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The fact that people like you can escape is very encouraging: it means we still have class mobility -- if you've got the skills and work ethic, you can be born

by Meekro 12y ago

The fact that people like you can escape is very encouraging: it means we still have class mobility -- if you've got the skills and work ethic, you can be born into the lower class and quickly rise above that.

alexqgb 12y ago
Don't kid yourself. There's a wide gulf between a worldview based on a few anecdotal successes and the more realistic picture emerging from a flood of statistics, which not only show the rarity of mobility, but indicate that it's declining - esp. for those unfortunate enough to be born at the bottom. Yes, people can win Olympic Gold (we're not competing against robots yet), but very few will and those who do will have to make extraordinary sacrifices. So yes, give them credit. But don't - whatever you do - look at people who haven't managed to keep their heads about water, and think "well, this one guy made it against all odds and you didn't, so you must be a lazy, stupid human." That may be fair (if harsh) in a supportive world where it takes rare talent to fail. But it's a monstrous attitude in a world where the opposite is so clearly the case.
- jonny_eh 12y ago
  The number of people that can win an Olympic Gold is arbitrarily fixed. The number of people that can become financially successful isn't.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - alexqgb 12y ago
    And yet, for the last 30 years, the number of those who are successful relative to the rest of the population has suffered sharp decline. Do you honestly not know this? Or are you simply the sort of person who just doesn't mind?
    - logicchains 12y ago
      Financially successful doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as being financially "successful relative to the rest of the population", for what it's worth.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      Relative mobility has remained flat and absolute mobility has increased. http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/mobility_trends.pdf http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/mobility_trends.pdf
      - alexqgb 12y ago
        Not actually the point I was making but an interesting paper nonetheless. When I said "relative" I meant "relative to the population as a whole", not "relative to the members of one's class from prior generations."
dannypgh 12y ago
I guess the fact that some people have successfully escaped from prison means that prisoners are really free, right? Your reasoning is lousy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- Meekro 12y ago
  Well, if prisons were busy handing out guns, shovels, and grappling hooks to every prisoner, even begging the prisoners to take them, and the prisoners just ignored them, then I think your analogy would fit. I went to a public school in a poor neighborhood, and very well-meaning teachers were trying to give students the tools to break out of poverty. Except for the Asians (who do routinely break out), the kids of most cultural groups were more likely to laugh in the teachers' faces! It was pretty disgusting to watch, really. In my experience, those who were smart, grabbed every break-out tool that was offered to them, and were lucky enough to stay in decent health throughout their youth, all managed to escape the poverty. It's true that getting crippled or bedridden in your teens or 20s can make it harder to escape both from prison and from poverty, and that's totally out of your control, but there is plenty that you can actually do to improve your chances, and 99% of young people (that I've seen) did none of it.
  - dannypgh 12y ago
    "The fact that people like you can escape is very encouraging: it means we still have class mobility" Sorry, my analogy is perfectly apt. Your argument was that the fact that there were survivors means there is mobility, but in no way is that reasoning sound. You must compare the number who thrive to the number who don't, or else your methodology is terribly compromised. Of course, now (but not before) you've started to do that, albeit in the rather unscientific method of, people who know who fit your judgment of certain criteria. There are various other cognitive biases at play here, e.g. fundamental attribution error. But even if we were to pretend that you, unlike anyone else, could somehow accurately judge the reality of the situation based on your childhood memories, take a look at the criteria you mentioned. You had to include "were lucky enough to stay in decent health" - as if health was merely determined by luck, and not wealth! Access to doctors, medicine, and quality food are not distributed evenly in society. You, just like me and everyone else, don't have anywhere near the ability to draw reasonable conclusions about class mobility (or lack thereof) as methodological research. But please don't go promoting fallacious thinking by saying things like "the fact that you survived means we have mobility." It means no such thing.
sogen 12y ago
No, not quickly, on the contrary, there's an inverse relationship: "...the United States and United Kingdom had the lowest intergenerational vertical social mobility ..." "...Studies have also found "a clear negative relationship" between income inequality and intergenerational mobility.[27] Countries with low levels of inequality such as Denmark, Norway and Finland had some of the greatest mobility, while the two countries with the high level of inequality -- Chile and Brazil—had some of the lowest mobility. A 2012 graph plotting the relationship between inequality and mobility in the United States and twelve other developed countries has been dubbed "The Great Gatsby Curve"[27][28][29] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility#Country_comparison http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility#Country_compari... PEW report: http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/12/selling-out-over-long-term-to-achieve.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/12/selling-out-over-long-term-... U. Bekerley.edu / NYTimes feature: http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/features/20130726_upward_mobility.html http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/features/20130726_upward_mobili...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
r0s 12y ago
Skills and work ethic are learned behaviors. You're technically correct that those things can help you rise above, but you're missing the point that environment is the key factor.
beat 12y ago
We still have class mobility, to a degree. Not enough of a degree, which is my concern. My daughter, who is 20, is concerned that society is actually going backwards, and there's less opportunity for her generation than for previous generations.

by Meekro 12y ago

alexqgb 12y ago

Don't kid yourself. There's a wide gulf between a worldview based on a few anecdotal successes and the more realistic picture emerging from a flood of statistics, which not only show the rarity of mobility, but indicate that it's declining - esp. for those unfortunate enough to be born at the bottom. Yes, people can win Olympic Gold (we're not competing against robots yet), but very few will and those who do will have to make extraordinary sacrifices. So yes, give them credit. But don't - whatever you do - look at people who haven't managed to keep their heads about water, and think "well, this one guy made it against all odds and you didn't, so you must be a lazy, stupid human." That may be fair (if harsh) in a supportive world where it takes rare talent to fail. But it's a monstrous attitude in a world where the opposite is so clearly the case.

jonny_eh 12y ago
The number of people that can win an Olympic Gold is arbitrarily fixed. The number of people that can become financially successful isn't.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- alexqgb 12y ago
  And yet, for the last 30 years, the number of those who are successful relative to the rest of the population has suffered sharp decline. Do you honestly not know this? Or are you simply the sort of person who just doesn't mind?
  - logicchains 12y ago
    Financially successful doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as being financially "successful relative to the rest of the population", for what it's worth.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    Relative mobility has remained flat and absolute mobility has increased. http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/mobility_trends.pdf http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/mobility_trends.pdf
    - alexqgb 12y ago
      Not actually the point I was making but an interesting paper nonetheless. When I said "relative" I meant "relative to the population as a whole", not "relative to the members of one's class from prior generations."

dannypgh 12y ago

I guess the fact that some people have successfully escaped from prison means that prisoners are really free, right? Your reasoning is lousy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Meekro 12y ago
Well, if prisons were busy handing out guns, shovels, and grappling hooks to every prisoner, even begging the prisoners to take them, and the prisoners just ignored them, then I think your analogy would fit. I went to a public school in a poor neighborhood, and very well-meaning teachers were trying to give students the tools to break out of poverty. Except for the Asians (who do routinely break out), the kids of most cultural groups were more likely to laugh in the teachers' faces! It was pretty disgusting to watch, really. In my experience, those who were smart, grabbed every break-out tool that was offered to them, and were lucky enough to stay in decent health throughout their youth, all managed to escape the poverty. It's true that getting crippled or bedridden in your teens or 20s can make it harder to escape both from prison and from poverty, and that's totally out of your control, but there is plenty that you can actually do to improve your chances, and 99% of young people (that I've seen) did none of it.
- dannypgh 12y ago
  "The fact that people like you can escape is very encouraging: it means we still have class mobility" Sorry, my analogy is perfectly apt. Your argument was that the fact that there were survivors means there is mobility, but in no way is that reasoning sound. You must compare the number who thrive to the number who don't, or else your methodology is terribly compromised. Of course, now (but not before) you've started to do that, albeit in the rather unscientific method of, people who know who fit your judgment of certain criteria. There are various other cognitive biases at play here, e.g. fundamental attribution error. But even if we were to pretend that you, unlike anyone else, could somehow accurately judge the reality of the situation based on your childhood memories, take a look at the criteria you mentioned. You had to include "were lucky enough to stay in decent health" - as if health was merely determined by luck, and not wealth! Access to doctors, medicine, and quality food are not distributed evenly in society. You, just like me and everyone else, don't have anywhere near the ability to draw reasonable conclusions about class mobility (or lack thereof) as methodological research. But please don't go promoting fallacious thinking by saying things like "the fact that you survived means we have mobility." It means no such thing.

sogen 12y ago

No, not quickly, on the contrary, there's an inverse relationship: "...the United States and United Kingdom had the lowest intergenerational vertical social mobility ..." "...Studies have also found "a clear negative relationship" between income inequality and intergenerational mobility.[27] Countries with low levels of inequality such as Denmark, Norway and Finland had some of the greatest mobility, while the two countries with the high level of inequality -- Chile and Brazil—had some of the lowest mobility. A 2012 graph plotting the relationship between inequality and mobility in the United States and twelve other developed countries has been dubbed "The Great Gatsby Curve"[27][28][29] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility#Country_comparison http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility#Country_compari... PEW report: http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/12/selling-out-over-long-term-to-achieve.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/12/selling-out-over-long-term-... U. Bekerley.edu / NYTimes feature: http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/features/20130726_upward_mobility.html http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/features/20130726_upward_mobili...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

r0s 12y ago

Skills and work ethic are learned behaviors. You're technically correct that those things can help you rise above, but you're missing the point that environment is the key factor.

beat 12y ago

We still have class mobility, to a degree. Not enough of a degree, which is my concern. My daughter, who is 20, is concerned that society is actually going backwards, and there's less opportunity for her generation than for previous generations.