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Thread: On conservatives and morality

  1. #61
    Quote Originally Posted by wiggin View Post
    I don't want to derail the discussion, but I'll just interject one point: I think Nessus' OP places too much emphasis on the perceived morality associated with a state or action when in fact I think that is at best a secondary consideration if at all.

    I think that the mistaken emphasis in American politics (at least, though I've seen similar strains in other countries) is less on morality than on some perception of fairness from all political parties. Sometimes the fairness is towards those who have accumulated property, sometimes it's to the disadvantaged in society, sometimes it's to the 'middle class'.

    I think that while some of the results may be in principle decent policies, the motivation from conservative and liberal alike is flawed. Life isn't fair, and a government can rarely make it so. Instead, governments should think about incentivizing behaviors it would like to see in its citizens, and citizens should think about what they should be doing, not what they deserve. This view can result in any number of valid policy suggestions and a very vibrant policy debate, but it completely ignores questions of what is fair - or moral.
    I probably wasn't clear enough with this in my post; my impression is that the morality-bit comes into play with people who're pretty into their religious nonsense. Of course since the number of my American buddies is pretty limited I am exposed to America mostly through the Internet and the broadcast media, so the religious jackasses are probably over-represented, but that's in fact another problem for America altogether. Anyway, yes, even if one isn't obsessed with morality and sodomy, people also place a huge emphasis on fairness and then get stuck in the same reward-punishment apparatus that's not the best possible framework for social engineering.

    Quote Originally Posted by Low-key
    By your absurd logic, a CEO who gets fired is suddenly not successful.
    It's not his absurd logic, it's the logic of the people who subscribe to the theory of punishments and rewards. The CEO who got fired did something wrong, and are being punished. I guess they didn't really deserve to be a CEO, then.Their success is a sham, a mockery of the true working of the system, and boy aren't we glad he got fired and exposed as the sack of flaws that he surely is, because he got fired! Maybe he has sex with underage boys, hm....
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  2. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by Nessus View Post
    Who broke it, though?
    Unions and apathetic parents.

  3. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by Nessus View Post
    It's not his absurd logic, it's the logic of the people who subscribe to the theory of punishments and rewards. The CEO who got fired did something wrong, and are being punished. I guess they didn't really deserve to be a CEO, then.Their success is a sham, a mockery of the true working of the system, and boy aren't we glad he got fired and exposed as the sack of flaws that he surely is, because he got fired! Maybe he has sex with underage boys, hm....
    You can't have your cake and eat it, too, Nessus. If these evil people also happen to believe in the free market (which you claim they do), then they must know that people get laid off for a variety of reasons.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  4. #64
    Let sleeping tigers lie Khendraja'aro's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    You can't have your cake and eat it, too, Nessus. If these evil people also happen to believe in the free market (which you claim they do), then they must know that people get laid off for a variety of reasons.
    Riiiiight. Just take a look at Lewk and say that again with a straight face.
    When the stars threw down their spears
    And watered heaven with their tears:
    Did he smile his work to see?
    Did he who made the lamb make thee?

  5. #65
    Yeah, because Lewk thinks that when companies fire workers during a recession, they're doing it because the workers are immoral, stupid, or not hard-working. It must feel nice to strawman everyone you don't like.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  6. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    You can't have your cake and eat it, too, Nessus. If these evil people also happen to believe in the free market (which you claim they do), then they must know that people get laid off for a variety of reasons.
    Evil, huh.

    You've had ample time to see, in this very thread, how weasel-terms such as "most times" "for most people" etc. are blandly evoked to justify the dogma in the face of contradictory examples. Some CEOs might get fired for reasons other than lack of perfection for their post, but in most cases the CEO has not been diligent enough, smart enough, ambitious enough, etc., and his firing shows that. If he gets a new position somewhere else, he's still good for something, of course, since only hard-working, diligent, smart and ambitious people get anywhere in this life. And if the ex-CEO's life becomes a downward spiral of substance abuse, failed marriage and loss of property, well he wasn't a very upright and hard-working, ambitious person, now was he?

    The underlying thought remains, in most cases people just didn't try hard enough to earn their rewards, and thus their downfall is fair. This also leads into an obsessive need to down-play factors that are not within the individual's control, because those can't really exist for the reward-punishment-apparatus to be a good national back-bone.

    I keep re-explaining the same things over and over and I'm beginning to think you don't really understand what I've been trying to say, at all

    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    It must feel nice to strawman everyone you don't like.
    Heh.
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  7. #67
    Quote Originally Posted by Nessus View Post
    You've had ample time to see, in this very thread, how weasel-terms such as "most times" "for most people" etc. are blandly evoked to justify the dogma in the face of contradictory examples. Some CEOs might get fired for reasons other than lack of perfection for their post, but in most cases the CEO has not been diligent enough, smart enough, ambitious enough, etc., and his firing shows that. If he gets a new position somewhere else, he's still good for something, of course, since only hard-working, diligent, smart and ambitious people get anywhere in this life. And if the ex-CEO's life becomes a downward spiral of substance abuse, failed marriage and loss of property, well he wasn't a very upright and hard-working, ambitious person, now was he?
    If we're using "being able to make a living" as the criterion for success, then the very fact that someone was able to become a CEO is a pretty clear sign of success. Most CEOs get laid off for temporary failure, and that's more a function of failing to anticipate short-term market trends than a lack of hard work or intelligence. The turnover rate for CEOs is also exceptionally high, so being fired doesn't really mean anything. Now if you can't hold down a job as a fast food worker or a bank teller...
    Hope is the denial of reality

  8. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    If we're using "being able to make a living" as the criterion for success, then the very fact that someone was able to become a CEO is a pretty clear sign of success. Most CEOs get laid off for temporary failure, and that's more a function of failing to anticipate short-term market trends than a lack of hard work or intelligence. The turnover rate for CEOs is also exceptionally high, so being fired doesn't really mean anything. Now if you can't hold down a job as a fast food worker or a bank teller...


    See, you've demonstrated a fine capacity of thinking within the reward-punishment-framework!
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  9. #69
    Quote Originally Posted by Nessus View Post
    I probably wasn't clear enough with this in my post; my impression is that the morality-bit comes into play with people who're pretty into their religious nonsense. [...] Anyway, yes, even if one isn't obsessed with morality and sodomy, people also place a huge emphasis on fairness and then get stuck in the same reward-punishment apparatus that's not the best possible framework for social engineering.
    Okay, but I contend that fairness is a disease that afflicts all strands of American politics, not just conservatives.

    I can't speak to the religious thing, but I don't think it's part of mainstream discourse (i.e. the morality of a set of actions rather than the fairness).

  10. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by wiggin View Post
    Okay, but I contend that fairness is a disease that afflicts all strands of American politics, not just conservatives.
    Might be, but rhetoric aimed at the swing voters has to combat the constant harglebargle punish punish rewards only from deeds-propaganda coming from the GOP. And in some ways social democracy's socialist aspects are intended to compensate for the world's innate unfairness (or complete apathy), so they're concerned with the idea of fairness but from a completely different angle than the reward-punishment-arglehargle. Indeed the word fair itself could be argued to mean different things in these different contexts.

    Quote Originally Posted by wiggin View Post
    I can't speak to the religious thing, but I don't think it's part of mainstream discourse (i.e. the morality of a set of actions rather than the fairness).
    Well sure, but looking at the stuff from the outside, a whole lot of people are obsessed with these things, even if percentage-wise they're not a huge part of America. And the amount of people who "vote their values" on stuff like toughness on crime, gays marrying, and what have you, is still substantial, I've been lead to believe.
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  11. #71
    And economic ideas aren't values?
    Hope is the denial of reality

  12. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    And economic ideas aren't values?
    This sounds like an invitation to get tripped up in a semantic point, so why don't you explain what you mean instead of asking leading questions.
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  13. #73
    Quote Originally Posted by Nessus View Post
    Might be, but rhetoric aimed at the swing voters has to combat the constant harglebargle punish punish rewards only from deeds-propaganda coming from the GOP. And in some ways social democracy's socialist aspects are intended to compensate for the world's innate unfairness (or complete apathy), so they're concerned with the idea of fairness but from a completely different angle than the reward-punishment-arglehargle. Indeed the word fair itself could be argued to mean different things in these different contexts.
    I think that everyone getting their 'fair share' is a significant part of left wing rhetoric, and I think your reward-punishment thing is not a significant part of conservative rhetoric. IMO their arguments aren't 'they worked hard and get rewarded for their money, let's not take it away' vs. 'they didn't do the work and got punished by poverty'. Rather it's a different ethic - in general, a society founded on rewarding merit and a decent amount of upward mobility will produce the best innovations and improvements for everyone. As a corollary, respecting the property rights of individuals, regardless of their place in society, is a way to incentivize these innovations. This isn't an ethic above all else of course - mainstream conservative discourse still has a quite progressive income tax, for example - but it's the underlying argument. This isn't a reward/punishment argument, but more of a 'lifting all boats' kind of argument. I won't comment on whether it's a good argument or not, but there it is. And, at its core, the concept of respecting property rights is just as much obsessed with fairness as is the concept of everyone getting a 'fair share', whatever that means.

    Well sure, but looking at the stuff from the outside, a whole lot of people are obsessed with these things, even if percentage-wise they're not a huge part of America. And the amount of people who "vote their values" on stuff like toughness on crime, gays marrying, and what have you, is still substantial, I've been lead to believe.
    *shrugs* Voting based on personal convictions is not limited to religion, and certainly not limited to conservatives. Furthermore, the specific dynamic you describe (the reward-punishment thing in a theoretical meritocracy) is not a big part of the 'vote your values' rhetoric. They tend to focus on other stuff.

  14. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by Nessus View Post
    This sounds like an invitation to get tripped up in a semantic point, so why don't you explain what you mean instead of asking leading questions.
    If you vote for a party that promises to reduce inequality, aren't you voting based on your belief that less poverty or less inequality is a good thing? You're not doing it based on some objective criteria.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  15. #75
    Let sleeping tigers lie Khendraja'aro's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    Yeah, because Lewk thinks that when companies fire workers during a recession, they're doing it because the workers are immoral, stupid, or not hard-working. It must feel nice to strawman everyone you don't like.
    I was taking a somewhat broader view but I guess you were unable to see the similarities, so I'll be so kind as to explain them to you.

    Y'see, Lewk has a pretty rigid world view with a tremendous capability of viewing things in black and white. Additionally, the concept of a multi-variant conditional network is quite beyond his reach. A follows B. B is caused by A. Which means that "You don't have a job" is caused by "You're lazy". Which in turn means that since "You're laid off" causes "You don't have a job", it only follows that within Lewk's strange world "You're laid off" is also caused by "You're lazy".

    See how easy it is to show you that you're pretty naive? You're assuming that everyone has a pretty rational worldview and has a firm grasp on cause and effect.

    That is not so. If rationality played a large role in opinions and decision making, then the world would be quite a different place. I mean, just look at what Glenn Beck and his ilk are allowed to spread on TV - is that rationality they're aiming at?
    When the stars threw down their spears
    And watered heaven with their tears:
    Did he smile his work to see?
    Did he who made the lamb make thee?

  16. #76
    Quote Originally Posted by wiggin View Post
    I think that everyone getting their 'fair share' is a significant part of left wing rhetoric, and I think your reward-punishment thing is not a significant part of conservative rhetoric. IMO their arguments aren't 'they worked hard and get rewarded for their money, let's not take it away' vs. 'they didn't do the work and got punished by poverty'. Rather it's a different ethic - in general, a society founded on rewarding merit and a decent amount of upward mobility will produce the best innovations and improvements for everyone. As a corollary, respecting the property rights of individuals, regardless of their place in society, is a way to incentivize these innovations. This isn't an ethic above all else of course - mainstream conservative discourse still has a quite progressive income tax, for example - but it's the underlying argument. This isn't a reward/punishment argument, but more of a 'lifting all boats' kind of argument. I won't comment on whether it's a good argument or not, but there it is. And, at its core, the concept of respecting property rights is just as much obsessed with fairness as is the concept of everyone getting a 'fair share', whatever that means.
    I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, because I just can't correlate that view of the situation with how reality presents itself. I suppose we can blame my distance from the situation.

    You seem to award a whole lot of intelligence and introspection to most conservative thought, and while I'm not suggesting only morons are conservatives, Cthulhu knows there's plenty of very vapid left-wing hippies, I cannot make myself believe that their behaviour is directed in this fashion. I'm sure they'd happily subscribe to most of your rationalization of it, though.

    The "sweat of your brow" crowd absolutely is furious at what they perceive to be punishments for their idea of success. And many of them were also quite glad to say that AIDS was a punishment for aberrant sexual behaviour. The same punishments and rewards thing, over and over.

    Of course Robertson didn't actually get his term as president, so I won't try to argue that most of the GOP crowd is afflicted with this mode of thought. But the GOP is appearing more and more openly insane as time passes, which may or may not be an unrelated phenomenon.

    Nor have I encountered that much "fair share" argumentation from the mainstream left, but the discussion in my Godless Hell-hole of a nation kind of implicitly assumes that there's a basic share for everybody, so that muddles the issue for me. And given how non-left the mainstream Democrats seem to me, it's hard to compare and contrast. I do see the reward/punishment thinking in some of the right wing demagogy over here, though.

    Quote Originally Posted by wiggin View Post
    *shrugs* Voting based on personal convictions is not limited to religion, and certainly not limited to conservatives. Furthermore, the specific dynamic you describe (the reward-punishment thing in a theoretical meritocracy) is not a big part of the 'vote your values' rhetoric. They tend to focus on other stuff.
    I didn't mean to suggest it was tied specifically to religion. There are plenty of atheists who're happy to vote for people who will ensure criminals receive their fair share of beatings and sodomy. I'm not really interested in researching the foci of vote your values rhetoric though, so I won't try to contest your point.

    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    If you vote for a party that promises to reduce inequality, aren't you voting based on your belief that less poverty or less inequality is a good thing? You're not doing it based on some objective criteria.
    Not necessarily. At least personally I don't vote to reduce inequality for the sake of reducing inequality. Of course my thinking isn't objective in the profits and loss sense, because I consider other variables to be meaningful. However, you are kind of putting the cart before the horse if you want to argue that my values stem from economic considerations. I realize that many people do fabricate their value system based on an economic idea, be it bolshevism or corporate capitalism, but this isn't a global constant.
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  17. #77
    Quote Originally Posted by Nessus View Post
    Not necessarily. At least personally I don't vote to reduce inequality for the sake of reducing inequality. Of course my thinking isn't objective in the profits and loss sense, because I consider other variables to be meaningful. However, you are kind of putting the cart before the horse if you want to argue that my values stem from economic considerations. I realize that many people do fabricate their value system based on an economic idea, be it bolshevism or corporate capitalism, but this isn't a global constant.
    And people who vote based on morality consider the maintenance of certain social norms to be valuable/meaningful. If pushed, many would say that they don't believe we can have order without those norms, and you'd be hard-pressed to argue that order is not useful. In what way is that different from saying who thinks you need to have high taxes in order to maintain a fair and progressive society with equal opportunities for all?
    Hope is the denial of reality

  18. #78
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    And people who vote based on morality consider the maintenance of certain social norms to be valuable/meaningful. If pushed, many would say that they don't believe we can have order without those norms, and you'd be hard-pressed to argue that order is not useful. In what way is that different from saying who thinks you need to have high taxes in order to maintain a fair and progressive society with equal opportunities for all?
    Well we're usually interested in the motives of people just for the sake of being interested, people are weird. Anyhoo, since you brought up objective reasoning, I think there's more grounds to argue that, objectively, reduced societal chasms, better starting choices and more of a safety net is better for societal order, peace and over-all well-being, compared to arguing that oral sex is bad for the nation. I'm picking extreme examples, but you can counter with more reasonable values if you care to.
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  19. #79
    Quote Originally Posted by Nessus View Post
    Well we're usually interested in the motives of people just for the sake of being interested, people are weird. Anyhoo, since you brought up objective reasoning, I think there's more grounds to argue that, objectively, reduced societal chasms, better starting choices and more of a safety net is better for societal order, peace and over-all well-being, compared to arguing that oral sex is bad for the nation. I'm picking extreme examples, but you can counter with more reasonable values if you care to.
    I'm not going to disagree with you on the specifics, but the people in question would. They would argue that a society where the family isn't valued is one where people will not help one another and be more likely to commit crime (not an entirely unreasonable proposition). Sure, banning oral sex isn't exactly the best way of achieving that, but neither is punitive corporate (and personal) taxation the best way of achieving equality.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  20. #80
    This is a very interesting discussion, and I wouldn't mind seeing it on the front page.



    Re. conservatives and their views... I don't know about morality, but I am struck by their reluctance to assess underlying causes as a whole (whether they're specific to the individual or of the system in which the individual exists). My impression is that many conservatives focus excessively on the immediately apparent problems, and that their analyses of underlying causes are limited primarily to those that fit easily into their reward-punishment worldviews.

    As Loki points out, life isn't fair. I'm biased, but my impression is that many conservatives are likely to ignore many kinds of unfairness, even (or especially!!) those that may be amenable to change. I won't venture any guesses as to why they may be more tolerant of unfairness than are we hand-holding hippies. You can spin it in different ways Loki's remark about how leftists justify robbing the rich is interesting. I'd think that it makes sense for a society to reduce unfairness so that everyone can play on a more level field. The alternative seems like a goddamned waste of potential

    I dunno. I wonder what Lewk's friends' preference for their parents' basements says about Lewk's society.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  21. #81
    Cue complaints about arrogant elitist leftists
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  22. #82
    Methinks you are confusing me with Loki.

  23. #83
    You are Loki.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  24. #84
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    Sure, it might not be entire your fault, but that's life.
    I may confuse, but never you with Loki
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  25. #85
    JEWS
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  26. #86
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    You are Loki.
    No one wants to be you.

    We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.

  27. #87
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    No one here has argued that if x (hard work and intelligence) then y (success).
    Thats a very good point, because most of the people here aren't the subject of Nessus' OP which was that there exists a subgroup of people, usually conservative, that believes that hard work means success, and if someone is not successful it must mean that they're not hardworking and therefore lazy.

    The argument has been if x, then y is significantly more likely. Furthermore, no one has claimed that it is hard work and intelligence in themselves that cause success. Rather, those are characteristics that are associated with other traits and actions that make success more likely. So if your average person has an 80% chance of success, someone who's above average in the two traits would have (for example) a 90% of success. Not one person here claims that it means 100%.
    Nessus has already pointed out the weasel wording used with "no one". Besides this, the claim is what I stated above, and is this not what we are debating? Or at least trying to fathom why its exists or how it persists. Going further, how much do you really think the average person's chance of success is? Do you really think its 80%? That high? What about all the other traits, factors, and externalities, that may reduce it (or increase it)? You're still presenting things as binary options. If intelligence, hard work, etc. are more likely to result in a better chance at being successful does that mean that you also believe if someone is not successful that that they're more likely to be unintelligent, lazy, etc. ? If so, what this immediately does is bias your ability to accurately reflect on other people.

    By your absurd logic, a CEO who gets fired is suddenly not successful.
    Nessus seems to have cleared this up for me.
    . . .

  28. #88
    Quote Originally Posted by Illusions View Post
    Nessus has already pointed out the weasel wording used with "no one". Besides this, the claim is what I stated above, and is this not what we are debating? Or at least trying to fathom why its exists or how it persists.
    Should I start a thread on "liberals" and talk about the Black Panthers?

    Going further, how much do you really think the average person's chance of success is? Do you really think its 80%?
    We defined success as being able to make a decent living. About 21% make under $20k, which seems like a decent threshold. I'm currently living on about $18k (gross), and not exactly suffering. Before you mention NYC, remember that most of America is more similar to where I live than to NYC.

    What about all the other traits, factors, and externalities, that may reduce it (or increase it)? You're still presenting things as binary options.
    Sure. Lots of things affect it. One of the best predictors is level of education. There's absolutely no excuse for a healthy individual to not at least have a high school diploma (something that 20% of Americans over 29 don't have). And dare I say, it's not unreasonable to expect people to have an associate degree (something that 2/3 of Americans don't have), seeing that one can get it at a community college for almost free, and do it while holding a full-time job.

    If intelligence, hard work, etc. are more likely to result in a better chance at being successful does that mean that you also believe if someone is not successful that that they're more likely to be unintelligent, lazy, etc. ?
    That's a clear implication.

    If so, what this immediately does is bias your ability to accurately reflect on other people.
    We know that black people and men are more likely to commit crimes than white people or women. Do these facts bias your ability to accurately reflect on black people and men? It would only make sense to stereotype if the relevant correlations were something near 1.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  29. #89
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    I'm currently living on about $18k (gross), and not exactly suffering.
    Student loans included or not? Are you paying your tuition and books from that income?
    Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
    If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?

  30. #90
    Quote Originally Posted by Being View Post
    Student loans included or not? Are you paying your tuition and books from that income?
    The average college graduate only has about $20k in student loans (http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...legeDebts.aspx). Community college graduates shouldn't have any.

    I paid off my loans before I came here. I pay about $1.5k a year in college-related cost, though I do spend about $2k a year on airfare, which most Americans do not. I manage to break even despite eating out about 3 times a week and buying pretty much whatever I want at the supermarket. I also spend about $130 more in rent (per month) than the average in this town.
    Hope is the denial of reality

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