Bought it outright with cash that will never ever buy you government cheese. How does your mom's car drive, by the way?
pray, tell us about this insight you claim to have then? and that you shit on those who haven't had the opportunity or capacity to do those things kinda shows us how you expect people to manage things they frequently don't have a say in.
Okay, now let's say you saved that 20 bucks and suffered through ramen again. Then, let's say you save 20 bucks from every other good Uber day you have for...oh, how about a year. Now you're showing both fiscal AND personal responsibility. And with the money you saved, the world would be your oyster! Banks will be lining up to give you home loans. Your mailbox will be stuffed with credit card offers. The gates of Heaven itself will open up and Horatio Alger himself will sing your praises from the hereafter. Successful people have what they have by being thrifty and denying themselves of every single pleasure of the flesh. That's why there are no such things as luxury cars, superyachts, and fine dining establishments. No. You don't need a good dinner tonight. Dine instead on the promise of a bright future. And ramen, obviously.
" You will eat, bye and bye, In that glorious land above the sky; Work and pray, live on hay, You'll get pie in the sky when you die. "
[quote="Spaceturkey, post: 3533591] pray, tell us about this insight you claim to have[/quote] That you set the bar ridiculously low for yourself and the company you keep. You don't have a say in the circumstances of your birth, but unless you are disabled somehow, you DO have a say in whether you get off your dead ass and make every possible effort every day after that.
I don't think that anyone denies working hard is key to being successful. But a bigger key to success is working in a field that pays you a fuckton of money. Some people do that through hard work, others by having connections, others through plain dumb luck. But someone still has to do the non-lucrative jobs. For example, someone still has to wipe your parents' asses when they get dementia. Believe me, that isn't easy work and it requires more than just a body with a pulse. Doesn't pay well, though. Not like coding or doctoring pays. And it's hard to save money for a house on a caregiver's salary these days, when the housing market is what it is. Prices are up, wages are stagnating. So are we going to chalk all this up to poor choices and too much avocado toast, or are we going to admit there are some systemic problems that need fixing beyond pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps? Do we really want a Gilded Age 2.0?
how is that bar any lower than the bar you've set for yourself? and again, what do you base that on other than your own narcissistic delusions. My work is personally fulfilling, it provides me personal and professional growth, and they pay me handsomely to do it. you'll have to make up your mind if I work with derelicts or the handicapped. (Hint: it's both. Maybe jsut try honesty and acknowledge that, hmm?). Yeah, a lot of them will never be "productive" in a utilitarian sense. What should we (as in "society") do about them? Tell me your modest proposals and final solutions for social ills.
funny you should mention that.... income disparity was proportionately less between 1850-1900 than it has been for the past 30ish years. check out "the new victorians" by stephen pimpare, written at the end of the clinton administration FFS.
This kind of statement almost assumes that we should take for granted that the whole free will versus determinism debate has been settled.
You're right. I am clearly a poor decision maker, and my actions have doomed us all. Anyway, if I eat nothing but ramen for too long I pass out and wake up at the hospital three days later, surrounded by friends and family pissed off because they needed me to do something and I wasn't answering my phone. Passing out is counterproductive. Ever notice how, when someone dictates rules about how people should be, somehow they, themselves, manage to check all the boxes? Have you also noticed, that when it appears they've violated one of their own rules, turns out there's a list of caveats that make the specific thing they did okay under the rules, but if someone else violates one, there's no caveats, no exceptions, ever? I find that very interesting. Anyway, mods, please change UA's name to Fundamental Attribution Error
Not necessarily. There’s a very large difference between making a decision to make the best of your circumstance and having the determination to “change the circumstances” in which you were born. Most recently Bezos, Gates, and Zuckerberg essentially “got lucky” no determinism there.
Come now, @RickDeckard, don’t get shy now. You’re a man. You must know better than I. What is determinism?
Determinism is the concept that all events are determined by those that happened before them through cause and effect, thereby leaving no room for an individual to make an uncaused free choice.
Ah. Well, that explains my misinterpretation of your statement. I don’t believe that particular philosophical bent. I don’t believe in fate or Destiney or “God’s Will” either. My mistake was conflating determinism with ambition.
Its also interesting that people try to tell rich people how to spend thier money. Or they offer an opinion how stars and famous people spread thier wealth and if they donate enough to charity.
RickDeckard didn’t determine that meaning. It’s a philosophical thought in which one’s future is determined by not only their past, but that past of previous generations. The opposite of which would be Libertarianism - philosophically in the sense of free will. Which, amusingly, perfectly encapsulates the differences between UA and RickDeckard - what I assume to be RickDeckard based on his posts here. I don’t know him personally.
If we actually want to get into this, I'm not actually a proponent of strong determinism, in the sense that the future is fixed by the past. Our current scientific understanding is that chance and probability plays a part in physical law. But that's very different from saying that there are uncaused choices made purely by a human will operating on some other level than the rest of reality. It seems to me that the definition of free will is fuzzy and incoherent. It's not clear to me what it's proponents suggest happens when human beings make choices. That these don't arise because of situational factors such as genetics, circumstance and other physical inputs? How then? Recognition that there are antecedent causes for everything clearly has an impact on how moral responsibility ought to be assigned. Yes, you ought to be faulted less for your actions if you've had a shitty upbringing. But no, moral responsibility is not evaded entirely. Human personalities aren't simply the result of physical interactions, they are the physical interactions. It's a complicated topic, and the underlying social causes where there are negative outcomes clearly need to be considered. Those such as UA making vast yet simplistic pronouncements to the contrary ought to be regarded with suspicion.
I think the difference between their two philosophies is actually that of negative and positive liberty. Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.-Hamilton It follows that a frontier must be drawn between the area of private life and that of public authority. Where it is to be drawn is a matter of argument, indeed of haggling. Men are largely interdependent, and no man's activity is so completely private as never to obstruct the lives of others in any way. 'Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows'; the liberty of some must depend on the restraint of others-Isaiah Berlin
Which is essentially the point of my post. Most people will exert their free will and make the best of their circumstances. Very few will exert themselves to achieve ambition and significantly improve their circumstances.
Previously, in human history, the ability of an individual to significantly improve their circumstance was impeded by whatever government at the time. The prevailing philosophy coming out of The Enlightenment is that individuals should be able to improve their circumstance as they wish. That’s the very basis of the philosophies in creating the government of the US - that the government would not impede an individual’s right to improve themself. That even the poorest/lowest born can grow up to achieve the ability to … lead the tribe.
Since I am challenging the very concept of free will, I am not clear on how any of that is connected to it.
And I’m arguing in favor of it. A person can change their circumstances if they process both ambition and intelligence. Most others make the best of their circumstances Very few wallow in fatalism throwing up their hands and saying “welp, there’s nothing I can do”.
yet even at the level and scope of "tribes", essentials of life are guaranteed equitable distribution within its members. Indeed, frequently the "strongest" sacrifice their own needs to ensure the well being of the "weakest" or otherwise unable to provide themselves certain necessities. I think you'd also want to go further back than the enlightenment to at least the early 13th century with anything from Magna Carta to the Bavarian Purity Act, making stops along the way with folks liek Thomas More. That is, that with freedom and potential power over others (wherein actions or negligence can cause harm) comes obligation. Short of living in a Fallout like world,us peasants and proles are going to be taxed no matter what (and likely less so than we would be in a dystopia). The question here is what do we get for our money.
I may not be explaining myself. Or am misunderstanding your point. I acknowledge that moving from abject poverty to even just middle class is a phenomenal feat. One I certainly couldn’t manage. I have zero ambition. The best most of us can do is adapt and thrive. We can say “this is my life, how can I make the best of it.” Very, very few, in history, have actually used ambition, hard work, and determination to move from one circumstance (or class, if you will) to another. George Washington Carver for one (only one I can think of off the top of my head) I agree that it takes much more than “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps”. I agree that that particular adage is ultimately detrimental to the whole of any society as it provides an excuse for some to disparage others.
You hold yourself to a standard of integrity, and take accountability when you fall short, of which I have done plenty and never denied it. But nobody wants to hear about accountability. They want to hear "Nothing is your fault, and the world owes you a living." Used to be people would grow out of that. No, that is not an invitation for some "They shot up a school and killed themselves after you hurt their feelings, therefore it is all your fault" stupidity.
