31–40 of 288 posts
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I don't like defining "success" as some kind of bare minimum. Success is, at least, being better than average.
Agreed! Everyone should enjoy success, and success is being better than average.
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Agreed! Everyone should enjoy success, and success is being better than average.
If success is being better than average, then not everyone could enjoy it, or else success would just be the average.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't like defining "success" as some kind of bare minimum. Success is, at least, being better than average.
Agreed! Everyone should enjoy success, and success is being better than average.
With this perspective, "success" can be better than average, which is what it is a lot of the times - most lotto players thinks winning the lotto is "success", and winning the lotto is by definition to achieve a financial outcome that is above the average of all financial outcomes that can occur from playing the lotto.
I think it's worth pointing out that education is a filtering mechanism, if a terribly inefficient one. After basic maths and literacy are learned, it imparts little on the average student. A collage degree is a proxy for a reasonable IQ and moderately high conscientiousness. Thinking of education as an inefficient filtering mechanism helps illustrate why our frenzy for more education is misguided. Certainly more eff…
Education alone does tend to make people better neighbours. There is true value in education, but unfortunately the only market demand is for people who are intelligent, conscientious and educated in certain fields. Hit all three and you are in demand otherwise a life of dead end jobs awaits you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed! Everyone should enjoy success, and success is being better than average.
If success is being better than average, then not everyone could enjoy it, or else success would just be the average.
I think it's worth pointing out that education is a filtering mechanism, if a terribly inefficient one. After basic maths and literacy are learned, it imparts little on the average student. A collage degree is a proxy for a reasonable IQ and moderately high conscientiousness. Thinking of education as an inefficient filtering mechanism helps illustrate why our frenzy for more education is misguided. Certainly more eff…
And since college education is mostly a positional good (it helps you compete against people with worse education for limited jobs), there's a pretty fantastic charitable opportunity for an enterprising lawyer to start suing employers over requiring or looking at college degrees.
What is society's ideal for the average white working class? What is "success"? Is it better looking houses? More expensive cars? Fresher food? Is it getting to live in a very expensive nursing home when they retire? Is it equality where both husband and wife are responsible exactly 50% in finances, chores and taking care of the kids? Or have the time & money to spend a lot more time with the kids; Will welfare help…
>What is "success"? Is it better looking houses? More expensive cars? Fresher food? You need to think much more basic than that: Success is having a savings account, a roof over your head in a safe stable location so the kids can stay in the same school, reliable transportation, and a job that provides enough income for all of the above.
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As an American my impression is blue collar white working class Americans decided they'd rather give up the benefits of unionized employment in return for not having to give up the racially based pecking order.
This is a new concept to me. Do have any good references for this I could read up on?
The problem is, is that 'good jobs' are hard to find even if you have a good education. If you do, you can look forward to 60-80 work weeks, expensive housing and child care, and of course massive student loan debt. Very few of the things that were available to the middle class 25 years ago are available to the best and brightest today. The question is, is there anything that can be done about it, it was the period b…
This is such millenialist bullshit. Overall people are better off now than ever before. Yes, there are problems now, but there have always been problems. 25 years ago, the internet was unknown to the general public. Housing is more expensive, but food and clothing are cheaper, something these statements usually ignore. Civil rights for women and minorities are better - advances there far outweigh erosion in places like intellectual property. The further back you go, the better life is today. Remember when women were legally paid less than men for identical jobs? Remember being conscripted against your will? Remember when being visibly pregnant in public was a source of shame? Remember when you had to ensure you had all your food shopping done by a certain time, because shops were only half open on Saturdays and not open at all on Sunday? Remember how expensive appliances were, and that you actually had to take the time to go into the store to talk about the issue rather than ring a number or look online? Remember how time-locked (and expensive!) entertainment was, and none of it was 'on-demand'? Remember the fear of living under the nuclear umbrella and Mutually Assured Destruction? This last one has been replaced somewhat by nebulous 'terrorism', but the fear of our western democracies being literally overrun by a terrorist military doesn't really compare.
Remember when 'good job' meant 'regular pay packet', and not 'comfortable work in an office that you like'? The 'good jobs' of yesteryear were more gruelling and less fulfilling than the 'good jobs' of today. Want cheaper childcare? Then stop outsourcing to professionals and shame working women back into the home, because that's why childcare was cheap in the old days.
It's become more and more prevalent in the past couple of years to look at student debt and housing costs and simply declare that life now is worse than previously, without actually looking at what it was like to live in past days in an overall sense. Cherrypick a data point and declare that life is worse now. Yes, there are problems today, significant problems, but that doesn't mean life in previous generations was a breeze.