3 ms·

In which direction is causality flowing here, and how do you justify it? We didn't choose our brains––so how do we differentiate the privilege we got from our "

In which direction is causality flowing here, and how do you justify it? We didn't choose our brains––so how do we differentiate the privilege we got from our "class" from the traits we were born with? Does privilege imply that you got it from your "class"? This seems like a classic nature/nurture fallacy.

coldtea 7y ago
>In which direction is causality flowing here, and how do you justify it? We didn't choose our brains No, but our privileged parents did contribute to them, and their our upbringing, early months, lack of childhood stress over things as food and war, familial support, good schools, and so on. Brains is hardly the best contributor to entrepreneurial success. In fact a plot of IQ vs success I've seen plotted looked like random noise except below a certain threshold (obviously seriously cognitive impaired people will have much more trouble becoming entrepreneurs). But aside from that, whether you are 105 or 120 or 150 didn't seem to make much of a difference.
- michaelmcmillan 7y ago
  Induction gets you nowhere though: where did our privileged parents get their brains from? You're proving my point here: we inherit roughly 50% of our traits through our parent's genes. I never claimed IQ was the best measure (surprised it looked like random noise though), but certainly our cognitive traits matter. So to my question: How do you distinguish that privilege from the privilege you got from your "class"? Edit: Sorry if I came across snarky here, I appreciate your answer!
  - todd8 7y ago
    Where do the other 50% of our genes come from?
    - bluGill 7y ago
      You get 50% of your parents genes, the other 50% isn't passed on to you at all. They might be passed on to your siblings.
    - michaelmcmillan 7y ago
      I guess you're smart enough to realize that was a typo :)
      - todd8 7y ago
        Yes, :)
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >Induction gets you nowhere though: where did our privileged parents get their brains from? You're proving my point here: we inherit roughly 50% of our traits through our parent's genes. Well, of people with equal IQs, isn't a potential 0-50% penalty from nurture/privilege still huge enough to make points about "self-made men taking risks" (and implying that others are "lazy" or whatever) moot?
pjc50 7y ago
Privilege is not a trait. You cannot look at a person in isolation and say whether they have it or not. It's a property of how other people relate to them in society. White skin is something you're born with. White privilege is what happens when you live in a society that assumes that black people are more likely to be criminals than white people, so you get a more favourable reception when you walk in a room.
x86_64Ubuntu 7y ago
Do you really think someone's ending point as an adult is largely limited to their "brains"? Like, how are you going to completely exclude the upbringing environment and the scarcity and struggle for resources that some folks face.
- michaelmcmillan 7y ago
  It's not "what I think", it's what we know. One of the most well established facts in sociology is that IQ is the best predictor for life success: Firkowska-Mankiewicz, Anna, and Jerzyna Słomczyńska. Intelligence (IQ) as a Predictor of Life Success. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20628656 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20628656 You reiterate my question in the second sentence: How do we weight these different privileges?
  - dagw 7y ago
    is that IQ is the best predictor for life success Perhaps, but the paper also concludes "that the importance of the role of IQ in predicting life success should not be overestimated". Furthermore while IQ did to some degree predict objective life success it does not seem to predict subjective life success, ie how happy you are with how your life turned out.
    - dagw 7y ago
      Also, they only compared those who scored very low to those that scored very high. The study says nothing about the predictive power of IQ for those who are within 'normal' ranges. All you can really conclude is that 13-year-olds with a WISC score above 130 tend to do better in life than kids with a WISC score below 85. It says nothing about if we can extrapolate that to conclude the kids scoring 115 do better than kids scoring 95.
  - zepto 7y ago
    You are misinterpreting that research. It’s the best individual predictor when compared against other predictors, but not very predictive on its own. I.e. Iq is more predictive than inherited wealth, but iq + inherited wealth is more predictive than either individual factor.

coldtea 7y ago

>In which direction is causality flowing here, and how do you justify it? We didn't choose our brains No, but our privileged parents did contribute to them, and their our upbringing, early months, lack of childhood stress over things as food and war, familial support, good schools, and so on. Brains is hardly the best contributor to entrepreneurial success. In fact a plot of IQ vs success I've seen plotted looked like random noise except below a certain threshold (obviously seriously cognitive impaired people will have much more trouble becoming entrepreneurs). But aside from that, whether you are 105 or 120 or 150 didn't seem to make much of a difference.

michaelmcmillan 7y ago
Induction gets you nowhere though: where did our privileged parents get their brains from? You're proving my point here: we inherit roughly 50% of our traits through our parent's genes. I never claimed IQ was the best measure (surprised it looked like random noise though), but certainly our cognitive traits matter. So to my question: How do you distinguish that privilege from the privilege you got from your "class"? Edit: Sorry if I came across snarky here, I appreciate your answer!
- todd8 7y ago
  Where do the other 50% of our genes come from?
  - bluGill 7y ago
    You get 50% of your parents genes, the other 50% isn't passed on to you at all. They might be passed on to your siblings.
  - michaelmcmillan 7y ago
    I guess you're smart enough to realize that was a typo :)
    - todd8 7y ago
      Yes, :)
- coldtea 7y ago
  >Induction gets you nowhere though: where did our privileged parents get their brains from? You're proving my point here: we inherit roughly 50% of our traits through our parent's genes. Well, of people with equal IQs, isn't a potential 0-50% penalty from nurture/privilege still huge enough to make points about "self-made men taking risks" (and implying that others are "lazy" or whatever) moot?

pjc50 7y ago

Privilege is not a trait. You cannot look at a person in isolation and say whether they have it or not. It's a property of how other people relate to them in society. White skin is something you're born with. White privilege is what happens when you live in a society that assumes that black people are more likely to be criminals than white people, so you get a more favourable reception when you walk in a room.

x86_64Ubuntu 7y ago

Do you really think someone's ending point as an adult is largely limited to their "brains"? Like, how are you going to completely exclude the upbringing environment and the scarcity and struggle for resources that some folks face.

michaelmcmillan 7y ago
It's not "what I think", it's what we know. One of the most well established facts in sociology is that IQ is the best predictor for life success: Firkowska-Mankiewicz, Anna, and Jerzyna Słomczyńska. Intelligence (IQ) as a Predictor of Life Success. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20628656 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20628656 You reiterate my question in the second sentence: How do we weight these different privileges?
- dagw 7y ago
  is that IQ is the best predictor for life success Perhaps, but the paper also concludes "that the importance of the role of IQ in predicting life success should not be overestimated". Furthermore while IQ did to some degree predict objective life success it does not seem to predict subjective life success, ie how happy you are with how your life turned out.
  - dagw 7y ago
    Also, they only compared those who scored very low to those that scored very high. The study says nothing about the predictive power of IQ for those who are within 'normal' ranges. All you can really conclude is that 13-year-olds with a WISC score above 130 tend to do better in life than kids with a WISC score below 85. It says nothing about if we can extrapolate that to conclude the kids scoring 115 do better than kids scoring 95.
- zepto 7y ago
  You are misinterpreting that research. It’s the best individual predictor when compared against other predictors, but not very predictive on its own. I.e. Iq is more predictive than inherited wealth, but iq + inherited wealth is more predictive than either individual factor.