9 ms·

Kind of cool, but the conclusion was completely backwards. The final line of the study was "So he is our collective responsibility. They all are.", but the ent

Kind of cool, but the conclusion was completely backwards. The final line of the study was "So he is our collective responsibility. They all are.", but the entire study was about how the home environment affects your outcomes. I guess their conclusion is that if an individual does a bad job raising their kids, it is societies fault.

micromacrofoot 3y ago
I think the idea is that "only support your family" harms everyone. The example, Alex, has 2 kids, works manual labor to earn poverty wages, and is depressed. Which one of the types of teen do you think his kids will be? The common refrain is "then he shouldn't have had kids" but unless you're going to create an authoritarian state people will always have kids (and restricting kids went awfully for China anyway).
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  I think social and individual expectations are a big part of this. Why is Alex depressed? If they had 20k more a year, would they be happier, or just 2 steps ahead on and empty hedonistic treadmill. Alex now has a new mustang, but is still depressed and fails as a parent. I think it would be interesting to see the relative impact of a 2 parent + low risk home vs income, and I think there is a lot lost when people assume every variable reduces to income. What about Alex when they have low income, but a healthy home life? What about Alex when they have higher income, but a shit home life?
  - nvy 3y ago
    Money actually does buy happiness, despite what the wealthy would like you to believe. It is very likely that yes, he would in fact be happier with an extra 20k a year. You don't know he'd have a new mustang; that's just you projecting. He might put the extra 20k a year into savings for his kid's education - I know that feeling like I'm setting my kids up for future success makes me happy.
    - dmoy 3y ago
      Money buys happiness, up to a point. It's like a pretty linear increase in happiness to some spot somewhere above median income (I forget, something like 1.5x median income). After that, it has very little impact on happiness, if at all. Supposedly, based on some studies.
      - Jaygles 3y ago
        Another way to view it is to say poverty buys misery
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      Money can buy happiness, but it isn't a guarantee, and isn't necessarily the most important factor. Kill Alex's parents, and rape them as a child, addict them to meth, and 20k wont fix that. This article and data is in desperate need of a Analysis of variance for the different factors.
    - antisthenes 3y ago
      > Money actually does buy happiness, despite what the wealthy would like you to believe. Individual happiness and being a good parent (which contributes to breaking the cycle) don't necessarily intersect as much as you think, or at least it's based on the individual. Some people's happiness is only marginally related to how well their kids are doing (as evident by rise in single-parent households), so the 20k may contribute essentially 0 to the long term solution. > You don't know he'd have a new mustang; that's just you projecting. If I don't know, then you don't know either. You're taking the other good extreme and presenting is at fact. The reality is somewhere in the middle.
      - nvy 3y ago
        It's like you didn't read anything I wrote, and then built your own straw man to argue with.
        antisthenes 3y ago
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    I'm not sure who you know that makes $40k and has a foot on a "hedonistic treadmill"
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      Most everyone I know, of all incomes, are on some form of hedonistic treadmill. Sometimes it is one beer and cigarette to the next, sometimes it's one sailboat and handbag to the next.
      - micromacrofoot 3y ago
        There are plenty of pre-industrialized peoples that smoked tobacco, drank alcohol, and did drugs recreationally. Were they too on hedonistic treadmills? It's funny how Americans love to brag about how they have the freedom to do whatever and pay less tax, but then turn around and treat their poor like fools if they live in any way that doesn't resemble soviet-era russia. This is the same thing boomers do when they tell millennials to stop eating avocado toast to pay their school loans.
        latency-guy2 3y ago
        > Were they too on hedonistic treadmills? Yes. > It's funny how Americans love to brag about how they have the freedom to do whatever and pay less tax, but then turn around and treat their poor like fools if they live in any way that doesn't resemble soviet-era russia. You have things quite backwards, the stereotype of USSR and it's successor is large amounts of vodka and mindlessly wrestling bears. The USA added an amendment to their constitution banning the sale of alcohol and took a while to get repealed. > This is the same thing boomers do when they tell millennials to stop eating avocado toast to pay their school loans. I think citing internet memes is not a good plan.
        micromacrofoot 3y ago
        > the stereotype of USSR and it's successor is large amounts of vodka and mindlessly wrestling bears also lines for bread and austerity, that's what I mean > I think citing internet memes is not a good plan. while that example is memified, this is still a commonly held belief that I see reiterated almost daily (of course they're poor, they're buying iPhones! for example)
- ericmcer 3y ago
  Convincing people that their problems are outside of their control and that the only way to solve them is to vote a certain way is also a form of authoritarianism. If you aren't to blame for your own life that implies you have no control over it.
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    Statistically most people born into poverty stay there. Do you think most of them aren't trying? Conversely, do you thing most people born wealthy have to put as much effort into staying wealthy? There are a number of systemic barriers, one of the big ones mentioned in this demonstration is education. If we had equal baseline access to education, housing, healthcare, and food... then sure, if people stayed impoverished I might begin to agree with you. We're not even close in our current state so "you're in control of your own life" is a completely ignorant argument.
    - ericmcer 3y ago
      The system is obviously not fair but individuals are still responsible for how they play their hand. You really think it is ignorant to believe you have control over your life? What do you do just lay on the floor and wait for things to wash over you?
      - vundercind 3y ago
        There should be an Internet law for the phenomenon of taking systemic or statistical analyses personally and then dismissing them on that basis. It’s so common and always just results in a mess of people commenting past each other. That it’s possible to work one’s way out of poverty or to maintain a healthy weight through willpower or what have you is simply irrelevant when talking policy. Its only possible role is to dismiss the problem or discourage action. The reverse is also true: that a system could hypothetically make it easier for one to succeed is irrelevant to the individual who’s trying to decide what to do to improve their life in the system that currently exists.
      - micromacrofoot 3y ago
jf22 3y ago
The point is that, as a society, we should do more to help kids who are having a rough time. Another point is that if you're not thriving as an adult, it could be because of the experiences you had when you were a kid.
- anon291 3y ago
  I honestly think that the sorts of experiences that break kids are things like parents breaking up, not 'not having the newest toy' or 'not going on vacation'. In the sense that material poverty can cause family stress, I completely agree. I fully support programs to feed kids, provide medical insurance, etc. I even support it for adults. I'm just not sure how any of that at the end of the day is going to fix daddy cheating. Unless you're suggesting a crackdown on prostitution and/or making adultery a crime again (in which case sure! as a social conservative, I'm down)... but good luck getting that passed today!
beepbooptheory 3y ago
I guess I can see this conclusion if you start from a position that all families are nothing but isolated, self-interested atoms in the world. Rather than, you know, a part of society!
lagniappe 3y ago
The take-home for me was that as parents, or future parents, here are some things we can do to make the child have a greater chance at success. None of these are doorways to success, but they make it easier for success to happen with those conditions present, as well as the inverse.
gnramires 3y ago
I think the core message is that a child's life is strongly determined by his family life/environment, it's not just a personal choice to succeed or to fail. So if we want people to have better outcomes, we need to help better family lives/environments (and lives in general) to break the cycle, and not just give them basic education. Also, the family is just a group of individuals that probably themselves have come from poor conditions: this means there's hope of breaking the cycle.
- renlo 3y ago
  Where in the data does it indicate that it's possible to "break the cycle"?
  - gnramires 3y ago
    It shows that family/environment influences life outcomes (it should be obvious); it's not conclusive (in establishing causation), it does show a correlation. I really think it's almost obvious this is true, but it's important reinforcing with data nonetheless. So you can break (or weaken) the cycle if you improve those conditions, and this improvement propagates.
    - renlo 3y ago
      > It shows that family/environment influences life outcomes Not to nitpick but this statement implies causation (family environment causes life outcome) which you contradict right after. Sorry to sound obtuse, but, I asked because it may seem obvious to you, but it's not so obvious to me that there will be much improvement. I've seen data that indicates that outcomes are not changed (much) when those early interventions / "investments" are made. There is _an_ improvement, but not to the level people expect. Like a person's height, access to high quality food will only do so much; some people are just going to have short stature however much money you invest into making sure they have access to nutritious meals.
  - webnrrd2k 3y ago
    In the presentation it talked about college, even a short amount, can give better outcomes. But the presentation was more of an overview of the issue, and I don't think it's fair to argue that, because it doesn't go deeply into every data point, that it's not valid. It more about bring awareness to the issues, and grounds for further research.
CryptoBanker 3y ago
There is a difference between fault and responsibility
burkaman 3y ago
Responsibility doesn't imply fault. For example we all have a collective responsibility to protect and improve our environment, even though none of us created it and none of us caused any of its problems.
SuperHeavy256 3y ago
I think the conclusion is: Think about how you can help in reducing this problem
zaphar 3y ago
If a society has a trend line of poor home environments then I think the society is in some sense at fault for fostering poor home environments. This doesn't and shouldn't take away from the individual's responsibility for raising kids. But home environments exist in a specific social context that effect how people think they should foster a good home environment. We've lost a lot of societal knowledge and experience around good family structures since probably the 60s. As a society we have definitely encouraged, especially the lower income bands, to outsource it to schools and institutions. That is going to have an effect.
- sojsurf 3y ago
  Under President Johnson, government funding began to incentivize single (predominantly black) mothers not to marry the father of their children. IMO this had disastrous effects on our urban centers. Before the social welfare solutions of the Johnson era, 25% of black children were born without two parents. Now the number is nearly 75%, and the effect on young men has been tragic, in a way that affects the whole community.
csours 3y ago
In health care, sometimes we help the body fix the problem, and sometimes we "just" treat symptoms. It's ... probably not a good idea for the government to try to fix families. Any interventions must be very carefully considered. But some of the symptoms can be helped out relatively easily. --- I also think the author(s) may have a different perspective on responsibility, fault, and blame. I feel like blame is something that our minds do for us so we can stop thinking about a problem - to fix things you have to look past the blame.
- koolba 3y ago
  > It's ... probably not a good idea for the government to try to fix families. Any interventions must be very carefully considered. The government has been actively working to break families for years through economic policies that encourage single mothers to raise children on their own: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biggest-root-cause-of-crime-is-fatherlessness-single-motherhood-5cdfe763 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biggest-root-cause-of-crime...
webnrrd2k 3y ago
I don't think that "fault", which I take as implying blame, had anything to do with the presentation. I interpreted it as very neutral in that respect. Maybe I'm misinterpreting it? I do think it touches on how everyone is exposed to adverse outcomes, whatever category they are in. And I agree that it's a collective responsibility, although the presentation does a poor job of arguing the "collective responsibility" point.
dionidium 3y ago
It also begs the question of nature vs. nurture. If researchers won't take this seriously, then nobody should take their findings seriously. It's almost impossible to untangle, "single-fatherhood leads to bad outcomes because kids need a father figure in the house" from, "single-fatherhood leads to worse outcomes because the type of person who would abandon their children is likely more impulsive and less conscientious than average and those traits are heritable."
- jonahx 3y ago
  Fair point in theory and I'm not familiar with the literature, but I'd guess at least some researchers have studied ways of controlling for this: eg, looking at cases where father dies early and mother does not remarry, single mothers who adopt or do artificial insemination, etc.
  - dionidium 3y ago
    Yes, my (limited) understanding of the literature is that this is exactly what they do. You don’t see the same single-fatherhood effects when looking at the children of widows, for example.
qwery 3y ago
Maybe you missed some of the bits in the middle? Like how education is a greater boon to the people who can't afford it and that the cost of it has increased over time.
anon291 3y ago
Yeah, I'm tired of being told that it's all our responsibility, but we get none of the agency. My mother was a teacher in the inner city. There were kids our whole family fell in love with, and frankly, my mother knew what was best for them, and for a few would have been willing to even take them in. But, alas, they had to go home to their abusive parent. I am in no way advocating for forced separation, but it's hard to experience these things first hand and then be told it's all our responsibility. I mean.. I agree that we are responsible for each other. However, for other things in life I'm responsible for, like my car, my property, and even my government, I am given a direct say. Imagine if you were forced to take responsibility for a car, except you were never allowed to drive it and it was made freely available to every teenage boy at the local high school. What responsibility could you possible have? What does it even mean to say you're responsible for something you have no control over? A good priest once told me in confession when I confessed feeling upset that I couldn't help the homeless, the destitute, etc, and he properly identified the problem was that there's only one Saviour and I'm not him. And I feel that sagacious advice is applicable here. What are we possibly to do in this situation other than the unthinkable? Previous progressive movements have indeed advocated for the removal of children in bad environments, and indeed many of these 'worked', but they're highly criticized (rightly, I guess) today.
hot_gril 3y ago
I can see it either way. They could've left the conclusion up to the viewer.

micromacrofoot 3y ago

I think the idea is that "only support your family" harms everyone. The example, Alex, has 2 kids, works manual labor to earn poverty wages, and is depressed. Which one of the types of teen do you think his kids will be? The common refrain is "then he shouldn't have had kids" but unless you're going to create an authoritarian state people will always have kids (and restricting kids went awfully for China anyway).

s1artibartfast 3y ago
I think social and individual expectations are a big part of this. Why is Alex depressed? If they had 20k more a year, would they be happier, or just 2 steps ahead on and empty hedonistic treadmill. Alex now has a new mustang, but is still depressed and fails as a parent. I think it would be interesting to see the relative impact of a 2 parent + low risk home vs income, and I think there is a lot lost when people assume every variable reduces to income. What about Alex when they have low income, but a healthy home life? What about Alex when they have higher income, but a shit home life?
- nvy 3y ago
  Money actually does buy happiness, despite what the wealthy would like you to believe. It is very likely that yes, he would in fact be happier with an extra 20k a year. You don't know he'd have a new mustang; that's just you projecting. He might put the extra 20k a year into savings for his kid's education - I know that feeling like I'm setting my kids up for future success makes me happy.
  - dmoy 3y ago
    Money buys happiness, up to a point. It's like a pretty linear increase in happiness to some spot somewhere above median income (I forget, something like 1.5x median income). After that, it has very little impact on happiness, if at all. Supposedly, based on some studies.
    - Jaygles 3y ago
      Another way to view it is to say poverty buys misery
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    Money can buy happiness, but it isn't a guarantee, and isn't necessarily the most important factor. Kill Alex's parents, and rape them as a child, addict them to meth, and 20k wont fix that. This article and data is in desperate need of a Analysis of variance for the different factors.
  - antisthenes 3y ago
    > Money actually does buy happiness, despite what the wealthy would like you to believe. Individual happiness and being a good parent (which contributes to breaking the cycle) don't necessarily intersect as much as you think, or at least it's based on the individual. Some people's happiness is only marginally related to how well their kids are doing (as evident by rise in single-parent households), so the 20k may contribute essentially 0 to the long term solution. > You don't know he'd have a new mustang; that's just you projecting. If I don't know, then you don't know either. You're taking the other good extreme and presenting is at fact. The reality is somewhere in the middle.
    - nvy 3y ago
      It's like you didn't read anything I wrote, and then built your own straw man to argue with.
      - antisthenes 3y ago
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  I'm not sure who you know that makes $40k and has a foot on a "hedonistic treadmill"
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    Most everyone I know, of all incomes, are on some form of hedonistic treadmill. Sometimes it is one beer and cigarette to the next, sometimes it's one sailboat and handbag to the next.
    - micromacrofoot 3y ago
      There are plenty of pre-industrialized peoples that smoked tobacco, drank alcohol, and did drugs recreationally. Were they too on hedonistic treadmills? It's funny how Americans love to brag about how they have the freedom to do whatever and pay less tax, but then turn around and treat their poor like fools if they live in any way that doesn't resemble soviet-era russia. This is the same thing boomers do when they tell millennials to stop eating avocado toast to pay their school loans.
      - latency-guy2 3y ago
        > Were they too on hedonistic treadmills? Yes. > It's funny how Americans love to brag about how they have the freedom to do whatever and pay less tax, but then turn around and treat their poor like fools if they live in any way that doesn't resemble soviet-era russia. You have things quite backwards, the stereotype of USSR and it's successor is large amounts of vodka and mindlessly wrestling bears. The USA added an amendment to their constitution banning the sale of alcohol and took a while to get repealed. > This is the same thing boomers do when they tell millennials to stop eating avocado toast to pay their school loans. I think citing internet memes is not a good plan.
        micromacrofoot 3y ago
        > the stereotype of USSR and it's successor is large amounts of vodka and mindlessly wrestling bears also lines for bread and austerity, that's what I mean > I think citing internet memes is not a good plan. while that example is memified, this is still a commonly held belief that I see reiterated almost daily (of course they're poor, they're buying iPhones! for example)
ericmcer 3y ago
Convincing people that their problems are outside of their control and that the only way to solve them is to vote a certain way is also a form of authoritarianism. If you aren't to blame for your own life that implies you have no control over it.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  Statistically most people born into poverty stay there. Do you think most of them aren't trying? Conversely, do you thing most people born wealthy have to put as much effort into staying wealthy? There are a number of systemic barriers, one of the big ones mentioned in this demonstration is education. If we had equal baseline access to education, housing, healthcare, and food... then sure, if people stayed impoverished I might begin to agree with you. We're not even close in our current state so "you're in control of your own life" is a completely ignorant argument.
  - ericmcer 3y ago
    The system is obviously not fair but individuals are still responsible for how they play their hand. You really think it is ignorant to believe you have control over your life? What do you do just lay on the floor and wait for things to wash over you?
    - vundercind 3y ago
      There should be an Internet law for the phenomenon of taking systemic or statistical analyses personally and then dismissing them on that basis. It’s so common and always just results in a mess of people commenting past each other. That it’s possible to work one’s way out of poverty or to maintain a healthy weight through willpower or what have you is simply irrelevant when talking policy. Its only possible role is to dismiss the problem or discourage action. The reverse is also true: that a system could hypothetically make it easier for one to succeed is irrelevant to the individual who’s trying to decide what to do to improve their life in the system that currently exists.
    - micromacrofoot 3y ago

jf22 3y ago

The point is that, as a society, we should do more to help kids who are having a rough time. Another point is that if you're not thriving as an adult, it could be because of the experiences you had when you were a kid.

anon291 3y ago
I honestly think that the sorts of experiences that break kids are things like parents breaking up, not 'not having the newest toy' or 'not going on vacation'. In the sense that material poverty can cause family stress, I completely agree. I fully support programs to feed kids, provide medical insurance, etc. I even support it for adults. I'm just not sure how any of that at the end of the day is going to fix daddy cheating. Unless you're suggesting a crackdown on prostitution and/or making adultery a crime again (in which case sure! as a social conservative, I'm down)... but good luck getting that passed today!

beepbooptheory 3y ago

I guess I can see this conclusion if you start from a position that all families are nothing but isolated, self-interested atoms in the world. Rather than, you know, a part of society!

lagniappe 3y ago

The take-home for me was that as parents, or future parents, here are some things we can do to make the child have a greater chance at success. None of these are doorways to success, but they make it easier for success to happen with those conditions present, as well as the inverse.

gnramires 3y ago

I think the core message is that a child's life is strongly determined by his family life/environment, it's not just a personal choice to succeed or to fail. So if we want people to have better outcomes, we need to help better family lives/environments (and lives in general) to break the cycle, and not just give them basic education. Also, the family is just a group of individuals that probably themselves have come from poor conditions: this means there's hope of breaking the cycle.

renlo 3y ago
Where in the data does it indicate that it's possible to "break the cycle"?
- gnramires 3y ago
  It shows that family/environment influences life outcomes (it should be obvious); it's not conclusive (in establishing causation), it does show a correlation. I really think it's almost obvious this is true, but it's important reinforcing with data nonetheless. So you can break (or weaken) the cycle if you improve those conditions, and this improvement propagates.
  - renlo 3y ago
    > It shows that family/environment influences life outcomes Not to nitpick but this statement implies causation (family environment causes life outcome) which you contradict right after. Sorry to sound obtuse, but, I asked because it may seem obvious to you, but it's not so obvious to me that there will be much improvement. I've seen data that indicates that outcomes are not changed (much) when those early interventions / "investments" are made. There is _an_ improvement, but not to the level people expect. Like a person's height, access to high quality food will only do so much; some people are just going to have short stature however much money you invest into making sure they have access to nutritious meals.
- webnrrd2k 3y ago
  In the presentation it talked about college, even a short amount, can give better outcomes. But the presentation was more of an overview of the issue, and I don't think it's fair to argue that, because it doesn't go deeply into every data point, that it's not valid. It more about bring awareness to the issues, and grounds for further research.

CryptoBanker 3y ago

There is a difference between fault and responsibility

burkaman 3y ago

Responsibility doesn't imply fault. For example we all have a collective responsibility to protect and improve our environment, even though none of us created it and none of us caused any of its problems.

SuperHeavy256 3y ago

I think the conclusion is: Think about how you can help in reducing this problem

zaphar 3y ago

If a society has a trend line of poor home environments then I think the society is in some sense at fault for fostering poor home environments. This doesn't and shouldn't take away from the individual's responsibility for raising kids. But home environments exist in a specific social context that effect how people think they should foster a good home environment. We've lost a lot of societal knowledge and experience around good family structures since probably the 60s. As a society we have definitely encouraged, especially the lower income bands, to outsource it to schools and institutions. That is going to have an effect.

sojsurf 3y ago
Under President Johnson, government funding began to incentivize single (predominantly black) mothers not to marry the father of their children. IMO this had disastrous effects on our urban centers. Before the social welfare solutions of the Johnson era, 25% of black children were born without two parents. Now the number is nearly 75%, and the effect on young men has been tragic, in a way that affects the whole community.

csours 3y ago

In health care, sometimes we help the body fix the problem, and sometimes we "just" treat symptoms. It's ... probably not a good idea for the government to try to fix families. Any interventions must be very carefully considered. But some of the symptoms can be helped out relatively easily. --- I also think the author(s) may have a different perspective on responsibility, fault, and blame. I feel like blame is something that our minds do for us so we can stop thinking about a problem - to fix things you have to look past the blame.

koolba 3y ago
> It's ... probably not a good idea for the government to try to fix families. Any interventions must be very carefully considered. The government has been actively working to break families for years through economic policies that encourage single mothers to raise children on their own: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biggest-root-cause-of-crime-is-fatherlessness-single-motherhood-5cdfe763 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biggest-root-cause-of-crime...

webnrrd2k 3y ago

I don't think that "fault", which I take as implying blame, had anything to do with the presentation. I interpreted it as very neutral in that respect. Maybe I'm misinterpreting it? I do think it touches on how everyone is exposed to adverse outcomes, whatever category they are in. And I agree that it's a collective responsibility, although the presentation does a poor job of arguing the "collective responsibility" point.

dionidium 3y ago

It also begs the question of nature vs. nurture. If researchers won't take this seriously, then nobody should take their findings seriously. It's almost impossible to untangle, "single-fatherhood leads to bad outcomes because kids need a father figure in the house" from, "single-fatherhood leads to worse outcomes because the type of person who would abandon their children is likely more impulsive and less conscientious than average and those traits are heritable."

jonahx 3y ago
Fair point in theory and I'm not familiar with the literature, but I'd guess at least some researchers have studied ways of controlling for this: eg, looking at cases where father dies early and mother does not remarry, single mothers who adopt or do artificial insemination, etc.
- dionidium 3y ago
  Yes, my (limited) understanding of the literature is that this is exactly what they do. You don’t see the same single-fatherhood effects when looking at the children of widows, for example.

qwery 3y ago

Maybe you missed some of the bits in the middle? Like how education is a greater boon to the people who can't afford it and that the cost of it has increased over time.

anon291 3y ago

Yeah, I'm tired of being told that it's all our responsibility, but we get none of the agency. My mother was a teacher in the inner city. There were kids our whole family fell in love with, and frankly, my mother knew what was best for them, and for a few would have been willing to even take them in. But, alas, they had to go home to their abusive parent. I am in no way advocating for forced separation, but it's hard to experience these things first hand and then be told it's all our responsibility. I mean.. I agree that we are responsible for each other. However, for other things in life I'm responsible for, like my car, my property, and even my government, I am given a direct say. Imagine if you were forced to take responsibility for a car, except you were never allowed to drive it and it was made freely available to every teenage boy at the local high school. What responsibility could you possible have? What does it even mean to say you're responsible for something you have no control over? A good priest once told me in confession when I confessed feeling upset that I couldn't help the homeless, the destitute, etc, and he properly identified the problem was that there's only one Saviour and I'm not him. And I feel that sagacious advice is applicable here. What are we possibly to do in this situation other than the unthinkable? Previous progressive movements have indeed advocated for the removal of children in bad environments, and indeed many of these 'worked', but they're highly criticized (rightly, I guess) today.

hot_gril 3y ago

I can see it either way. They could've left the conclusion up to the viewer.