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And if he had a cold the day of the competition, came second, didn’t become the subject of a news article and remained homeless? The article itself points out
by moomin 8y ago
And if he had a cold the day of the competition, came second, didn’t become the subject of a news article and remained homeless?
The article itself points out this exact problem. We’ve replaced the American Dream with the American Lottery, where only the truly lucky get to change their circumstance. Otherwise, any study will tell you American has way lower levels of social mobility than Europe. If you want talent to be rewarded, the European Reality beats the American Dream very time.
- paulgb 8y agoNot to mention all the other kids out there who don’t play chess but could make amazing contributions to society if they had access to the education they needed.
- crushcrashcrush 8y agoGreat point. This is also the reason we can't pass meaningful taxes on the wealthy - including cap gains. Because everyone in the US believes they'll one day be a millionaire.
- tuesdayrain 8y agoI don't find that to be true from my conversations about this topic. The people I've talked to are afraid of increasing taxes on the wealthy because they're afraid that the wealthy will just choose to relocate to another country, potentially even taking businesses with them.
- crushcrashcrush 8y agoDifferent circles! I think the line of thinking you've brought up is a method of control to never enact meaningful tax policy; but I understand the thinking.
- moomin 8y agoIt’s worth bearing in mind this is literally a talking point thought up and promoted by the rich. There have been studies in this. They suggest the exact opposite: there just aren’t many Saverins in the world. Equally, business location seems to have very little to do with personal taxation. This all funnels down to a fundamental misunderstanding of the source of wealth: it starts with a working economy where people buy stuff and work. The rich, like it or not, don’t do much of either relative to their wealth.
- Hydraulix989 8y agoOr if he wasn't picked up (or should I say, editorialized) by the New York Times? Or if how we treat our "refugees" that are homeless vs. our own citizens who are also homeless wasn't a highly-politicized issue du jour? GoFundMe isn't a social safety net. Overly wealthy donors dolling out six-figure handouts and spare prime-Manhattan bedrooms as pocket change at their own discretion to this kid isn't scalable either. We shouldn't treat one-off's like this that tug at our heart strings as social progress. Just take a walk down Market Street and realize that there is still a mountainous amount of work to be done. And it can be done. In modern, developed countries like South Korea, there is not a single homeless person. Come on, America! I am very privileged; I didn't have to become a state chess champion against all odds in order to have basic shelter.
- Pharmakon 8y agoSouth Korea, as of last count, has 11,400 homeless people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeles... It is a tiny fraction of the total population, and an achievement, so why bullshit about it? As for “our own kind” I’m not going to touch that for love or money.
- kgwgk 8y agoMaybe the parent comment was thinking of North Korea. https://www.upi.com/North-Korean-defector-says-no-homelessness-in-Pyongyang/8801457150974/ https://www.upi.com/North-Korean-defector-says-no-homelessne...
- Pharmakon 8y agoThat’s even worse, akin to countries that claim there are no gay people there because it’s ideologically inconvenient to admit otherwise, or anyone “out” is summarily executed. Having said that the previous poster specified “modern developed countries like...” so I doubt it was meant to be DRPK rather than the claimed ROK.
- DFHippie 8y agotypo: s/very/every/
- moomin 8y agoMeh, sadly too late to correct.