having others aspire to be like them?

Is a Wall Street trader or a founder at an unicorn startup company really 20X more valuable than a teacher who helps 30 different kids year in year out to learn and approach life differently? I would assume that most people would answer “no” to the above question, but doesn’t our system that we’ve designed reflect differently?

Does someone who has a lot of money inherently have value, or only when they use that money to provide value to others? Do wealthy people who pledge to donate their fortunes realize a truth towards the end of their lives that the rest of us can’t grasp yet?

Are policy tweaks (e.g. upping the tax rate on the wealthiest, minimum wage increases) the best way to fix this? Or, are they just medicine for our income inequality ailment, but not a cure?

Isn’t the cure a more purposeful and institutional mindset shift where as a society, we make it more acceptable to ascribe value to things that aren’t necessarily lucrative? Maybe, money can be transformed from being the be-all end-all to just one way of measuring success? And perhaps, with less people purely gunning at $$$, it’ll help solve income inequality more organically?

Do people who pay more money to be eco-friendly (e.g. compostable trash, green energy) exemplify this line of thinking at a niche level, by showing that in their minds, there’s a higher value in saving our planet than having more money? And, why do people do this? Is it because as a society, we’ve deemed it justifiable? How can we achieve this more broadly?

So here’s an interesting question — would you rather have your (future) son or daughter wake up 30 years from now being worth $100 million dollars or having helped a thousand people who don’t have access to basic needs get them? I’d honestly choose the former, would you? Is that indicative of a flaw in our way of thinking, or not?

At the end of the day, doesn’t all of this boil down to how we’ve been trained to rationalize inside our heads whether or not we’re valuable? When everyone lives a certain way that’s assumed right, it’s really difficult to think even a little bit differently, but shouldn’t we try? Can we aim to at least be cognizant of our biased perspectives and hope for something different? And in the likely event that it’s a lost cause for us, can we teach this to our kids?

After all, aren’t asking the right questions the first step towards solving a problem?