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I would think "starting conditions" includes the parents one has. Also what you say is not quite logic - you're saying that valuing education means people succe

I would think "starting conditions" includes the parents one has. Also what you say is not quite logic - you're saying that valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? I think that's the question, and usually that's because they were born in the wrong place, at the wrong time or under the wrong regime. When their kids are born, it's a different perhaps better time, so better starting conditions, and they now have a chance to succeed. The anomaly is corrected. But those are anomalies, it's exceptional. I think the issue is when you take two people born in the same town, at the same time, and both work equally hard, except one has the parents to give them a head start in everything and the other doesn't. Maybe one will eventually make an average salary in a local company, while the other will have his own company.

randlet 5y ago
> you're saying that valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? Possibly because the parents parents didn't value education and by the time the parents came to value education they were already stuck in the cycle of poverty.
- throwaway316943 5y ago
  Agreed, your parents mistakes are often a very strong source of motivation to act differently.
- bluGill 5y ago
  Why do you think the parents didn't succeed? Starting conditions matter, if you start from nothing and realize the right change it will still be a few generations before you can fully take advantage of it. However by making a small change now the future can be better for the future generations. If you took the vast majority of babies and had be adopt them (this is of course kid napping which I wouldn't agree to) they would grow up to be more successful than if they remain with their parents. Of course successful is in the eye of the judge, some of their parents in 40 years would be glad for my help and some would think their baby would be better off with them. The above applies to most of the people reading this as well. (a few of you have admitted you don't want kids because you would be a bad parent, and a few more could be good parents to your own kids but bad for adopted kids - but overall these groups are a minority)
zests 5y ago
The parents were immigrants. They were successful -- just not in the way its normally measured.
- js8 5y ago
  Don't immigrants show that not only hard work (which they usually did) but other factors (like emigrating from a bad environment, which can be pretty risky) are needed for a better life?
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    I don't think it's the emigration part that's needed. People are usually forced to emigrate somewhere else because of the conditions or their home country. Those who are down to emigrate to a foreign country (especially if their original country is not a warzone or is not that bad - implying they're really trying hard to improve their life) probably have some other characteristics that can be useful for achieving success. The debate then moves on how much of those characteristics are genetic and how much are due to the bad environment per se (or maybe the good environment their families where able to setup in a bad environment) - on which I think we don't yet have a scientific answer.
mc32 5y ago
I think implicit in the post is that parents’ parents could have lived where education was too far away physically, took away from a pool of labor, etc. Conversely, we have kids today, who for whatever reason have the opportunity to get an education but are sidetracked by entertainment and other things that can derail their long term prospects despite more being available to them. (Contrast with kids in third world counties who walk miles to the nearest school, pay for books from their meager earnings, take jobs to pay for their siblings’ education, etc) yet these privileged kids can’t be arsed.
- whoneedswork 5y ago
  I mean why bother study hard and get a job and pay taxes when you can just cash welfare checks, play video games all day, sell weed for extra money that doesn't have to be reported as income, and live in Section 8 Housing? "People just don't want to work anymore" is the new mantra over on Reddit, like work is something that was invented by capitalists and if we had UBI doing anything meaningful with your life would be fully optional. Check out r/antiwork for ample expressions of this viewpoint.
  - drakythe 5y ago
    You pretty clearly have no idea WTF you're talking about. r/antiwork is a response to rampant capitalism rewarding parasitic billionaires, not some idea that people don't want to do "anything meaningful" with their lives. Have a nice rest of your day.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
fullstop 5y ago
> I would think "starting conditions" includes the parents one has. Also what you say is not quite logic - you're saying that valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? Some people value education independently of their parents. You go on to make a point about a head start being beneficial, and I'm absolutely not disagreeing with that.
ewmiller 5y ago
> valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? Picture a first-generation immigrant family in America where the parents are older, don't speak English very well, and spend almost all their time working multiple jobs to pay bills and provide food and shelter for their kids. They then push their kids to do well in school because they know it's practically too late for themselves, but that their kids will be much better off than they were if they succeed in school. Anecdotally, I knew several such families growing up.
- adkadskhj 5y ago
  I think there's also other cases where kids grew up without education (like myself) - but could have, but if i were to have kids now i'd value education immensely. Ie i'm not an immigrant, my lack of early education is a result of my family being poor and making poor decisions. However now my values have shifted drastically. Ironically i would consider myself very lucky. Not wealthy by any means, but far better off than the average American household. Which then perhaps would put my children (which i'm not having, lol) in the position of being "children of well-off families".. maybe.
  - jstummbillig 5y ago
    If you are far better off than the average American household you could definitely consider yourself wealthy.
    - ewmiller 5y ago
      My dad has a friend who owns a bus-sized camper/RV in addition to multiple cars and a beachfront home, but doesn't consider himself rich because he can't afford a large boat. Point being, I think people are more aware of the unattained wealth above them than the levels they've already surpassed. (Myself included). The comment you replied to strikes me in the same way, though not nearly as blatant!
      - fullstop 5y ago
celticninja 5y ago
My parents valued education, their parents less so. So my parents education/training started much later in life, and even then the opportunities were not easily accessible. Both came from subsistence farming/ small holding families, with a large number of siblings, so just inheriting the land was not an outcome they could rely upon. By becoming trained in their fields it meant they had a better opportunity to earn, but that was limited by the lateness to which they started their careers. When my siblings and I arrived we could be encouraged into education from the earliest possible opportunity.
threatofrain 5y ago
> So why didn't the parents succeed then? Investing your optimism in the next generation is just the immigrant way.
raydev 5y ago
> So why didn't the parents succeed then? Because they're busy trying to pay the bills? That hard work pays off in allowing their kids to focus on growing their brains.

randlet 5y ago

> you're saying that valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? Possibly because the parents parents didn't value education and by the time the parents came to value education they were already stuck in the cycle of poverty.

throwaway316943 5y ago
Agreed, your parents mistakes are often a very strong source of motivation to act differently.
bluGill 5y ago
Why do you think the parents didn't succeed? Starting conditions matter, if you start from nothing and realize the right change it will still be a few generations before you can fully take advantage of it. However by making a small change now the future can be better for the future generations. If you took the vast majority of babies and had be adopt them (this is of course kid napping which I wouldn't agree to) they would grow up to be more successful than if they remain with their parents. Of course successful is in the eye of the judge, some of their parents in 40 years would be glad for my help and some would think their baby would be better off with them. The above applies to most of the people reading this as well. (a few of you have admitted you don't want kids because you would be a bad parent, and a few more could be good parents to your own kids but bad for adopted kids - but overall these groups are a minority)

zests 5y ago

The parents were immigrants. They were successful -- just not in the way its normally measured.

js8 5y ago
Don't immigrants show that not only hard work (which they usually did) but other factors (like emigrating from a bad environment, which can be pretty risky) are needed for a better life?
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  I don't think it's the emigration part that's needed. People are usually forced to emigrate somewhere else because of the conditions or their home country. Those who are down to emigrate to a foreign country (especially if their original country is not a warzone or is not that bad - implying they're really trying hard to improve their life) probably have some other characteristics that can be useful for achieving success. The debate then moves on how much of those characteristics are genetic and how much are due to the bad environment per se (or maybe the good environment their families where able to setup in a bad environment) - on which I think we don't yet have a scientific answer.

mc32 5y ago

I think implicit in the post is that parents’ parents could have lived where education was too far away physically, took away from a pool of labor, etc. Conversely, we have kids today, who for whatever reason have the opportunity to get an education but are sidetracked by entertainment and other things that can derail their long term prospects despite more being available to them. (Contrast with kids in third world counties who walk miles to the nearest school, pay for books from their meager earnings, take jobs to pay for their siblings’ education, etc) yet these privileged kids can’t be arsed.

whoneedswork 5y ago
I mean why bother study hard and get a job and pay taxes when you can just cash welfare checks, play video games all day, sell weed for extra money that doesn't have to be reported as income, and live in Section 8 Housing? "People just don't want to work anymore" is the new mantra over on Reddit, like work is something that was invented by capitalists and if we had UBI doing anything meaningful with your life would be fully optional. Check out r/antiwork for ample expressions of this viewpoint.
- drakythe 5y ago
  You pretty clearly have no idea WTF you're talking about. r/antiwork is a response to rampant capitalism rewarding parasitic billionaires, not some idea that people don't want to do "anything meaningful" with their lives. Have a nice rest of your day.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

fullstop 5y ago

> I would think "starting conditions" includes the parents one has. Also what you say is not quite logic - you're saying that valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? Some people value education independently of their parents. You go on to make a point about a head start being beneficial, and I'm absolutely not disagreeing with that.

ewmiller 5y ago

> valuing education means people succeed. So why didn't the parents succeed then? Picture a first-generation immigrant family in America where the parents are older, don't speak English very well, and spend almost all their time working multiple jobs to pay bills and provide food and shelter for their kids. They then push their kids to do well in school because they know it's practically too late for themselves, but that their kids will be much better off than they were if they succeed in school. Anecdotally, I knew several such families growing up.

adkadskhj 5y ago
I think there's also other cases where kids grew up without education (like myself) - but could have, but if i were to have kids now i'd value education immensely. Ie i'm not an immigrant, my lack of early education is a result of my family being poor and making poor decisions. However now my values have shifted drastically. Ironically i would consider myself very lucky. Not wealthy by any means, but far better off than the average American household. Which then perhaps would put my children (which i'm not having, lol) in the position of being "children of well-off families".. maybe.
- jstummbillig 5y ago
  If you are far better off than the average American household you could definitely consider yourself wealthy.
  - ewmiller 5y ago
    My dad has a friend who owns a bus-sized camper/RV in addition to multiple cars and a beachfront home, but doesn't consider himself rich because he can't afford a large boat. Point being, I think people are more aware of the unattained wealth above them than the levels they've already surpassed. (Myself included). The comment you replied to strikes me in the same way, though not nearly as blatant!
    - fullstop 5y ago

celticninja 5y ago

My parents valued education, their parents less so. So my parents education/training started much later in life, and even then the opportunities were not easily accessible. Both came from subsistence farming/ small holding families, with a large number of siblings, so just inheriting the land was not an outcome they could rely upon. By becoming trained in their fields it meant they had a better opportunity to earn, but that was limited by the lateness to which they started their careers. When my siblings and I arrived we could be encouraged into education from the earliest possible opportunity.

threatofrain 5y ago

> So why didn't the parents succeed then? Investing your optimism in the next generation is just the immigrant way.

raydev 5y ago

> So why didn't the parents succeed then? Because they're busy trying to pay the bills? That hard work pays off in allowing their kids to focus on growing their brains.