Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids • Hacker News Board

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#101

Post by aianus » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

timwaagh wrote: post #12

blazespin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH, if you can accept a lower standard of living, few people really need to work that much - at least in developed nations. Most people work for social pride and connection to the community. Which is a good reason. I just wish we could remake how to generate this social pride. Buying a nice car or nice house shouldn't be a reason to feel proud. Teaching, doing or learning something new and useful for your community…

most people i know do need to work if they dont want to sleep in the streets. i program others wait tables or clean out the garbage. you think somebody does that for 'pride'? it does not matter if the country is developed or not you still have to work because real estate is expensive even if food is not. if you dont well congrats but then you (and your buddies) are one of these second generation dandies.

You could program 5 hours a month remotely and make more than a university graduate working full-time in Vietnam.

So yeah, the vast, vast majority of U.S. programmers are ultimately doing it out of reasons other than survival, whether they realize it or not.

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#102

Post by LiweiZ » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 5:18 PM UTC

cherry_su wrote: post #99

LiweiZ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any nice book offering an overview of evolutionary biology applied to our society that you'd recommend?

Not quite a book, but you might find the materials for this MIT course on Game Theory and Social Behavior insightful: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/14-11-insights-from-gam... "We will apply insights from game theory to explain human social behavior, focusing on novel applications which have heretofore been the realm of psychologists and philosophers—for example, why people speak indirectly, in what sense beaut…

Thanks. I occasionally follow news from complexity theory and there are many exciting findings. But there are so many hidden gems I could not find out till I learn some key words to make my search meaningful to the search engines.

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#103

Post by dmoy » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 5:18 PM UTC

o0-0o wrote: post #54

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #20

I visited China in 1982, when the capitalist revolution was just getting started. Such wealth did not exist, but there was a deep, simmering anger among the people over Communist corruption and general unfairness and inequity. I witnessed it personally. Now that there's a bit more prosperity and availability of material goods, but still no freedom and still a simmering resentment of government corruption, this fuerda…

Large scale social unrest is just what the communists fear the most. To me, that's not worrisome - it's hopeful. Just opining, and I understand that the collateral costs would be worrisome for everyone in the short term.

The collateral cost from civil wars, revolution movements, or other massive uprisings in China is immense. Like absolutely staggering. The "collateral costs" have previously been in the >1,000,000 death range, and this has happened multiple times in the last few centuries.

E.g. taiping rebellion (>10 million), Dungan revolt, Du Wenxiu, etc...

The most recent large one only killed like 8 million people though, so we've got that going for us I guess.

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#104

Post by aianus » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

SCHiM wrote: post #66

o0-0o wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large scale social unrest is just what the communists fear the most. To me, that's not worrisome - it's hopeful. Just opining, and I understand that the collateral costs would be worrisome for everyone in the short term.

> collateral costs Read "human lives". I understand and share your sentiment regarding the fact that a chance towards a (seemingly) more liberal form of government is good. But I'd be hesitant to call the costs of unrest at such a scale merely worrisome. The only thing I hope for is that change will come slowly, if it comes at all.

> The only thing I hope for is that change will come slowly, if it comes at all.

That's worse than a bloody revolution. If change comes so slowly that you don't get to experience it in your lifetime you might as well have died anyways.

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#105

Post by r_sreeram » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 5:25 PM UTC

LiweiZ wrote: post #55

hellbanner wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory in evolutionary biology.

Any nice book offering an overview of evolutionary biology applied to our society that you'd recommend?

On Human Nature by Edward Wilson is supposed to be a classic on this subject (the mix of biology, evolution and sociology).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Human_Nature

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#106

Post by thesimpsons1022 » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 5:28 PM UTC

veidr wrote: post #68

littletimmy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really liked this sentiment of Oscar Wilde on charity: “[Charity] is not a solution [to poverty]: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible…Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by thos…

That quote has always bugged the shit out of me, because: those were only the worst slave owners for future generations of sociology and history students (who mostly didn't descend from slaves). For the actual slaves themselves, the worst slaveowners were the ones who whipped and tortured their slaves in an attempt to extract more value (or just for fun), those who separated children from parents, raped the women or…

That's not quite true. I feel like you missed the whole point. The audience is their contemporaries. "Good" slave owners gave an excuse to their contemporaries to allow slavery to exist. If other people only saw "bad" slabs owners his argument is slavery would've ended sooner️.

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#107

Post by zardo » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 5:40 PM UTC

bsenftner wrote: post #71

hndude wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I wonder if there are similar motivations for super rich American philanthropists. My guess is they're less worried about revolt and more motivated by vanity. This is a bit more pessimistic view but what about the raise in minimum wage for fast food workers (in NY) to $15 an hour? I daresay those employees are less likely to participate in Occupy Wall Street protests now, not that the balance of power in this countr…

All $15 an hour does it raise them to the new subsistence level. The aware of them still want major changes.

"All experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

As true today as it was in 1776. If people can eak out a living, the majority will be satisfied.

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#108

Post by DubiousPusher » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

blazespin wrote: post #10

lordnacho wrote: post #2

Well it sounds like they have the same problems other rich kids have. Mainly that it's hard to get away from from your parents' influence, and anything you achieve is credited to the family. Also there's a wariness about new people, and a feeling of being disconnected from ordinary society. I know a couple of heirs, and they've handled it differently. One kid works in the family office, investing the family fortune.…

TBH, if you can accept a lower standard of living, few people really need to work that much - at least in developed nations. Most people work for social pride and connection to the community. Which is a good reason. I just wish we could remake how to generate this social pride. Buying a nice car or nice house shouldn't be a reason to feel proud. Teaching, doing or learning something new and useful for your community…

That's horse shit. I work because if I don't I have nothing.

I bought a nice house because I like living in a nice house, not for pride.

I have a nice car because I enjoy riding in a nice car and was tired of the stress and panic created by having to get my car running by Monday every other weekend.

When you're poor, even in developed nations, that poverty is an axe blade hanging by a thread just over your head.

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#109

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

blazespin wrote: post #10

lordnacho wrote: post #2

Well it sounds like they have the same problems other rich kids have. Mainly that it's hard to get away from from your parents' influence, and anything you achieve is credited to the family. Also there's a wariness about new people, and a feeling of being disconnected from ordinary society. I know a couple of heirs, and they've handled it differently. One kid works in the family office, investing the family fortune.…

TBH, if you can accept a lower standard of living, few people really need to work that much - at least in developed nations. Most people work for social pride and connection to the community. Which is a good reason. I just wish we could remake how to generate this social pride. Buying a nice car or nice house shouldn't be a reason to feel proud. Teaching, doing or learning something new and useful for your community…

[deleted]

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#110

Post by jsprogrammer » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

Retra wrote: post #95

jsprogrammer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we care about a future sociologist's or historian's opinion about what was "worst"? It seems like the determination of worst would need to be made by someone who actually experienced these things, not someone who never experienced them or even saw them.

We are those future sociologists and historians. Why should we care about some long-dead slaves' opinion about what is good or bad? The point is that we are trying to do what we can now to make the world better later . It matters what those in the future will think of us, because they will be the ones with the resources to improve upon it after we are gone. And if we do it right, they will be better at handling this…

>Why should we care about some long-dead slaves' opinion about what is good or bad?

Because they had a more direct experience of it than we can ever have.

I think the (even if implicit) claim that it is better to physically harm, rape, and kill slaves than to be nice to them is highly questionable.

Yes, both are bad situations, but adding additional physical violence doesn't make things better, only worse.

Edit: I guess I should also add that we can never truly know what someone else's experience was. It is especially difficult to know if all you have left after hundreds of years is some text.