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> But you can have a great culture without wealth. In fact I’d argue a great culture is one of the building blocks of wealth. That statement is true but also n

> But you can have a great culture without wealth. In fact I’d argue a great culture is one of the building blocks of wealth. That statement is true but also not at odds with the point you're responding to. The point is that if you start off with less, you need to work that much harder to build that culture. It's like picking how to allocate skill points in an RPG. If someone gets 40 skill points to spread along attack/defense/hp vs you who only get 10 (this is what a wealth gap does), you could allocate all of them to 1 dimension to have reasonable performance there, but it will come at a cost. And even then you won't beat someone who had the luxury of allocating all 40 points to the same thing, since they have more to begin with. What really irks me is when folks worship the character with maxed out stats in every dimension and then for lesser characters they say "didn't grind enough" or "didn't optimize correctly." Maybe just acknowledge the truth of the matter, that folks with maxed out stats probably grinded a lot (yes yes, very admirable) but also started with a better dice roll. And if kids grow up with less education-centric culture or worse learning outcomes you can't just blame parents for not instilling that. Some parents can do more, that's guaranteed. Some parents can't, that's also for certain.

iateanapple 6y ago
> It's like picking how to allocate skill points in an RPG To stretch your analogy: And then we try to make up for the skill points gap by throwing money at the unlucky and tell them to just buy some better items to make up for it. And it doesn’t work. > Some parents can do more, that's guaranteed. Some parents can't, that's also for certain. But that’s the beauty - you don’t need everyone to be able to in order to build a better culture and a better future. > And if kids grow up with less education-centric culture or worse learning outcomes you can't just blame parents for not instilling that. In my culture that’s exactly what we do. It’s not always fair on the parents but in practice for the community it works a lot better than throwing money at the problem.
- kajecounterhack 6y ago
  > And then we try to make up for the skill points gap by throwing money at the unlucky and tell them to just buy some better items to make up for it. I didn't assert anything about how we allocate dollars to level the playing field for parents. Identifying a wealth gap doesn't mean the solution is to simply throw cash at the problem (though solutions _do_ require money). Pretty hard to fix family culture if parents can't afford to spend time with their kids. > But that’s the beauty - you don’t need everyone to be able to in order to build a better culture and a better future. You certainly have a way of responding to things that weren't asserted in the first place. The statement you were responding to was intended to illustrate why we should have empathy for those lower on the wealth ladder. "Culture" is loaded because it's easier to build education-centric culture the higher on the wealth ladder you are. Because time, emotional bandwidth, and money are deeply connected in reality. Your statement that in your culture you blame parents for not instilling education-centric culture is the thing I totally disagree with. I don't think shaming parents is producing results the way you think it is, or producing a "better culture and a better future," as you would say. Nobody wants to live in a culture where you get blamed for things outside of your control. And you should probably recognize that there are limits to how parents affect their children even under "perfect" conditions. These aren't nice little math functions where input -> output, these are complex human beings we're talking about.
  - iateanapple 6y ago
    > You certainly have a way of responding to things that weren't asserted in the first place. I thought we were having a discussion and not a point-counterpoint style debate. > I don't think shaming parents is producing results the way you think it is, or producing a "better culture and a better future," as you would say. My parents grew up with actual famine, high levels of pollution, horrible factory jobs etc. So did almost all of my uncles and aunties. A minimum wage job at Walmart in the US would have provided a huge increase in quality of life for them. Yet looking at their education levels they were still miles ahead of the bottom 25% of US high school graduates. > And you should probably recognize that there are limits to how parents affect their children even under "perfect" conditions. Of course - but we can’t really untangle the complexities involved except by trial and error. I feel we have tried providing more money/funding in the US with overall poor outcomes. I’m telling you about a method that has worked - for a different culture in a worse economic environment. Maybe the success is not from the shaming but in spite of it - but like I said it’s difficult to untangle. I’m not even really promoting it as I still remember the pain from getting caned for getting poor results.

iateanapple 6y ago

> It's like picking how to allocate skill points in an RPG To stretch your analogy: And then we try to make up for the skill points gap by throwing money at the unlucky and tell them to just buy some better items to make up for it. And it doesn’t work. > Some parents can do more, that's guaranteed. Some parents can't, that's also for certain. But that’s the beauty - you don’t need everyone to be able to in order to build a better culture and a better future. > And if kids grow up with less education-centric culture or worse learning outcomes you can't just blame parents for not instilling that. In my culture that’s exactly what we do. It’s not always fair on the parents but in practice for the community it works a lot better than throwing money at the problem.

kajecounterhack 6y ago
> And then we try to make up for the skill points gap by throwing money at the unlucky and tell them to just buy some better items to make up for it. I didn't assert anything about how we allocate dollars to level the playing field for parents. Identifying a wealth gap doesn't mean the solution is to simply throw cash at the problem (though solutions _do_ require money). Pretty hard to fix family culture if parents can't afford to spend time with their kids. > But that’s the beauty - you don’t need everyone to be able to in order to build a better culture and a better future. You certainly have a way of responding to things that weren't asserted in the first place. The statement you were responding to was intended to illustrate why we should have empathy for those lower on the wealth ladder. "Culture" is loaded because it's easier to build education-centric culture the higher on the wealth ladder you are. Because time, emotional bandwidth, and money are deeply connected in reality. Your statement that in your culture you blame parents for not instilling education-centric culture is the thing I totally disagree with. I don't think shaming parents is producing results the way you think it is, or producing a "better culture and a better future," as you would say. Nobody wants to live in a culture where you get blamed for things outside of your control. And you should probably recognize that there are limits to how parents affect their children even under "perfect" conditions. These aren't nice little math functions where input -> output, these are complex human beings we're talking about.
- iateanapple 6y ago
  > You certainly have a way of responding to things that weren't asserted in the first place. I thought we were having a discussion and not a point-counterpoint style debate. > I don't think shaming parents is producing results the way you think it is, or producing a "better culture and a better future," as you would say. My parents grew up with actual famine, high levels of pollution, horrible factory jobs etc. So did almost all of my uncles and aunties. A minimum wage job at Walmart in the US would have provided a huge increase in quality of life for them. Yet looking at their education levels they were still miles ahead of the bottom 25% of US high school graduates. > And you should probably recognize that there are limits to how parents affect their children even under "perfect" conditions. Of course - but we can’t really untangle the complexities involved except by trial and error. I feel we have tried providing more money/funding in the US with overall poor outcomes. I’m telling you about a method that has worked - for a different culture in a worse economic environment. Maybe the success is not from the shaming but in spite of it - but like I said it’s difficult to untangle. I’m not even really promoting it as I still remember the pain from getting caned for getting poor results.