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I mostly agree with you, but the one area we sharply differ is in the reason for the ongoing inequities. I, like many people, grew up in poverty and managed to

I mostly agree with you, but the one area we sharply differ is in the reason for the ongoing inequities. I, like many people, grew up in poverty and managed to get out without all that much trouble. I did well in school in spite of lovely things like semi-regular drive by shootings and a mostly absent parent. Doing well in school meant I was able to get into college and, for better or for worse, the current predatory system of loans means there are practically no limits to the extent of 'free money' available to ensure that money was never an issue. I got a degree in a STEM major knowing I needed to make money to live a decent life, and suddenly the world was my oyster. Nothing I did was particularly remarkable. And many of my peers had literally the exact same opportunities laid before them. Yet many of them failed to take advantage of them. One guy I was good friends with in school I ended up bumping into at a restaurant where he was waiting tables having ended up getting into drugs and also getting a girl pregnant. He was a smart kid and had a decent and supportive family. He was certainly more than able to know about the consequences of the lifestyle choices he was making. Yet he made them. What can you do? There are definitely some cases where people fail to achieve because of things completely outside of their control, but in the vast majority of cases it's going to come down to these bad decisions. So why are people making these bad decisions? It doesn't even make sense to attribute it to race since the exact same problem expands outside of race. It even expands outside of class. Look a the Waltons for some of the biggest wastes of air on this planet, in spite of having more opportunities available to them than nearly every single living person today. Or even look at other issues. Consider obesity. Everybody knows obesity is horrible for your health and isn't exactly going to do great things for your sex life. Yet people, of all classes, are eating and drinking themselves into obesity at rates like never before. And then lying to themselves. By contrast, I noticed myself getting a bit porky, significantly cut down my calorie intake, increased my physical activity, and now I'm in better shape than ever. Again something hardly unique, but why does it seem like so few people are doing these things? You see a problem - you formulate a solution - you execute. You fail, reformulate, and repeat until success. The point of this all is that I do not think being disadvantaged is a significant cause of anything in and of itself. We live in a world that is not only more color blind than ever, but also has more opportunities than ever before. This is why I think that thinking based on working from the result backwards is going to lead to fundamentally broken solutions.

detcader 8y ago
"Even when we take the conservative political philosophy at face value, though, we should note what it implies: that sense of futility, that feeling that you can’t do anything to substantially change the world, you’re stuck with it as it is. This is the way things are, and if your life sucks, it probably sucks out of necessity or because of your own personal failings. As Ben Shapiro puts it, “in a free country, if you fail, it’s probably your own fault.” Once we have freedom, whatever happens next is the natural order of things, and if you try to change it, you’ll be trying to muddle with things that cannot be changed, and you’ll end up destroying freedom. ... I hate it on a gut level, and my hatred is probably because I have spent much of my life thinking that the battle for my self-confidence and happiness was also necessarily a battle against this type of thinking. What type of thinking, exactly? The type that sounds like this: If you’re sad it’s because you’re weak, if you’re poor it’s because you’re stupid, if you’re marginalized it’s because you’re culturally dysfunctional, if you’re being screwed over you shouldn’t have signed the contract, if you did something horrible it’s because you’re evil, if you don’t understand it’s because you haven’t paid attention, if you’re angry it’s because you’re resentful, if you’re sentimental it’s because you’re not a Man." - Nathan Robinson, "Why Hopelessness is Conservative" -- https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/05/why-hopelessness-is-conservative https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/05/why-hopelessness-is-c...
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  I'm definitely not saying anything is the 'natural order of things'. Far from it I'm saying that what people will become is a product of decisions yet to be made. And you are the master of those decisions. Make bad decisions and you will probably not see good outcomes. But at the same time make good decisions and you probably will. Think about this. Imagine the amount of time you will spend over the next 5 years on social media. Instead of doing that dedicate it to learning [x]. With the time allocations of most of us, you would be an expert on [x] by the end of those 5 years. The one and only thing separating you from that achievement is self discipline. It's really quite remarkable if you really consider what this means. I've coached chess for years and the one thing I've found is that who achieves and who fails has very little to do with who is smart or who's dumb. It invariably comes down to what happens when a person runs into a bumpy streak, which happens to everybody at some - even world champions. One group of people will decide well they just must not be smart enough, or somehow weren't born with the ability to play, or maybe they're just too old. And the other group will grit their teeth and continue pushing forward. Not all of those that push forward will succeed, but many will. However, exactly 0 of those that resign themselves to outside forces will ever achieve success - the resignation to those outside forces becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

detcader 8y ago

"Even when we take the conservative political philosophy at face value, though, we should note what it implies: that sense of futility, that feeling that you can’t do anything to substantially change the world, you’re stuck with it as it is. This is the way things are, and if your life sucks, it probably sucks out of necessity or because of your own personal failings. As Ben Shapiro puts it, “in a free country, if you fail, it’s probably your own fault.” Once we have freedom, whatever happens next is the natural order of things, and if you try to change it, you’ll be trying to muddle with things that cannot be changed, and you’ll end up destroying freedom. ... I hate it on a gut level, and my hatred is probably because I have spent much of my life thinking that the battle for my self-confidence and happiness was also necessarily a battle against this type of thinking. What type of thinking, exactly? The type that sounds like this: If you’re sad it’s because you’re weak, if you’re poor it’s because you’re stupid, if you’re marginalized it’s because you’re culturally dysfunctional, if you’re being screwed over you shouldn’t have signed the contract, if you did something horrible it’s because you’re evil, if you don’t understand it’s because you haven’t paid attention, if you’re angry it’s because you’re resentful, if you’re sentimental it’s because you’re not a Man." - Nathan Robinson, "Why Hopelessness is Conservative" -- https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/05/why-hopelessness-is-conservative https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/05/why-hopelessness-is-c...

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I'm definitely not saying anything is the 'natural order of things'. Far from it I'm saying that what people will become is a product of decisions yet to be made. And you are the master of those decisions. Make bad decisions and you will probably not see good outcomes. But at the same time make good decisions and you probably will. Think about this. Imagine the amount of time you will spend over the next 5 years on social media. Instead of doing that dedicate it to learning [x]. With the time allocations of most of us, you would be an expert on [x] by the end of those 5 years. The one and only thing separating you from that achievement is self discipline. It's really quite remarkable if you really consider what this means. I've coached chess for years and the one thing I've found is that who achieves and who fails has very little to do with who is smart or who's dumb. It invariably comes down to what happens when a person runs into a bumpy streak, which happens to everybody at some - even world champions. One group of people will decide well they just must not be smart enough, or somehow weren't born with the ability to play, or maybe they're just too old. And the other group will grit their teeth and continue pushing forward. Not all of those that push forward will succeed, but many will. However, exactly 0 of those that resign themselves to outside forces will ever achieve success - the resignation to those outside forces becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.