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This site is a little project that lets me make fun of some things and sense of others. I use it to think a little more relationally without resorting to doing actual math.Subscribe
This site is a little project that lets me make fun of some things and sense of others. I use it to think a little more relationally without resorting to doing actual math.
Luck has nothing to do with it. Just dictators.
Disagree. Aid is not mutually exclusive from Ascent. The top and lowest deciles of socioeconomic classes in the United States have a high correlation of immobility. Meaning if you’re born in the highest or lowest ten percent, you are incredibly likely to stay there. The correlation weakens as you go to the middle, which explains why the middle and upper classes find it easier to conclude that it’s at least fair. It’s only the most interested party in aid (the lowest classes) that experiences an uneven playing field not in their favor (the wealthy also experience an uneven field, but in their favor). Moreover, luck includes your parents’ personalities and attitudes. Tendency towards negativity in your parents, even if you’re adopted, has twice as much of an impact in socioeconomic success as traditional measures of intelligence. This can also be counted as aid. Even further, it is building a tendency for permanent dependence on aid that hinders ascent, not the aid itself. It is like saying steps on a ladder don’t help you go up. They do unless you become complacent about how high you’ve gotten halfway through. How you solve these implicit dilemmas is the million-dollar question. One good book on current research on the topic is: Unequal Chances by Bowles, Gintis, and Groves.