When discussing concentrations of wealth and power (.001%), there's very probably an interaction. Once you're part of the club, you've had to have internalized certain beliefs and values - mainly about capitalism and politics. That's what the scholarship seems to suggest.
So perhaps more emphasis can be placed on your second point. — Xtrix
Where's the scholarship on this? I'd like to see some evidence. Because it's often claimed, and of course there are examples and thousands of anecdotes, but I have a hunch it's complete nonsense -- at least when talking about what we're discussing here, which is the 1%.
It's a lot like talk about voter fraud -- yes, it happens, but so rarely as to be imperceptible. — Xtrix
I think the mobility issue now is less that people cannot move upwards from middle class, but that you're more likely to move down than up and, once down from middle class, you're unlikely to get up again. — Echarmion
Also, on the topic of ambition, and your conversation with apokrisis: society should be structured such that an unambitious person who just wants to stay at home and tend to their little garden can do so. — Pfhorrest
So with great pain and reluctance I resigned myself to an "ordinary" life. Instead of trying to achieve great things, I would aim low, just try to secure my basic necessities like a house, just the minimal level of financial security, so I wouldn't be poor and on the verge of homelessness like my parents by the time my kids (that I then expected to have some day) were adults. — Pfhorrest
That’s a general thing I like to point out when taking risk is argued to be what makes the rich deserve their rewards. — Pfhorrest
The more you have beyond your basic needs, the more you can afford to gamble smartly, accepting some short term losses as you play the odds to long term victory. E.g where I am
now in life, my investments can fluctuate up or down by hundreds or sometimes even thousands of dollars a day and I can afford to just ignore that so long as overall they trend upwards, because it’s not like I’m going to need to spend that money tomorrow. (Even now that I’m without a job, because I didn’t start investing until I already had a sufficient cash safety net set aside too, for exactly that reason). — Pfhorrest
But where I was a decade ago, a downward fluctuation of a thousand dollars would immediately knock me out of the game — I wouldn’t survive to make up for it over the long term. And that’s the kind of situation that most people are always in. — Pfhorrest
It’s just a way of speaking in terms of statistics, exactly like distribution of ability. A uniform distribution means the quantity in question is equal for everyone, a normal distribution means the quantity in question follows a gaussian curve across the population, etc. — Pfhorrest
The way that poverty affected my opportunity was creating an unstable home life and leaving me nowhere to fall back on, forcing me to work close to full time to support myself while going through school, handling al my own crisis expenses like car breakdowns, living in shitty crowded shared housing (which is what got me that one B: housemates kept me awake all night right before a final) while being terrific of eviction or rate increases because I would just be homeless since I didn’t have family housing to fall back on, etc. Which in turn made me extremely risk-averse, kept me in shitty jobs because they were stable instead of trying for better jobs that might fall through, which kept me from learning further on the job and so has made finding better work increasingly more difficult even as I’ve gotten more stability with age that could allow me to risk trying out possibly better jobs, etc.
I can think of a few decisions I could have made differently in my early adulthood that would have made a dramatic difference in my life today, despite the poverty of my family, but not having a stable family to guide me through those decisions meant the only reason I now know I should have chosen differently is because of hindsight. — Pfhorrest
Oh and also, having to pay rent instead of just living in my family’s second or third home for free, or getting help with a big enough down payment that interest on a mortgage wouldn’t exceed rent, etc. — Pfhorrest
I see what you mean. If perfection is impossible, just give up. In fact even to try can be equated to fanatical Nazi euthanasia. Sounds legit. — apokrisis
Hey, that's me. That's any normal person. That's who society ought to be built around ... in my selfish view. — apokrisis
If we had equal distribution of opportunity, we would expect a normal distribution of outcome, to match the normal distribution of abilities. — Pfhorrest
But in the world we have today, someone like me — who is, according to all the aptitude tests of every kind I’ve ever taken, in the top 0.1% of ability — can just barely manage to keep up with the average (mean, not median) of financing outcomes, if they’re born into poverty like I was. — Pfhorrest
so if you’re not rich then you simply must not actually be so smart or hard-working etc, because if you were then you would be rich. — Pfhorrest
Sure. With another reasonable person. :up: — apokrisis
Many Americans strongly believe the U.S. is a "Land of Opportunity" that offers every child an equal chance at social and economic mobility. That Americans rise from humble origins to riches, has been called a "civil religion", "the bedrock upon which the American story has been anchored",[14] and part of the American identity (the American Dream.
tergenerational immobility versus economic inequality in 2012. (Countries closest to the axis in the left bottom have the highest levels of socio-economic equality and socio-
I actually think that those possible types of answers to questions about reality and morality stem from applications of the analogous answers to the personal emotional question: — Pfhorrest
You have encountered a challenge. Maybe things are not going to work out as you expected. What do you do?
- Give up?
- Indulge in a happy fantasy about how it must definitely all be okay?
- Acknowledge the difficulty and keep trying anyway?
When the challenge is in figuring out what is real or moral, the last option is exactly the kind of criticism universalism that I advocate on those topics. — Pfhorrest
Something like this is, I think, the main error underlying pretty much all philosophical error: that the only alternatives are either abject nihilism or religious faith. Cynical relativism or dogmatic transcendentalism, pick your poison... or so they'd have you think. — Pfhorrest
Hope Peterson has recovered but he's had his 15 minutes. I don't think anyone cares much about his ideas any more. — Baden
If I was violent, and there was a place where violence was not punished (or rarely/lightly punished), I would prefer to be there. So would everyone else like me. — Pinprick
Yes, I am a woman. I didn't know that Nietzsche is a philosopher that mostly teenage males read ... but that doesn't surprise me! — Coryanthe
But getting back to Nietzsche I do wonder if another possible way his ideas could be translated into practice would be as anarchism, but this is yet another complex area. — Jack Cummins
The obvious answer being because the people are violent. After all, that’s what’s really meant when we say a particular society is violent, right? So the real question would be “why are people in group X more violent than people not in group X?” And it could be that people who are violent just so happen to prefer group X for whatever reason. Or it could be that violent people created group X for whatever reason. It doesn’t have to be the case that group X created violent people. — Pinprick
Sure, but I don’t think anyone can accurately say why I have the expectations I do. — Pinprick
People will often consider society or culture as a cause for human behavior, but isn’t society itself actually caused by human behavior? If a society or culture is particularly violent, isn’t that because the people within that culture behave violently? To me it seems that society or culture is basically just a scapegoat for our own actions and behaviors. Instead of pointing the finger at ourselves, we abstractly point to society instead, as if the fault/blame has nothing to do with us. — Pinprick
I know everything about sovereign bonds. I issued them for 5 years at the Dutch State Treasury Agency. So fire away. There are still bonds out there that will perform even if interest rates start rising again and the market value will lower but there's Ukrainian collateralised bonds offering 6% or so, which given current interest rates is a good return and relatively safe.
Another I've always found interesting but never tried is investing via crowd funding. There are platforms that allow you to evaluate the underlying business case and pick something you know something about so you can make a real assessment. — Benkei
Define imperialism. Some political science theories look at the ability to project power over territory which doesn't necessarily mean it has to be part of the sovereign territory of a country. — Benkei
As for "Joe Biden: Accelerated Liberal Imperialism" hasn't imperialism, liberal or otherwise, been US policy, more or less, since the get go? (Earlier eras of imperialism maybe shouldn't be described as "liberal".)
Imperialism tends to be such a good thing for the imperialists, be they Belgian, Dutch, German, Russian, English, French, Italian, American, Spanish, Japanese or Chinese--whosever--it's hard to imagine potential imperialists foregoing the opportunities. If they could be imperialists, why wouldn't they?
Since the beginning, has any country's leadership ever said: "We could become fabulously rich by taking over and exploiting those shit hole territories over there; but, you know, imperialism is just wrong, and we wouldn't want to become wealthy by doing something that moralists would consider distasteful." ???? — Bitter Crank
But the "modern" standards of treating POWs existed already in treaties from 1907 and 1929. I'm judging it by the standards of that time. Japan never ratified 1929 Geneva Convention in the treatment of POWs but did say in 1942 it would follow the 1907 Hague rules. — Benkei
And yes, Truman and Churchill should be thrown in exactly the same pile as Hitler and Stalin - the pile of war criminals. That Hitler and Stalin were worse is no defense of Churchill's action. — Benkei
"Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that great gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, from The Grand Inquisitor chapter.
Are we condemned to be free? Are The Human's choice and freedom in life the source of much tragedy in The Human's life? Do you believe in the Tragedy of Human Freedom? Do you agree or disagree with the quote above? Why or Why not?
I believe that there is truth to man's existence in this quote. Man often appears to be yearning for order, submission, and subscription. Man does not seem to handle freedom well, especially for long durations of time. Yet I find the quote troublesome to ponder on due to man's hope to be free from restraint and order even if it is short-lived...What are your thoughts? Let us discuss this. — The Questioning Bookworm
No, of course it doesn't. I don't understand this black and white thinking, on a philosophy forum of all places. Are we just slaves to propaganda, or can we discuss things rationally and imaginatively? It's as if you guys are not satisfied until I do the correct virtue signalling, like saying Putin is a monster or whatever. It's just dumb. — jamalrob
but we should spend less money on upkeep and hiring guards and more money on mental health specialists, educators, etc. for prisons, in my humble opinion. Also, we should not be using prisoners for free labor. Slavery ring a bell? Prisoners are cut off from the world as it is, most of them can't vote, and in some places, they are used for free/slave-like labor. This seems to be a problem too. I feel like there would be pushback more from individuals who aren't even in prison. — The Questioning Bookworm
Can budgeting be properly executed to allocate money more toward rehab rather than the way things are?
It doesn't always have to be "oppression," either. It's simply one person (or a few) that gives the orders, and one (or many) who follows the orders. One commands, one obeys. That's power dynamics, and that's what is being analyzed. — Xtrix
True...but a pretty compelling historical argument (in my view) can be made that it has indeed been a series of struggles between the oppressors and the oppressed. — Xtrix
The invention of writing, according to the Communist Manifesto. That's what was meant. (Footnote by Engels on page 1.) — Xtrix
I think class struggles is one of those factors that is particularly important in studying human history, for these reasons. — Xtrix