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What Oxford taught me about posh people

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Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#261

Post by etripe »

WalterBright wrote: post #246
etripe wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Under freedom You're confusing freedom with capitalism. Understandable, since we need to spend 40+ hours a week to earn our "right" to shelter, survival and general health. In other words: the right to exist and participate. That doesn't make us free - it makes us beholden to an employer if on the payroll, the market if self employed and the greater economic system in both cases. If we were truly free, we would onl…

> it makes us beholden to an employer Oh phooey. I've been an employer and employee many times. At no time was I "beholden" to my employer, and at no time were my employees "beholden" to me. It was a simple transaction - trading labor for money. Either party could (and sometimes did) walk away at any time for any reason they pleased. I've even been fired more than once. Didn't matter, I just got another job. No emplo…

> No employee ever genuflected to me

You're arguing in bad faith by making a caricature out of my argument. Please don't. I meant there is a clear dependency, like in software. Your app isn't free of dependencies if it imports other packages. It needs them to function. There's vendor lock-in.

> Either party could walk away

This might have been true for you, but doesn't generalise well. Yes, in theory people can walk away. In practice, they're dependent on their employer for healthcare coverage, survival, general life stability... etc.

It's not because you or I currently have a financial buffer and can survive stretches of unemployment that this is the case for the entire population. In case you missed it, a majority of Americans cannot afford a $500 dollar surprise expense out of pocket (0).

Imagine you're a millennial with college debt in an area without a lot of jobs and analyse how free you really are to leave the one job you managed to get. How likely are you to get funding for a business? What's the tensile strength of your bootstraps?

You're entitled to look at it as a simple transaction, but the distribution of leverage for most people is distinctly asymmetrical, especially in anti-union countries like the US. So are the legal advantages, political influence, legal accountability, etc when comparing companies to individuals.

[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/most-americans-cant-afford-a-50...

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#262

Post by ceejayoz »

teachingassist wrote: post #217
WalterBright wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The USSR had (and has) much more resources per population. Japan achieved great wealth with insignificant natural resources. 2. Middle class and rich people rarely immigrate. It's the poor that do. Did you know that the reason the Titanic was built was to en-masse ship poor people to the US? The first class bit was mostly window dressing. The money was to be made by cramming poor people in below decks. In colonial…

> Did you know that the reason the Titanic was built was to en-masse ship poor people to the US? The first class bit was mostly window dressing. Third-class passage was £8, approximately $1000 in today's currency, i.e. more expensive than an equivalent trans-atlantic flight today, and too expensive for poor people to typically consider. > Middle class and rich people rarely immigrate. It's the poor that do. "The medi…

> Third-class passage was £8, approximately $1000 in today's currency, i.e. more expensive than an equivalent trans-atlantic flight today, and too expensive for poor people to typically consider.

Desperately poor people spend well over that to get smuggled across the Mexican border today.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/30/world/smuggli...

> A decade ago, Mexicans and Central Americans paid between $1,000 and $3,000 for clandestine passage into the United States. Now they hand over up to $9,200 for the same journey, the Department of Homeland Security reported last year. Those figures have continued to rise, according to interviews at migrant shelters in Mexico.

> Some would-be migrants give up homes, cars, livestock and even farmland tilled by their families for generations and take on debt to pay the fees.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#263

Post by agent008t »

rwmj wrote: post #247
agent008t wrote: post #191

I expected Oxford undergraduates to be the best from all over the world, intensely passionate about their subjects. What I found were kids more passionate about drinking and clubbing and gossiping than studying. There seemed to be some weird hierarchy about who sits where in the dining hall that was completely bizarre. 'Default' social activities organized by the various committees all involved brain-dead clubbing an…

The noisy ones are the ones making the most noise. You might not have noticed the studious ones, as they were hiding away in their rooms :-) You even say that you didn't see your fellow CS students much. On a more serious note, it comes back to what are top universities for? Excellent learning - you said that the tutorials, lectures and practicals were good to great, and I can assure you this is not true of all unive…

That is true. What frustrated me is that the social/cultural set up only seemed to amplify it, rather than counteract it to balance things out.

For example, in fresher's week, 'default' organized activities were clubbing every night of the week. Sports achievements were celebrated with ceremonies, pub parties, chalk drawings on the walls of the college, publications in the magazines.

There is nothing wrong with any of those activities, as has been mentioned that is just what some loud teenagers getting a taste of freedom like to do. But you would expect a top academic institution encouraging other tendencies to even out the social 'hierarchy' a bit. The very fact that 'you might not have noticed the studious ones' who were 'hiding away in their rooms' is the problem when it is happening at the top academic institution in my view.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#265

Post by mensetmanusman »

WalterBright wrote: post #193
maest wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US has seen the most spectacular rise from poverty to wealth ever seen in history. China has arguably beaten (or is close to beating) that in very recent history.

Perhaps - but they're doing it with free markets, not communism.

It’s funny that you are getting downvoted, what you are saying is not controversial and well accepted.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/20/145360447/the-...

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#266

Post by cameronh90 »

mulvya wrote: post #162
WalterBright wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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. The US nationalized many industries during WWII. From 'U.S. not always averse to nationalization, despite its free-market image'[1] "In times of war and national emergency, Washington has not hesitated. In…

Also it's worth noting that the US has a bunch of nationalised/government controlled services that are privatised in the UK and other parts of Europe, including:

- Airports and airport security

- Postal service (USPS)

- Train operators (Amtrak)

- Insurance (FCIC, FEMA)

- Various municipal utilities and the TVA

- Various credit/financial/banking institutions

In the UK, we have privatised airports, mail, energy, telephony, water, train operators (though this is sort of changing), and don't have equivalents for many of the government owned finance organisations that the US has.

Additionally, many of the private industries in the US are far from free market. The UK's private healthcare industry is arguably more free market than the US's private healthcare industry, although has to compete with the NHS.

This isn't a criticism, just to remark that the US certainly isn't afraid of nationalisation and government owned services.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#267

Post by trasz »

jseban wrote: post #219
iso1631 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how can we improve our average level of well-being What average? MEAN: Two systems of 100 people System 1: 1 person with $10m and 99 people with nothing (mean=100k) System 2: 100 people with $50k (mean=50k) The latter is far far better despite on mean being worse. MEDIAN: Two systems of 100 people System 1: 51 person with $1m and 49 people with nothing (median=$1m) System 2: 100 people with $250k (median=250k) The…

Yeah but in reality what happens is that if you redistribute too much, you stifle productivity to the point where you have no improvements at all, and your mean will start to regress. Why? Because you have removed all incentives for people to improve, and rather introduced the perverse incentive of preferring to be on the receiving end. In reality it's more like System 1: 100 people with $50k (mean=50k) System 2: 98…

> Yeah but in reality what happens is that if you redistribute too much

In reality this doesn't happen.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#268

Post by mensetmanusman »

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…

You might enjoy reading about the left/right dichotomy of whether ‘free will’ is believed to exist.

e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318842505_Political...

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#269

Post by mensetmanusman »

anoncake wrote: post #181
WalterBright wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one's claiming we can achieve total equality I haven't seen any end to raising the bar. Where do you think it should end?

Obviously you cannot redistribute things that cannot be redistributed, for starters.

At our nearby state high school, during physical education class, they didn’t allow people to lap anyone during running periods because it was unfair to those not fit.

You can imagine what that looked like and who was walking around the gym with everyone else following slowly.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#270

Post by agent008t »

thorin wrote: post #199
agent008t wrote: post #191

I expected Oxford undergraduates to be the best from all over the world, intensely passionate about their subjects. What I found were kids more passionate about drinking and clubbing and gossiping than studying. There seemed to be some weird hierarchy about who sits where in the dining hall that was completely bizarre. 'Default' social activities organized by the various committees all involved brain-dead clubbing an…

A lot of the stuff you mention, the drinking/clubbing is just true of teenagers / young people in the UK and you probably missed out the drugs and sex. When I went to a "top tier" uni in the 90s after watching the young ones and reading adrian mole I expected students to be going to rallies and being "intellectual". I spent more time reading about other subjects than my own and underperformed in my degree. Students w…

I can't help but think that for every student more into drugs/sex/drinking/clubbing, there is a kid out there who was genuinely interested in studying from the top academics that probably didn't even bother applying because they thought they wouldn't be able to get in (or won't be able to afford it).

I am also surprised that the culture you describe seems to be tolerated at best and even encouraged at worst. Sure, it would happen anywhere, but it is surprising to me that it is not strongly discouraged in society overall and at top academic institutions in particular.

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