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How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

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Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#81

Post by TheCoelacanth »

anovikov wrote: post #71

I can't see how 20% is a 'perfectly just world'. It is not a perfectly just - it is a perfectly random world. If it was 20%, it means that person from every family (wrt. parent's incomes) has equal chance to end up rich or poor, meaning that there is nothing that parents could do to help their child. It means nothing but a totalitarian, concentration camp society, because even if education, healthcare etc. are perfec…

> If it was 20%, it means that person from every family (wrt. parent's incomes) has equal chance to end up rich or poor, meaning that there is nothing that parents could do to help their child.

That's not true. It would just mean that the parents' financial circumstances have no bearing on their ability to help their children.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#82

Post by [deleted] »

skybrian wrote: post #59
jessriedel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conjecture: the number one driver of a city's upward mobility is fraction of foreign-born population. Poor foreigners move to US with few skills, and then their children do fine. Note that this mechanism has nothing to do with the differences between social services in different cities. Let's check: Out of the 50 largest cities, here are where those high-mobility cities rank by percentage foreign-born. 3. San Jose 38…

I'm not sure about the "few skills" part - is there a way to verify that? Seems like there are a fair number of educated immigrants who have to take lower-paying jobs due to language and cultural barriers.

[deleted]

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#83

Post by cookiecaper »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #62
arconis987 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up Mormon in Utah and I love the Mormons in my life. Every leader in local congregations is an unpaid volunteer. Everyone in the congregation has a responsibility to carry out in the community (sunday school teacher, youth mentor, clerk to track finances, etc). As a Mormon kid, I was taught to work hard my whole life for the good of others. I served a Mormon mission in Europe, which was an extremely difficult…

> my Mormon loved ones told me that they were concerned about the future of my children, that I was depriving my family of happiness in heaven, and, as one of my own parents told me, they didn't know who I was anymore. If they believe that you must be religious or else you burn in hell for all of eternity, then their reaction makes sense. They are behaving that way out of concern for your well being.

Mormons do not believe that non-believers will "burn in hell for all of eternity". Mormons believe that the afterlife will be far superior to earth life for virtually everyone.

Only a tiny segment of humanity, who commit "blasphemy against the Holy Ghost", which Jesus described as the unpardonable sin, will have an existence of endless pain and misery. The belief is that very few people are even capable of getting themselves into this arrangement.

Mormons feel serious concern when someone leaves the Church for multiple reasons, but the biggest factor is simple human psychology. Fundamentally, you're rejecting a culture and a belief system into which you've been initiated, accepted, and accommodated for many years, and a set of traditions on which your family has based their lives, potentially for generations.

The fact is, this hurts peoples' feelings, and they're going to have a hard time coping with it, and it's by no means specific to Mormonism. It's applicable to anyone whose religion plays a major function in their lives. If anything, Mormonism's unique redemptive and compassionate doctrine softens the blow.

It should be noted here that, unlike some other groups, Mormons do not have a policy of shunning people who leave. It may be difficult for family and friends to accept the lifestyle change, but the Church preaches nothing but tolerance, outreach, and compassion to everyone, including, and in some cases especially, to those who've left.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#84

Post by waderyan »

BurningFrog wrote: post #76
arconis987 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up Mormon in Utah and I love the Mormons in my life. Every leader in local congregations is an unpaid volunteer. Everyone in the congregation has a responsibility to carry out in the community (sunday school teacher, youth mentor, clerk to track finances, etc). As a Mormon kid, I was taught to work hard my whole life for the good of others. I served a Mormon mission in Europe, which was an extremely difficult…

I always wonder about the Mormon missionaries. Did you actually convert anyone? Or is that not even the point?

I was a Mormon missionary.

Each missionary memorizes this to drill in their purpose: "My purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end." https://www.lds.org/manual/preach-my-gospel-a-guide-to-missi...

Most of our activities were finding people interested in the LDS church and teaching those people about the LDS church.

I would have 20-30 45 minute in house meetings a week with people that were interested. We spent most of our time knocking on doors and meeting new people to fill up those teaching slots.

For service, probably 5-10 hours a week. Usually set up by the local LDS congregation or people we met on the street (ex. "I'm not interested but I could use help power spraying my roof).

I had an awesome mission experience. It was a lot of fun. I met a lot of interesting people, with tough backgrounds, looking for something new in their lives. Made me really grateful for my middle class upbringing and want to help people less fortunate than me.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#85

Post by api »

nine_k wrote: post #56
arconis987 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up Mormon in Utah and I love the Mormons in my life. Every leader in local congregations is an unpaid volunteer. Everyone in the congregation has a responsibility to carry out in the community (sunday school teacher, youth mentor, clerk to track finances, etc). As a Mormon kid, I was taught to work hard my whole life for the good of others. I served a Mormon mission in Europe, which was an extremely difficult…

Isn't it the case with every group with strong identity? Imagine being raised in a long-term Democrat family and declaring that the Tea Party is your thing. (And it's not even about eternal damnation.)

IMHO you got down voted a lot for pointing out an aspect of human behavior many people (including myself) find very troubling.

The "odd" juxtaposition of compassion and community with racial, sexual, and cultural exclusivity and strict taboos is normal. It's how a tribe normally works.

Modern cosmopolitan culture tries to do away with the bad stuff, but many believe this also did away with the good. A major tenet of neo-reaction is that cosmopolitan culture leads to a kind of cold social alienation and lack of identity.

Personally I think there is some truth to this, but I can't embrace it. I find it completely unacceptable. If this is actually hard wired into us then the answer is genetic engineering.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#86

Post by m-j-fox »

A religious organization subsumes state roles, providing social services as a way to reinforce social cohesion as well as the power structure in the religious hierarchy. The authorities dictate everything from clothing style to "volunteer" effort. Young men are exploited for their energy and lack of common sense to expand borders.

Guys, am I talking about the Latter-Day Saints or ISIS?

I'll bet you a beer that Megan McArdle (author of this article) was born and raised in the Mormon religion. How else do you explain the leap from social mobility to social services to yay white Mormons?

This isn't the first piece she's written cheerleading the LDS homeland:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-05-15/verily-i-...

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-11-08/mormons-p...

Now, I myself was born and raised in the Mormon religion. My view is that social mobility is high in Utah due to high economic growth which is fantastic compared to the rest of red-state America, and definitely due to Mormon influence, but not for the reasons Megan would have you believe:

Mormons breed early and often. Their workforce is the youngest in the nation and no surprise, this is a recipe for economic growth. They're having a baby boom in Utah all the time.

If government has done anything to help, they've carved more than their fare share out of the federal budget to support jobs in the state. Major exports include rocket parts and spying on you.

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

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

Other than that, Utah's major industry seems to be pyramid schemes:

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

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-multi-level-marketing-companie...

Just google Utah MLM, theirs too much good stuff.

The reason I bring it up is that economic growth through high fertility is very much a pyramid scheme. At some point they will run out of room in the desert and then they will have to grapple with caring for an aging population like other formerly frothy reproduction based economies (Japan, China, most of the US).

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#87

Post by dang »

m-j-fox wrote: post #86

A religious organization subsumes state roles, providing social services as a way to reinforce social cohesion as well as the power structure in the religious hierarchy. The authorities dictate everything from clothing style to "volunteer" effort. Young men are exploited for their energy and lack of common sense to expand borders. Guys, am I talking about the Latter-Day Saints or ISIS? I'll bet you a beer that Megan…

Religious flamewars are not welcome on Hacker News. We ban accounts that do this.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#89

Post by api »

tyingq wrote: post #72
nine_k wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it the case with every group with strong identity? Imagine being raised in a long-term Democrat family and declaring that the Tea Party is your thing. (And it's not even about eternal damnation.)

>Isn't it the case with every group with strong identity? It's particularly troublesome in Utah because ~60% of the population is Mormon. It's not difficult to imagine a scenario where you lose your job, or an important supplier relationship because you left the church. Yes, it can happen elsewhere, but there aren't too many places in the US where a single religion is so dominant. It doesn't even have to involve leav…

Southern Baptism is that dominant in many parts of the South.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#90

Post by jessriedel »

hughdbrown wrote: post #49
jessriedel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conjecture: the number one driver of a city's upward mobility is fraction of foreign-born population. Poor foreigners move to US with few skills, and then their children do fine. Note that this mechanism has nothing to do with the differences between social services in different cities. Let's check: Out of the 50 largest cities, here are where those high-mobility cities rank by percentage foreign-born. 3. San Jose 38…

The Spearman rank correlation of your two sets is 61% (after dropping cities that are not common to both). https://gist.github.com/hughdbrown/94016d0f477b855a893514131... Sadly, Salt Lake City is dropped from the set because of the missing foreign-born data.

Cool, thanks!

If we were to dramatically over-simplify by assuming a city's economic mobility is a simple sum of independent Gaussian variables, is the following correct?

(1) Pearson and Spearman rank correlation are the same.

(2) Percentage foreign born is more important than all other variables combined (since they would contribute 39% of the total variance)

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