Americans overestimate social mobility in their country • Hacker News Board

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#351

Post by DarylZero » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

ianbutler wrote: post #326

DarylZero wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL where are these "people who do nothing"

There are multiple people I’ve known who do the bare minimum to continue their existence and from the ones I’ve known I’m sure they’d contribute nothing if they were able to. I don’t consider it a particularly valid way to live. There are a lot more who do try to make their lives better though.

>who do the bare minimum to continue their existence

So not nothing.

> I’m sure they’d contribute nothing if they were able

So they're not even _able_ to do nothing.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#352

Post by DarylZero » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

Thorrez wrote: post #273

DarylZero wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of the conveniences of modern technology, they had servants. They lived a life of full service, comparable to the most expensive modern hotels. They had "running water" -- as in servants would run and fetch the water. There was nothing inconvenient about the king's access to water. It would be served to him. How do you get your water?

Was the water cold? Filtered well? Yes, food and drink was probably better for them, because technology related to those can be replaced by manpower. For air conditioning, healthcare, lighting, or travel they had problems. > How do you get your water? I takes me a few seconds to get cold, pure water from my fridge. The bigger benefit of running water I think is hygiene. I doubt they would have a hot shower. A hot bat…

Hot baths without running water were available to ordinary people. They would boil water on a stove and put it into the bathtub.

The big problem with your argument here is that it's special pleading. You just focus on some technologies that weren't available then. You don't even make an attempt to show that these very few specific things somehow dominate "lifestyle."

I think having full service everything, and no labor obligations, including architects who can build buildings (and know how to make them be cool in summer!) is very much more important to characterizing lifestyle than any specific technology.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#353

Post by JaimeThompson » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

eikenberry wrote: post #202

JaimeThompson wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When our elected leaders and law enforces listen to the upper class(s) instead of everyone equally then yes, it matters.

So you're saying that the defining aspect of being upper class is how much you bribe politicians?

I honestly do not know how a charitable reading of what I wrote lead you to believe that.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#354

Post by DarylZero » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #281

DarylZero wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I'm not saying that everything was better in the medieval ages. But people who think that their own modern lifestyle is comparable to a medieval king are lying to themselves. They heard a dumbass meme and never thought about it critically. Modern working class people in the wealthy nations do have better _medical care_ than medieval kings did. That doesn't justify broad statements about "lifestyle."

> But people who think that their own modern lifestyle is comparable to a medieval king are lying to themselves. Medieval kings still ate poor food, you can see it on their teeth, they often had gravel etc in the bread wearing down the teeths etc. The houses, food and clothing, sanitation etc the kings had back then would be illegal to even offer to poor people toady.

According to historian André Castelo, on one particular occasion, [Napoleon's] cuisiniers roasted no fewer than 23 chickens in close succession (Napoleon couldn’t possibly dine on reheated food) until the emperor finally deigned to put his quill down and spare a few minutes for his meal.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#355

Post by DarylZero » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 4:42 PM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #291

EricDeb wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason is because it's almost impossible to prevent extremely wealthy people from having undue influence on politics. Another reason would be that most rich people don't allocate capital in a way that's good for society. Some do, most don't. We tend to hear about the ones that do.

> it's almost impossible to prevent extremely wealthy people from having undue influence on politics. Money is basically an abstract representation of power, so that's almost a tautology. > Another reason would be that most rich people don't allocate capital in a way that's good for society This is an interesting claim? What is good for society, and relative to whom? I suppose the obvious comparison would be relative…

>Even the selfish rich people tend to invest their capital, usually into lucrative projects that make money by fulfilling some need of society

That's not how money is made. You need some kind of parasitic mechanism to enable massive accumulations.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#356

Post by DarylZero » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #139

csallen wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic? Why is it a bad thing that so many people are so wealthy? The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better.

Because wealth is used to capture political power, which in turn is used to help the wealthy hoard even more wealth and retain that wealth. Furthermore, this often is done at the expense of everyone else . Wealth may not be zero-sum, but that is only true in the abstract sense; I wouldn't be surprised if we found out that most people who are at the topmost quintile acquired their wealth by sucking value out of the sy…

The way you get to the top is to be a lackey of the extractive mega-elites. I.e., you help enable the parasites, and they give you a cut.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#357

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #126

csallen wrote: post #111

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12% of Americans struggle from food insecurity. By definition, 20% of Americans are in the top quintile. I'm with you, I want that first number to be as close to 0% as possible. But it's mathematically untrue that there are dozens of Americans starving for every American in the top 20%. In fact, there are barely half as many.

I count myself to be lucky in the top 20% of earners in America and have friends who also fit in the range. I've met a lot of people who struggle to put food on the table whose income is in the middle 50%. A lot of them have the same complaint: they don't qualify for help because they make too much . But they also struggle to pay their bills because they don't make enough. I don't know where you think 12% of American…

[deleted]

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#358

Post by tdfx » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

_dark_matter_ wrote: post #198

tdfx wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that's true for White and Asian folks. Race-based generalizations almost always end up leading you in the wrong direction. There's substantially more white people living below the poverty line compared to any other group [1] and those poor white communities are trapped by the same lack of awareness of opportunities as any of the minority groups you mentioned. Whites and Asians are over-represented in the af…

Your link clearly shows that poverty is significantly worse along black people than white (19% to 8.5%), and worse among American Indians than black people (25% to 19%). I don't understand why you would ever look at this in per Capita terms when clearly there are more white people overall.

Then go back and read what I replied to instead of what you wanted to think I was saying. The original poster stated "white and asian people don't have this problem" but the numbers show this clearly is not true.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#359

Post by tdfx » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #211

_dark_matter_ wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your link clearly shows that poverty is significantly worse along black people than white (19% to 8.5%), and worse among American Indians than black people (25% to 19%). I don't understand why you would ever look at this in per Capita terms when clearly there are more white people overall.

If the goal is to minimize and dispel the effects of systemic issues, then you have to use the overall number.

The goal is to use numbers to inform yourself instead of emotional attachments to political narratives. The numbers show that anyone can be poor and deprived of opportunity.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#360

Post by LudwigNagasena » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #284

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But as is becoming increasing clear (again), society is worse off when relative wealth distinctions grow (at least, if they grow too large). Why is it clear?

Eventually, if the wealth divide becomes too great and ossified, the logical thing for the poor to do is have a violent revolution (since there is no other way to advance their station in life). This sucks for basically everyone, rich or poor. I think we all have a selfish interest in making sure it doesn't come to that.

This sounds like a very dishonest and bad faith argument. Would you defend a policy against immigration because it may lead to terrorism by nationalists, or would you rather try to solve the real problem?

It seems that you don’t think that society is worse off as relative wealth inequality grows. Society is worse off when people who are mad for whatever reasons start to kill other people. And in any case we should note that it is not actual differences that rustle jimmies, but perceived differences.