charlesu

8 ms·

31.
by charlesu 6y ago
What resource is scarce? We can’t give everyone an iPhone or a McMansion, but we could probably feed everyone.
32.
by charlesu 6y ago
But the children I’m referring to were working in factories in a rapidly industrializing country.
33.
by charlesu 6y ago
If the labor market is based on supply and demand, why are teacher salaries stagnant in the face of perpetual teacher shortages? Why do nice school districts pay more than bad ones despite having far more applicants?
34.
by charlesu 6y ago
Same thing with child labor. Apparently it being outlawed was the end of American industry.
35.
by charlesu 6y ago
More often than not shareholders and management can just pocket the difference not consumers. Levi jeans today are low quality compared to a few decades ago but they aren’t any cheaper. Same thing with colleges. Low wage adjuncts as far as
36.
by charlesu 6y ago
To be fair, a video game could include a curly haired Bantu and be historically accurate. One of Nobunaga's retainers was an African.
37.
by charlesu 6y ago
Not sure why you’re being downvoted because you have a point. Remember the controversy that ensued when a black girl was cast as Rue in the Hunger Games movie? https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/white-unti
38.
by charlesu 6y ago
You’re right. I was wrong to minimize the struggles of Asians in this country. There is real discrimination against Asians. Your comment and others have changed my view. Thanks for helping me work through my own blind spots on this issue. I
39.
by charlesu 6y ago
> I’m really sick and tired of seeing this crap. It’s ruining western civilization and creating conflict. It’s ruining western civilization and creating conflict for whom? Western civilization has always been marked by conflict for some.
40.
by charlesu 6y ago
> When someone lives in a certain state and applies to university, they have the opportunity to show their worth and skills by their achievements. When Harvard seeks to broaden their search for those people to new geographies, all to the
41.
by charlesu 6y ago
> Thanks to the SAT, my brother and I are comfortably in the top 1%. The U.S. system of "meritocracy" (such as it is) is extremely effective at helping us distinguish ourselves from upper middle class white people who have more
42.
by charlesu 6y ago
> I believe it is illegal in california to consider race for public universities, so you could look at Caltech and Berkeley which fit most definitions of elite schools. Caltech is 48% Asian, while MIT is 25.7% for undergrad. These are in
43.
by charlesu 6y ago
Harvard makes an effort to create a diverse class of students. That includes race but it also includes geography. Is Harvard excluding kids from New Jersey and New York because it goes out of it's way to admit kids from Nebraska and Mo
44.
by charlesu 6y ago
Standardized tests could also be considered a way for picking the right kind of person: namely, people who know that standardized tests are something to prepare for. I’ve tutored students at both elite and underperforming high schools. Stud
45.
by charlesu 6y ago
I didn’t say it was a punishment. I said it was a good argument. There’s no legal method of getting back ill-gotten gains from someone who’s dead. But if you can’t pass along your estate, it doesn’t matter. For the record, I don’t think the
46.
by charlesu 6y ago
All loopholes that can be legislated away with enough political will.
47.
by charlesu 6y ago
Raise the gift tax and income tax as well. High taxes on high earners is a good thing. It spurs investment, flattens the distribution of wealth and income, and spurs spending. Give a millionaire a million dollars and he’ll save it or “inves
48.
by charlesu 6y ago
We should tax the crap out of everyone’s estates because it’s aligned with the American value of equal opportunity. Do you want to live in a society where everyone has a fair shot? Then you need the estate tax. It’s the great equalizer. We
49.
by charlesu 6y ago
Fine, the University of Chicago, Wake Forest, and almost all of the elite liberal arts colleges (Williams College, Swarthmore College, Bowdoin College, etc) are test optional or test free and no worse for it. Standardized tests are one me
50.
by charlesu 6y ago
This is a great argument for an absurdly high estate tax. You can’t inherit ill-gotten gains if you don’t inherit anything at all!
51.
by charlesu 6y ago
> We may tend to prefer in-groups as humans, but there's no reason why one's "in-group" should be defined by race. I agree! There’s no reason in-groups should be defined by race...but, at least in the United States, i
52.
by charlesu 6y ago
> The first describes a quasi-religious ritual in which all participants ritually affirm that they are unworthy sinners, racists. Why would being racist make someone an unworthy sinner? Racism is just treating others differently based on
53.
by charlesu 6y ago
Being racist isn’t the same as being evil. Just about everyone, to some extent, is racist. I don’t see how that’s an extreme claim. Humans are a social species. We have in-groups and out-groups. Often times the most salient marker for wheth
54.
by charlesu 6y ago
In the first link, some administrators took part in an anti-racism training and in the second a school got rid of an entrance exam. What’s extreme about either of those things?
55.
by charlesu 6y ago
My takeaway is that Steve Ballmer was paid million of dollars despite being worth negative $100m to MSFT.
56.
by charlesu 6y ago
If no one cares about their “group” then helping historically disadvantaged peoples wouldn’t be controversial.
57.
by charlesu 6y ago
Wages have little to do with productivity and everything to do with bargaining power. CEOs are paid well because we expect them to be and they can demand it, irrespective of their actual contributions to the success of the company. But for
58.
by charlesu 6y ago
>if it's true that blacks are still being discriminated against, and nobody is allowed to compensate for that by taking action, what else can we need to do to solve the pre-existing discrimination, assuming that it's cultural a
59.
by charlesu 6y ago
> most behaviors related to success are highly genetically heritable And the implications of this are what? See, that's the problem with these claims. They serve no purpose other than to suggest that some people are inherently bette
60.
by charlesu 6y ago
What’s interesting to me is how selectively this kind of understanding is applied. Why is it that we default to this reasoning to explain hate but not, say, crime. Where’s this level of nuance where we discuss riots? Why does it apply in on

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