521–530 of 715 posts
The dominating protestant/north European ethic on work worked well when people mostly had their own business to take care of(e.g. a homestead) but obviously makes little to no sense in a time when we mostly have people working by the hour for someone else.
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> My college US history course ~20 years ago very much drove home the fact that (at least at the time) social mobility in the US was the same as in India. This is flatly false, and to be honest it's a little embarrassing that you would parrot it without Googling it (which you were happy to do to pull up a tangential stat that didn't contradict the dishonest narrative you're pushing). The US is ranked 27th out of the…
I’m going to ignore your insults and escalatory language and just point out the fact that the WEF’s definition of social mobility is vastly different than the one I mentioned. You’re conflating two completely different metrics. I’m happy to learn new things, have a constructive discussion, and to admit I’m wrong if that’s the case, but not interested in engaging in mud-slinging based on things my college teacher said…
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Well, my logic is: if you go to university (ideally STEM) and have a modicum of practical skills, how hard really is it to become a plumber later in life? I'd imagine plumbing studies are shorter, some stuff you can probably transfer over from your university studies and you can probably apprentice reasonably easily somewhere.
> I'd imagine ... Yes, and imagining is what is actually happening here, because you clearly do not understand plumbing (or any of the trades). The studies aspect of it are the least part overall. Good plumbers (and electricians and builders) get good primarily through a delightful combination of attitude and experience. The experience comes from apprenticing early, and accumulating lots of "stories" along the way as…
Good luck apprenticing as a doctor without 6 years of medical school. Or as an architect without architecture school.
Let's not overdo the "blue collar jobs are hard to get".
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> valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? Picture a first-generation immigrant family in America where the parents are older, don't speak English very well, and spend almost all their time working multiple jobs to pay bills and provide food and shelter for their kids. They then push their kids to do well in school because they know it's practically too late for themselves, but…
Unfortunately public schools in poor neighborhoods are getting shittier and parents need to pay for private tutors and summer school. Guess who can afford that? Education doesn't fall out of the sky.
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I would think "starting conditions" includes the parents one has. Also what you say is not quite logic - you're saying that valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? I think that's the question, and usually that's because they were born in the wrong place, at the wrong time or under the wrong regime. When their kids are born, it's a different perhaps better time, so better starti…
> valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? Picture a first-generation immigrant family in America where the parents are older, don't speak English very well, and spend almost all their time working multiple jobs to pay bills and provide food and shelter for their kids. They then push their kids to do well in school because they know it's practically too late for themselves, but…
Working hard but doing so for someone else can often not lead to significant gains. Many services like Uber or InstaCart or even McDonalds or Amazon Warehouse or Walmart or Retail Sales or call center, you can work hard but there is no where to progress to. Your rewards are capped. You need to find a way to work hard such that your rewards are not capped artificially. Startups were you get equity. Large companies whe…
Yes, except there has been a concerted effort by monied interests in the upper strata of society to convince those below that organizing to demand better wages is useless at best or un-American at worst. It's an uphill battle. > Startups were you get equity. Large companies where you can progress to high salaries if you are able to rise. Starting your own business and being competent at it. Working on commissions in…
Then you have to fight against this by organizing better and more widespread. Sometimes I do worry that all this information on Fox News and others about bogeymen distractions us from trying to better the things we actually can.
It may be that we are too easily distracted / disorganized / disheartened to better our position. And then we will not better our position.
But if you believe you can not change your fate, then you definitely can not. So I do suggest being like Obama and starting with community organizing and solidifying ones position locally and taking that larger. There are effective strategies to engage in. But they are not watching TikTok or YouTube all day.
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The immigrants who come to the US are, by and large, already relatively wealthy. Especially if they come here with the capital to start a small business, or to send their children to medical school.
Can you provide stats to back this up? Many come here as refugees or cross the border illegally from very poor countries.
> Especially if they come here with the capital to start a small business, or to send their children to medical school.
I'm not sure what part of my comment or its parent made you think anyone was talking about refugees or illegal immigrants.
Starting conditions (where one was born, levels of wealth and opportunity there, one's parents' education and jobs) are shockingly predictive about an individual's future. Hard work leading to social mobility has always been the exception, not the rule. Most will not beat the odds since if they did, those wouldn't BE the odds. A lot of us are just so deluded by survivorship bias borne of listening only to success sto…
What effort are they responsible for putting forth to better their life ?
Who is responsible for ensuring they have a good life ?
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Big difference between a 5 year old $50 Android smartphone and the latest $800 iPhone. I know a lot of people who own the latter yet claim to struggle financially.
It's not the one-off expenses that hurt, it's the recurring expenses every month. 100 dollars for your regular family plan, that's 1200 dollars every year that you can't cut, even if the kids get the cheapest Android 8 phone you can find. Also, when your cellphone is how you access the Internet because you can't afford a decent laptop, at some point it makes sense to go for a more powerful phone.
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Why does the millionaire's kid deserve a better shot at success than the plumber's kid?
If the plumber's kid not successful if he goes to school, gets a white collar job and generally lives better than his parents?