If there was an easy solution, it would presumably be undertaken already.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
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If there was an easy solution, it would presumably be undertaken already.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
ah so we're only dealing with EASY solutions here!! didn't realise those were the rules of this game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
ah capitalism...
Pardon me for not thinking that brainwashing people into wanting to be identical to each other is a solution.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
you may be in the wrong thread, but brainwashing people into wanting to be identical to happy productive non-criminal members of society is probably an excellent solution!! perhaps you could bring about something akin to that by changing attitudes in society and developing better welfare (better for the US I mean, I guess that would be quite different from what might work in eg. Sweden or HOLLAND).Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
i am astonished though to see such caution from someone who has always believed that any aspect of human behaviour on all scales can be significantly modified by assigning monetary rewards and punishments!! are you no longer that man??
The most important message to take home from this thread is that you are only concerned with easy answers and easy solutions. Loki, I am disappoint
not surprise, just disappoint
WAITAMINNIT
you crazy crazy man
how on EARTH can you say that, living as you do in a country that wastes more money on healthcare than does any other country on earth because of a refusal to implement easy solutions???Quote:
If there was an easy solution, it would presumably be undertaken already.
People are already given massive incentives to finish school. Not all children are smart or responsible enough to respond to such incentives. At some point, adding more incentives doesn't increase the amount of people who are persuaded by them.
"at some point"? surely you mean "over a decade after birth, in a place outside the family"?? come on man, let's strive to speak clearly hereQuote:
Originally Posted by Loki
you are once again trying to sneakily simplify the issue, but why not just tell me exactly what those cultural aspects are that make people drop out of highschool?? you mentioned them earlier, and you are an american citizen, so i assume you have some idea of what they are. you've conceded that they're the big villains (although suddenly you bring up smartness and sense of responsibility, probably due to a subconscious desire to pat your own hairy back :p), so help me understand what they are!!
and then you and I and GGT can muse on what can be done about those big villains.
i bet it's better welfare
The idolization of the gang life, sports, and music (as careers) in certain sub-cultures. The "uncoolness" associated with actually doing work. Parents always defending their children when the latter are criticized by teachers (i.e. at parent-teacher conferences). A general "live in the present" culture. It's not a coincidence that the groups in the US who do best when it comes to education and economic situation are either immigrants (from good backgrounds) or people from sub-cultures that are in some way insulated from the dominant culture.
^Don't forget excessive consumerism. Not that "I want that thing so i'l work really hard for it" kind, but rather the "I want that thing so i'l take out a loan or two" kind...
Fiscal responsibility seems to be at an all time low.
But i guess that's what you meant by live in the presenet...
let's work out ways to tackle the idolisation of gang life!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
let's help make school fun and cool! from first grade!Quote:
The "uncoolness" associated with actually doing work.
wait, you're saying this is one of the major reasons why some kids drop out of highschool?? okay, i guess i'll buy it...Quote:
Parents always defending their children when the latter are criticized by teachers (i.e. at parent-teacher conferences).
Let's give teachers better tools and more opportunities (than criticising kids at PT-conferences) to help kids develop!!
let's give more parents the means to become more active and happy parents, eg. by reducing their stress and lack of security eg. through BETTER WELFARE
due to the future being so damn' uncertain of course :D let's fix that as well, so that people can dare to hope.Quote:
A general "live in the present" culture.
let's give more kids good backgrounds :)Quote:
It's not a coincidence that the groups in the US who do best when it comes to education and economic situation are either immigrants (from good backgrounds)
And the government is certainly setting a great example.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cracky
now that we've sorted that out let us tackle the other two indicators in your unholy indicators of poverty trifecta
How do keep people from getting addicted to drugs?
How do we stem the epidemic of teenage pregnancies??
the little i know of your government's spending has to do with healthcare, but surely that's not the same as eg. a giant LCD-TV or a trip to Disneyland...Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Or having a $1.4 trillion budget deficit for two straight years, which should decrease to a minuscule $600 billion after the economy recovers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
see? it's going in the right direction! :) reward progress
[QUOTE=Aimless;5101] It's almost as if you forget the socio in socioeconomic and the psychosoci in psychosocial, ending up only with economic and al.
Huh. That's probably the best "Loki in a nutshell" summary I've ever seen.
But here we have all this evidence that by far the best intervention place for at risk kids in before they start kindergarten, yet that "easy" choice hasn't been taken.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Actually, the data for that has been ambiguous at best. I've seen an article showing that Head Start has an effect in the first several years after kids finish it, but the effect is pretty much gone before they finish high school. A good start would be to stop passing people who don't have a specific set of skills by a certain grade level. The amount of kids that get to high school without being able to read properly or know anything but the most basic math is appalling. And obviously these people are going to struggle in high school, and some will take the easy way out.Quote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
hello did anyone say anything about head start? like, slow down tigerQuote:
Originally Posted by Loki
No, I mean aid, the socalled aid to under-developed/developing countries.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
That's the main program geared at helping people from disadvantaged environments before kindergarten...Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
It's about the same as a person who can barely pay his bills donating $1k to charity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Nice? Perhaps. But smart, reasonable, responsible? No way.
Ah but there is the rub. You can work for what you want to attain. Other people can do the same. However people have different goals, different views, abilities, talents and motivations. For some people working 70 hours a week is worth it if they move higher up the food chain. For others it is now. The wonderful part of the capitalist system is that the *individual* gets to choose how much effort they put in. And since no one puts in 100% (as far as I can see) of all of their time working/improving/learning there will always be a portion of the blame attributed to the individual himself for not being successful.Quote:
It is a myth. Think about it.
Suppose you'd worked as hard as you could to get as high as you can in your current employer. Suppose everyone else in the business does the same. Does that mean it'll end up with nothing but managers? I would hope not, for its sake. There's a finite number of well paying jobs in the economy. We can't all be rock stars, managers and doctors: someone has to clean toilets and collect garbage.
looking back i can see that tear's post implies that the best way to help at-risk kids is through short interventions at a very early age, so i guess he WAS talking about Head Start after all. The data is ambiguous, but the studies have been iffy as well. the best one (which indicated that HS was great for certain groups of three-year-olds in particular) had a control group where like 60% of the kids were in some OTHER kind of intervention programme :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Loki
but that's a short-term intervention, and from what i've gathered it doesn't change the kids' family's situation in the long term. big surprise, then, that the effect vanishes over the course of ten or so years!
sneaky lewkowski, you forgot "different lives"! and how bizarre, you exclusively focus on the individual and on the blame that can be placed on the individual, and completely ignore the individual's context. his family, his upbringing, his school, his society. the mistakes made at early stages that end up punishing him forever. it's almost as if you'd like to pretend those things don't matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
it's almost as if you'd like to pretend that those things can't be changed!
but of course you'd like to believe that, it lets you hate on taxes while still pretending to be a virtuous man :D
Uh, there's very little in those areas that is impossible for the individual to overcome.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
it's only legitimate if it's IMPOSSIBLE??
bizarre
not saying i accept the premise of course
Considering the thesis under discussion here is the "myth" of whether anyone CAN succeed, it strikes me as relevant. "Anyone" is not the same as "everyone" and yes, as you point out, the emphasis is heavy on the individual.So is the culture.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
whether or not you see it as a myth depends on what absurd/extraordinary lengths you expect people can/will go to i guess
to clarify, i was under the impression that the thesis under discussion was the myth that anyone can pull themselves up from any level to any level by their own bootstraps more or less without help.
Obviously not "any level" but anyone can become a "success." Circumstances of course matter but the great thing about America is that there is social mobility. Many of our richest did not come from great wealth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Old news. Head Start is outdated and fairly ineffective. There are newer and much more effective programs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Which you may not achieve, thanks to circumstances beyond your control.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
However, think about how this system ties into nation-states and their ability to build expensive earthquake defenses.
Or the huge number of NGOs that have taken up the slack from an ineffective Haitian government. There are some reports that the citizens want the US to come in and re-build, not just assist their government. Kind of a semantic dilemma too, since they didn't have sophisticated electrical, water, sewerage to begin with.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
May I point out that Haiti is on the island of Hispaniola. On this island we find one other state; The Dominican Republic with a GDP per capita of $8,200. Haiti, which roughly has the same predisposition as its neighbour has a GDP per capita of $1.300Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
To me it seems that if, as a nation, Haiti would have put in an effort then they could have managed to do a little better than they are doing. As targets go the Dominican Republic isn't exactly the highest you could go for to overtake.
But when you do not achieve your goal you need to ask yourself, "Did I do everything I could have?" If the answer is no, then quit blaming other people. Work harder, work smarter, better yourself and go at it again.Quote:
Which you may not achieve, thanks to circumstances beyond your control.
When did we stop talking about the Haitians? What're they going to do, huh? Walk another ten miles farther to find drinking water that comes from a relief agency?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Somewhere in the first page, apparently...Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
What about taking the example of their direct neighbours who don't live in abject poverty despite the fact they are sharing the same island with its crappy limited resources?Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
What about that? Critics have been comparing them for a long while, but it won't make a whit of difference in the beginning stages of a true crisis situation. You're talking long term concerted effort in planning, legislation, reworking decades of inefficiencies, and massive international funding.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
Rather hard to do when they're still figuring out how to bulldoze bodies in mass graves and find clean drinking water, as well as creating make-shift communities out of sheets hung by sticks.
So what difference is it going to make if in the long run they consistently refuse to do anything to make their lives better? The first obvious positive step for any person would be to leave Port-au-Prince, because it's a dangerous place to live and no longer has even the rudiments of an infrastructure. The only reason to stay there is that it's closest to the places where food and water are handed out for free. How's that for proof that these people have got themselves to blame for not getting ahead.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
If they want to live in the shit they made themselves, I'm quite happy to let them, as they have no inclination themselves to change anything.