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An even more outsized role is played by a virtuous life. It may not make you a billionaire, but if you finish high school, get a full-time job once you finish s

An even more outsized role is played by a virtuous life. It may not make you a billionaire, but if you finish high school, get a full-time job once you finish school, get married before you have children, then you are quite likely to have a good life. We are doing a disservice to our fellow man by not telling them this truth.

nly 1y ago
Those are some strangely arbitrary not-virtues.
- astura 1y ago
  It's a shitty conservative talking point called the 'Success Sequence.' https://archive.is/9Onj3 https://archive.is/9Onj3
  - stavros 1y ago
    Why is this downvoted? The "success sequence" seems to be pretty much word-for-word what the GP comment said.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      Because there are more and more MAGA adherents on this site.
darkwater 1y ago
> get married before you have children, then you are quite likely to have a good life. Based on what, exactly? I think you have cause and effect inverted.
- flanked-evergl 1y ago
  Nope. Statistically, having children before you get married is much more likely to result in worse outcomes. Maybe cause and effect is inverted, but maybe the better option is to not run a social experiment in fatherless children as we have been doing for the past couple of decades with absolutely no research to suggest that it can result in positive outcomes and loads of data to show that it's almost definitely can't result in positive outcomes.
  - piva00 1y ago
    Those are just statistics describing what happens, not why it happens. Why does having children before getting married creates worse outcomes? Can individuals or society do something about the qualitative aspect of it? Quantifying something doesn't explain it, it just... Quantifies it, deeper inspection is needed to understand what the statistics says. You are prescribing what needs to be done based on something that is, ultimately, descriptive.
    - flanked-evergl 1y ago
      Do we have any data whatsoever that would support the claim that whether you are married before having children has no impact on your life outcome or the life outcomes of your children?
      - piva00 1y ago
        I don't think you understood my comment, I will spell it out: data by itself just quantifies, doesn't qualify. It doesn't qualify why marrying before having children is better, it just states that, for some reason, the outcomes are better. Now you need to do the qualitative research to understand what are the causes for it, it could be that marriage is a signal for stable relationships, in that case marrying doesn't matter but a stable relationship does (which is quite self-obvious, it's just an example). Marriage could also have tax implications in some countries, which in turn could help the average to better outcomes, so on and so forth. The data on this is enveloping much more than just "marriage" as a virtue, or any other moral aspect of it, you are using the data to imply that marriage is virtuous and is the cause for better outcomes which doesn't hold by just quantification... It's blindness by statistics, it's quite common when ascribing data as the sole truth. Data can guide you to investigate other aspects that will qualify why the data shows what it shows.
        flanked-evergl 1y ago
        These things I named correlate to better outcomes, we have nothing that indicates that not doing these things generate similar favourable outcomes … but we should continue to tell people that it's not necessary for them to do these things to have good outcomes as we have not done enough qualitative research to know what almost all of our forefathers have known, and it's best that people experiment more and see if maybe the right combination of unemployment, promiscuity and lack of education could not create equally good outcomes for them. I have unfortunately not spent enough time at a university to follow this line of reasoning. Must be wild to be able to follow it. I'm of the yokel type that thinks if all data and tradition we have shows something works, then it's probably best to do the thing that works instead of trying things that we have no reason to think would work. But in line with tradition, the underclasses in the west has always been the favourite laboratory for the cultural elites in the west.
hdgvhicv 1y ago
You’re far more likely to have been born in rural China, India or Africa than in the west.
- flanked-evergl 1y ago
  I guess every unemployed druggy is just a roll of the dice away from a successful career and happy family.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- bwfan123 1y ago
  And you can have an enlightened life in any one of those places - for example, the ideas laid out in the piece are abstract, and not environment specific. All sorts of folks have lived in all sorts of places across time. Trappings and environments have varied. Attributing things to luck in and of itself is an illusion. There is nothing that is lucky or unlucky. You play the hand you are dealt.
fpsvogel 1y ago
To take one of your examples, high school graduation rates vary from ~25% to ~98% in U.S. school districts. It's not because some districts have a lot more virtuous young people, but because some districts are poor and others are wealthy, among other factors. Even if one of those factors is virtuous parents, kids can't choose their parents. I'm not denying our moral agency, but it is often constrained by environment. Some people are lucky enough that virtuous choices are easier for them.
- flanked-evergl 1y ago
  People in all western countries can do all of these things without much difficulty. We can go off the theory that you are just as likely to have a successful life if you drop out of school, have children with many women and/or absent fathers, and not get a permanent job — but there is no data to support any of those claims, and we have been running this experiment for decades now with nothing getting better.
- bluGill 1y ago
  No, but a few of those poor kids see the claim change their life instead of following their parents examples and those kids tend to do well. We see this most in immigrants where the parents come with nothing and barely get by but their kids despite going to the same bad schools do well
  - fpsvogel 1y ago
    Adsolutely. I agree that our lives aren't determined by family background, and we can draw on many other resources, both within ourselves and from other people besides family. If I overstated my point, it's only because I was pushing back against the idea that education, employment, and a traditional family are equally attainable by all, and if someone has failed in any of these areas, it's because they lack virtue compared to other people (many of whom had more advantageous starting points in life, but supposedly that doesn't matter). Or in simpler terms, "poor people are poor because they're bad and they deserve it". It's a sentiment that's been very useful for the ultra-wealthy class, and detrimental to everyone else, not just the poor.
padjo 1y ago
For your definition of virtue I assume?
ropable 1y ago
I don't entirely disagree, however: it's a far sight easier to live a "virtuous" life if you weren't born into poverty, or with a mental illness, or in a country that is actively at war, etc. These things are all beyond our control, as are so many other things. Luck. It's obviously always possible to make the best of bad circumstances (and make the worst of good circumstances!) but it's easier to "win" when you're dealt a good hand.

nly 1y ago

Those are some strangely arbitrary not-virtues.

astura 1y ago
It's a shitty conservative talking point called the 'Success Sequence.' https://archive.is/9Onj3 https://archive.is/9Onj3
- stavros 1y ago
  Why is this downvoted? The "success sequence" seems to be pretty much word-for-word what the GP comment said.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    Because there are more and more MAGA adherents on this site.

darkwater 1y ago

> get married before you have children, then you are quite likely to have a good life. Based on what, exactly? I think you have cause and effect inverted.

flanked-evergl 1y ago
Nope. Statistically, having children before you get married is much more likely to result in worse outcomes. Maybe cause and effect is inverted, but maybe the better option is to not run a social experiment in fatherless children as we have been doing for the past couple of decades with absolutely no research to suggest that it can result in positive outcomes and loads of data to show that it's almost definitely can't result in positive outcomes.
- piva00 1y ago
  Those are just statistics describing what happens, not why it happens. Why does having children before getting married creates worse outcomes? Can individuals or society do something about the qualitative aspect of it? Quantifying something doesn't explain it, it just... Quantifies it, deeper inspection is needed to understand what the statistics says. You are prescribing what needs to be done based on something that is, ultimately, descriptive.
  - flanked-evergl 1y ago
    Do we have any data whatsoever that would support the claim that whether you are married before having children has no impact on your life outcome or the life outcomes of your children?
    - piva00 1y ago
      I don't think you understood my comment, I will spell it out: data by itself just quantifies, doesn't qualify. It doesn't qualify why marrying before having children is better, it just states that, for some reason, the outcomes are better. Now you need to do the qualitative research to understand what are the causes for it, it could be that marriage is a signal for stable relationships, in that case marrying doesn't matter but a stable relationship does (which is quite self-obvious, it's just an example). Marriage could also have tax implications in some countries, which in turn could help the average to better outcomes, so on and so forth. The data on this is enveloping much more than just "marriage" as a virtue, or any other moral aspect of it, you are using the data to imply that marriage is virtuous and is the cause for better outcomes which doesn't hold by just quantification... It's blindness by statistics, it's quite common when ascribing data as the sole truth. Data can guide you to investigate other aspects that will qualify why the data shows what it shows.
      - flanked-evergl 1y ago
        These things I named correlate to better outcomes, we have nothing that indicates that not doing these things generate similar favourable outcomes … but we should continue to tell people that it's not necessary for them to do these things to have good outcomes as we have not done enough qualitative research to know what almost all of our forefathers have known, and it's best that people experiment more and see if maybe the right combination of unemployment, promiscuity and lack of education could not create equally good outcomes for them. I have unfortunately not spent enough time at a university to follow this line of reasoning. Must be wild to be able to follow it. I'm of the yokel type that thinks if all data and tradition we have shows something works, then it's probably best to do the thing that works instead of trying things that we have no reason to think would work. But in line with tradition, the underclasses in the west has always been the favourite laboratory for the cultural elites in the west.

hdgvhicv 1y ago

You’re far more likely to have been born in rural China, India or Africa than in the west.

flanked-evergl 1y ago
I guess every unemployed druggy is just a roll of the dice away from a successful career and happy family.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bwfan123 1y ago
And you can have an enlightened life in any one of those places - for example, the ideas laid out in the piece are abstract, and not environment specific. All sorts of folks have lived in all sorts of places across time. Trappings and environments have varied. Attributing things to luck in and of itself is an illusion. There is nothing that is lucky or unlucky. You play the hand you are dealt.

fpsvogel 1y ago

To take one of your examples, high school graduation rates vary from ~25% to ~98% in U.S. school districts. It's not because some districts have a lot more virtuous young people, but because some districts are poor and others are wealthy, among other factors. Even if one of those factors is virtuous parents, kids can't choose their parents. I'm not denying our moral agency, but it is often constrained by environment. Some people are lucky enough that virtuous choices are easier for them.

flanked-evergl 1y ago
People in all western countries can do all of these things without much difficulty. We can go off the theory that you are just as likely to have a successful life if you drop out of school, have children with many women and/or absent fathers, and not get a permanent job — but there is no data to support any of those claims, and we have been running this experiment for decades now with nothing getting better.
bluGill 1y ago
No, but a few of those poor kids see the claim change their life instead of following their parents examples and those kids tend to do well. We see this most in immigrants where the parents come with nothing and barely get by but their kids despite going to the same bad schools do well
- fpsvogel 1y ago
  Adsolutely. I agree that our lives aren't determined by family background, and we can draw on many other resources, both within ourselves and from other people besides family. If I overstated my point, it's only because I was pushing back against the idea that education, employment, and a traditional family are equally attainable by all, and if someone has failed in any of these areas, it's because they lack virtue compared to other people (many of whom had more advantageous starting points in life, but supposedly that doesn't matter). Or in simpler terms, "poor people are poor because they're bad and they deserve it". It's a sentiment that's been very useful for the ultra-wealthy class, and detrimental to everyone else, not just the poor.

padjo 1y ago

For your definition of virtue I assume?

ropable 1y ago

I don't entirely disagree, however: it's a far sight easier to live a "virtuous" life if you weren't born into poverty, or with a mental illness, or in a country that is actively at war, etc. These things are all beyond our control, as are so many other things. Luck. It's obviously always possible to make the best of bad circumstances (and make the worst of good circumstances!) but it's easier to "win" when you're dealt a good hand.