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Be that as it may, do you seriously think if you were the exact same person, simply hadn't finished high school and/or were a different race, you'd be a differe

Be that as it may, do you seriously think if you were the exact same person, simply hadn't finished high school and/or were a different race, you'd be a different person? I just don't see how race affects anything at all, maybe this is more a specifically American thing? Official education likewise seemed a giant waste of time to me.

gaius 17y ago
In education, yes, of course I would. I'm not an incredibly motivated, dynamic person who could make stuff happen whatever the circumstance, those people are incredibly rare, that's why they're famous, like Richard Branson. I worked hard at school, went to a top college, went to work in high tech, fairly typical "geek" life. Would I be the same person now if I'd been stuck in the small town I grew up in, working a dead-end job, surrounded by people who were going nowhere? I don't think my race has disadvantaged me professionally, but it certainly had an effect in that small town when there was at most one non-white kid in every class... My education got me out of that world and I've never looked back.
roundsquare 17y ago
Yes, I think my life would have been very different. I probably wouldn't have gotten my first job since I got it through campus recruiting. The people I met there have again influenced me and has led me to where I am today and a lot of the views I have. Of course, in some ways, I would be the same person, but to claim that I would be essentially the same had I not finished high school is, in my mind, pretty absurd. With respect to race... it is something that happens in the US. I can't speak for other countries though.
jbooth 17y ago
If you don't see it, that just means you haven't spent a lot of time studying it. The concept of someone who's the same exact you but grew up under radically different conditions is a red herring -- by the age of 12, there'd be more differences than similarities, and that's before the things that you're thinking of as "racism", job interviews and police harrassment and the like, have even started.

gaius 17y ago

In education, yes, of course I would. I'm not an incredibly motivated, dynamic person who could make stuff happen whatever the circumstance, those people are incredibly rare, that's why they're famous, like Richard Branson. I worked hard at school, went to a top college, went to work in high tech, fairly typical "geek" life. Would I be the same person now if I'd been stuck in the small town I grew up in, working a dead-end job, surrounded by people who were going nowhere? I don't think my race has disadvantaged me professionally, but it certainly had an effect in that small town when there was at most one non-white kid in every class... My education got me out of that world and I've never looked back.

roundsquare 17y ago

Yes, I think my life would have been very different. I probably wouldn't have gotten my first job since I got it through campus recruiting. The people I met there have again influenced me and has led me to where I am today and a lot of the views I have. Of course, in some ways, I would be the same person, but to claim that I would be essentially the same had I not finished high school is, in my mind, pretty absurd. With respect to race... it is something that happens in the US. I can't speak for other countries though.

jbooth 17y ago

If you don't see it, that just means you haven't spent a lot of time studying it. The concept of someone who's the same exact you but grew up under radically different conditions is a red herring -- by the age of 12, there'd be more differences than similarities, and that's before the things that you're thinking of as "racism", job interviews and police harrassment and the like, have even started.