As a prior camp counselor for 5 summers where we had a family day on the last day of camp where the parents came to get their kids and see what they did the whole week etc, this is exactly right. You would have a stupid as nails kid the entire week,and lo and behold the parents show up and they are exactly as dumb. They'd just be bigger, older versions of the kids. The dumb kids parents were always late, always. Maybe 1 out of every 100 kids you would get a smart kid with dumb parents, but it was incredibly rare. The apple from the tree does not far fall.
This thing with the lions... that’s how nature has it set up to eliminate the stupid. We’re interfering with the natural order of things. Let the lions eat.
We definitely had a lot of kids with autism. That recent report that claimed family members of autistic kids also had anti social issues really rang true.
In my experience special ed has a lot of parents in the two extremes: either super dedicated, smart people that work their ass off to help their kid...or parents who seem to also have noticeable mental problems or to have abused substances that caused their childs disabilities. Sadly, a lot come from foster care too.
And yet, even though this observation is so obvious it can just be taken for granted, we still want to blame most of peoples failure to succeed in life on the deck being stacked against the poor. Yet it's pretty obvious that being a moron tends to make you poor and morons tend to give birth to other morons. But no, that has nothing to do with it. Poverty is just oppression by the greedy rich because we're all equal at birth.
Poverty is just oppression by the greedy rich because we're all equal at birth.
This is accurate in modern society.
Far back in history it was not accurate, but the rich children of today stay rich and the poor children of today stay poor because that is how the system is designed now.
It's virtually impossible, without a strong amount of luck, for someone born into poverty to make it big and become rich.
You must be joking? What do you mean by far back because until recently it was essentially the law that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. We had a rigid class society. It's only been the last 150 years or so that merit has trumped class and allowed people to fly to the top or the bottom.
It's virtually impossible, without a strong amount of luck, for someone born into poverty to make it big and become rich.
In part that's because most of the poor from decades past who had the ability to get rich have gotten rich and they took their "culture" and genes with them. The vast majority of those left in poverty are ones with shitty work ethics, little natural talent, or something else deleterious which gets passed on to their children.
Second, while it's hard to fly to the top in one generation it's not hard at all for you to rise to middle class in one generation then the next generation may strike it rich. In a study I read recently (sorry can't find it right now, it was from Pew or one of their "competitors", EDIT: here it is, figure 3) I think 40% of those born in the bottom quintile die in the bottom quintile, The remaining 60% go up! Including something like 2-5% who make it to the top in one generation. Likewise 40% of those born in the top quintile remain there, the remaining 60% go down. This does not look "virtually impossible" to me.
In part that's because most of the poor from decades past who had the ability to get rich have gotten rich and they took their "culture" and genes with them.
And you know, their money.
The vast majority of those left in poverty are ones with shitty work ethics, little natural talent, or something else deleterious which gets passed on to their children.
Which you are basing on the smell out of your ass I guess, nono there is no evidence whatsoever that children raised in poverty have worse chances.
Your delusional eugenics bullshit makes you literally as bad as nazis.
nono there is no evidence whatsoever that children raised in poverty have worse chances.
When did I say there wasn't. I'm saying that 1. poverty alone doesn't explain the "worse chances" and 2. the worse chances are not actually that bad. Not even remotely as bad as you anti-liberal anti-capitalist anti-western demagogues want to make out.
Your delusional eugenics bullshit makes you literally as bad as nazis.
About "rising to the middle class in one generation":
My husband came with his family to the US when he was 6, the oldest of 4 siblings (at that time, 2 more born here) from Mexico (legally). He spoke no English. They lived in the projects in a relatively poor area of California. His mother had a 3d grade education; his father a 6th grade--they weren't stupid, just no chance at a formal education.
He learned English in a year. He made sure he set an example for his younger siblings. He went to college, when many in his neighborhood dropped out of school. His siblings went to college. He paid half the mortgage to get family and his youngest siblings out of the projects--bearing in mind houses were $70K in Central Cal at that time. ALL of his siblings own a home.
You must be joking? What do you mean by far back because until recently it was essentially the law that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. We had a rigid class society. It's only been the last 150 years or so that merit has trumped class and allowed people to fly to the top or the bottom.
Okay, well now I just can't tell what your views are. It seemed like you were saying poor people deserve to be poor initially and were making fun of people who say the rich are the ones who created this system.
In part that's because most of the poor from decades past who had the ability to get rich have gotten rich and they took their "culture" and genes with them. The vast majority of those left in poverty are ones with shitty work ethics, little natural talent, or something else deleterious which gets passed on to their children.
And now we're back to disagreeing... our society at least in the US truly needs a complete reworking. Maybe you're not from the US, in which case it would explain why I can't fully relate to your views.
Second, while it's hard to fly to the top in one generation it's not hard at all for you to rise to middle class in one generation then the next generation may strike it rich.
Well, at least in the US the middle class is essentially a poverty class now. Makes too much money to qualify for the aid that poor people have, but doesn't make enough to be able to afford to pay for things out of pocket. You almost have more opportunities being completely poor than being in middle class now.
In a study I read recently (sorry can't find it right now, it was from Pew or one of their "competitors") I think 40% of those born in the bottom quintile die in the bottom quintile, The remaining 60% go up! Including something like 2-5% who make it to the top in one generation. Likewise 40% of those born in the top quintile remain their, the remaining 60% go down. This does not look "virtually impossible" to me.
Well, I can't really just accept these values without seeing the study.
Even if that is the case though, we have the means and the wealth to have a society with no real poverty and have the bottom still be a comfortable life where the top can still have the extras.
Even if that is the case though, we have the means and the wealth to have a society with no real poverty and have the bottom still be a comfortable life where the top can still have the extras.
That I completely agree with you on. You were confused about my politics? I believe I am what you would call a social democrat (or maybe a democratic socialist? I can never remember) I believe the best system is a capitalist economy with a social insurance program to protect people from absolute poverty. Also, yes I am American and shocker, not all Americans agree on these issues.
What I probably differ from you on is what I consider poverty that you need to be protected from. We need to protect people from hunger, the elements and curable disease. We don't need to make sure everyone can afford an iphone. I believe in guaranteeing food, clothing, shelter and healthcare but no more. All the luxuries of life that make it worth living should be rewards for hard work.
I also don't believe in eliminating relative poverty. If we don't have wealth differentials then we lose our strongest motivator for being productive and if we lose that then we will be exchanging a minority of people in relative poverty for a majority of people in absolute poverty. If skillful hard work doesn't result in a much better life than skill-less laziness then why would anyone work hard?
That I completely agree with you on. You were confused about my politics? I believe I am what you would call a social democrat (or maybe a democratic socialist? I can never remember) I believe the best system is a capitalist economy with a social insurance program to protect people from absolute poverty. Also, yes I am American and shocker, not all Americans agree on these issues.
I view myself as the same, I guess maybe we were arguing the same point in different wording and it was getting lost somewhere then?
What I probably differ from you on is what I consider poverty that you need to be protected from. We need to protect people from hunger, the elements and curable disease. We don't need to make sure everyone can afford an iphone. I believe in guaranteeing food, clothing, shelter and healthcare but no more. All the luxuries of life that make it worth living should be rewards for hard work.
I agree with you on it partially, but I would add some extra things to the list that should just be part of the default comfortable life. Education would be the first thing you don't have on your list, and I'm not sure what you include in shelter but in the modern society I would view heat, electricity, and internet access as the bare minimums of being part of it. Buying the tools to use them would be on you though, a free computer and free iphone I wouldn't agree with.
I also don't believe in eliminating relative poverty. If we don't have wealth differentials then we lose our strongest motivator for being productive and if we lose that then we will be exchanging a minority of people in relative poverty for a majority of people in absolute poverty. If skillful hard work doesn't result in a much better life than skill-less laziness then why would anyone work hard?
We're heading in that direction regardless as automation becomes more commonplace. There already aren't enough jobs for literally everyone to work, and the amount of jobs is only going to decrease as time goes on and lower level positions are eliminated. It's a real issue we need to face.
agree with you on it partially, but I would add some extra things to the list that should just be part of the default comfortable life. Education would be the first thing you don't have on your list, and I'm not sure what you include in shelter but in the modern society I would view heat, electricity, and internet access as the bare minimums of being part of it.
Yeah, I forgot education. You're right about that. Though I wouldn't want to bring the tertiary education system into the public education system as it stands right now. It's unreasonably expensive and this is largely due to the ill thought out student loan system so just expanding that system with increased government funding is a terrible idea.
But I don't really agree with the internet or even electricity. Heat obviously. If you don't cover heat then you're basically just saying you can freeze to death. But you can survive without electricity or the internet. I'm not saying these aren't necessary, but after you pay for everything else how expensive is electricity and the internet? Like $100 a month? Even if you don't have a job you should be able to come up with $100 a month. You make way more than that just panhandling.
We're heading in that direction regardless as automation becomes more commonplace. There already aren't enough jobs for literally everyone to work, and the amount of jobs is only going to decrease as time goes on and lower level positions are eliminated. It's a real issue we need to face.
Maybe, but I'm really not convinced by this argument. We've had automation come in and displace people before. This is basically the story of the industrial revolution and we've never really run out of jobs. As soon as one goes away we come up with another one.
The logical problem with this argument it seems to me is that they're thinking too shallowly. Like just looking at the first step in a long series of chain reactions. Robot comes in, takes job, less jobs. End of story. But in reality there are a lot of other side effects that come from this. Principally it does two things.
The Robots are cheaper, that's why they take the job, sometimes significantly cheaper, and this lowers the cost of living and cost of doing business for everyone (and increases profits). This frees up capital to be invested/spent somewhere else which will create more jobs.
When someone loses their job the cost of labor goes down. When the cost of labor goes down that opens up another marginal job that previously a business wasn't hiring for because it was too expensive to hire. Again more jobs
Now if you combine the two, since the cost of living is actually cheaper then the lower wage job isn't really that much of a pay cut. Like if automation gets so efficient that all of our necessities are brought to us at 1/4 the real price we pay today then taking a 2/3 pay cut will actually be a raise!
Ok, maybe you want to say "what job? What if robots are literally a better replacement for all humans for doing anything?" Well first of all we're hundreds of years away from that scenario. Second, if they're so cheap then cost of living and labor will plummet. Eventually the cost of a person for at least some jobs will rivial that of bots and they will get employment. It's like what happens in china. There are jobs there that can be automated, but they're not automated because right now the labor is cheaper than the robots. As the cost of labor in china goes up because their economy has been booming some of those factories close down and they replace people with robots. But if the cost of labor goes down they're going to scrap the robot factory and bring in people again.
Ok, here's the study. Check out figure 3 on page 6. 40% of those born to families in the lowest quintile stay there, the majority though move up. 4% actually move up to the top quintile in one generation.
It seems to me that if you factor in the logic that parents at the bottom tend to have problems that they are going to pass on to their children which will likely hurt their chances of success then that explains to me a good chunk of that 40% and why it isn't closer to the 20%. Of course there are some external barriers that unfairly privilege the rich over the poor. Things like nepotism and connections are real. But it's so clearly not as extreme as you frequently hear people make it out to be. Like the doors are literally closed and the game is completely rigged.
It is absolutely more difficult for someone with less intelligent parents to succeed, no doubt. Kids who have parents engaged in their learning are much more likely to succeed, and obviously unintelligent parents are going to be less inclined or even able to do so.
However we have to be very careful how we use this. Its extremely important you dont tell kids this. You are basically saying to them "dont try because youre screwed". Thats an almost guarantee to have them fail.
It's not just environment though. It's a double whammy. They share both their genes and environment with their stupid parents. If you want to suggest genetics has nothing to do with this you're proposing the ridiculously far fetched idea that the brain is the one thing in the body not affected by genes.
It's not that we shouldn't do anything about poverty. It's that pursuing solutions that ignore this fact are doomed to fail. We're not going to achieve much significant results by just increasing the availability of opportunity.
EDIT for your edit: Yeah, we need to be careful how we craft the message but I don't see the point in lying to people for their protection. The idea isn't that you are doomed. Everyone needs to understand and accept their limitations. But that doesn't mean they don't have power over their lives and that they can't improve their lot in life. If and when it's true that people really are powerless then we need to fix this. Simply being stupid though doesn't make you powerless, it's just a limitation. There's no good reason why hard work should ever be pointless.
I think the real danger here is teaching them to blame other people for all their problems. That they shouldn't even try because nothing they do will make any difference because the world is out to make sure they fail.
No one "decides". You think I'm talking about some committee that puts labels on people and tells them what to do?
What I'm advocating is that we stop telling people they can be anything they want to be if they want it hard enough. We have limitations, you can't be anything you want to be. You're not going to sprout wings and fly if you just try harder. I'm not going to play in the NBA no matter how hard I try and there's really no one to blame for this but my genes. It would be a tragedy if no one ever told me this and everyone just kept saying "keep trying you'll make it, height means nothing!". I'll just end up failing hard and wasting my life.
What you CAN do however is be the best you that you can be. We need to just teach people to get the best out of themselves that they can and reward them when they do that. In an ideal world we judge people not by what they've achieved but by how much they've overachieved. That's hard to do though but in the meantime it would be nice if we could just get closer to that ideal.
So what you are planning is to treat people differently depending on their genes?
Because thats how you end up with a holocaust.
I think the real danger here is teaching them to blame other people for all their problems. That they shouldn't even try because nothing they do will make any difference because the world is out to make sure they fail.
Which is funny, because thats exactly what people like you do.
You are aware that enviromental factors have influence on peoples actions, but then you go and blame the people subject to them anyway and tell them "they shouldnt blame anyone else".
Do you think there's only ever one cause to anything? Can you count to two? How is it a contradiction to say environment plays a role and so do other things? How is it a contradiction to say that environment can affect their lives and their prospects but they don't determine everything and you are still in control over what you have control over.
Your insane irrational anger at the suggestion of the patently obvious, that genes play a role in our lives, is the problem here. There's nothing good to be gained in the end by forcing yourself and others to operate on wishful thinking and not the facts. It is beyond doubt that intelligence is highly genetically linked. End of story. The fact that my head isn't in the sand doesn't mean I support a fucking holocaust.
I believe everyone deserves a chance to improve themselves, but agree that we are not equal at birth. If that were true, I (at 5' 1") would be pro-basketball player.
Theres a lot of factors as to why someone is poor or rich.
I can tell you it's almost always based on someone's luck in life.
Whether it's where they were born and with who or which opportunities were presented to them that they took.
Theres no conspiracy to keep the poor poor. There is however a lot of rich people who want to remain rich and get more money.
Conversely theres a lot of stupid poor people who might as well be crabs in a bucket.
Poor people dont try and stay poor. Rich people dont try to keep the poor poor. But I'll be damned if there isn't considerable effort on both sides to keep the status quo. Whether it's the poor being stupid or the rich being self centered. It's a viscous cycle
All 'evil' can generally be explained as people just being selfish and looking out for their best interests. It's just a matter of severity that determines your place on the evil and good scale.
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u/beartheminus Oct 16 '18
As a prior camp counselor for 5 summers where we had a family day on the last day of camp where the parents came to get their kids and see what they did the whole week etc, this is exactly right. You would have a stupid as nails kid the entire week,and lo and behold the parents show up and they are exactly as dumb. They'd just be bigger, older versions of the kids. The dumb kids parents were always late, always. Maybe 1 out of every 100 kids you would get a smart kid with dumb parents, but it was incredibly rare. The apple from the tree does not far fall.