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This is a teenager

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Re: This is a teenager

#71

Post by micromacrofoot »

ericmcer wrote: post #65
micromacrofoot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that "only support your family" harms everyone. The example, Alex, has 2 kids, works manual labor to earn poverty wages, and is depressed. Which one of the types of teen do you think his kids will be? The common refrain is "then he shouldn't have had kids" but unless you're going to create an authoritarian state people will always have kids (and restricting kids went awfully for China anyway).

Convincing people that their problems are outside of their control and that the only way to solve them is to vote a certain way is also a form of authoritarianism. If you aren't to blame for your own life that implies you have no control over it.

Statistically most people born into poverty stay there. Do you think most of them aren't trying? Conversely, do you thing most people born wealthy have to put as much effort into staying wealthy?

There are a number of systemic barriers, one of the big ones mentioned in this demonstration is education.

If we had equal baseline access to education, housing, healthcare, and food... then sure, if people stayed impoverished I might begin to agree with you.

We're not even close in our current state so "you're in control of your own life" is a completely ignorant argument.

Re: This is a teenager

#72

Post by lawrenci »

ericmcer wrote: post #65
micromacrofoot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that "only support your family" harms everyone. The example, Alex, has 2 kids, works manual labor to earn poverty wages, and is depressed. Which one of the types of teen do you think his kids will be? The common refrain is "then he shouldn't have had kids" but unless you're going to create an authoritarian state people will always have kids (and restricting kids went awfully for China anyway).

Convincing people that their problems are outside of their control and that the only way to solve them is to vote a certain way is also a form of authoritarianism. If you aren't to blame for your own life that implies you have no control over it.

Saying that problems are completely outside of someone's control or completely their own fault is a false dichotomy. Reality is usually somewhere in the middle, especially in studies like this one on teenagers. Everyone's situation is shaped by a mix of personal choices and the world around them. It's not just about blaming people or the system; it’s about seeing how both play a role. Voting is one way to make a difference, but it’s not the only way—people have a lot of ways to shape their lives.

Re: This is a teenager

#73

Post by liveoneggs »

aestetix wrote: post #32

I watched the video. Maybe I am not understanding the visuals, but it looked like the narrator's conclusions do not actually match the data. He is trying to make an argument that poor kids need extra help or they will have a rough life. But the data seems to show that over the last 20 years, people from all background types are likely to experience bad things. Granted the last 20 years has been pretty awful, with 9/1…

yeah agree.

I feel bad for Alex but it seemed like a pretty impressive percentage of people with very adverse childhoods ended up being happy. The graph didn't make it seem like his outcome was typical.

It also looked like the claimed racial disparity wasn't very pronounced?

Maybe the visualizations are just bad.

Re: This is a teenager

#74

Post by renlo »

gnramires wrote: post #68
ericmcer wrote: post #35

Kind of cool, but the conclusion was completely backwards. The final line of the study was "So he is our collective responsibility. They all are.", but the entire study was about how the home environment affects your outcomes. I guess their conclusion is that if an individual does a bad job raising their kids, it is societies fault.

I think the core message is that a child's life is strongly determined by his family life/environment, it's not just a personal choice to succeed or to fail. So if we want people to have better outcomes, we need to help better family lives/environments (and lives in general) to break the cycle, and not just give them basic education. Also, the family is just a group of individuals that probably themselves have come f…

Where in the data does it indicate that it's possible to "break the cycle"?

Re: This is a teenager

#75

Post by readams »

One thing that jumps out is that being held back in school is one of the "adverse experiences" that will cause poor performance later. But of course being held back in school is what happens when your school performance is poor, so this seems backward. All of these things just seem to be proxies for "your parents are rich".

Re: This is a teenager

#76

Post by micromacrofoot »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #58
micromacrofoot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that "only support your family" harms everyone. The example, Alex, has 2 kids, works manual labor to earn poverty wages, and is depressed. Which one of the types of teen do you think his kids will be? The common refrain is "then he shouldn't have had kids" but unless you're going to create an authoritarian state people will always have kids (and restricting kids went awfully for China anyway).

I think social and individual expectations are a big part of this. Why is Alex depressed? If they had 20k more a year, would they be happier, or just 2 steps ahead on and empty hedonistic treadmill. Alex now has a new mustang, but is still depressed and fails as a parent. I think it would be interesting to see the relative impact of a 2 parent + low risk home vs income, and I think there is a lot lost when people ass…

I'm not sure who you know that makes $40k and has a foot on a "hedonistic treadmill"

Re: This is a teenager

#77

Post by Qwertious »

zer00eyz wrote: post #39

>>> He'll be bullied at school. He'll be held back a few grades. He won't go to college. I dont even know where to start with this. 1. The whole anti bullying campaign that we now have two and a half decades of in schools has backfired spectacularly. This feels like "well DARE didn't work, we need to put this money somewhere else". We tell kids dont bully people, but if you defend yourself in a fight everyone gets su…

>but if you defend yourself in a fight everyone gets suspended because of zero tolerance... it is obscene.

Zero tolerance, in it's current meaning, is stupid. But the original concept was great: if anything happens, then you respond to it. "Respond to it" including things like sitting down and talking about it, without necessarily issuing any punishments whatsoever.

Re: This is a teenager

#78

Post by dmoy »

nvy wrote: post #70
s1artibartfast wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think social and individual expectations are a big part of this. Why is Alex depressed? If they had 20k more a year, would they be happier, or just 2 steps ahead on and empty hedonistic treadmill. Alex now has a new mustang, but is still depressed and fails as a parent. I think it would be interesting to see the relative impact of a 2 parent + low risk home vs income, and I think there is a lot lost when people ass…

Money actually does buy happiness, despite what the wealthy would like you to believe. It is very likely that yes, he would in fact be happier with an extra 20k a year. You don't know he'd have a new mustang; that's just you projecting. He might put the extra 20k a year into savings for his kid's education - I know that feeling like I'm setting my kids up for future success makes me happy.

Money buys happiness, up to a point. It's like a pretty linear increase in happiness to some spot somewhere above median income (I forget, something like 1.5x median income). After that, it has very little impact on happiness, if at all.

Supposedly, based on some studies.

Re: This is a teenager

#79

Post by s1artibartfast »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #76
s1artibartfast wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think social and individual expectations are a big part of this. Why is Alex depressed? If they had 20k more a year, would they be happier, or just 2 steps ahead on and empty hedonistic treadmill. Alex now has a new mustang, but is still depressed and fails as a parent. I think it would be interesting to see the relative impact of a 2 parent + low risk home vs income, and I think there is a lot lost when people ass…

I'm not sure who you know that makes $40k and has a foot on a "hedonistic treadmill"

Most everyone I know, of all incomes, are on some form of hedonistic treadmill.

Sometimes it is one beer and cigarette to the next, sometimes it's one sailboat and handbag to the next.

Re: This is a teenager

#80

Post by burkaman »

ericmcer wrote: post #35

Kind of cool, but the conclusion was completely backwards. The final line of the study was "So he is our collective responsibility. They all are.", but the entire study was about how the home environment affects your outcomes. I guess their conclusion is that if an individual does a bad job raising their kids, it is societies fault.

Responsibility doesn't imply fault. For example we all have a collective responsibility to protect and improve our environment, even though none of us created it and none of us caused any of its problems.
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