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Stay Gold, America

blog.codinghorror.com

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Re: Stay Gold, America

#231

Post by Amezarak »

dandellion wrote: post #92
coldtea wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America is the best country in the world for growing something new The 27th best, if that new thing is supposed to lift your social/economic status upwards: "The US ranked 27th in the 2020 Global Social Mobility Index". But it might well be the best for people to build new businesses of scale (especially already well off people).

That's because making it easy to start your own company will only provide upwards mobility to My grandpa worked in agriculture, my dad in a factory, and I'm a software engineer. The only reason I became the first in my family to go to university is that in my country as long as I passed all my classes I was pretty much guaranteed to not pay a euro for attending university. I even went to one of the top 5 universities…

In most of the US, as long as you are sufficiently academically qualified, you can go to a public university for free or nearly so. The exact standards vary by state, but they are not all that rigorous. The federal government on top of this provides means-tested grants to anyone regardless of academic qualifications that for poor people is likely to amount to 50-75% of public university or 100% of a two-year college.

Where the US differs from a lot of European countries is a) a lot of people chase after their "dream" university, which may be private/more selective/out of state/etc and b) almost anyone can go to A university in the US, no matter how poor their grades. It just won't be free.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#232

Post by s1artibartfast »

coldtea wrote: post #7

> We are at an unprecedented point in American history, and I'm concerned we may lose sight of the American Dream The understatement of the year. From all I read, hasn't it been dead and burried for decades? (Of course not for some founder who hit the jackpot like Jeff). "Evidence indicates that in recent decades social mobility in the United States has declined, and income inequality has risen.[7][8] Social mobility…

what are you quoting? I dont see that in the article.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#234

Post by throwpoaster »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #206
throwpoaster wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is “enlarging the cake” (usually the metaphor is “pie”) naïve?

If everyone’s slices get enlarged in proportion, the naive assumption, then it works as expected. If some people are clever enough to direct the enlargement towards their slices, then it doesn’t.

The “growing the pie” metaphor has never been about growing all the pieces proportionately. It’s an illustration of how economic growth and Pareto optimization works: you can have a bigger slice (be richer) AND less of the pie (economy grew faster).

Re: Stay Gold, America

#235

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

throwpoaster wrote: post #234
BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone’s slices get enlarged in proportion, the naive assumption, then it works as expected. If some people are clever enough to direct the enlargement towards their slices, then it doesn’t.

The “growing the pie” metaphor has never been about growing all the pieces proportionately. It’s an illustration of how economic growth and Pareto optimization works: you can have a bigger slice (be richer) AND less of the pie (economy grew faster).

When I hear it nowadays, especially from politicians, it sounds more like another way to say “rising tide lifts all ships.” I think it’s taken on a more jingoistic meaning colloquially.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#236

Post by angoragoats »

gadders wrote: post #233
angoragoats wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry you don’t like it, but it’s true. Care to respond to anything else in my post?

[flagged]

I'm done having a conversation with someone whose opinions about a minor point in my comment are completely divorced from reality, so don't bother replying. But if you'd like to read about this topic from people who have actually studied and analyzed this, please feel free:

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/688343?jou...

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/716282

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21565503.2020.1...

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jels.12283

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-science-re...

Re: Stay Gold, America

#237

Post by [deleted] »

throwpoaster wrote: post #169
dandellion wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because making it easy to start your own company will only provide upwards mobility to My grandpa worked in agriculture, my dad in a factory, and I'm a software engineer. The only reason I became the first in my family to go to university is that in my country as long as I passed all my classes I was pretty much guaranteed to not pay a euro for attending university. I even went to one of the top 5 universities…

As someone pointed out, education is not clearly a moral good of itself. The median Nazi was highly educated. https://youtu.be/aazlO39MPMg?si=12GOHejB6Tjt5_BA

[deleted]

Re: Stay Gold, America

#238

Post by gadders »

angoragoats wrote: post #236
gadders wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm done having a conversation with someone whose opinions about a minor point in my comment are completely divorced from reality, so don't bother replying. But if you'd like to read about this topic from people who have actually studied and analyzed this, please feel free: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/688343?jou... https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/716282 https://www.tandfonline.com/…

If they don't want to participate in democracy, that's on them. It's not hard to get ID.

Instead lobbying to make the voting process less secure, why not help people get ID instead?

Re: Stay Gold, America

#239

Post by xocnad »

quintushoratius wrote: post #133
xocnad wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a solution to presidential elections for this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Inters... .

As if presidential elections are the only elections, or even the only ones that matter . What the prior commenter meant is that in some jurisdictions it's pointless to vote against one of the parties because they win so overwhelmingly. For example, I live in Massachusetts. The legislature is 95% one party. There's no point in being in another party, you'll never get elected and your vote won't change the outcome. It…

There are down election solutions, unfortunately most are as likely to succeed as the electoral compact. Non-paetisan definition of district boundaries for US and state legislatures, and ranked choice voting for these and more local elections.

Gerrymandering is a cancer on our democracy. Unfortunately it is self perpetuating.

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