3 ms·
> In a fair society, with equality of opportunity, it should be equally likely for a child born in a trailer park to become high income earner as it is for Bill
by TheTrotters 5y ago
> In a fair society, with equality of opportunity, it should be equally likely for a child born in a trailer park to become high income earner as it is for Bill Gate's child. That is the normal social mobility we should expect in a democratic society with no class structure. We are so laughably far off from this everywhere in the world...
That’s only if you assume there isn’t a generic component to traits that influence (broadly defined) success. But of course that’s not true.
We should expect Bill Gates to be much more intelligent, conscientious, and to have much better impulse control than typical people living in a trailer park. Ditto for many other traits. Therefore it’s much more likely that his children posses these traits compared to children born in trailer parks.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoGenetic or learned behavior? The behaviors that help you successfully move between lower rungs may (spoiler: they do) hinder you at higher rungs.
- nitrogen 5y agoI'm inclined to agree with this, but could you elaborate on some of these behaviors? The ones that come to my mind are punctuality and subservience. Absolutely critical for a bottom-tier laborer, but nobody is upset if the CEO is late for a meeting.
- simiones 5y ago> We should expect Bill Gates to be much more intelligent, conscientious, and to have much better impulse control than typical people living in a trailer park. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Even if there are genes for success, being successful is not proof of having those genes, and being unsuccessful is not proof of not having them. Furthermore, if we assume that someone swapped Bill Gates' baby with a baby born in a trailer park, do you truly think that Bill Gates' genetic child will have a much better chance at success than the child Gates raised as his own?