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What Oxford taught me about posh people

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Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#141

Post by lotsofpulp »

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…

>Progressive people believe that society is not fair but could be.

Is this the case? I would think most adults have realized that nature does not do fair, and it cannot be made fair.

I was under the impression that "progressivism" is more about raising the floor for quality of life, not about making things fair. So as to avoid the situations of favelas next to high rise condos with pools on their balconies.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#142

Post by WalterBright »

mrpopo wrote: post #139
WalterBright wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US Constitution says nothing about things being fair. It talks a lot about rights, though, which is what freedom is about. Note that we have a right to equal treatment under the law, but that is not the same thing as a right to fair treatment.

And the US isn't a good example of a country where people have a fair chance at success in life IMO.

The US raised scores of millions of immigrants from poverty to the middle class. Poor people immigrated to the US, people with nothing but a suitcase. The US has seen the most spectacular rise from poverty to wealth ever seen in history.

In WW1, for example, the German soldiers knew they had lost when the Americans arrived, well equipped, tall, and fat with food. The Japanese soldiers had a similar reaction when facing GIs in WW2.

Of course, with free markets and prosperity, the Germans and Japanese have since caught up.

(In WW2, the US was able to fight two major wars simultaneously, and supply the allies, and move all that stuff overseas. An incredible achievement, only possible from free markets and the wealth produced by them.)

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#143

Post by somedangedname »

goldcd wrote: post #86
cblconfederate wrote: post #25

The UK has made an export industry out of this snobbery and attracts hundreds of thousands of international students for this prestige. I wonder if ethologists have studied this behavior. Queen bees are not selected with an IQ test, they re selected randomly and raised by the plebs to become their queen.It's a successful strategy evidently. I guess something similar might work in primates where the random selection i…

Just picking up on the Queen Bee point - there can be multiple queen bees created, and when they hatch the first thing they do is kill all unborn queens and then fight to the death any that also hatched.

Also the colony will reject an introduced queen and will attack her if unhatched queen cells are present.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQJ8bJj1XIs

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#144

Post by WalterBright »

coffeecat wrote: post #136
deanCommie wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Progressive people believe that society is not fair but could be. Conservatives believe it is not possible, and it's silly to even try. Having recently decided that I dislike leftist politics and that I align more with right-wing politics (in theory, if not in practice), the thing that switched in my mind is: why does it matter whether or not society is fair? I think that's the wrong question; I don't see any intri…

You can never make life fair for someone who is disabled. I wouldn't trade my health for a billion dollars. There are endless people taller, smarter, faster, younger, handsomer, healthier, etc., than me. Obsessing over the implicit and inevitable unfairness of that is a total waste of time and energy.

More generally, no two people are the same. It's not possible to make it fair even for two people, let alone billions.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#145

Post by bopbeepboop »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #141
deanCommie wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>Progressive people believe that society is not fair but could be. Is this the case? I would think most adults have realized that nature does not do fair, and it cannot be made fair. I was under the impression that "progressivism" is more about raising the floor for quality of life, not about making things fair. So as to avoid the situations of favelas next to high rise condos with pools on their balconies.

My experience suggests most progressives don’t realize that:

- they tend to be young;

- political activists who have done nothing else;

- or drug addicts.

I can count on my fingers the number of serious progressives I’ve met who aren’t one of those things during my entire life in Seattle.

The “progressive” movement is why we have addicts encamped at a school — they’re so out of touch with reality, they view that as “compassion”.

Meanwhile, most adults realize police sweeps don’t solve homelessness, but they do prevent violent drug addicts leaving used needles all over the children’s playground.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#146

Post by WalterBright »

TchoBeer wrote: post #116
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.

That sounds rather defeatist. Is it impossible to make work, life, or social structure more fair? I doubt you think that.

Now that you mention it, the USSR did make many things more fair. They did it by hammering everyone down to the bottom.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#147

Post by queuep »

WalterBright wrote: post #131
djrobstep wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> the Nordics prove that they are genuinely better places to live economically speaking The Nordics live atop an ocean of oil they sell that provides 20% of their GDP. This is hardly a situation other countries can replicate. P.S. I want to spend a summer sometime touring Norway and its astonishing beauty.

Yeah you can't really group "the nordics" as one homogenous country with the same welfare/gdp-"income".

Norway has alot of oil, Sweden for example, does not export any oil at all.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#148

Post by iratic0 »

lupire wrote: post #119
iratic0 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK after the Conservatives came to power in 2010 electing an Old Etonian, I felt culturally there was a shift towards "posh" is good as a signifier of status and social power. I feel like in the last 5 years or so it has turned to posh is "uncool". In the US, I feel like they had something similar. Obama was elected in 2008, but some people did have concerns of electing someone unestablished. To assuage these…

What president has ever not promoted the elite? Was Jimmy Carter posh? Harry Truman?

As much as Trump is a golden toilet billionaire, and made elites richer, I'd argue he did not promote the elite. In that elite definitely felt less safe in their social position.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#149

Post by anoncake »

WalterBright wrote: post #130
deanCommie wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

No – since wealth has diminishing marginal utility, wealth transfer programs are inherently positive-sum.

And freedom is not a system, it's simply the situation of being able to do what you want without being punished. The freedom to steal is a freedom, just one people generally shouldn't have.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#150

Post by whateveracct »

WalterBright wrote: post #142
mrpopo wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the US isn't a good example of a country where people have a fair chance at success in life IMO.

The US raised scores of millions of immigrants from poverty to the middle class. Poor people immigrated to the US, people with nothing but a suitcase. The US has seen the most spectacular rise from poverty to wealth ever seen in history. In WW1, for example, the German soldiers knew they had lost when the Americans arrived, well equipped, tall, and fat with food. The Japanese soldiers had a similar reaction when faci…

> In WW2, the US was able to..

This even understates it. WW2 resulted in the US being the major world power due to everything you list and more. A true historical turning point.

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