Maybe because they have been so privileged throughout their life that they feel entitled to not taking responsibility
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/aracheology-wealth-in...
Paul Piff had some findings that rich people are more likely to break rules to get ahead for example (he has a nice Ted talk btw). However, more recent research found that this is largely/likely due to wealth but being "primed" to think about money, i.e. if you think about money your less likely to help other etc..
Here's a BBC article that summarises the research quite well https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31761576
The practical issue I'm concerned with is around the ability of a minority of people to afford 6-8 figure legal and PR bills and avoid accountability for all manner of issues. When you can tie up courts for years to play financial triage and get the best reputation money can buy, you aren't likely to be held accountable.
I know a person who drove their car into a wall while drunk and high in college. Their parents paid $5000 to an attorney and their DUI charge was eventually dropped. Another friend's life took a different course when they got their DUI under similar circumstances but without an attorney, and despite their earnest efforts it's been hard to overcome within the job market.
I'm arguing that the defacto disparity of legal budgets is quite damaging to the fabric that holds our society together, which is equal treatment under blind justice. It means an equal distribution of dishonesty is punished disproportionately according to familial wealth.
I think you'll find this definition of privilege quite in line with OP's meaning: https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Priviledge >A particular benefit, advantage, or Immunity enjoyed by a person or class of people that is not shared with others. A power of exemption against or beyond the law. It is not a right but, rather, exempts one from the performance of a duty, obligation, or liability.
They also had wealth inequality. Sometimes, it resulted in the poor and wealthy fighting. This fighting was often very brutal with each side putting the other to death. Once in awhile, an enlightened leader would come who would put into place a system for greater prosperity for all.
There are several ways to look at inequality. The most simplistic way to so do is looking at relative wealthy by decile and comparing the ratio between the top and bottom. In feudal society, everybody was relatively poor, and the wealth gap may be on the order of 10-100X. In modern times, that ratio may be far larger and under a certain definition that would be mean higher inequality. I'll concede that this approach fails to capture the practical experience of the haves and have-nots over time, and having our's hit all-time highs isn't immoral if there is some baseline of sufficiency at the bottom. It also doesn't account for social mobility, which we exceptional at.
Still, we live in a novel time where orders of magnitude of wealth that haven't existed before. It is hard to fathom, and calls into question what is and isn't a de-facto privilege of enjoying.
I found this article which offers some more nuanced approaches to measuring inequality in different societies than Gini. https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/5388/1/MPRA_paper_5388.pdf
However this is not based on reality, the US ranks behind most European countries and canada on social mobility: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-social-mobility-...
The visual capitalist provides a definition of social mobility - children having a better life than their parents or being unconstrained by their socio-economic status. But the index they reference doesn't measure that. It measures more general Quality of Life metrics like prevalence of malnourishment or quality of the social safety net.
So while a high score reflects an easier life for the low end of the social ladder it doesn't actually measure their ability to move up it. I could on paper come up with a country that scored quite well on most of the index measures and had a rigid caste system where children could never outperform their parents and cannot escape their birth status.
Our society should stop feeding children lies about systemic inclusivity.
Children are fed lies about their role in this society and spend a lifetime acting surprised that their ideas never happen. We could also just stop doing that. Its not corrupt that we don't have a direct democracy, we just dont have a direct democracy. And the system we do have has different rules, which simply don't include the capability of “the proletariat” to have the same effect as immortal organizations with enough resources to maintain focus.
How about eight cameras covering pretty much all angles, that are always on, even when parked?
But seriously, a street recording is not forbidden in many countries, right?
Unfortunately, it doesn't confer any mana. However, the white dude's stats for "culture fit" during interviews get buffed (+2 Luck), medical staff tend to believe him when he says he's in pain (+1 Health), and if he's ever in front of a judge, he gets a lighter sentence than those with darker complexions (+2 Charisma).
I have what's called "results" of hard work, good decisions and a healthy dose of luck to go from the poor kid of a single mother on government cheese and living on family couches to making a good salary at a good job. I earned my place - I wasn't "privileged" into it.
The only REAL privilege I have is being an American - and that's color blind. The top 1% globally make 30k/year and that's the vast majority of Americans. And I'm not ashamed of that... I'm proud of it - as I should be.
Any attempts to place race as a factor is done by what we love to call... racists.
For instance I know I have more opportunities because I am white, belonging to western culture and culturally Christian (I am an atheist by celebrate Christmas and all that), than I would have had if I was black or muslim while living in the West.
But this is not uniform. My opportunities if I looked Asian would likely be very similar to looking white.
It isn’t a mystery that a culture favors people looking like themselves. Had I grown up in Japan I am sure I would have been at a disadvantage for not looking Japanese.
And that is why I advocate social democratic policies such as reducing inequality. Giving everybody equal access to health care, education etc.
But the point is we should recognize the disadvantage somebody faces and seek to help rather than belittle it by saying “other people have problems too”
The difference is that some of those lower and lower middle class Asians who make it go up through the educational system (work hard and study culture).
That is why so many Asians defend magnet schools. How do you think many of them rose up from poverty?
The lower and lower middle class Asians don’t initially have the same networking opportunities or social access that whites do.
Also whites from disadvantaged backgrounds often face different difficulties.
The rich kids, irrespective of race, mostly didn’t have better grades. What they had was richer backgrounds and more opportunities (parents able and willing to pay for liberal arts colleges, willing and able to pay for them to go to medical or law school or pursue a PhD, willing and able to sacrifice the years to do so). There were some exceptions but it typically required whole family sacrifice and of course there was a gradient.
The poor kids didn’t have the knowledge or long term thinking. Decisions of what school to go to was based mostly on what was affordable. Decisions of what to do were limited to what major to take.
After school, the rich kids and to a lesser extent the middle class white kids have access to much stronger networks. These networks are the real difference maker. It lets you in on opportunities: jobs at hot startups, easier access to jobs, information on investment opportunities, getting promoted, etc...
It is these opportunities that have a huge multiplier effect.
If you are rich, you play the system. If you are poor, the system plays you. If you are white in the US, it’s easier for you to fit in but you can also fit in (speak right, dress right, think right) if you come from the same background/mindset.
One last thing, do you think that the rich and poor kids hung out together in high school?
I believe it stems from the feeling that the talk of white privilege is taking something away from this achievement, so there is a counter reaction.
To that I say that yes breaking the circle of poverty is a great achievement, but acknowledging that others have factors that make it even more difficult does not take away from this achievement.
I can’t look at you and tell if you grew up the child of a surgeon or a cashier. Or in a loving home or abusive one. With a trust fund or encumbered with debt. But I can make a fairly accurate guess at your gender or race.
What I think isn’t always articulated well is that people don’t feel like the totality of privilege and hurdles are taken into account in these discussions. We over simply our mental models and discussions to race and gender as if that was the totality of our life story and people naturally push back on this. (Not saying you are doing this) It doesn’t mean privilege doesn’t exist, just that it’s rarely as simple a picture as one tends to find in public dialogue and that’s why it makes some bristle
But as a white male - the U.S. did repress the Japanese, American Indian, Muslim, Black, Jewish, Hispanic etc in large swaths, and numerous other minority races in localized areas.
As a white male, I live in a country where I'm surrounded by successful people of all stripes - color, race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc, etc, etc.
Do we have a perfect history as a country? no... but we also provide opportunity to all - and we have POC in EVERY level of society. From cops to Presidents.
(Hint: I never said Obama ended racism... in fact, I wouldn't say that because his policies and his party have made racism WORSE with their identity politics and making everything about race.)
The real problem with America is poverty. We need to help all impoverished people. All of them.
My benefits, as said before, are being American - and I embrace those benefits. Nothing to be ashamed of.
"life on the other side" I refuse to treat others as less because of their skin color. You might be racist but I'm not. I'm surrounded by successful people of all color (and sexs, religions, lifestyles, etc) who don't cry victimhood.
You will continue to be either a victim or treating "POC" as victims who aren't smart enough or good enough - IE treating people different based on their skin color. (IE: Liberals talk down to POC because they look down on them. You might want to check YOUR "priviledge" and how you treat others - https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/30/white-liber...)
I refuse to treat minorities as if they aren't good enough... society shows that is a lie and, as I was raised, treating people differently based on skin color is racism.
You may be okay being a racist... I refuse to be one.
Now I do believe that more social democratic policies would benefit African-Americans a lot. But it would not completely eradicate the problems of racism and they would still be worse off than white.
The problem with only tackling racism and not inequality and poverty is that, even if you removed racism completely, African-Americans would still be stuck with being poor, simply for historical reasons.
Just like poor white people are likely to have kids which are poor.
I partly agree, but I’d argue that it’s less complicated. I would rephrase thusly: Poverty IS the problem. And historical racism is the cause of a lot of that poverty.
> even if you removed racism completely, African-Americans would still be stuck with being poor, simply for historical reasons.
I agree in principle. The question is how you solve for systemic poverty. I think the first, most obvious step is to enact a very steep inheritance tax. That would be the most effective way to dampen generational capital inequality.
The second thing you could do is a generous UBI because that would dramatically benefit the systemically poor. The most effective way to lower income inequality is to raise the floor.
And why do you think that is the case?
You say historical racism, but what makes you think that it is only historical?
Did I say racism is only historical? No.
Having words put in one's mouth makes conversation deeply uninteresting. Thus I shall end my contributions here.
Do you shrug and go "though luck! It is what it is," or do you use legislation to try to compensate and level the playing-field?
And to play the devils advocate. Say I was a racist and I was very okay with it along with 150 million other Americans. And together we make life miserable for POC. How do you suggest dealing with us?
What is your policy? What are your action points?
My action points? Stop treating minorities as victims and idiots unable to take care of themselves. Its called being a decent human being. Everyone - minorities included - already have opportunities for college and starting businesses and all that. It's called American Privilege's.
But of course, I am a white male, so all misfortune in my life must be my own damn fault.
Nor does a party voting for Biden and Harris - creators of "systemically racist" laws and corrupt DAs that used those laws to jail innocent black men - have any moral position to talk about such made up words and expect to be taken seriously.
By analogy, you can force male-only clubs to close and you can force male-only clubs to be inviting to women. Either action would dismantle the systems of male privilege.
Even Boy Scouts is now just Scouts and accepts everyone, but Girl Scouts is still girls only.
(That said, I’m all for making all such restricted spaces as rare as possible. Any structural division, no matter how well intended, has a cost to society.)
Some feminists call this idea "benevolent sexism", and oppose it on the basis that it supports the patriarchy™
Other feminists call this idea "affirmative action" and support it on the basis that it opposes the patriarchy™
Now of course the better solution for this disparity would be to empower women with physical defence skills, e.g. Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And to somehow exorcise the male erotic fantasy out of mainstream female fashion/culture. But as desirable as those solutions are, we can't rely upon top-down social engineering being effective.
It's also important to point out that men being (on average) physically stronger doesn't equate to women being "weak". And having objectively more at risk does not make one "need protecting" in any special way. Such twisting of language is political gamesplaying—and not healthy discourse.
The question that statistician and researchers have been asking if such statistics is at all meaningful in order to reduce crime.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with your overall point, but when you say “weak” are you still speaking in the physical sense? If so I can’t follow the above statement. Weak/strong are relative terms. If you’re willing to say one is statistically stronger than the other, you are implying the other is statistically weaker. To not seems to be the type of wordsmithing used to avoid precise use of language. The reason I specifically put the “individual rights” piece in my previous comment was because I was hoping there was a basis outside the aggregate “average” argument that seems oblivious to individual rights.
I think the BJJ argument can actually be dangerous. Yes, it’s good for anyone to know self defense. But the vast majority of women won’t become skillful enough to overcome the (statistical) innate size/strength disadvantage, particularly any man with training. They can if dedicated enough, but if they don’t it can lead to false confidence.
I think the real issue with the argument is that it only plays well because it’s using terms that are currently socially en vogue. Consider how it would come across instead of saying “men are statistically more likely to rape” you instead advocated for a double standard based on “people of X race are more likely to commit Y crime”. It can be statistically correct and still morally wrong to advocate for such policy because it lacks a nuanced view of the problem.
Obviously I was not—otherwise I would have been entertaining a direct logical contradiction.
I am speaking in the terms offered by the user klipt earlier in this conversation tree. This is how dangerous rhetoric is formed. To call someone "weak", no matter how much you qualify its meaning, inevitably leads to many other subjective connotations that I do not agree with.
> To not seems to be the type of wordsmithing used to avoid precise use of language.
On the contrary, it's the type of wordsmithing used to avoid intentional misapplication of language.
> I think the BJJ argument can actually be dangerous. Yes, it’s good for anyone to know self defense. But the vast majority of women won’t become skillful enough to overcome the (statistical) innate size/strength disadvantage, particularly any man with training. They can if dedicated enough, but if they don’t it can lead to false confidence.
I think it's borderline offensive to assume that the "vast majority of women" won't become "skillful enough".
I think it's borderline offensive to suggest that building up confidence is a dangerous idea. Even "false confidence" can increase one's actual physical power. And to say that a policy is dangerous because it won't be effective in all encounters is ridiculous.
It seems you misunderstand the purpose of having broad BJJ training. It's not just about increasing skill. It's not just about increasing confidence (which for many women might be itself sufficient to stop an attack). Rather it's about the culture that would arise among MEN in response to a society where women have more confidence—whether objectively justified or not.
> you instead advocated for a double standard...
I did no such thing and I consider it highly offensive for you to imply that I did.
I think there’s some miscommunication here. The qualifier is that most wouldn’t become skilled enough to overcome the strength disadvantage. To be fair, the same would apply to men with the same strength disadvantage although that would be less likely due to the lower likelihood for the same strength disparity. Most people won’t spend enough time developing that skill. If I had to speak in broad terms, it would probably take a purple belt (maybe a strong blue belt) to overcome a large strength disadvantage with even a moderate amount of athletic ability. Most people won’t put in that time, irrespective of gender. If you disagree, join an mma/boxing gym (that actually spars) and see what percentage of people stick with it for 4-5 years. I would venture a guess that most people who flippantly advocate BJJ as a solution probably haven’t been in a real physical altercation and don’t know how it would go down. And no, sparring/rolling in the gym doesn’t generally equate to this type of altercation. I never claimed its not effective because it can’t handle every situation (because nothing can). BJJ is not worthless, it’s just pragmatically a low percentage solution.
I’m not quite sure why you’re taking so much as borderline/highly offensive but it rarely leads to providing clarity in discourse. Again, there is real danger with instilling false confidence (I.e. when confidence outstrips one’s abilities) whether you are offended or not. I’m not interested in placating someone at the expense of putting them at higher risk.
BJJ is heavily ruled based and that’s why it doesn’t necessarily simulate real world altercations. Many people dabble in martial arts, never spar, and develop the false sense confidence im talking about: There’s a saying in BJJ, “punch a black belt in the face, they become a brown belt, punch them again they become a brown belt, punch them again...”
Sparring in a gym is absolutely not stimulating a real life scenario which is why is can easily lead to false confidence. But it can show you your skill level without endangering yourself too much.
The point of the sparring comment was to illustrate how much work it is to get competent at a martial art. Advocating that BJJ will prevent rape is ignoring how few people will spend the necessary time to get skillful as well as ignoring all the blind spots that rule-based martial arts introduce.
Advocating BJJ is fine. Making someone think it’s going to save them without also pointing out that it will take years to be effective isn’t. People who miss that second part have probably never trained or been in a real fight or are trying to drum up business for their martial arts school. Honestly, it comes across as the you regurgitated the comment about BJJ because you heard it somewhere and ran with it. Anyone who’s trained in BJJ knows the first year or so you become acutely aware of how helpless you actually are on the ground.
You must have been upper middle class for either too long or not long enough to not thing upper middle class folks can be sketchy as hell :-).
> Of course it might seem that having cameras has nothing to do with being an EV. But some EVs do have a lot of cameras, and that’s part of the cost people complain about, but it’s also part of how the car has much lower total cost of ownership. It should be factored in when making cost comparisons, just like the lower maintenance costs you point out.
Yeah, you can have a dashcam in any car ?