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What Oxford taught me about posh people

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Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#121

Post by hkmurakami »

psychomugs wrote: post #101

I went to a public state school for undergrad and a private Ivy for grad school. While there are diverse socioeconomic backgrounds at the latter, people with similar backgrounds as myself are definitely far and few between. The standards of living is far removed from the penny-scrounging dollar-menu-eating existence that I knew. I'm still taken aback by the disparity in leisure activities; it seems like a lot of peop…

Allow me to share the class divide even within a place like Harvard Business School, dubbed "Section X"

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/education/harvard-busines...

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#122

Post by TchoBeer »

fallingknife wrote: post #47
azalemeth wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. Agree completely. I had to battle to get allowed to take the entrance exams -- my school didn't want to pay for an invigilator, so I sat them in the deputy head of the sixth form's office. I got in. It changed my life. I also realised that, on a course like physics, most of the students came from quiet, nerdy backgrounds like me. It was often history / english / classics / PPE etc where the "great public scho…

That's interesting, because Harvard has less students than that in a country with 5x the population. So, in terms of enrollment number / population, oxford is more like the whole ivy league rolled into one school.

I think Harvard has students on the order of 20,000

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#123

Post by deanCommie »

WalterBright wrote: post #106
vletal wrote: post #4

My life goal was to attend one of these elite universities. I desired to work at companies such as Google or Apple. After graduating from the Czech Technical University I realized that 1. I am much less special then I thought 2. There is much more hard working focused average people then the few talented superstars, both usually achieving the same 3. Surprisingly many of the exceptionally smart people in my social bu…

> Work, life, and social structure is extremely unfair It's always going to be unfair. Attempts to fix it always result in some other unfairness. The real thing that works is freedom, i.e. not having the law artificially holding you back. Instead of being consumed by envy of others, you can make your own life better.

> It's always going to be unfair.

Can I ask you a question without I swear any implicit judgement.

Do you gravitate towards conservative politicians?

Because I'm finding that this is the main distinction between Progressive and Conservative-minded people in today's western society. You can account for religion (there are religious leftists and atheist rightists). You can account for racism (there are plenty of racist liberals)

But I am developing a mental model (I'm sure it's not original, but I don't know enough about philosophy or sociology to determine who I should read with similar mindset) that the biggest difference is exactly the quote above.

Progressive people believe that society is not fair but could be. Conservatives believe it is not possible, and it's silly to even try.

Of course the implicit advantage of conservatism is if that enough people don't try, then it doesn't work, society does not become more fair, and conservatives get to point and say "see?"

And, on the flipside, you can spend a generation striving to achieve "real communism" like the USSR did claiming that true socialism is just around the corner, and never actually make any progress because the goal posts keep moving.

> Instead of being consumed by envy of others, you can make your own life better.

And this is the key reason why I don't agree with you and why I will continue to fight for fairness and equality and equity improvements. I don't want to improve my own life at the expense of others. I think that is inherently selfish and defeatist. I'm a humanist, and I want my contributions go towards maximum optimizations across a multitude of humanity.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#124

Post by djrobstep »

WalterBright wrote: post #106
vletal wrote: post #4

My life goal was to attend one of these elite universities. I desired to work at companies such as Google or Apple. After graduating from the Czech Technical University I realized that 1. I am much less special then I thought 2. There is much more hard working focused average people then the few talented superstars, both usually achieving the same 3. Surprisingly many of the exceptionally smart people in my social bu…

> Work, life, and social structure is extremely unfair It's always going to be unfair. Attempts to fix it always result in some other unfairness. The real thing that works is freedom, i.e. not having the law artificially holding you back. Instead of being consumed by envy of others, you can make your own life better.

[flagged]

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#125

Post by [deleted] »

WalterBright wrote: post #106
vletal wrote: post #4

My life goal was to attend one of these elite universities. I desired to work at companies such as Google or Apple. After graduating from the Czech Technical University I realized that 1. I am much less special then I thought 2. There is much more hard working focused average people then the few talented superstars, both usually achieving the same 3. Surprisingly many of the exceptionally smart people in my social bu…

> Work, life, and social structure is extremely unfair It's always going to be unfair. Attempts to fix it always result in some other unfairness. The real thing that works is freedom, i.e. not having the law artificially holding you back. Instead of being consumed by envy of others, you can make your own life better.

[deleted]

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#126

Post by [deleted] »

deanCommie wrote: post #123
WalterBright wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Work, life, and social structure is extremely unfair It's always going to be unfair. Attempts to fix it always result in some other unfairness. The real thing that works is freedom, i.e. not having the law artificially holding you back. Instead of being consumed by envy of others, you can make your own life better.

> It's always going to be unfair. Can I ask you a question without I swear any implicit judgement. Do you gravitate towards conservative politicians? Because I'm finding that this is the main distinction between Progressive and Conservative-minded people in today's western society. You can account for religion (there are religious leftists and atheist rightists). You can account for racism (there are plenty of racist…

[deleted]

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#127

Post by psychomugs »

today20201014 wrote: post #117
psychomugs wrote: post #101

I went to a public state school for undergrad and a private Ivy for grad school. While there are diverse socioeconomic backgrounds at the latter, people with similar backgrounds as myself are definitely far and few between. The standards of living is far removed from the penny-scrounging dollar-menu-eating existence that I knew. I'm still taken aback by the disparity in leisure activities; it seems like a lot of peop…

I have a similar story; undergrad at a public state school and grad at a private Ivy. My experience at the Ivy was eye-openi. The loudest [1] Ivy undergrads came from private elementary/high schools and had a very dismissive view of the students who matriculated from public elementary/high schools. Academic breaks were used for luxury travel. [1] "loudest" in the sense that they made sure that other students knew whe…

At the risk of coming off as cantankerous, I think that this has worsened with the increasing immediacy of social sharing. Due to both the ephemerality and deluge of content that expedite a post's expiration date, there's even more pressure to stay on that FOMO-generating content treadmill. There were groups of students who kept partying throughout the pandemic and bragging about how "magical" their weekend wine tours and date nights were; any time I've been in a comparable situation, it's been kids acting and recording each other on their phones, feeding the simulation machine.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#128

Post by raynr »

deanCommie wrote: post #123
WalterBright wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Work, life, and social structure is extremely unfair It's always going to be unfair. Attempts to fix it always result in some other unfairness. The real thing that works is freedom, i.e. not having the law artificially holding you back. Instead of being consumed by envy of others, you can make your own life better.

> It's always going to be unfair. Can I ask you a question without I swear any implicit judgement. Do you gravitate towards conservative politicians? Because I'm finding that this is the main distinction between Progressive and Conservative-minded people in today's western society. You can account for religion (there are religious leftists and atheist rightists). You can account for racism (there are plenty of racist…

Not the poster you were asking, but I did appreciate the stress you put on trying to ask a non judgmental question and I thought I'd add a personal observation, which is: disillusioned progressives also think that way.

You try and you try to make society a fairer place to live in, but realise the system is so far gone that nothing you ever do will ever make a difference. So the morally correct and efficient thing to do is to expend those energies into helping you and yours, co-operate with those who extend mutually beneficial arrangements to you, and so on. Not only is it silly to try to create a fairer society, life has extensively proved that it is silly. Not that you disagree with the ideal, it's a great ideal, but it doesn't work in practice. Not that you wouldn't wish to follow it if you could (you would), but life has taught you that trying hurts you and yours.

Re: your mental model, I think there are a lot of studies and thinking that have gone into this, but I was immediately remidned of this old ted talk by Jonathan Haidt [0]. I am sure there are tons and tons more research on the topic.

[0] "The moral roots of liberals and conservatives" (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SOQduoLgRw)

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#129

Post by Overdr0ne »

The first rule of ditch digging is to stop digging ditches.

I love my hometown, but it was a slog wading through all the people who ultimately wanted to keep me under their thumb. Many of them so close that I just couldn't see it until a lot of damage had been done. Everyone has feelings of jealousy, whether they are conscious of it or not, and the closer you are, the more likely it is you will be competing over resources, the conflicts of interest are just inherent.

They told me to work hard, but their idea of working hard was often just making the same damn mistake over and over again, as long as no one had to admit they were wrong, as long as authority was respected and hierarchy maintained. Whether your brow is high or low, I think you just have to learn to break free from those people, and learn to think for yourself, because they are everywhere, because it is an intrinsic consequence of social organization.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#130

Post by WalterBright »

deanCommie wrote: post #123
WalterBright wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Work, life, and social structure is extremely unfair It's always going to be unfair. Attempts to fix it always result in some other unfairness. The real thing that works is freedom, i.e. not having the law artificially holding you back. Instead of being consumed by envy of others, you can make your own life better.

> It's always going to be unfair. Can I ask you a question without I swear any implicit judgement. Do you gravitate towards conservative politicians? Because I'm finding that this is the main distinction between Progressive and Conservative-minded people in today's western society. You can account for religion (there are religious leftists and atheist rightists). You can account for racism (there are plenty of racist…

> I don't want to improve my own life at the expense of others.

That is not what freedom is about. Your comment implies that freedom is a zero-sum system. It most assuredly is not.

Under freedom, you (selfishly) prosper by creating value that other people want to give you money for. Stealing is zero-sum, this is not stealing.

(Wealth transfer programs are inherently zero-sum, and are unfair.)

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