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To me argument always just seems like someone from a position of privlidge explaining why we shouldn't be too worried about all the people in shitty opressive c

by maym86 8y ago

To me argument always just seems like someone from a position of privlidge explaining why we shouldn't be too worried about all the people in shitty opressive circumstances. Great, things on average are getting better, but try telling that to the people in Flint drinking poisionous water or the children in cages etc. "Don't worry, things are getting better on average" Statisically he may be right for certain measurable factors but it seems a little naive or callous when he's clearly not directly effected by the worst issues in the world.

watwut 8y ago
Also, things are getting better because people actively try to make them better. It does not happen automatically via passive waiting for miracle.
BurningFrog 8y ago
Life gets simpler when you evaluate facts based of if they're true or not, rather than on how much you like the person delivering them.
toasterlovin 8y ago
The relative social position of the person making the argument has no bearing on whether the argument is correct.
- jopsen 8y ago
  Spot on! This is one of the problems we see on the left from time to time.. for example someone suggesting that men can't have an opinion on gender equality, or what not.. (note. the problems on the right in American politics does however seem objectively worse by a few orders of magnitude)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - maym86 8y ago
    > men can't have an opinion on gender equality, or what not It's about getting the people with the right experience and weighting people's opinions based on experience. For a long time mens opinions have been overweighted in gender issues hence the push for rebalancing.
    - jopsen 8y ago
      I understand the feeling.. But if you want to change the mind of other thinking people, it's better to argue the merits of the message than debate the identity of carrier.
      - maym86 8y ago
        It's not about "identity". It's about experience with the issue which for many gender issues is often tied to identity. "Other thinking people" can also do better to recognize this.
- maym86 8y ago
  I'm not saying he's wrong by the measures he uses. I'm saying he has the privilege of being able to look at things from a perspective which people who are not so well off do not.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    FWIW, most of the improvements he talks about disproportionately benefit underprivileged people.
dane-pgp 8y ago
Are you saying that privileged people should refrain from publishing analyses about the state of the world and the progress which has been made? Perhaps you're saying that you personally can't separate what you know about the author from the position he is trying to present, and you may not be alone in that. There may be an interesting question here about the tension between, on the one hand, the benefit of anonymous publication to stop positive or negative associations with the author from affecting how their work is received, and on the other hand, the need for full disclosure when an author advocates for certain policies that they might gain undue benefit from.
- maym86 8y ago
  I'm not saying he's wrong by the measures he uses. I'm saying he has the privilege of being able to look at things from a perspective which people who are not so well off do not. I doubt many people dealing with specific issues would be helped or comforted by his thesis.
  - dane-pgp 8y ago
    Thanks for helping me understand your position better. You're right that people dealing with specific issues are unlikely to be (directly, immediately) helped by his analysis, although it's possible that if he identifies specific mechanisms that have improved outcomes for people, then societies could harness those mechanisms to improve the situation for even more people. I think your original comment suggested that because he was privileged, and because he had noticed that the situation for many people in the world is better than it has been before, that therefore he didn't care (or people like him might not care) that others still suffer from problems that we could prevent. I'm not sure if optimism reduces empathy, but I suppose that is something to consider.
    - maym86 8y ago
      I guess it's more of a PR issue than a criticism of his work. A Harvard Professor with a pretty decent life telling the world that everythings getting better when for a significant number of people that isn't what they are experiencing.
jlmorton 8y ago
> Great, things on average are getting better, but try telling that to the people in Flint drinking poisionous water or the children in cages etc. This is actually a great example. We continue to reduce the lead in our water and environment, and kids in Flint today have all-time record low levels of lead in their blood. There is no amount of lead that is safe, and this is not meant to let Flint and Michigan officials off the hook. But it's relevant to point out that kids in Flint today have dramatically, orders of magnitude lower levels of lead in their blood than kids born in the 1980s.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> seems like someone from a position of privlidge [sic] explaining why we shouldn't be too worried about all the people in shitty opressive circumstances You'll be pleasantly surprised by his work. It suggests that if there is a natural arc to history, it involves the expansion of our "circle of empathy". Progress, in Pinker's definition, involves improving living standards for everyone. His is a counter to the "things are getting worse so we should keep more for ourselves" argument.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
Because if you've had any exposure to how conditions were even two generations ago, even people in Flint have it reasonably good - it's the water issue that's obviously a problem. > My grandparents grew up without electricity or plumbing, not even a telephone. > Infant mortality when they were born was 10% for children under the age of 1. > There was no healthcare. > There was no retirement/social assistance. > There was no welfare. > Many of grandads peers died in brutal wars. > Epidemic diseases (aka spanish flu etc.) were still common and would wipe out a lot of people. > There was no right to vote for women. There was no transparency in governance. > There was no concept of 'worker safety' - people did unbelievably dangerous things. My grandfather worked in a lumber camp in dead winter, cutting down and hauling trees surrounded by others doing the same. > There was no higher education for regular folk. > They were white as can be yet faced intense racism as 'dirty Germans' (i.e. two world wars). > Heck there wasn't even anything made of plastic ... can you imagine! ... I could go on and on ... Life is incredibly better (materially, maybe not socially) for almost everyone, most of us wouldn't survive two weeks in Victorian-era conditions.
- maym86 8y ago
  The point is that doesn't matter or help someone dealing with some unfortunate issue today. It's true but useless information to them coming from someone who doesn't have to deal with it.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    The issue at hand is 'are things getting better overall, and can we be generally optimistic', this is not about individual situations.
    - maym86 8y ago
      Exactly - he gets to look at it like that. A lot of people don't have that privilege.

by maym86 8y ago

watwut 8y ago

Also, things are getting better because people actively try to make them better. It does not happen automatically via passive waiting for miracle.

BurningFrog 8y ago

Life gets simpler when you evaluate facts based of if they're true or not, rather than on how much you like the person delivering them.

toasterlovin 8y ago

The relative social position of the person making the argument has no bearing on whether the argument is correct.

jopsen 8y ago
Spot on! This is one of the problems we see on the left from time to time.. for example someone suggesting that men can't have an opinion on gender equality, or what not.. (note. the problems on the right in American politics does however seem objectively worse by a few orders of magnitude)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- maym86 8y ago
  > men can't have an opinion on gender equality, or what not It's about getting the people with the right experience and weighting people's opinions based on experience. For a long time mens opinions have been overweighted in gender issues hence the push for rebalancing.
  - jopsen 8y ago
    I understand the feeling.. But if you want to change the mind of other thinking people, it's better to argue the merits of the message than debate the identity of carrier.
    - maym86 8y ago
      It's not about "identity". It's about experience with the issue which for many gender issues is often tied to identity. "Other thinking people" can also do better to recognize this.
maym86 8y ago
I'm not saying he's wrong by the measures he uses. I'm saying he has the privilege of being able to look at things from a perspective which people who are not so well off do not.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  FWIW, most of the improvements he talks about disproportionately benefit underprivileged people.

dane-pgp 8y ago

Are you saying that privileged people should refrain from publishing analyses about the state of the world and the progress which has been made? Perhaps you're saying that you personally can't separate what you know about the author from the position he is trying to present, and you may not be alone in that. There may be an interesting question here about the tension between, on the one hand, the benefit of anonymous publication to stop positive or negative associations with the author from affecting how their work is received, and on the other hand, the need for full disclosure when an author advocates for certain policies that they might gain undue benefit from.

maym86 8y ago
I'm not saying he's wrong by the measures he uses. I'm saying he has the privilege of being able to look at things from a perspective which people who are not so well off do not. I doubt many people dealing with specific issues would be helped or comforted by his thesis.
- dane-pgp 8y ago
  Thanks for helping me understand your position better. You're right that people dealing with specific issues are unlikely to be (directly, immediately) helped by his analysis, although it's possible that if he identifies specific mechanisms that have improved outcomes for people, then societies could harness those mechanisms to improve the situation for even more people. I think your original comment suggested that because he was privileged, and because he had noticed that the situation for many people in the world is better than it has been before, that therefore he didn't care (or people like him might not care) that others still suffer from problems that we could prevent. I'm not sure if optimism reduces empathy, but I suppose that is something to consider.
  - maym86 8y ago
    I guess it's more of a PR issue than a criticism of his work. A Harvard Professor with a pretty decent life telling the world that everythings getting better when for a significant number of people that isn't what they are experiencing.

jlmorton 8y ago

> Great, things on average are getting better, but try telling that to the people in Flint drinking poisionous water or the children in cages etc. This is actually a great example. We continue to reduce the lead in our water and environment, and kids in Flint today have all-time record low levels of lead in their blood. There is no amount of lead that is safe, and this is not meant to let Flint and Michigan officials off the hook. But it's relevant to point out that kids in Flint today have dramatically, orders of magnitude lower levels of lead in their blood than kids born in the 1980s.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> seems like someone from a position of privlidge [sic] explaining why we shouldn't be too worried about all the people in shitty opressive circumstances You'll be pleasantly surprised by his work. It suggests that if there is a natural arc to history, it involves the expansion of our "circle of empathy". Progress, in Pinker's definition, involves improving living standards for everyone. His is a counter to the "things are getting worse so we should keep more for ourselves" argument.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

Because if you've had any exposure to how conditions were even two generations ago, even people in Flint have it reasonably good - it's the water issue that's obviously a problem. > My grandparents grew up without electricity or plumbing, not even a telephone. > Infant mortality when they were born was 10% for children under the age of 1. > There was no healthcare. > There was no retirement/social assistance. > There was no welfare. > Many of grandads peers died in brutal wars. > Epidemic diseases (aka spanish flu etc.) were still common and would wipe out a lot of people. > There was no right to vote for women. There was no transparency in governance. > There was no concept of 'worker safety' - people did unbelievably dangerous things. My grandfather worked in a lumber camp in dead winter, cutting down and hauling trees surrounded by others doing the same. > There was no higher education for regular folk. > They were white as can be yet faced intense racism as 'dirty Germans' (i.e. two world wars). > Heck there wasn't even anything made of plastic ... can you imagine! ... I could go on and on ... Life is incredibly better (materially, maybe not socially) for almost everyone, most of us wouldn't survive two weeks in Victorian-era conditions.

maym86 8y ago
The point is that doesn't matter or help someone dealing with some unfortunate issue today. It's true but useless information to them coming from someone who doesn't have to deal with it.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  The issue at hand is 'are things getting better overall, and can we be generally optimistic', this is not about individual situations.
  - maym86 8y ago
    Exactly - he gets to look at it like that. A lot of people don't have that privilege.