What Oxford taught me about posh people • Hacker News Board

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#371

Post by iratic0 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #243

iratic0 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also comp educated and went to Oxford. I feel like in the last 5 years or so it's become "uncool" to be posh. Feel like this has been instigated by (in the West) Brexit and Trump bringing the Establishment down a notch.

> Brexit and Trump bringing the Establishment down a notch. What does this mean? You don't get anything more Establishment than the teflon-coated career of Boris Johnson (MA Oxon, II.1)

I mean the Establishment as of 2012-2016. The tribes of people who held major social power / status symbols: have higher average wealth, pride themselves on being educationally credentialed, overrepresented in high paying professional fields.

Boris is Establishment, but went against the Establishment's beliefs by backing Brexit. I'd also argue that Cameron was more Establishment than Boris.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#372

Post by mr_gibbins » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

truth_ wrote: post #356

emmelaich wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reading of Feynman says he was thinking of physics all the time .. even when pranking, womanising and bongo playing.

Yes, I found that a weird argument as well. It is not an argument at all. Feynman drank, played bongo, womanised, slept with some of his friends' wives. But that does not mean everyone who does that is a great Physicist. Neither all great Physicists do these. Taking an outlier and using him for justification of something seems obtuse. I love Feynman, and have a picture of him on my wall. But that does not mean I idea…

My issue with Feynman, the one I cannot get past (no matter how much I like his lifestyle and intellect), is the work on the Manhattan Project. His defence was, essentially, that a war was on, and the US needed the same capabilities as other nations were developing. However the resultant catastrophes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki just negate that for me. He didn't order those bombs to be dropped. But he is partially responsible for those deaths, whether he foresaw them or not.

Incidentally, I've not read much about his womanising - perhaps I'm not reading between the lines?

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#373

Post by bopbeepboop » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #348

bopbeepboop wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience suggests most progressives don’t realize that: - they tend to be young; - political activists who have done nothing else; - or drug addicts. I can count on my fingers the number of serious progressives I’ve met who aren’t one of those things during my entire life in Seattle. The “progressive” movement is why we have addicts encamped at a school — they’re so out of touch with reality, they view that as “…

>The “progressive” movement is why we have addicts encamped at a school — they’re so out of touch with reality, they view that as “compassion”. I would not classify that as progressivism. Things like voting rights and ranked choice voting, progressive taxation, environmental protection, increasing educational opportunities for all, more nutritional options for food at schools, access to mental and all other healthcar…

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Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#374

Post by emmelaich » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 1:27 AM UTC

mr_gibbins wrote: post #372

truth_ wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I found that a weird argument as well. It is not an argument at all. Feynman drank, played bongo, womanised, slept with some of his friends' wives. But that does not mean everyone who does that is a great Physicist. Neither all great Physicists do these. Taking an outlier and using him for justification of something seems obtuse. I love Feynman, and have a picture of him on my wall. But that does not mean I idea…

My issue with Feynman, the one I cannot get past (no matter how much I like his lifestyle and intellect), is the work on the Manhattan Project. His defence was, essentially, that a war was on, and the US needed the same capabilities as other nations were developing. However the resultant catastrophes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki just negate that for me. He didn't order those bombs to be dropped. But he is partially resp…

Catastrophe? Those bombs saved millions of Japanese lives.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#375

Post by truth_ » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 6:03 AM UTC

mr_gibbins wrote: post #372

truth_ wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I found that a weird argument as well. It is not an argument at all. Feynman drank, played bongo, womanised, slept with some of his friends' wives. But that does not mean everyone who does that is a great Physicist. Neither all great Physicists do these. Taking an outlier and using him for justification of something seems obtuse. I love Feynman, and have a picture of him on my wall. But that does not mean I idea…

My issue with Feynman, the one I cannot get past (no matter how much I like his lifestyle and intellect), is the work on the Manhattan Project. His defence was, essentially, that a war was on, and the US needed the same capabilities as other nations were developing. However the resultant catastrophes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki just negate that for me. He didn't order those bombs to be dropped. But he is partially resp…

He was a promising young scientist who worked in the team.

And although the bomb was used on the Japanese, it was meant primarily as a weapom against Hitler.

Feynman was an American Jew. Imagine yourself in the same situation. There's a dictator who hates all Jews and basically any race which is not Aryan enough for him. He wants to kill them all. A gigantic war machine which is fighting the rest of the world alone is also possibly building something similar.

You get the opportunity to work on something that undermines the devil, that will buy you and your country protection against it. Will you not work in it?

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#376

Post by agent008t » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 9:39 AM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #289

agent008t wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true. What frustrated me is that the social/cultural set up only seemed to amplify it, rather than counteract it to balance things out. For example, in fresher's week, 'default' organized activities were clubbing every night of the week. Sports achievements were celebrated with ceremonies, pub parties, chalk drawings on the walls of the college, publications in the magazines. There is nothing wrong with any o…

Freshers weeks for all UK universities are like that. And most teenagers are fine with that, rich or poor. It's an easy ice breaker. I don't know how you managed to miss this during your university career, but there are absolutely tons of clubs in every university. Sports, political, hobbies, music, etc. Nothing to do with drinking, apart from maybe a once or twice yearly optional social night. There are 400 clubs re…

Clubs and societies tend to be too... organized, specific, serious? If you are Feynman, do you join the bongo drum society? I mean you play them, but you're just having fun, joining a society for bongo drum players seems like an overkill. Do you join the lockpicking society? If you enjoy playing backgammon every now and then, do you join the backgammon society? If you are interested in hacking software for fun, do you join a competitive computer security club?

After all, you are not interested in these things narrowly and specifically. You just would like to hang out with like-minded people that like to have fun in these sorts of ways.

In these societies, you mostly end up with some specific 'serious' activities (e.g. a talk, a lecture, a discussion, or something competitive). And social engagement then happens separately, usually at a social in a pub, also as a 'targeted' activity. It is a good way to get more serious about your interests, but does not seem like a natural way to make friends.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#377

Post by jseban » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

iso1631 wrote: post #357

jseban wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but my point still stands: the more you redistribute, the less incentive people have to work, and the less money you will have overall. If you redistribute too much, you will lower your overall productivity and not have enough money and your average will go down. If you redistribute too little, you will have a revolution. What I'm trying to say, is that everyone wants to have a system where you can simply raise…

> Yeah but my point still stands: the more you redistribute, the less incentive people have to work You'll have to back that claim up > everyone wants to have a system where you can simply raise the mean without any increase in inequality, but such a system doesn't exist Well I don't care about the mean - not much use if Rockerfeller takes 90% of the income of a country and the rest have to deal with the 10% even if…

Yeah but all these sucessful policies driven by strong unions happen in the aftermath of winning a major war, do you think this is a coincidence?

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#378

Post by jseban » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

ynfnehf wrote: post #339

jseban wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar situation. And any time you use the nordic countries as an example, you have to realise that the middle class takes a huge hit for financing the equality. Sweden has implemented a LOT of trickle down economy tax breaks for the wealthy people during the 2000s, such as completely getting rid of property tax, wealth tax, inheritance tax. Just to keep money in the country. At the same time, the working people of…

> I'm still sceptical if there even exists a successful welfare state that does not rely on natural resources, or the aftermath of some war. I was referring to this. Both Denmark and Finland were to a large extent involved in WW2, and neither have natural resources of the same kind as Norway. Or is your opinion that they are not successful welfare states?

Finish people emigrated to sweden after WW2 to find jobs...

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#379

Post by ynfnehf » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

jseban wrote: post #378

ynfnehf wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm still sceptical if there even exists a successful welfare state that does not rely on natural resources, or the aftermath of some war. I was referring to this. Both Denmark and Finland were to a large extent involved in WW2, and neither have natural resources of the same kind as Norway. Or is your opinion that they are not successful welfare states?

Finish people emigrated to sweden after WW2 to find jobs...

Sure, which means that they were greatly affected by the war. Thus, according to you, they should not have been able to create a successful welfare state.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#380

Post by jseban » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 7:04 AM UTC

ynfnehf wrote: post #379

jseban wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finish people emigrated to sweden after WW2 to find jobs...

Sure, which means that they were greatly affected by the war. Thus, according to you, they should not have been able to create a successful welfare state.

Of course if you include the option of fleeing to another country where there are more jobs and opportunity, it's real easy to create a successful welfare state. This is always how leftist politics work, there's always some external funding or circumstance that plays the biggest part of the success, but attribute the success to how perfectly they can divide the profits, ignoring where they actually came from. But when you have to cover all your expenses by robbing collective pete, it doesn't really add up anymore.

Sooner or later you run out of other people's money, and then you have to create more incentives for people to work, to take advantage of your own strong people to create the value, and that comes with more "inequality", and requires you to compromise on the welfare.

I'm convinced that a country that cannot attract hard working highly educated people will struggle to be successful in the global economy, and the way forward is to educate people to become more self sufficient and independent, and not to continue with patronising welfare politics that were made for a post war booming economy.