Educated Fools • Hacker News Board

Re: Educated Fools

#251

Post by repsilat » Sun, Feb 02, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

IIAOPSW wrote: post #146

I'm going to break slightly with the authors opinion here and say we do solve every problem with "be more like us" but that doesn't always mean college. Other solutions involve "why don't you just move", better mass transit / fewer cars, some form of retraining (not college per se) etc. There's a whole basket of diverging "elite" values such that even if they stopped telling people to go to college tomorrow they woul…

> ...if you don't like me and my solutions, what else is there?

I'd like to broaden this position a bit before laying out the alternative. I think the philosophy here (which I largely share) is that "if what you're doing isn't working, try something else".

Get educated, sure, but also think about moving for opportunities. See what's working for other people, and make it work for you. If your town's coal mine is shutting down, don't tell your kid to be a coal miner -- change something.

Funnily enough, this is an old-fashioned value on both the left and the right, even though it doesn't sound "conservative". It stresses drive and personal responsibility. It's a founding American value -- come to America, "Go West", all that. The policies to support it encourage a strong economy, education, transport, and a limited safety net, so when you fall down you can get back up again.

But "personal responsibility" sounds a bit like "poor people choose to be poor". And so the more recent philosophy: If there isn't a future for coal miners, don't tell people to do something else -- that's insulting, they are coal miners. You're not going to win any votes telling people their identity is wrong, and they should just try being something else.

If that coal mine is shutting down, we should protect the industry. We should move some government jobs into town to support the local economy. We should support them.

That's the message TFA is trying to get across. In America's new "identity-politics" mood, the poor are no longer "temporarily embarrassed millionaires", the less educated aren't just in need of more education. It's a populist philosophy that says to voters "We love you just they way you are, and we want to protect you and help you without judging you or changing you."

Re: Educated Fools

#252

Post by shadowprofile77 » Sun, Feb 02, 2020, 6:18 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #229

TeMPOraL wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking: because it gives people a strong, active, positive goal to pursue. Members of each class want to migrate to the higher one, or at the very least, have their children break into the higher one. If you're discriminated or treated unfairly by a group of people, the natural reaction would be to separate yourself from that group of people, not fight it. But if for some reason you really want to join that gro…

Except that the article says that the working class in the US - and the UK - don't want to migrate. They just want to complain and break everything. They don't want to improve anything for anyone in a strategic sense. They want textbook authoritarianism with a daddy figure lying that he loves them, and telling them who to hate so they can feel better. It's an utter infantilisation, and the right are happy to sponsor…

Oh of course. We can summarize the conflicts, complaints and angry points of the working class as nothing more than an urge to "complain and break things". I'm sorry but that's a load of dismissive nonsense. So is the notion that only the "far right" seeks to build text-book authoritarianism with a daddy figure who tells the working class how to feel and who to hate.

Either you've completely failed to pay attention to modern history or are deliberately ignoring a huge part of it but the left is just as guilty of the right of that very thing. They just (and even this only lightly) couch their authoritarianism and drive to spread hatred in different terms. In some countries (such as where I live), the left is just as nationalistic as any rightist.

To also claim that the elites with murderous, dishonest and literally criminal intentions are mostly unique to the self described right of politics is absurd.

Re: Educated Fools

#253

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Feb 02, 2020, 6:39 PM UTC

dbsmith83 wrote: post #238

mixmastamyk wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly it sounds like you’ve been watching too much TV/Twitter. No one I know in real life is concerned with that stuff. Another article on the site talks about the “exhausted majority.” Indeed.

I agree with you that the majority is exhausted, but unfortunately there is a very vocal minority in the liberal sphere, and they are not particularly known for being reasonable people. It makes it seem like the average person's problems and concerns are getting put on the back-burner, while the liberal favored special interest group of the day gets the spotlight. How can someone not be resentful? I also want to poin…

[deleted]

Re: Educated Fools

#254

Post by war1025 » Sun, Feb 02, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

DebtDeflation wrote: post #223

war1025 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare is something that would benefit the working class. Unfortunately one of the side effects of Obamacare is that rates have skyrocketed to the point that many people can't afford it. There are subsidies, but the premiums / deductibles are still high enough to be basically useless for many people. Add to it that we had a mandate that you needed to have insurance or you'd be fined. There are a lot of good thing…

>Unfortunately one of the side effects of Obamacare is that rates have skyrocketed to the point that many people can't afford it. Is that really a causal relationship? What I see in the data is annual insurance premiums rising at 3-4X the CPI inflation rate starting in the 1990s and continuing to the present. The ACA was an attempt to address the fallout from this. It may not have been entirely successful in doing th…

> In the 3 years prior to the ACA

I will admit I didn't look at the study. Does this mean the 3 years prior to the law passing or the 3 years prior to the law going into effect?

I would expect insurance companies to start adjusting rates in anticipation of the new law, even if it hasn't taken effect yet.

Re: Educated Fools

#255

Post by everdrive » Sun, Feb 02, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #11

yoz-y wrote: post #9

> We don’t trust them, and would never vote for one of them. Why should they trust or vote for one of us? For the same reason I wouldn’t trust a doctor without a degree proving they did due diligence for years. I know this feels different because “anybody can do politics” but without a large worldview the measures taken will be inevitably short sighted. Now, it works the other way too. As the article states, losing t…

I was thinking about this recently. I’m not qualified in politics, and I’m aware that my knowledge is too limited to be properly aware of how limited it is, but the thought was: Democracy isn’t so much the best form of government as the best steering wheel to keep the government aligned with the interests of the people. The best actual form of government is technocracy, but technocracy with no democratic accountabili…

This is the intent behind a representative democracy. An enlightened elite, informed but not bound by the needs of the common man.

Re: Educated Fools

#256

Post by Consultant32452 » Sun, Feb 02, 2020, 7:04 PM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #213

realtalk_sp wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have cost-effective access to good healthcare, you could literally die. And if you're poorly educated, you're much more likely to be less financially well off and that could itself lead to all kinds of suffering. But I get the sense that you're aiming for the presentation of being objectively insightful when really you're quite transparently arguing in bad faith for the sake of provocation, so I'll just…

The democrats didn’t deliver cost-effective healthcare or education or anything they keep trying to subsidize. Prices keep going up. Funny how that works. The smugness is just icing on the cake.

I don't think these details about specific policy outcomes is where the battle is. Look at the way he's responding. This isn't about whether your ideas have better outcomes than my ideas. This is about ascribing you with bad motives, disingenuousness, or portraying you as a simpleton who can't understand political manipulation. This is about controlling you, putting you in the bad/stupid box so you can be dismissed and controlled.

Their tactic is to call you stupid, liar, racist, sexist... You know the list. If you argue on their terms, if you start arguing you're not stupid for example, you're accepting their framing. This is a losing battle. Instead I find it's more effective to simply draw attention to their tactic. Once the tactic is revealed it loses efficacy.

If I genuinely believe you to be stupid, evil, disingenuous, etc. I won't be able to genuinely hear you. You're just making noise. I would encourage you to try this experiment out some time. Instead of arguing specific policy, point out the tactic. It's repeatable and quite telling.

Re: Educated Fools

#257

Post by 6510 » Sun, Feb 02, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

IIAOPSW wrote: post #146

I'm going to break slightly with the authors opinion here and say we do solve every problem with "be more like us" but that doesn't always mean college. Other solutions involve "why don't you just move", better mass transit / fewer cars, some form of retraining (not college per se) etc. There's a whole basket of diverging "elite" values such that even if they stopped telling people to go to college tomorrow they woul…

> "why don't you just move"

Fair, question. 1) Just moving your stuff costs a lot of money but with some savings it can be accomplished. You end up spending half the value of the sofa to move it. Then you need curtains, wall paper, paint and carpet. That money just doesn't exist. 2) The comfort of their own home is much more important if you lack a sense of financial security. Trying to recreate this isn't guaranteed to work. 3) Poor people to a much greater extend depend on friends and relatives nearby as do they depend on you. Rebuilding the network takes decades if it happens at all. They are not just there to save you when things turn sour but they are the main activity. You don't go to the movies, a bar, a restaurant, London, Disney world or to Ibizza, you go visit a friend.

Re: Educated Fools

#258

Post by barrenflats » Sun, Feb 02, 2020, 7:32 PM UTC

treis wrote: post #248

barrenflats wrote: post #124

This one really hits home for me. I’m at a cross roads in my life right now and kind of lost. I had a great job working as the number 2 at a small business that I lucked into, but for various reasons beyond the control of the corporation, had to close. I’m in my late 20s, and as this article puts it, merely a high school graduate. I can code and do IT work, coordinate problem solving between businesses, read scientif…

> I could readily absorb the material but I was terribly antagonistic towards teachers who generally desire a sense of authority in their class rooms. I also as an adult have been diagnosed with ADHD, which to me at least explains a good portion of why I struggled in school. I never did my homework I'd guess this is the root of your problem. People don't want to hire those that are terribly antagonistic towards autho…

Being antagonistic to authority is something I left behind in my teenage years. I’ve learned a lot about social grace since then, to the point that I consider it a strong point. Also, homework (as a rather pointless forced learning aid) is so unlike working given my ADHD it’s ridiculous. Moreover, as I’ve since been diagnosed with ADHD and given the ability to medicate and be cognizant of this weakness it isn’t the issue it was when I was a teen in college. At this point in my life I have a body of accomplishments from business, as alluded to in earlier paragraphs.

Really though, how would an employer know either of these things; it’s not like I‘d put them on a resume or a cover letter. I added it only to give context to why going to college didn’t work out for me at the time, not to describe why I think I have trouble finding a job I enjoy. I’m confused by the unconstructive nature of this comment, it seems purposefully derisive.

Re: Educated Fools

#259

Post by rossdavidh » Sun, Feb 02, 2020, 7:38 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #75

rossdavidh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of college degrees that pay no more, or considerably less, than several of those jobs.

Sure, but those are generally degrees which are well known for having poor employment prospects (philosophy, art, history, etc.). Doesn't that just change the advice from "go to college" to "go to college in one of the majors with a track record or leading to a good career"?

For the record, I know many cases of philosophy majors getting good jobs (as computer programmers). Apparently some employers find that people who take Logic classes can be taught to program, and then cost less (at least for a while). But your point stands, that most people have a reasonable idea of which majors give good employment prospects, and if they don't they can nowadays find out online what they are.

But, and here's the kicker, there are a lot of people who lump all college degrees together, either mentally or in their writing on the topic, and then justify going into debt to get a degree based on that. "Go to college" is not that easy to swap out with "go to college in one of the majors with a track record of leading to a good career", not least because there are numerous colleges (Fine Arts, some parts of Liberal Arts, etc.) where if that were the way people thought, that college would shrink to half its current size or less.

Which, maybe is what needs to happen, or maybe we need to find another way for society to fund people who study those topics (my preference), but either way it's not what's happening now, and those closest to the university system are generally the ones most hostile to the idea of looking plainly at the facts about the current situation.

Re: Educated Fools

#260

Post by jayd16 » Sun, Feb 02, 2020, 8:03 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #215

jayd16 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The talking points around political correctness could not be better designed to alienate working and middle class white people. As a middle class white, I ask "such as?"

Recent headlines? Latinx, drag queens as family friendly content, overreach on dilution and removal of gendering (no more daddy/daughter events), politicizing sports, politicizing popcorn movies, censorship of standup comedians, social media bans, student loan forgiveness pitches. Anything that looks like a bailout to the rich and upper middle class, including for homeowners.

With the exception of maybe loan forgiveness, none of those are party or candidate talking points. The rest are social issues and mostly gender issues so I don't really understand what middle class or white hat has to do with it. Was that just code for social conservatives?