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Let's draw another circle: things you make when 'financial obligations' are not a concern. Where does that intersect? Why aren't we drawing it? How much science
by Eisenstein 3y ago
Let's draw another circle: things you make when 'financial obligations' are not a concern. Where does that intersect? Why aren't we drawing it? How much science was done by 'gentlemen scientists' who never worried about money? How much more would we know if that one person who could have figured out electromagnetism in 1400 didn't have to plow fields all day?
- WalterBright 3y agoThere are an awful lot of professions in the world. Surely people can find one that suits them. Life is what you make of it. My personal dream was to become a swimsuit model, but it just wasn't working out, so I switched to software.
- Eisenstein 3y agoYou can't think of any other things besides genetics and self-determination that allowed you to be where you are now?
- WalterBright 3y agoOpportunity presents itself to you and me every day. You can choose.
- yterdy 3y agoYou're conflating individual decisions with social structures that determine opportunity systemically.
- WalterBright 3y agoThe US has all the opportunity able-bodied adults need.
- yterdy 3y agoIncorrect.
- WalterBright 3y agoViewing life that way leads to a diminished life, a self-fulfilling prophesy. The good news is one can always change one's frame of reference.
- bumby 3y agoIt’s possible that viewpoint is the correct one at an individual level while also being the incorrect one at a societal level, if the goal is a meritocratic society.
- smoldesu 3y agoThere are a lot of people who fail to self-actualize entirely due to environmental differences. Starvation, hypothermia, robbery and petty crimes, unemployment, destruction/loss of property, social rejection, discrimination, self-doubt, and even a lack of respect is enough to prevent someone from enjoying life fully. Accepting the hardship of reality is the only way you can realize deterministic change. Making blanket statements about "opportunity" in the US will have you immediately proven wrong no matter what you claim. Your opportunity is not the same as a Puerto Rican's which is not the same as an impoverished and sickly rural teenager in Montana. Changing your frame of reference is not any easier than it is to stop looking foreign or get a bunch of money really quickly.
- WalterBright 3y agoI've said repeatedly "of sound mind and body and living in America". I see no reason to change that.
- yterdy 3y agoNo one is going to argue that the world isn't your oyster as a tall, fit, cis white man (many people's definition of "sound mind and body"). However, the rest of us deserve a chance. That we're not always able to get one is not an in-born character flaw.