5 ms·

The obvious conclusion is not that obvious. You can have genetic traits which affect self-control, for example.

planb 2y ago
It doesn’t even have to be genetic. Parents which are able to raise their children to be functioning adults probably were raised by functioning adults and were able to find a job that leads to higher household income. We‘re talking about statistics here, so outliers are not relevant. Unfortunately this often prevents lots of meaningful discussions, because that would imply that a) it’s not just „you need to work hard to be successful“ (which one side of the political spectrum does not like to hear) and b) where and how you grew up is very predictive of how capable you are (which the other side does not like to hear).
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
  In regards to a and b, wouldn't someone who thinks the former likely be someone who also thinks the latter? Those don't seem contradictory and, indeed, one is a possible explanation of the other.
  - frogpelt 2y ago
    I think in general, those divisions do exist. People who lean right, tend to think movement from lower classes to higher classes is possible with hard work and that a person’s starting point doesn’t matter as much. People who lean left tend to think where you start is the biggest predictor of where you will end up regardless of how hard you work. Hence the reasons one side favors the social safety net more than the other side does. That has been my observation at least.
  - planb 2y ago
    Yes, this is exactly as I see it - but as you can see in the downvotes many people very strongly think just one of these is true and very aggressively disagree with the other one.
  - tristor 2y ago
    That would be true if these issues were discussed in rational terms, but unfortunately because it's predominantly political, it means rational terms are not the basis of these discussions. That is presupposing either point A or B is even true.
  - harimau777 2y ago
    I think that the difference is probably that one side thinks that being a parent that raises healthy functional adults comes down mostly to personal factors. The other side believes that societal/structural factors play a large part. So they don't exactly disagree on what the circumstances for success looks like as much as they disagree on the degree to which those circumstances are under an individual's control.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    The premise of personal responsibility is surprisingly partisan.
- neilv 2y ago
  > Parents which are able to raise their children to be functioning adults probably were raised by functioning adults and were able to find a job that leads to higher household income. We‘re talking about statistics here, What is a functioning adult, and where are those statistics from?
  - WillPostForFood 2y ago
    Start with a low bar. Since we are talking kids: married parents, employed. https://eadn-wc01-3158345.nxedge.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Black-women-with-kids-get-a-173-percent-marriage-bonus-in-income.png https://eadn-wc01-3158345.nxedge.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/...
    - Yawrehto 2y ago
      Why would marriage matter? Marriage may be an indicator of something, but there are plenty of successful single parents. I can think of several exceptions I know, all of whom are reasonably successful - one a somewhat well-known academic, one, last I checked, a rabbi somewhere, one, now deceased, a...actually, I forget what she did, but she managed to have a home in NYC and didn't come from a rich background, so she must've done something for a living (her kids were both academics.) When I can think of that many examples of reasonably successful people who break your rules without thinking too hard, there's probably something wrong with your theory, or at least my interpretation of it (sorry if I'm misreading what you wrote!)
      - somenameforme 2y ago
        It's a question of what is the rule and what is the exception. Single parent households correlate extremely strongly with many negative factors, relative to 2-parent households. This doesn't mean that somebody can't live a good life coming from a single parent household, but that on average they are much less likely to do so than somebody coming from a 2-parent household. And while correlation is not causation, many of these factors are obviously causal. For instance 2-parent households will either be able to provide a much higher average income in the case when both parents work, or a more supportive environment when only 1 parent works.
- frogpelt 2y ago
  I agree. There very clearly is a causation link between certain behaviors and long term success. Household income is something people have direct control over. I can go out and immediately cut mine in half tomorrow if I choose to. Doubling it would be harder but i imagine I could do that too if I took the appropriate actions.
  - littlecosmic 2y ago
    They have a certain percentage of direct control and the remainder is what causes all the problems.
  - slim 2y ago
    being able to double the household income is a privilege you have. what makes you think anybody could do it but is chosing to live with half the income instead ?
- WalterBright 2y ago
  > you need to work hard to be successful Hard work is only a path to success if you're working on the right things. For example, if I decided to be an Olympic athlete, and worked like the devil, I have zero chance of making the team.
WillPostForFood 2y ago
Yes, and likely with environmental reinforcement. High income/high IQ -> self sorting, and assortative mating. That will lead to households with kids who have both genetic traits, and an environment that's going to teach and reward self control.
ren_engineer 2y ago
people really don't want to accept that beyond the most extreme cases(starvation, lead poisoning, complete neglect, no school access at all, etc.), environment really doesn't play that big of a role. Twin studies have shown this for literally decades
- astrange 2y ago
  Lead poisoning isn't an extreme case, it's a very common problem. Twin studies don't exclude environmental causes because twins have the same maternal environment.
  - drowsspa 2y ago
    Yeah, I never got how the womb doesn't count as an environment, and even the circumstances that led to the twins being separated.
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      While commonly thought, this isn't how twin usually studies work. The way it works is you look at the correlation between identical and non-identical twins on some given thing. If there's a much stronger correlation between the identical twins, then it's probably primarily genetic. What this does is helps to eliminate environmental factors because identical vs nonidentical twins will both be raised in basically the exact same environment. So take height. If identical twins have identical heights while non-identical twins have varying heights, then it's safe to assume height is largely genetic. Interestingly separated twins would actually be worse in many cases because you reintroduce environmental deviation. For instance with height, differences may well be down to e.g. nutrition, but when you have them in the same household you can usually assume roughly identical nutrition.
- lovethevoid 2y ago
  That's not true, for example metacognitive ability studies have shown environment plays the dominant role. Twin studies on trust provide the same, in which genetic component while large at 33% certainly doesn't indicate what you're stating that it's only "extreme cases". Even in studies re-assessing conventional twin studies and educational attainment, the conclusion was that while some is genetic (sometimes even a large portion) the correlations between a mother and father's educational attainment points to environment playing a large role (unless you have the belief that the mother and father are siblings I suppose). You'll be extremely hard pressed to find researchers conducting these twin studies who minimize the role of either genetic or environmental impact on certain aspects in the way you did.

It doesn’t even have to be genetic. Parents which are able to raise their children to be functioning adults probably were raised by functioning adults and were able to find a job that leads to higher household income. We‘re talking about statistics here, so outliers are not relevant. Unfortunately this often prevents lots of meaningful discussions, because that would imply that a) it’s not just „you need to work hard to be successful“ (which one side of the political spectrum does not like to hear) and b) where and how you grew up is very predictive of how capable you are (which the other side does not like to hear).

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
In regards to a and b, wouldn't someone who thinks the former likely be someone who also thinks the latter? Those don't seem contradictory and, indeed, one is a possible explanation of the other.
- frogpelt 2y ago
  I think in general, those divisions do exist. People who lean right, tend to think movement from lower classes to higher classes is possible with hard work and that a person’s starting point doesn’t matter as much. People who lean left tend to think where you start is the biggest predictor of where you will end up regardless of how hard you work. Hence the reasons one side favors the social safety net more than the other side does. That has been my observation at least.
- planb 2y ago
  Yes, this is exactly as I see it - but as you can see in the downvotes many people very strongly think just one of these is true and very aggressively disagree with the other one.
- tristor 2y ago
  That would be true if these issues were discussed in rational terms, but unfortunately because it's predominantly political, it means rational terms are not the basis of these discussions. That is presupposing either point A or B is even true.
- harimau777 2y ago
  I think that the difference is probably that one side thinks that being a parent that raises healthy functional adults comes down mostly to personal factors. The other side believes that societal/structural factors play a large part. So they don't exactly disagree on what the circumstances for success looks like as much as they disagree on the degree to which those circumstances are under an individual's control.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  The premise of personal responsibility is surprisingly partisan.
neilv 2y ago
> Parents which are able to raise their children to be functioning adults probably were raised by functioning adults and were able to find a job that leads to higher household income. We‘re talking about statistics here, What is a functioning adult, and where are those statistics from?
- WillPostForFood 2y ago
  Start with a low bar. Since we are talking kids: married parents, employed. https://eadn-wc01-3158345.nxedge.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Black-women-with-kids-get-a-173-percent-marriage-bonus-in-income.png https://eadn-wc01-3158345.nxedge.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/...
  - Yawrehto 2y ago
    Why would marriage matter? Marriage may be an indicator of something, but there are plenty of successful single parents. I can think of several exceptions I know, all of whom are reasonably successful - one a somewhat well-known academic, one, last I checked, a rabbi somewhere, one, now deceased, a...actually, I forget what she did, but she managed to have a home in NYC and didn't come from a rich background, so she must've done something for a living (her kids were both academics.) When I can think of that many examples of reasonably successful people who break your rules without thinking too hard, there's probably something wrong with your theory, or at least my interpretation of it (sorry if I'm misreading what you wrote!)
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      It's a question of what is the rule and what is the exception. Single parent households correlate extremely strongly with many negative factors, relative to 2-parent households. This doesn't mean that somebody can't live a good life coming from a single parent household, but that on average they are much less likely to do so than somebody coming from a 2-parent household. And while correlation is not causation, many of these factors are obviously causal. For instance 2-parent households will either be able to provide a much higher average income in the case when both parents work, or a more supportive environment when only 1 parent works.
frogpelt 2y ago
I agree. There very clearly is a causation link between certain behaviors and long term success. Household income is something people have direct control over. I can go out and immediately cut mine in half tomorrow if I choose to. Doubling it would be harder but i imagine I could do that too if I took the appropriate actions.
- littlecosmic 2y ago
  They have a certain percentage of direct control and the remainder is what causes all the problems.
- slim 2y ago
  being able to double the household income is a privilege you have. what makes you think anybody could do it but is chosing to live with half the income instead ?
WalterBright 2y ago
> you need to work hard to be successful Hard work is only a path to success if you're working on the right things. For example, if I decided to be an Olympic athlete, and worked like the devil, I have zero chance of making the team.

WillPostForFood 2y ago

Yes, and likely with environmental reinforcement. High income/high IQ -> self sorting, and assortative mating. That will lead to households with kids who have both genetic traits, and an environment that's going to teach and reward self control.

ren_engineer 2y ago

people really don't want to accept that beyond the most extreme cases(starvation, lead poisoning, complete neglect, no school access at all, etc.), environment really doesn't play that big of a role. Twin studies have shown this for literally decades

astrange 2y ago
Lead poisoning isn't an extreme case, it's a very common problem. Twin studies don't exclude environmental causes because twins have the same maternal environment.
- drowsspa 2y ago
  Yeah, I never got how the womb doesn't count as an environment, and even the circumstances that led to the twins being separated.
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    While commonly thought, this isn't how twin usually studies work. The way it works is you look at the correlation between identical and non-identical twins on some given thing. If there's a much stronger correlation between the identical twins, then it's probably primarily genetic. What this does is helps to eliminate environmental factors because identical vs nonidentical twins will both be raised in basically the exact same environment. So take height. If identical twins have identical heights while non-identical twins have varying heights, then it's safe to assume height is largely genetic. Interestingly separated twins would actually be worse in many cases because you reintroduce environmental deviation. For instance with height, differences may well be down to e.g. nutrition, but when you have them in the same household you can usually assume roughly identical nutrition.
lovethevoid 2y ago
That's not true, for example metacognitive ability studies have shown environment plays the dominant role. Twin studies on trust provide the same, in which genetic component while large at 33% certainly doesn't indicate what you're stating that it's only "extreme cases". Even in studies re-assessing conventional twin studies and educational attainment, the conclusion was that while some is genetic (sometimes even a large portion) the correlations between a mother and father's educational attainment points to environment playing a large role (unless you have the belief that the mother and father are siblings I suppose). You'll be extremely hard pressed to find researchers conducting these twin studies who minimize the role of either genetic or environmental impact on certain aspects in the way you did.