131–140 of 275 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Insults do not ad hominem make. Not to say that it was a good comment to begin with.
The whole post basically said the author was stupid while neglecting to explicitly point out anything wrong with what he/she said. That's pretty much the definition of ad hominem, no?
As I said, insults are not ad hominem in and of themselves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The internet and mobile phone are about the only significant technological breakthroughs in my lifetime I don't know if you've noticed but these two are having some very large impact in the world right now. Dictators of 30 and 40 years are being cast off. >Well, we do have millenia of recorded history. Social mores may change, human nature less so. I think that's a pretty skewed view of history. Another way to see i…
> I don't know if you've noticed but these two are having some very large impact in the world right now. Dictators of 30 and 40 years are being cast off. I'm sure the Jacobins had a totally cool Facebook page. > Now you could say that even if we ever managed to get to a utopia state more greedy people will just show up but I would counter argue that e.g. Alexander the great wouldn't have gotten off the ground if peop…
So you think that if the whole world would have been aware of what was happening they would have just sat back and watched? I think they would have all banded together to fight him at once rather than be picked off one at a time.
"I believe my generation will overthrow the arbitrary and brutal authority of corporate capitalism and bigoted conservatism in favor of rationalistic, libertarian socialism driven by a scientific approach and a concern for universal social justice." That's what my generation believed. And my parents' generation. And their parents....read some literature from 100 years ago, for example by the Fabians or other socialis…
>That's what my generation believed. And my parents' generation. And their parents That doesn't mean it will never happen. The world is changing rapidly, it stands to reason that even more big changes could happen. I think "human nature" is a bit of a red herring. We don't currently have any scientific way to separate how much of how people behave is social/environment programming and how much is "human nature".
That's not really true. The problem is that the "blank slate" view had a complete victory in the political class but the research hasn't been backing it up.
Larry Summers and James Watson were both run out of their jobs for publicly asking the wrong questions.
With that background "libertarian socialism driven by a scientific approach" sounds like a bit of a lie.
"I believe my generation will overthrow the arbitrary and brutal authority of corporate capitalism and bigoted conservatism in favor of rationalistic, libertarian socialism driven by a scientific approach and a concern for universal social justice." That's what my generation believed. And my parents' generation. And their parents....read some literature from 100 years ago, for example by the Fabians or other socialis…
The point of the OP was IF the rich kid works just like the regular kid, then he'll still be ahead.
I wouldn't want to live in a society where rich kids don't have an advantage, because that's a society with either debased rich people or no rich people.
I think it's unfortunate that they mention rich, yet don't mention the advantage of coming from an entrepreneurial family. Whether rich or not, if your parent is self-employed or an entrepreneur it will have a huge impact on how you take on corporate jobs versus someone who's parents didn't start their own company.
I'm not sure how much that matters. It is something new in the last century that most people assuming "working" means working for some company, no?
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"His point was that rich kids have better attitudes, skills and perceived work ethic which is simply not true." I mean I can point you to any number of academic studies confirming this, e.g. Hart & Risley's Meaningful Differences book. Or just go to any elite private university and compare the kids who are there during summer session with the kids who are there during the rest of the year. The only real difference is…
Sure, can you link me to an academic study that shows the average "rich kid" has a better attitude or work ethic than average kid in the middle class? Of course going to an elite university will show highly motivated students (of all classes). However, it doesn't show the rich kids who decided to do nothing with their lives because they've been pampered 24/7.
"In her book “Unequal Childhoods,” published in 2003, Lareau described the costs and benefits of each approach and concluded that the natural-growth method had many advantages. Concerted cultivation, she wrote, “places intense labor demands on busy parents. ... Middle-class children argue with their parents, complain about their parents’ incompetence and disparage parents’ decisions.” Working-class and poor children, by contrast, “learn how to be members of informal peer groups. They learn how to manage their own time. They learn how to strategize.” But outside the family unit, Lareau wrote, the advantages of “natural growth” disappear. In public life, the qualities that middle-class children develop are consistently valued over the ones that poor and working-class children develop. Middle-class children become used to adults taking their concerns seriously, and so they grow up with a sense of entitlement, which gives them a confidence, in the classroom and elsewhere, that less-wealthy children lack. The cultural differences translate into a distinct advantage for middle-class children in school, on standardized achievement tests and, later in life, in the workplace.
...The disadvantages that poverty imposes on children aren’t primarily about material goods. True, every poor child would benefit from having more books in his home and more nutritious food to eat (and money certainly makes it easier to carry out a program of concerted cultivation). But the real advantages that middle-class children gain come from more elusive processes: the language that their parents use, the attitudes toward life that they convey. However you measure child-rearing, middle-class parents tend to do it differently than poor parents — and the path they follow in turn tends to give their children an array of advantages. As Lareau points out, kids from poor families might be nicer, they might be happier, they might be more polite — but in countless ways, the manner in which they are raised puts them at a disadvantage in the measures that count in contemporary American society.
What would it take to overcome these disadvantages? Does poverty itself need to be eradicated, or can its effects on children somehow be counteracted? Can the culture of child-rearing be changed in poor neighborhoods, and if so, is that a project that government or community organizations have the ability, or the right, to take on? Is it enough simply to educate poor children in the same way that middle-class children are educated? And can any school, on its own, really provide an education to poor minority students that would allow them to achieve the same results as middle-class students?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/magazine/26tough.html
As for work ethic, how are you defining work? Time on task? Emotional labor? Social loafing? Intrinsic motivation? Extrinsic motivation? Protestant Work Ethic? Locus of control? Prosocial behaviors?
There are at least a dozen different academic disciplines that study issues related to work ethic, so the question of how work ethic correlates with SES isn't really answerable as it currently stands.
Much of this essay is based on the idea of social capital, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capital I've found a lot of people, especially in the upper- and upper-middle classes, often deny the importance of social capital, but I find it to be very important. Someone from wealth can lose all of their money, and still have the social capital necessary the maintain their class status.
"I believe my generation will overthrow the arbitrary and brutal authority of corporate capitalism and bigoted conservatism in favor of rationalistic, libertarian socialism driven by a scientific approach and a concern for universal social justice." so, did you just take poli-sci to learn buzzwords and impress dumb chicks? I'm guessing you failed to comprehend any of the material. Before you call a fortune 500 compan…
"I believe my generation will overthrow the arbitrary and brutal authority of corporate capitalism and bigoted conservatism in favor of rationalistic, libertarian socialism driven by a scientific approach and a concern for universal social justice." so, did you just take poli-sci to learn buzzwords and impress dumb chicks? I'm guessing you failed to comprehend any of the material. Before you call a fortune 500 compan…
>I'm guessing you failed to comprehend any of the material... READ A FUCKING BOOK. If you're so much cleverer than this chap, why have you not felt it necessary to accompany your ad-hominem attacks with at least a basic level of elucidation? To the chap in question: insightful views clearly stated. I applaud your goals and I hope we can make it happen.