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It never ceases to amaze me how much our life is determined by something we have zero control over - the family we are born into. "Life isn't fair" couldn't be
by jordansmithnz 9y ago
It never ceases to amaze me how much our life is determined by something we have zero control over - the family we are born into. "Life isn't fair" couldn't be more true here I guess.
This isn't to say that social status/family has to determine someone's future - I'm a firm believer that hard work and choices can turn that around. Although on a purely statistical basis, it seems that this is rarely the case.
- SamReidHughes 9y agoSocial status doesn't make you get bad grades on exams. Being stupid does. You can expect kids with poorer parents to do worse on exams in any place where smart people are better at making money.
- jordansmithnz 9y agoAre you suggesting that children in poorer families are born less smart than children from wealthier families?
- SamReidHughes 9y agoAbsolutely. Because smart people are better at making money and intelligence is a heritable trait.
- zepto 9y agoOnly if you simplistically ignore that social status and wealth are also heritable and make it much easier to make money regardless of intelligence.
- literallycancer 9y agoOne does not preclude the other.
- eehee 9y agoIf intelligence matters at all to making money, the wealth + intelligence combo probably beats wealth on its own. Unless, of course, intelligence is "bad" for the wealthy and "good" for the poor, but I doubt that's the case...
- zepto 9y agoSure - wealth + intelligence can be highly lucrative e.g. Bill Gates But intelligence without wealth can easily be beaten by average intelligence plus wealth and status. E.g. Trump
- zepto 9y agoJust to be clear - I'm comparing two billionaires who started off as millionaires, and suggesting that Gates is of above average intelligence whereas Trump is not.
- Houshalter 9y agoIs social status and wealth really heritable? There are studies of lottery winners that show their children and grandchildren aren't any better off.
- zepto 9y agoThis comment makes no sense. Wealthy families clearly pass down money and social status to their children.
- Houshalter 9y agoBut it doesn't last long. After 3 generations, maybe less, there's little statistical difference between those descended from wealth and those not (all else equal!) The super wealthy may leave billion dollar empires to their children, sure. But if we are talking about the upper middle class, a moderate inheritance from your parents isn't going to make or break your life's outcome.
- zepto 9y agoA moderate inheritance plus support during your education may well make or break your life's outcome vs someone born to a poor family. 'Inheritance' doesn't have to mean just what was passed down at death - it must also include all the additional resources available during development to have any meaning.
- Houshalter 9y agoBut it doesn't! That's the point. Otherwise the lottery winners kids would be better off since they could go to better schools and afford college. In general there's little evidence that education makes any difference at all.
- zepto 9y agoSeriously, your lottery winners example is meaningless. But if you are saying that education makes little difference to lifetime earnings, you're going to have to back that up with a reference because it's an extraordinary claim.
- Throwaway23412 9y agoThe average American has more wealth than pretty much everyone on Earth. You can't seriously think that it's because Americans are all genetically smarter than everyone else?
- Houshalter 9y agoVariation within a group can be explained by different factors than variation between groups. That is, it could be completely true that Americans with higher IQs are more likely to become wealthy. But as a group America's success is due to other factors than IQ.
- omginternets 9y agoI don't think anybody would seriously dispute that relationship. Rather, I think people are disputing the directionality. You seem to be suggesting some sort of natural selection process, whereas it's also legitimate to posit that status contributes to higher IQ (or g, if you prefer) in the form of: - fewer chemical contaminants in utero and in early life (i.e. living in a less chemically polluted environment) - access to better nutrition - access to better medical care - less stress in utero and in early life - less exposure to disease - less exposure to psycho-physiological toxicity (e.g.: poor sleep quality due to a noisy environment) The list goes on. tl;dr: you're assuming causation from correlation.
- zepto 9y agoThere are no places where social status does not make it easier to make money.
- eehee 9y agoThere are also no places (at least not to my knowledge) where social status is completely decoupled from intelligence.
- cjbest 9y agoMaybe part of what makes a good family offers is encouragement/tendency to work hard and make good choices? Worth thinking about what a level playing field really looks like.
- 21 9y agoYou can go even further. Think about how your live would have been if you were born in most of Africa.