71–80 of 341 posts
Geography plays a huge role in determining social classes and the perceptions of them. It also influences spending habits.[1] In New York, for example, it has been shown that people across the income spectrum there will pay more than the national average for shoes and watches. New York is very wealthy and urban, so you are always walking and being seen in your shoes (and checking the time) and it confers a sense of c…
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One of OP's early theses is that the left is all about economic class, but can't admit social classes exist, so conflates them with economic class in order to talk about them.
Who exactly can't admit social classes exist? Karl Marx was very aware of the existence of status classes running counter to economic classes (the status of wealthy jewish people of low-status in Europe was fascinating to proto-sociologists, many of them jewish), he just theorized that economic class was "the big one" from which the others stemmed. Jews as a social class weren't sprung from the ether, though. Max Web…
Very interesting thought, that colleges' purpose is to acculturate one into a certain culture. That would explain why collegiate athletics are so important: because people of a particular college's culture place importance on chasing after balls on grassy fields, it's important for colleges to acculturate their students to watching people chase after balls on grassy fields. I'm not saying that sarcastically — as much…
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Who exactly can't admit social classes exist? Karl Marx was very aware of the existence of status classes running counter to economic classes (the status of wealthy jewish people of low-status in Europe was fascinating to proto-sociologists, many of them jewish), he just theorized that economic class was "the big one" from which the others stemmed. Jews as a social class weren't sprung from the ether, though. Max Web…
If your benchmark for analyzing the modern left is a collection of theorists from a hundred years ago, you're going to misunderstand a lot more than just this.
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That's fascinating. I remember reading something a while ago about the loss of regional accents (there's a great "Downeast" accent up here in Maine that no one has anymore, except lobstermen). People like to blame mass media, but in reality it's mass communication and the stigma of having a thick Brooklyn, Southie, or Downeast accent that encourages folks to pretend they don't have one. On the flip side, there is som…
And remember: if he had encountered a black civilian at that moment, the civilian would not have escaped with his life.
That you would make such a comment in a discussion about classism and racism is very ironic.
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It's a common attitude in a lot of LessWrong-adjacent blogs: analyze some complex phenomenon that the social sciences have studied in depth, but act as if no one has ever thought of it before. So when class comes up, it's better to think of in the terms of some rando blogger, not (for instance) Bourdieu or Weber. And then when you get absurd results, it proves your originality and willingness to look past conventiona…
Bourdieu and Weber are "rando bloggers" compared to Marx, perhaps we should write them off too?
This is a very good article. In America, there is also an example where we "build up" the social class of some segment to compensate for our self-centered guilt. Take the example of the military service. The vast majority of people would rather be at the mall and let someone else fight and die for the country. But the "I support our troops" bumper sticker is everywhere, or maybe they sent ten bucks to Fisher House or…
When I was a teenager I thought charity absent asceticism was pathetic. Why give the homeless guy your pocket change when you can afford to give him $20 for dinner? Why donate to the fire department, when you could make time in your life to volunteer for the fire department? (I live in a small New England town where volunteer depts are the norm.) Compensating for self-centered guilt is not evil or virtuous. Life is n…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility != https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility
I feel programmers have made it econimically. I know a large number of devs in their 30s who make over 200k a year. But we haven't climbed the social ladder as well. Maybe that follows the money.
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"A cabbie asked me if I supported Donald Trump and told he we was surprised I didn't. He told me all Americans supported Trump. So I asked him if he was an IRA thug/terrorist, to which he naturally said no." It's hardly reasonable to compare being a member of a terrorist organization to supporting the leading candidate of one of two major parties. Consider just the sheer effort of participating in terrorism is far gr…
Well I was pointing out his logical fallacy in assuming I supported someone because of where I was from. That is a ridiculous assumption, so I made an equally ridiculous one, which he immediately understood. Then we got on really well.
38.6% of Americans state that they would vote for Donald Trump over Hilary Clinton while 49% state that they would vote for Clinton over Trump.
There are only several hundred members of the IRA today (out of 1.8 million people in Northern Ireland) and even fewer of them participate in terrorism.
And it's not a logical fallacy. The cab driver clearly didn't mean all Americans support Donald Trump. Presumably he knows there are other candidates so thats at least a few people who don't support Trump. He meant a lot of Americans do support Trump and clearly they do.
[1] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/ge...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Irish_Republican_Army