from the better-than-growing-up-to-be-a-sink dept.
Scientists at Kings College London performed a longitudinal study to test the 'Pareto principle' and found that adults who were greater users of public services were most likely to have had a low score on the intelligence and impulsivity test administered at age three.
"About 20 per cent of population is using the lion's share of a wide array of public services," said Prof Terrie Moffitt, of King's College and Duke University in North Carolina. "The same people use most of the NHS, the criminal courts, insurance claims, for disabling injury, pharmaceutical prescriptions and special welfare benefits.
"If we stopped there it might be fair to think these are lazy bums who are freeloading off the taxpayer and exploiting the public purse.
"But we also went further back into their childhood and found that 20 per cent begin their lives with mild problems with brain function and brain health when they were very small children.
"Looking at health examinations really changed the whole picture. It gives you a feeling of compassion for these people as opposed to a feeling of blame.
"Being able to predict which children will struggle is an opportunity to intervene in their lives very early to attempt to change their trajectories, for everyone's benefit and could bring big returns on investment for government."
Full Paper: Childhood forecasting of a small segment of the population with large economic burden DOI: 10.1038/s41562-016-0005
(Score: -1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @01:10PM
Are you on Facebook yet? [yes/no]
If you answered [no] then you will inevitably become NEET and be a drain on society.
(Score: 3, Touché) by GungnirSniper on Thursday December 15 2016, @01:12PM
I see you work in recruiting.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:48PM
I graduated and lost my .edu before there was a Facebook.
Besides, with both retirement and employee turnover becoming the new normal, I fail to see how someone can ensure avoiding becoming NEET.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @01:44PM
Are you white or black?
End of test
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @02:16PM
These are 1920's and 1930's ideas.
Unfolding the logic behind motivation for this kind of research ("who is wrecking our society and draining its resources?") leads directly to gas chambers.
Pareto analysis is something of an tautology. You know that it has to come out true. It is wrong to use it to assign blame or remove individual freedoms.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:12PM
While it can lead to gas chambers, such an outcome is not at all inevitable.
Refusing to acknowledge reality doesn't help either. There are a class of people who are a terrible burden to society, and it's worth understanding this problem.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:36PM
While I essentially agree, and I'm interested as well as an armchair sociologist, I can't help but to think of how this will not end well. I mean, if you can reliably determine who's going to be a drain on society when they're three, why not just shoot them then and be done with it? That's not what I'd (and hopefully you too) want to use the research for, but the fact of the matter is that not everybody is Mensa material. I get the willies when I think about all the people who in let's say 100 years simply won't be able to work because you'll have to be Mensa material.
A society can survive for the most part shooting three year olds here or there that don't have good enough metrics. Even in some cultures, it's traditional to wait a week or a month before even naming a baby just in case, though three years is a bit long. It seems especially palatable to most humans if the toddlers with the poor metrics also tend to have a different skin color (belong to a different "tribe" so to speak). Society won't survive shooting 99% of toddlers whose metrics make it unlikely they'll be Mensa material when only Mensa members have the faculties to do things of value that AIs can't.
(Just picking on Mensa because it's well-known. I never tried to get an "I am smrt!" card, probably could, but don't see the value.)
Butlerian Jihad, anyone?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Francis on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:48PM
I doubt we'll shoot them, but more likely, we'll continue to ignore the factors that lead to criminal behavior and recidivism and use this as an excuse to put children like that on parole prior to any actual criminal activity. And once caught, we'll keep them in the system as long as possible.
The correct solution here is to recognize that a wealthy country like the US should have a zero tolerance for poverty. There shouldn't be jobs out there paying poverty wages and individuals with health and mental health problems should be receiving the support necessary to have at least their basic needs met.
We've got more than enough wealth to pay for that without killing off the economy. And in all likelihood our stinginess with benefits is a massive drag on the economy. Just how much money do we waste on the legal system alone?
(Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:40PM
It's worth noting the article said mild loss in brain function. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......
I wonder what our scientific knowledge says about 1/4th to 1/5th of OUR children in the United States being malnourished? What happens when a developing brain doesn't have the nourishment it needs, or an environment free of toxins? We've setup OURSELVES for this future. It's coming already, if not already responsible for who we elected. It used to be the lead everywhere that was driving people to violent crime, now it is a brain that never had a chance becoming "burdens".
I find it interesting, if not extremely disheartening, that we speak about them as burdens and drains on society. At least the researchers are calling for compassion.
Instead, I would be calling for justice and vengeance. The families that are struggling extremely right now with material deprivation to the extent they need help are not the ones to blame. One cannot assign blame so ignorantly, arrogantly, and cruelly to people that were abused by the Elites. Was it the parents fault that jobs went to other countries forcing them to compete with wage slavery under worse conditions in those countries? Is it their fault government utterly failed them and allowed Wall Street to topple the country into ruin? Is it their fault that commodity and rent prices have skyrocketed while wages have stagnated and fallen to well below living wages? Gee, I wonder who's fault that it is......
There is a reason our children our suffering and malnourished and leading us to a bleak future. No, it is not the fault of the children, it is not poor genetics, and it is not the fault of *all* of the parents. This is the sobering moment where we are supposed to act with compassion and charity, perform some introspective analysis of ourselves, and evolve to meet the challenge of healing our people and feeding our children.
None of that has any hope of happening in our current and extremely toxic environment of hate and fear politics. Instead we are looking to classify children at the earliest as the problems and burdens for society. It won't be long till our children are taken away from us to be fed and taught like the Native American children were stolen from their parents. All in the name of protecting the children, which is so tragically ironic.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday December 16 2016, @12:39AM
I can't help but think that one of the reasons a lot of Americans are OK with this is that they don't see all American children as "ours". There are a lot of Americans who view the kids whose ancestors didn't come from the same general geographic region as they did as some kind of enemy who they wish would just go away, and letting their kids die off before age 8 or so is one way of accomplishing the "just go away" part.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @01:39AM
18 months ago I would've thought your statement hyperbole, almost bordering on the offensive. However, today with White Nationalists (Nazis) effectively having seized the U.S government, a hate filled culture is being exposed for what it is.
Some days I have very little hope for the human race. We're a large rock hurtling through space with billions of monkeys, most unhappy and exploited, careening towards our end, with screaming, hate-filled, sociopathic, and avaricious monkeys at the helm hoarding all the bananas.
All we can do is sip tea, have discussions with eyes wide at the horror, and face our coming end with what dignity we can muster. Considering that one of the loudest screaming monkeys in chief has no value for such things like dignity, facts, and equality, I doubt our end will be an easy one, or that any intelligence will prevail and steward us towards a brighter and more evolved future.
(Score: 2) by lgw on Thursday December 15 2016, @10:03PM
There shouldn't be jobs out there paying poverty wages
So what job should a kid, still living at home, with no skills or education past "2 years of high school" get? An important step to reducing poverty is to provide an "entry ramp" so that people can easily enter the economy. Your first job ever in life should be expected to pay crap, so that vastly more employers will be willing to take the risk on you.
individuals with health and mental health problems should be receiving the support necessary to have at least their basic needs met.
Plenty of people with "problems" can still work for a living just fine. Being obese is a health "problem", but I still drag my fat ass to work.
Perhaps you meant "disability", in which case, sure, of course. But if you consider more than than a few percent of people disabled, then I think we're back to "problems".
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Thursday December 15 2016, @11:02PM
Your problem here is that the US is not a wealthy country. It's a poor country with spiralling debt and crumbling infrastructure, but is also home to quite a few wealthy people / corporations. Unfortunately, those wealthy people are unwilling to share that wealth with the rest of society, instead calling that Communism. Compounding this problem, the people in a position to change that (Congress) are the very same people trying to hold onto their own wealth.
Reading a few Charles Dickens novels recently, I was struck with how similar working conditions were then compared to the US today. A sobering thought.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Francis on Thursday December 15 2016, @11:47PM
The U.S. is a wealthy country where we've chosen to give tax breaks to the rich rather than pay for basic services.
We've got plenty of money to service our debt, we just continually elect crony capitalists because they're usually the only options. If you want to see crushing debt spiraling out of control, we're not a good example of that.we could have the debt paid off in a few years if we wanted to.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:09PM
Civilized human beings want to live in a society that is free from the sort of viciousness that you describe; your very worry proves that there is a selective pressure to avoid the outcome you describe.
Past abuses have always been perpetrated by governments—especially when these exact "lower-order" people organize themselves enough to weasel their way into a position of power. That is to say, a free market solves a lot of these problems; that is to say, there should be pursued a culture that respects voluntary interaction between individuals, not top-down command and control. Recognizing this fact will go a long way towards establishing a robust foundation for civilized society.
Admit that like everything else, society must be allowed to evolve by variation and selection, otherwise it will necessarily become unfit for the environment and therefore dysfunctional. Maybe there are too many people; maybe a lot of these people are, in fact, undesirable to have around. Now, accepting this fact doesn't imply that you accept their slaughter; it just means that you accept the need to deal with them as a problem—you accept the fact that society must be set up to allow them to disappear through humane, gradual, voluntary attrition—until they disappear of their own happy, natural accord, like some vestigial organ being absorbed and forgotten.
If you instead subsidize these losers at the expense of winners, you'll just get more of the losers and fewer of the winners (Idiocracy). Worse still, if you lie to them about their equality, and trick them into believing that they are simply being held down arbitrarily by the higher orders, then you'll just foment a bloody uprising that can do no good, because it will be based on fantasy.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Sunday December 18 2016, @05:20PM
Seems to me you're committed to the assumption that people and families on the lower end of society can't ever be helped.
I don't know that treating poverty like a heritable disease really gives us the whole picture.
(Score: 4, Informative) by krishnoid on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:59PM
While it can lead to gas chambers, such an outcome is not at all inevitable.
Correct! One day, one of those people with low intelligence and poor impulse control could grow up to be president!
Hmm ... that could still lead to gas chambers. Never mind.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday December 15 2016, @11:56PM
I should mention that there's no evidence that Adolf Hitler was stupid. Nor much evidence that he was impulsive either: His political machinations, e.g. the Night of the Long Knives, were very carefully planned.
Stupid and impulsive leaders tend to cause different kinds of problems than gas chambers, like invading a country halfway around the world for no reason.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Touché) by krishnoid on Friday December 16 2016, @05:42AM
Stupid and impulsive leaders tend to cause different kinds of problems than gas chambers, like invading a country halfway around the world for no reason.
But this is America, the land of plenty. Why can't we have both?
(Score: 2) by tisI on Friday December 16 2016, @02:53AM
But such a president need not build gas chambers but to save money, just build a wall.
New prisons and gas chambers can always come later ..
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:46PM
I do see the connection to eugenics, that tends to be mostly caused by a radical misunderstanding of the cause of such early developmental problems. And you're right that that's not a place we, as a society, want to go again.
I don't see the tautology in the wording you've given. If observational variable X at time T adequately predicts observational variable Y at time T+N, and X and Y are different, it's not tautological to relate X and Y. With the specifics of this case being X is impacted brain health, Y being net financial cost to society, and T being childhood. Could you clarify?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:12PM
But, we still have a eugenics program today; it's called Welfare: Productive people are being forced to subsidize the creation of unproductive people; unproductive people are being selected in favor of productive people.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:07PM
Ah, yes, the same anti-logic that gets us "white genocide" as a real thing.
That is not, and will never be how eugenics worked, you ignorant cretin, please stop having opinions until you can learn the most basic ideas of the subjects you discuss. Thanks, bye.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:23PM
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @07:09PM
What? Evolution is the result of variation and selection. There is variation in productivity, and Welfare is selecting those with poor productivity by subsidizing their reproduction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @11:46PM
u 2 dum 4 db8
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @12:41AM
Nobody is willing to let them just starve in the streets. They won't stop reproducing, either. Nobody is willing to tell them they cannot reproduce. Even if we were to assume some kind of social eugenics, nobody is willing to take their children from them as infants so they can be raised outside of the cycle of poverty.
There is no selection happening here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @04:38AM
Those choices make it selection, pal.
There are plenty of ways to reward people for choosing not to reproduce.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @07:09AM
TIL every society is a eugenics society
wait for it...
TIL I am a sucker
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 16 2016, @05:51AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:27PM
The study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding.
In this case it is free breeding. I guess you are arguing that welfare programs are shaping genetics by making bad genes flourish, but you're just so very very wrong. There are stupid rich people, stupid successful people, and plenty of smart and capable poor people.
The great thing about reality is that it does not twist itself to match your weird ideas, so eugenics programs and research to support such is easily seen for what it is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:45PM
Original poster here. What I meant with tautology of Pareto analysis is: whatever we do to "cure" the situation that it presents to us, it will still hold true that 20% of society will spend 80% of its common resources. If that was the problem, it will not go away. Whenever a metric is introduced and an ordered list created, it will have the top and the bottom. So, mentioning that in paper just makes one wonder about the line of thought of researchers.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday December 15 2016, @07:47PM
Ah, yeah, okay, that's completely and totally different from what I got from reading your post the first time. In which case: yeah. I can see that. If there's a Pareto distribution of something there's no reason to ever believe it's an unnatural phenomenon, or that any attempt at redress will change that distribution.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:28PM
Certainly there's a pseudo-tautological component to the existence of the Pareto principle, though confirming that that such a heuristic applies in any particular context is never tautological. Heuristics are just that - general principles with wide, but rarely universal, applicability.
Confirming the 80/20 rule applies though is only a first step - the next step, and where it starts becoming valuable, is in being able to identify and predict, the problematic 20% and direct resources accordingly. In computer programming for example a valuable rule of thumb is "don't optimize until performance profiling has identified the actual bottlenecks" - optimization is too resource intensive to waste on the 80%. On the other hand we also know that certain certain algorithms and problem types tend to be resource hogs, and have certain optimal solutions, so if you know your program is going to have to deal with those kinds of problems in performance-critical sections, you can choose data structures and high-level algorithms that will tend to minimize those problems and/or facilitate later optimization early in the design, dramatically reducing the amount of time and energy that will have to be spent on optimization later.
Similarly, assuming the validity of the study, they can now predict the most socially expensive 20% of the population, and that's the first step. If they can also figure out how to preemptively reduce those costs, perhaps through better tailored early childhood healthcare and education, then there stands to be dramatic social benefit. If you can spend twice as much on those kids early on in order to reduce their lifetime cost to society by half, you get a 40% reduction of the overall cost of social services.
That may not fundamentally change the 80/20 distribution, but it allows the government to deliver the same social benefit at 60% of the previous cost, allowing for a reduction of the tax burden and/or an increase in social benefits for everyone.
Of course it could also be abused as you suggest, but there's no reason to automatically assume it would be. Identifying the problem is always the best first step toward a solution, anything else amounts to just throwing money around and hoping something works. Ethically guiding the form of that solution is the collective responsibility of the society implementing it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @01:28PM
Ethically guiding the form of that solution is the collective responsibility of the society implementing it.
That is the crux of the issue. But it is contrary to idea of freedom to interfere without consent of those who are potential objects of such intervention, just on bases "we will have to pay for you". OTOH, It would imply also that there is possible circumstance of "you rejected our help when it was easier for us to give it, now screw you" which is also unethical.
So, as soon as we try to put the price tag on humanity and solidarity, we are bound to create suffering.
I can only conclude that due to human nature and due to nature of freedom, there are problems that should not be attempted to be optimized, because we lose either way. Just draw the line and accept that it is best we can do.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday December 16 2016, @10:01PM
Again, you are assuming any such solution would be imposed involuntarily. I would venture a guess that most parents, faced with an offer of "we would like to give your kid to have these additional benefits, which will very likely significantly improve their health and social situation later in life" would likely accept without coercion. At least assuming it didn't involve fostering them off or subjecting them to other dubiously ethical interventions. After all, those later-life social costs are almost certainly accompanied by substantial personal costs as well, monetary and otherwise.
As for your other points, sadly, placing a price tag on human life is an essential function of government - we could easily spend the entire GDP extending one person's life a few more days or months, but it's a completely wasteful use of limited resources. Similarly, every time a safety standard is established, it at least implicitly, and often explicitly, weighs the cost of implementing the standard against the number of deaths and injuries it is intended to prevent.
I would also be interested in hearing your reasoning when saying that it would be unethical for society to refuse to pay much greater costs to fix a problem that could have been fixed cheaply had you not willfully refused earlier interventions. I can easily agree in a case like this where your parents made the call on your behalf, but the logic seems much shakier to me if you yourself willfully chose to incur those much higher expenses. In that case it seems reasonable to argue that it is you who chose an unethical path (willfully incurring great expense for others), and refusing to bear that burden is a reasonable response.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:05PM
Unfolding the logic behind motivation for this kind of research ("who is wrecking our society and draining its resources?") leads directly to gas chambers.
What is this anti-intellectual drivel? Knowledge does not lead to gas chambers, merely discovering some truth (or falsity for that matter) doesn't automatically cause you to want to commit genocide like some kind of lovecraftian horror story. But even if we assume your irrational gut feeling is correct, simply knowing these things does not really put us in any worse situation than we are before. We already know who is a "drain on society" and who isn't, if any society transformed in such a way that gas chambering the lazy and inept became viable, they would have no problem identifying who should be thrown in there.
And it's not as if gassing people requires strong academic background with years of painstaking research to discover what truly makes one an untermench. People have been on the recieving end of genocide simply for being of the wrong color or being born speaking the wrong language. Maniacal butchers aren't generally thwarted by lack of academic backing for their insane ideas[citation needed].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @01:39AM
If you take the long-term view, focusing on future generations, we can solve this with sterilization.
We can even get some near-term benefit if we sterilize the males via castration, since that reduces aggression.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday December 16 2016, @05:36AM
We already basically do this; it's called prison -- those males are for all practical purposes out of the breeding pool.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday December 15 2016, @02:20PM
Which Children Will Grow Up to be Drain on Society
I think you're confusing "society" and "economy" here. Despite what our neoliberal overlords would have us believe, there is a difference. One is meant to serve the other. Which way round do you think it is?
King's College and Duke University in North Carolina .... most of the NHS
Why the hell is some geezer in North Carolina conducting blathering on the NHS?
"If we stopped there it might be fair to think these are lazy bums who are freeloading off the taxpayer and exploiting the public purse.
No, it might not. It might be fair to think that these are the legitimate users most in need of these services. It's also no surprise that there are links between ill health, benefits, crime etc. These things are all linked in a series of feedback loops, with poverty, deprivation and lack of opportunity at the centre.
"Looking at health examinations really changed the whole picture. It gives you a feeling of compassion for these people as opposed to a feeling of blame.
Congratulations, you grew a sense of human empathy.
"Being able to predict which children will struggle is an opportunity to intervene in their lives very early to attempt to change their trajectories,
Which is precisely what the welfare state has been attempting to do for fucking decades, and which is why that 80% are the 80% in the first place.
could bring big returns on investment for government."
Oh, OK, that makes more sense. Fuck compassion, it's all about the money.
(Score: 4, Touché) by FatPhil on Thursday December 15 2016, @02:31PM
> Why the hell is some geezer in North Carolina conducting blathering on the NHS?
Because King's College is in London? It's not as if the fine summary began "Scientists at Kings College London performed a longitudinal study" to help you comprehend this or anything. Oh, wait a second, it did - what a fine summary it is after all.
That's all, you're beginning to become a drain on my time, which is a precious resource.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday December 15 2016, @02:34PM
I stand corrected on that point.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:13PM
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by FatPhil on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:18PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:43PM
I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:46PM
How about you plain old "work out" you fat pedantic fuck :)
(Score: 4, Touché) by sgleysti on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:08PM
Dear FatPhil,
With each post in this thread, I take far less seriously any claim that your time is highly important.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Thursday December 15 2016, @02:53PM
I think you're reading into that in the wrong way. Resources are always finite, so trying to get the most "bang for your buck" is in the best interests of everyone.
Also I get the feeling that you and the study authors agree about most/all points and your anger should be directed towards the summary rather than the actual study.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:38PM
Yes, but at least as far as the US goes, we're nowhere near the point where we can't afford more welfare for the needy. If we cut the DoD and DHS budgets down to something proportional to the actual need, we could easily fund all the welfare we need. What's more, if we actually taxed the greedy bastards at the top getting rich off the backs of the underpaid recipients of welfare, we'd have no problems funding it either.
The issue here is that we have politicians cutting taxes to those that have no need only to cut funding to programs that enable the poor to work their way up in society.
Parts of Europe OTOH, where they have much more generous social programs could hit that point eventually, but none of them have.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:56PM
You have people that are 4th and 5th generation welfare recipients who, despite measures to the contrary, just can't seem to get over that hump of graduating from school, getting a job, and making some meaningful contribution to society. It's an exponentially growing black hole where you will never have enough resources to sated the needs.
Welfare alone doesn't address this (although, to be fair, something like BI might be cheaper overall), and simply throwing money at the problem... well, we've already had nearly half a century of that, and the numbers continue to increase.
Hand-wavy appeals to Europe are trite, especially when you have situations like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6h7fL22WCE&t=1s [youtube.com]
it is pretty damn obvious it isn't only the rich making money off of the poor. I don't suspect government will solve much of anything unless you address corruption first.
You'll also note the right-wing sentiment rising in Europe. They are sick of paying for it as well, and having little to show for it.
(Score: 5, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:34PM
You'll also note the right-wing sentiment rising in Europe. They are sick of paying for it as well, and having little to show for it.
Actually, we have plenty to show for it. Everything was fine and dandy(ish) until the (deregulated) banks caused a massive global economic crash and got the taxpayers to hand over insane amounts of money to help prop up their cocaine and megayacht habits. To cover the hole in the balance books, the various governments had to embark on "austerity" programs, which resulted in lost jobs, slashed services and massive regional inequality.
A bunch of right-wing demagogues then took the opportunity to blame all this misery on immigration and foreigners.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:46PM
Ah, so you're an idiot with no sense of history. Gotcha.
However, from the 1970s and onwards Sweden's GDP growth fell behind other industrialised countries and the country's per capita ranking fell from 4th to 14th place in a few decades.[172] From the mid-1990s until today Sweden's economic growth has once again accelerated and has been higher than in most other industrialised countries (including the US) during the last 15 years.[173] A report from the United Nations Development Program predicted that Sweden's rating on the Human Development Index will fall from 0.949 in 2010 to 0.906 in 2030.[174]
Sweden began slowing the expansion of the welfare state in the 1980s, and even trimming it back, and according to the OECD and McKinsey, Sweden has recently been relatively quick to adopt economic liberalisation policies, such as deregulation, compared to countries such as France.[144][175] The current Swedish government is continuing the trend of moderate rollbacks of previous social reforms.[144][176] Growth has been higher than in many other EU-15 countries. Also since the mid-1980s, Sweden has had the fastest growth in inequality of any developed nation, according to the OECD. This has largely been attributed to the reduction in state benefits and a shift toward the privatisation of public services. According to Barbro Sorman, an activist of the opposition Left Party, "The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. Sweden is starting to look like the USA." Nevertheless, it remains far more egalitarian than most nations.
The story has been the same through Thatcher's England to even Reagan in the US.
Social programs DO NOT create wealth, and instead of creating more dependents to satisfy your ego, maybe you should look towards actual reforms to help their lot in life than tax the rich.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:52PM
You're looking at things backwards and ignoring evidence. The austerity type folks undermine all social programs because they think as you do, "if only those lazy bums would get a job!". Hating on people in need is dumb. Sure there will always be some who just live off the system, just like there will always be some murderers and corrupt politicians. Thing is, the austerity proponents kill the systems, make them less effective, then point to the results and say the system doesn't work.
It is the worst kind of logic, and it is malicious. So when you parrot that bullshit expect a lot of anger to come back your way.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:56PM
Constant growth is actually a cancer, its part of why we've lost thousands of species, polluted the earth and water systems we depend on, and changed the climate. Its the corporate greed at work, and is not something to be proud of or to aim for. Sustainable living is the answer for today, maybe once we get our tech set up to live efficiently then we can go back to growth.
Oh look, right there at the end, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. What a great trade off! NOT
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @07:35PM
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/25/us-department-defence-one-worlds-biggest-polluters-259456.html [newsweek.com]
Somehow the idiots who argue against constant growth never fact government into their equations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:10PM
False flag after false flag on these topics. No one said the government wasn't part of the problem, and most proponents of social programs think we should be reducing military activity. However, that is a pipe dream until the world stops fucking around with who's got the biggest dick and can fuck over everyone else the most.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:22PM
Military was just the most obvious, and I have yet to see an apt explanation of how the government will regulate "capitalism" and all the evil of pollution it produces when it can't even regulate itself.
http://ivn.us/2012/04/18/the-number-one-worst-polluter-on-earth-is-the-u-s-federal-government/ [ivn.us]
No one said the government wasn't part of the problem
And yet the implication is that the government will solve the problem if we could only tax the rich more, have an even bigger welfare state, as if the military wasn't one of the largest welfare projects in the world.
False flag indeed.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:35PM
No, we could not. We currently spend ~3/4 of what we take in in taxes on entitlements. We already have very little room for anything else without continuing down the road to utter insolvency.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:11PM
Not true. Most of that budget is social security and medicare, neither are entitlement programs, they're funded by the same folks that use them.
Our budget problems are entirely from not taxing the wealthy, absurd amounts of military spending and economic policies that encourage wealth concentration.
As I said, we have ample money to pay, we're just too shortsighted. We spend a huge amount of money to workaround the problem.
(Score: 3, Informative) by lgw on Thursday December 15 2016, @10:41PM
they're funded by the same folks that use them.
Only in the sense that they're funded by the American taxpayers, and used by Americans (many of whom still pay taxes).
Our budget problems are entirely from not taxing the wealthy, absurd amounts of military spending
Did you want to start taxing wealth, or did you mean taxing people with high income. The highest 1% of income already accounts for 1/3rd of income tax revenue.
"Absurd" is subjective, but 15% of the budget doesn't sound absurd to me for military spending. Compare to the 52% we spend on Social Security and Medicare, plus 8% on various forms of welfare and 7% on federal pensions.
Not worth debating definitions of "entitlement", but 2/3ds of the budget is "mailing checks to people". After defense and interest on the debt, that leaves only 11% for what the government should focus on: building roads, keeping order, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @10:54PM
Social security is paid for by the taxpayers, using that as some sort of welfare example is just disingenuous at best. Wealth should be figured into taxation, unless somehow an income tax can bring the wealth disparity back in check. When the tax brackets on the rich were way higher we magically didn't have these problems, even after a major depression and then war.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by lgw on Friday December 16 2016, @12:09AM
Social security isn't paid for by the people receiving it. It's a transfer of income from the young to the old, so on average from the less wealthy to more wealthy. I think there are better ways to help people retire, but regardless we should be honest about the current system.
Taxing wealth leads very quickly to capital flight and the destruction of the economy.
Note that "when the tax brackets on the rich were way higher", the rich paid a smaller share of taxes, as loopholes abounded.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 16 2016, @04:36PM
"When the tax brackets on the rich were way higher we magically didn't have these problems"
Yes, we did have those problems. Some of those problems were just swept under the rug - that is, without huge government agencies to keep tabs on everything, hungry children weren't seen. Some of those problems were addressed by charity, then, but less so now. The poor just weren't seen or heard from. Pride prevented many from even asking for help, or reporting their true situation. Starvation was never common in the US, but malnutrition was, most notably in Appalachia.
Society has changed since those days. Today, few if any are to prideful to accept a government check. Hell, the richest sumbitches in the nation have their hands out, why not me? An ever growing government, coupled with activist groups, pry into everyone's lives, to ensure there are no starving children. The poor are easy to find, if you bother to look for them. 100 and more years ago, almost no one looked for them.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 16 2016, @02:06AM
How, precisely, do you figure Medicare is anything but an entitlement?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday December 16 2016, @07:55PM
People pay into it, then they get to use it. The people who aren't paying for it are a minority. It's disingenuous to suggest otherwise. Every pay stub I get has lines for both medicare and social security.
Those alone cover most of the "welfare" spending. It's a lie to suggest that 3/4 government is welfare when the defense budget is larger than the total of all welfare programs combined
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 17 2016, @03:35AM
You're in fact wrong. Medicare money pulled from your check does not go to a fund like SS. It is simply a tax and goes to generic government coffers.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:11PM
Facts and figures matter little in these types of discussions. In ALL instances, the response is to tax the rich more.
Except the rich always have the option to leave, to which the burden falls upon the middle class, and liberals are left wondering why they are despised by large segments of the country.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/01/news/millionaires-fleeing-france/ [cnn.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:19PM
There's no evidence that they would leave. They didn't leave when taxes were above 70%, so why would they leave now.
Additionally, you make it sound like other people with money would be uninterested in investing here. Again, no evidence for that. Lastly, with their parasite class gone, we could focus on actually fixing our problems and there would be incentive to work as working would lead to actual prosperity for the worker.
That also ignores the fact that moving isn't always desirable. You lose friends and most areas that are cheap are also undesirable to live in.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:30PM
Every corporation that leaves the US due to taxes isn't proof? Do you know how many companies have their corporate headquarters in Ireland?
THEY ALREADY LEFT.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/05/ireland-attracts-soaring-level-of-us-investment [theguardian.com]
And you are mistaken about entitlements.
http://www.mlive.com/opinion/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/09/are_social_security_and_medica.html [mlive.com]
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:40PM
And yet they still do business in the U.S.
It's almost as if you're deliberately missing the point. Of they want to do business in the U.S., they should be taxed. If they don't want to be taxed here, they should exit the market. There's plenty of smaller businesses ready to take their place.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 16 2016, @04:48PM
That is the corruption that people are bitching about. In effect, Ireland tells corporations, "If you want to cheat on your taxes legally, pay us a pittance, and we'll give you a semi-legal loophole to jump through."
The world is beginning to close some of those loopholes. The EU, and the US are leading that little parade. If you do $100 billion in business in $country, then you should pay taxes on that $100 billion to $country.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:14PM
The society is the economy. It is the interaction between people that yields society; that interaction is completely and solely a matter of resources.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:51PM
Only if you don't have any friends, family members you care about, or romantic attachments. And if you aren't a fan of art, literature, music, movies, video games, etc. And if you don't interact with anybody when acquiring stuff in a way that discusses anything other than the stuff you're acquiring. Alternately, if you're a selfish psychopath, you have those interactions, but all you are ever trying to accomplish is get more stuff for yourself, which is missing out on a lot of the joys in life.
I mean, going down to the pub for a pint is in part about the pint, but it's also about the other people down at the pub for a pint, some of whom you might actually enjoy talking to.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:26PM
I don't understand your response. Those things are a still a matter of resource appropriation; you choose to allocate resources (time, money, thoughts, etc.) to this "friend" or that "loved one", or this Museum of Art, etc.
Everything is an economic choice; you choose to allocate your time/money/whatever to this open source project, or to that wiki, or this cause, or that endeavor. There is nothing but resource allocation, and the only method for allocating resources that is both humane and effective is CAPITALISM, whereby each individual chooses of his own freewill (within the bounds of the environment in which he finds himself) to allocate resources within his control to this or that. Please. PLEASE! Start comprehending the nature of this universe of finite resources. It is what it fucking is; you cannot fantasize your way around it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:59PM
Perhaps so, but if I accept your premise I'll have to conclude that the entire field of economics is filled with third rate hacks. They entirely fail to recognize the value of leisure and the importance of producing as much of it as possible. By the time they get to the level of setting social and economic policy, they can't even realistically aspire to third rate. They seem to be unable to even consider the value of families needing only one income or even the value of families.
BTW, there is nothing humane about capitalism. It does it's best to completely ignore the humanity of it's actions. It cares not if you produce because you enjoy it or because you live in abject terror that you and your family will starve, so long as you produce. It cares not if the benefits of your production go mostly to you or to a robber baron who has bent you over a barrel, so long as you produce.
Once you can no longer produce, it loses all interest in you unless you somehow inspire others to produce more for your benefit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @11:50PM
That's the very nature of this Universe. Accept it.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday December 16 2016, @05:10AM
I'd really LOVE to see you attempt to prove Capitalism from first principles!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @08:40AM
There you go:
https://mises.org/library/human-action-0 [mises.org]
It's better than anything the third rate hacks who call themselves economists.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 18 2016, @06:15AM
You call that first principles? If it is indeed because of the nature of the universe, a derivation from first principles would need to take into account the speed of light in a vacuum and all of the other constants. It should be derivable from quantum theory or Relativity.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday December 16 2016, @03:53AM
They entirely fail to recognize the value of leisure
Thou art an ignorant fool. Marx and Mises accept that leisure has an economic value. Mises simply says everything is a decision between two choices, you value the leisure activity more than the reward you could have received from working that time so you hit the beach; or the rent is coming due and you really need the cash this month so you volunteer for some OT and the beach has to wait because you value the warm/dry abode more than the day on the beach. Marx isn't quite so clear of course but doesn't dispute the value of leisure activity and that it does enter into economic calculation.
So since both ends of the spectrum of economic thought disagree entirely with your notion, you may now double down. It is the usual tactic for your ilk.
BTW, there is nothing humane about capitalism
More ignorance trying to bluff its way to being accepted as superior moral sentiment. Try actually reading some Mises, Hayek, Friedman, etc. sometime. I'll give you a hint. Mises' magnum opus is named Human Action for a reason. It isn't really about capitalism or economics, it is about how humans act, interact and make decisions
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday December 16 2016, @05:05AM
So you'r citing Marx as a capitalist? I find that a HUUUUUUGE stretch. And yes, since the context was capitalism, I do think it's reasonable to think I am talking about capitalists. I've noticed that Marx (or rather, his writing since he's dead) isn't frequently consulted when the U.S. considers economic policy.
As for Mises, yes, he acknowledges that individuals may choose leisure over labor, but doesn't recognize the value to society in that decision or in making sure the decision is available. Then note how U.S. economic and social policy is designed around making sure there is always a labor surplus such that economic forces cannot dictate offering more leisure and better pay..
I find it odd that you do not know the difference between human and humane. Look it up.
As for Friedman, I guess you agree with him that we should implement something resembling the universal basic income?
The tone of your reply suggests that I've struck a nerve.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday December 16 2016, @06:04AM
So you'r citing Marx as a capitalist?
Of course not. Reading is fundamental. I said, "both ends of the spectrum of economic thought disagree entirely" as in Capitalism on one end and Marx on the other. It should also be noted that while Marx is not a Capitalist he did write his major work analyzing the topic; largely incompetently of course. The spectrum between Marx and Mises covers pretty much all economic thoughts impacting policy discussion in $current_year. And I was hammering home the fact they all disagree with you. Every serious economist of the last few hundred years and me in one group and there is you, hopelessly outgrouped into a lonely wasteland. Sad! :)
Mises ... doesn't recognize the value to society...
Because he rejects the whole notion of 'value to society' in favor of seeing individuals making an endless series of A-B decisions. If two choices have differing value to the individual who made it, that is sufficient for his purposes. If you picked some activity that isn't working for money it is assumed you believe that you benefited from it, that you assigned it a higher value than the economic gain you could have acquired by working, higher than the good or service you could have traded that labor for. To take up the question whether you are "wrong" (what Marxists typically call "false consciousness") would typically require a privileged "God's eye view" and "God" to make the judgment... or the passage of time and your own reconsideration of your choice. You need to return to Marx's economic theories if you want social value considered, or at least Keynes. Humans do things to satisfy their wants, that is the purpose of human existence. Economic activity alone is meaningless, it can only be considered as a means to the end of satisfying human wants. As it is for most living things, the prime human drive is mating and reproduction for example. Nobody ever (we can hope not at least) made a profit by marrying and having children, we engage in economic activity to permit that non-economic activity to occur and other human desires.
As for Friedman
He was a smart guy, but obviously fallible. And he was not a Austrian economist, he was trying to create a middle ground between Marx and Mises that can't in fact exist and bought into basically the same fallacious argument about most labor becoming unsalable that I take on elsewhere in this discussion.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday December 16 2016, @08:46AM
Marx is not a Capitalist he did write his major work analyzing the topic; largely incompetently of course.
Am I to understand that you cited an economist that you consider incompetent to refute my claim that the field is packed with third rate hacks? Curious!
You appear to be suggesting that Marx, the incompetent economist agrees with you. Time for a re-think perhaps?
Friedman was a smart guy who agreed with me but nobody agrees with me? Did he fall through the crack in the universe while you were typing? Is he Schrodinger's cat in disguise?
Now, looking at Hayek, he said
There is no reason why in a free society government should not assure to all, protection against severe deprivation in the form of an assured minimum income, or a floor below which nobody need descend. To enter into such an insurance against extreme misfortune may well be in the interest of all; or it may be felt to be a clear moral duty of all to assist, within the organised community, those who cannot help themselves. So long as such a uniform minimum income is provided outside the market to all those who, for any reason, are unable to earn in the market an adequate maintenance, this need not lead to a restriction of freedom, or conflict with the Rule of Law.[104]
Sounds like he was not exactly in disagreement with me after all. (BTW, he also supported universal healthcare)
We seem to be running out of Scotsmen. Speaking of which, don't bother to bring Smith up unless you're ready to dissolve a hell of a lot of unwisely granted corporate charters.
Of course, the list of economists you rattled off are all dead. Unless seances work a hell of a lot better than I think, none of them are actually in the field anymore.
Perhaps it's time for you to get some sleep.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday December 16 2016, @04:33PM
We seem to be running out of Scotsmen.
No, you are still unable to read. That text you quote doesn't clearly support "basic income". He is speaking of those suffering "extreme misfortune". And he correctly notes the much less prone to abuse method of dealing with the problem with "or it may be felt to be a clear moral duty of all to assist, within the organised community" where government doesn't establish a Right to other people's stuff but instead relys upon The People being of the Religious and Moral sort envisioned by the American Founders who are capable of dealing with the problem of "extreme misfortune" in the private sector. He understands why it can't scale to everyone simply being paid for existing. He knows his Kipling [kiplingsociety.co.uk].
And he is right that social insurance is a public good. Knowing that failure won't cause starvation and death does inspire more people to take risks, for example. Knowing an unfortunate accident won't leave you a beggar is a good thing. Knowing an upheaval in the markets that causes mass layoffs won't leave you and your children homeless bums is a good thing. What you can't do is simply pay people to not work, as we do now. The issue is having the government do these tasks quickly leads to a sense of entitlement vs accepting charity in hard times.
The root problem with you rabbits is you see excess resources as freely available, thus any restriction is greedy people who are trying to deny you what should rightly be yours. But the world doesn't work that way. Freely hand out the resources generated by the productive and soon the entire world comes flooding in wanting in on the scam. This continues until the stupid nation that adopts this policy either become too poor to continue or imports enough people to no longer be the nation of fools who started the project. America and Europe seems intent on attempting to bring on both failure modes at the same time. Disaster!
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday December 17 2016, @02:57PM
I see that like most fundamentalists, you read your holy texts VERY selectively.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday December 15 2016, @10:25PM
I take it your family members charged each other for their contributions to Thanksgiving dinner? And that you've never given something to somebody else without expecting something in return? Or given money to a charitable organization, putting your resources into somebody else's control?
Also, there are alternatives to capitalism that have been shown to be both humane and effective. For example, primitive communism, still practiced in some isolated tribes: People all work for the good of the village as a whole, there's somebody at least nominally in charge but he could be easily overthrown if he abuses his power, and status is earned by how much you've contributed to the success of the group. Those societies do not, contrary to popular belief, live lives that are "nasty, brutish, and short" - your typical hunter-gatherer lives fairly comfortably, works about 20 hours a week, and if they make it through early childhood have a good chance of living into their 60's and 70's.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @11:54PM
You are describing Capitalism: Individuals choosing to allocate their capital in a particular way. Get it yet?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday December 16 2016, @04:06AM
For example, primitive communism, still practiced in some isolated tribes
To the extent that works, it does not scale beyond a small tribe with high internal social trust, transparency and cohesion. And it does not create or innovate since there isn't any reward for it and in fact most such societies cast out any member who is eccentric enough to be an innovator, doubly so if they are wasting too much time tinkering instead of 'pulling their weight.' Nation Geographic never brings us the inspiring story of the lost tribe that had independently discovered Calculus, the internal combustion engine or antibiotics.
Now show me a large (1 million plus) society that abandoned capitalism that isn't an undesirable place to live. While you look you will find the history of the 20th Century littered with the mass graves of the victims of the many attempts to create the sort of society you think you would prefer. But I note you aren't making a point about how proud you are to be posting from Cuba.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday December 16 2016, @12:26PM
Of course I'm not, because I'm not Cuban. On the other hand, unlike most Americans, I know some Cubans, and while they aren't getting rich they also have consistently had all the vitally important things in life - homes, health care, enough food to go around (not much more than that, but enough), safe drinking water, and education. Now you might say "What's so great about that?" until you realize that there are lots of countries in Latin America (e.g. Haiti) where the majority of the population doesn't have those things. Heck, there are Americans who don't have those things.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday December 15 2016, @10:29PM
could bring big returns on investment for government."
Oh, OK, that makes more sense. Fuck compassion, it's all about the money.
Maybe I could rephrase that original quote a little more charitably:
could provide enough ROI for the government to make it worthwhile to develop this into implementation recommendations, so grantors can justify the costs to the bean-counters and we can actually make things better for current and future users of these services.
Well, I guess we can dream, anyway."
(Score: 4, Informative) by looorg on Thursday December 15 2016, @02:26PM
This could be quite interesting, it could also turn out quite horribly where small children basically get doomed by statistics as in you didn't do to well at this test we gave you at age 3 and now we are forced to take action. Hopefully it would be that they get help but what kind of help? It's not like you are going to pass down usefull life advice to a toddler. Send all the bad toddlers to military school when they are bit older so they can be trained by the State? Not to mention that we can be almost certain that things happen between age 3 and 18/20 (or whatever age you are deemed to be your own person and not a child any more) that most likely have quite a lot of influence to. It's not like a three year old is some magical insight into the future.
But there is as mentioned interesting information here in that 1/5 of the population are the main users of health care, social services, insurance claims, disability, prescriptions and the criminal court and prison system. But perhaps one shouldn't be all to surprised as a lot of these things are one that somewhat leads to another - example: people that go to prison and come out will most likely need SS, these days they will also quite likely have some kind of medial diagnosis which will require them to recieve extra health care and presciptions. If they are criminals they are also then the source of a lot of insurance claims - they might not make the claims but they create them for other (ie their victims).
So if you could identify them and do something about it then that would be great. Question is what? There might be a real slippery slope as in 'We have done our test and doomed your child as a future welfare leech and problem so we are going to put an end to that now ...'
(Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday December 15 2016, @02:45PM
It's definitely a balancing act. This debate is a perhaps somewhat related to similar ones that go on about "tracking," i.e. separating kids in school by demonstrated academic ability level. On the one hand, this has benefits in ensuring that kids who need the most help are in a class where they can get it, while the more "advanced" kids don't get as bored. But on the other hand, you risk dooming kids in a lower track to staying there, because even if they're a "late bloomer" in some subject, it's often quite difficult to more upward to a higher track, since you just tend to fall further and further behind.
On even smaller levels, it's the sort of bias that has been shown again and again to happen with teachers -- teachers come to expect more from certain students, and that often reinforces itself: teachers may unintentionally be more lax in grading, or they may pay more attention to when a "good student" falls behind and give them extra help or encouragement, etc. As someone who has done quite a bit of grading, it's sometimes an eye-opening experience to read assignments "blind" with no names first. Inevitably there's a surprise somewhere -- with a student objectively doing much better or worse than you might expect.
On the other hand, one can go too far in trying to ignore such information. I have an extended family member who is mentally challenged (not severely, but enough that his best chance in life may be to do something like bag groceries at a supermarket) and suffered quite a bit from attempts to "mainstream" him in school. It just led him to NOT getting the actual attention he needed; he was often just sitting uncomprehendingly in a classroom, unable to meaningfully participate in what others were doing or thinking about.
So, I agree that the question is: are there useful interventions we can do with kids this test flags, without necessarily putting them onto a specialized "track" they can never get out of, or which they are always judged for? Unfortunately, with these sorts of things, the only way to test it probably is to experiment a bit and see how it affects the outcomes.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Francis on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:34PM
This is more a reflection of how poorly we do at offering children a hand up. We're so obsessed with cutting out the handouts in order to deliver tax cuts to the greedy that children that young are already effectively being relegated to the rubbish pile.
Age 3 is extremely early to be making decisions about who is and isn't going to succeed. In fact, even the more standard 1st grade testing that we do around here is at least a few years too early.
If the government would fund a decent education system and the employers would just pay people what they've earned rather than the lowest possible rate after threatening to either offshore the jobs or bring in immigrants to do the work, this wouldn't be as much of an issue.
Look at the places where people on welfare work, Walmart has been one of the biggest offenders for decades. Walmart has had more than enough money to pay a living wage, but chooses to have taxpayers funding their employees via food stamps and medicaid, but it's the employees that are at fault, rather than the many employers that refuse to allow wages to rise with inflation.
Or to put it another way, if we'd spread the benefits out more widely so that parents have the resources to give their children the best shot, this situation would change as well. No longer would you be able to pin it down to 20% using 80% it would be more like 40% using 60% and what about the biggest leaches of them all, the wealthy? How much you want to bet they got gerrymandered out of the results?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:25PM
>Age 3 is extremely early to be making decisions about who is and isn't going to succeed.
In case of genetic disease, *conception* is when you can make such decisions with very high certainty. What makes you sure the root cause here is not some mild genetic defect?
And even barring that - the brain's ability to rewire itself degrades with age. It might just happen that by that age, certain kinds of defective wiring, acquired in whatever way, become unfixable - either without a dedicated effort, or at all. Nature has no justice and no compassion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @11:25PM
The 1930's called. They want their eugenics meme back.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @07:44AM
If by your doctrine they must be wrong in every thing, then why don't you stop doing either, or both?
Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and Wernher von Braun is still the father of USA space program. Science is science, and nature forgot to make an exception for your ideology.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @10:03PM
How any sane person can view the wealthy as somehow "deserving" a disproportionate share of society's resources I will never understand. Ok, that's a lie. I understand, millenia of war and struggle resulted in "strong men" to fight wars, and a natural corollary is the pyramid power structure of aristocracy. We've outgrown the need for one person to be "king" and call the shots, in fact we never really needed it in the first place and it has probably caused more problems than it solved. There are a multitude of other community structures that humans have successfully used.
As you said, the wealthy are the biggest leeches, That is the problem we need to solve.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @04:48AM
The doctor who saved my life is indeed deserving the large amount of money he's received from both me and the medical system. For better or for worse, money is a great indicator of a person's value to society; even if an unproductive playboy is lucky enough to inherit wealth from a productive father, that that playboy's wealth will either diminish under his lack of productivity, or it will be placed into the control of productive money-making managers, who do make good profitable allocations of resources for the rest of society.
Money is awesome. It is the best indicator of worthiness in society, a role that money takes on best when allowed to exist in a completely Free Market.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bradley13 on Thursday December 15 2016, @02:36PM
Low intelligence and a lack of impulse control - this correlates strongly with criminality. [actforlibraries.org] It's no surprise that it correlates generally with poor life results.
The news may be that this can be predicted from an early age. But that's actually no surprise either - this stuff is passed parent-to-child: a kid in a screwed up household is likely to have a screwed up life [independent.co.uk]. The ultimate cause (genetic, cultural, behavioral, whatever) hardly matters; one way or another, it's hereditary.
Can society do anything useful to break these cycles? So far, the answer seems to be "no".
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:14PM
Can society do anything useful to break these cycles? So far, the answer seems to be "no".
I wouldn't be so quick to jump to that conclusion. How many people do you know in your own circle of educated working friends who came from less than wealthy backgrounds? Chances are, quite a few. In my own circle I can think of plenty of people raised on benefits, but now working as engineers, nurses, or with decent jobs in business. Once upon a time those humble beginnings would have had a FAR lower chance of elevating themselves. You can also look at statistics like violent crime and teenage pregnancy, which have been trending in the right direction for a long time.
The last fifty years of the 20th Century were unprecedented in terms of social mobility in the Western world. That's not to say that everybody who is born to poverty or shitty parents or whatever is going to make it good, but a larger proportion of them than ever before were doing so. The reason for this? Free, compulsory, universal education (along with public libraries) is almost certainly the main one, because it means that even if your parents can't or won't help you reach your potential, you have a chance anyway. That's why 3rd world families make such sacrifices to get their kids to school.
Accessible healthcare is probably number two, since it means that peoples' lives don't get completely derailed by an injury or disease. Contraception and sex education fall under this category too.
The welfare security net probably ranks number 3, since it means that a promising kid from a poor background can at least get enough calories to his/ her brain to make the most of that free education, and doesn't have to skip school to earn money for the family.
We CAN do it. We HAVE been doing it. Thing is, these are generational cycles, so they take decades, even centuries to break. The post-war period really moved things in the right direction. Sadly we are now entering an era where the mega-rich would like to tear all of that back down, and are in the process of doing so. The alt-right attack on welfare, the constant attack on science & rational thinking, the reduction of human values like compassion to cold finances, the banks and governments with their "austerity": These are all attempts by the rich to usher in a new Victorian age where the wealthy frolic carefree in vast manicured gardens, while on the other side of the wall barefoot street urchins fight over scraps in the polluted streets.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:38PM
I wouldn't be so quick to jump to that conclusion.
I would.
How many people do you know in your own circle of educated working friends who came from less than wealthy backgrounds?
The operative words from the previous post were "screwed-up backgrounds". "Less than wealthy" doesn't necessarily mean "screwed-up". There's even wealthy people with screwed-up family lives, though usually this means the wealth evaporates over time, though it might take a generation or two.
Remember, it wasn't all that long ago that most people were lower-class; that doesn't mean they all had totally dysfunctional families, only some of them did. Thanks to modern technology and policies and education and such, much of the lower classes have been able to move up, as you pointed out, but most of those were likely coming from backgrounds where they had to live very modestly, but they weren't plagued by lots of abuse and dysfunction. Those patterns are very, very hard to change because they're programmed into kids from birth, by being raised by parents who repeat those patterns. There really isn't any way of stopping it, short of taking kids away from their parents, which admittedly our society does do now in extreme cases, but usually it's too late.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:26PM
The operative words from the previous post were "screwed-up backgrounds". "Less than wealthy" doesn't necessarily mean "screwed-up".
I'll grant that, but they are strongly correlated. Poverty leads to desperation, illness, frustration and depression, all of which result in more desperation, illness, frustration and depression, all of which tend towards poor life choices.
Poor or not though, a decent welfare system can step in to screwed up families and make things better: Counselling and healing kids, educating and supporting parents, prosecuting abusers and (in extreme cases) taking kids out of those settings and placing then in healthier environments. 99% of the time "bad parents" aren't doing it because they are evil monsters, but because either they don't know any better or because their own circumstances force them to make desperate decisions. If you can get that alcoholic father access to an addiction counselling service then you can change a kid's life. If a single mum has to work 60 hour weeks to pay rent and put food on the table and so leaves her 3-year old home alone, then free childcare or a some kind of cash benefit could be the turning point.[1]
Again, I know people from "screwed up backgrounds" (abuse, crime, abandonment - and not always poverty) who have turned out OK. Better than OK, in some cases. Left to their own devices those families would almost certainly have ended up repeating the same cycles, but with the right support they managed to make things better for the next generation.
Those patterns are very, very hard to change because they're programmed into kids from birth, by being raised by parents who repeat those patterns.
Agree.
There really isn't any way of stopping it
No. Heal the kids. Expose them to other, more positive influences. Teach the parents new patterns. Persuade them that there is a better way for their children, and this is it. Be kind and persistent. When you fail, try again. When a parent tells you to fuck off and stop meddling, try again. It can be done. It's slow, hard and expensive, but it's worth it. Even if you only make it 1% better with each generation, it's worth it.
Also, it's a cumulative thing. A family is the biggest influence on a child, but not the only one: If a child's peers at school are all behaving differently to him, then his behaviour will follow. Neighbours and family members who aren't themselves caught in desperate circumstances have resources to help, support and heal. Eventually it will reach a tipping point where society is able to heal itself without external influence.
Finally, I find the idea that we can't "reprogram" people in the golden age of mental hacking (aka "advertising ") totally ludicrous. People are mentally manipulated by the billion every second of every day, it's just that these tools are rarely (or insufficiently) harnessed for the power of good.
[1] Decent wages would be better, but that's another argument.
(Score: 1) by charon on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:26PM
It's unfortunate that the story is couched in terms of "return on investment" and "drain" but that is the language of policy. From what you have written here, I would expect you would support the findings of this study. They did not just give a three year old an intelligence test and then decide he was worthless for life. From the study:
The point is to find and help the kids who are at risk, preferably before they become problems that the less compassionate would suggest we "get rid of". This study was just published, of course we cannot have acted on its results in the past. Our best chance (unless any soylentils are themselves policy makers) is to make people aware of the results of the study, and encourage the proper placement of limited resources to people who need it most. Poor kids are more likely to be at risk, but not all of them are. Unintelligent kids, but not all. Kids who are abused need strong intervention, and not just "force parent to take a class and then ignore again".
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:31PM
The operative words from the previous post were "screwed-up backgrounds". "Less than wealthy" doesn't necessarily mean "screwed-up". There's even wealthy people with screwed-up family lives, though usually this means the wealth evaporates over time, though it might take a generation or two.
No, those are not the operative words. You've done that reductive thing where you focus on the most narrow definition in order to avoid the writer's actual point.
Wealthy people with screwed up backgrounds have a different set of problems and they have resources to address those problems. Being poor is highly correlated with a specific set of problems and by definition no resources to cope with them. Poverty does not explain all of their problems, but it sure as shit creates a lot of problems that simply do not exist for the wealthy or even the middle class.
There really isn't any way of stopping it, short of taking kids away from their parents
That's utter bullshit. Few parents want to be shitty. But being poor leaves them with much less choices - less time to spend caring for their children, less energy to think long-term and less money to provide for their children's basic needs. We recently had the story here about a school district that installed washing machines and increased attendance. [soylentnews.org] That's an improvement that does not require your fatalistic "taking kids away from their parents" excuse for doing nothing.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:39PM
As the poster who wrote the original words, I agree with his interpretation.
"Few parents want to be shitty."
No, it's worse than that: too many parents fail to give a shit at all.
Middle-class family with an abusive parent? The abusive parent may pretend to care about the kids, but they generally don't care enough to get help, so they can stop being abusive. Insufficient shits given.
Are you in the US? Consider an inner-city black mother raising kids from five or six different baby-daddies. The fathers, as often as not, haven't even met their kids - they sure as hell don't invest any time or effort in raising them. No shits given.
I'm not in social services, but I have worked with kids, including a few problem kids. It's sad as hell when you can tell that they are basically decent human beings, but have been warped out of shape by screwed-up parents. As an outsider there is almost nothing that you can do: your influence is minimal.
Anecdote: A blue-collar white family; both parents with jobs, so they weren't poor. One child. The parents taught the boy that he must remain quiet and unnoticed in his room; anything else was unacceptable. He bothered his parents. They liked it best when he was at school, or at some activity, because he was gone. I worked with him in a martial arts class; that's a pretty good environment for troubled kids, and we helped our share. For this boy, we had to give up after a year or so, because he was uncontrollable and a danger to the other kids. He's all grown up now; what kind of parent is he likely to make?
Parents may not want to be shitty, but sometimes they can't be bothered to be anything else. Taking the kids away isn't realistic, or particularly helpful. The kid in my anecdote was taken away, but it was too late. So what the hell do you do???
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @11:10PM
There are instances where there is nothing you can do. There are rich kids who have neglectful parents, and they also end up with problems.
The only thing we can do is try and eliminate as many factors as possible to give families the best chance of success. All of the possible problems humans go through are exacerbated by poverty and lack of services.
What we have here is a fundamental disagreement on how to fix these problems. One group wants people to fix themselves, bootstrapping is the common term. Another group wants to offer assistance to make sure people are given the resources to succeed in life.
So far the best results for human happiness occur when a large percentage of individual income is redirected into social programs. The cost isn't even as high as it appears, with socialized healthcare businesses and individuals would save a lot of money so it isn't just a net loss. All we have to do is look at the successful programs. History seems to favor the socialist viewpoint, although it also shows that a pure socialist society (government run everything) also fails pretty badly. Social programs funded by independent free workers (capitalist business structure) seems to be the winning move. Support the people, allow them freedom to pursue their desires.
So why is that so scary? Why do you look down on social programs? Is it just the feeling of being "robbed"?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday December 16 2016, @05:59PM
The problem isn't a lack of social programs. We've been trying social programs for ages, and they only have a certain amount of impact. Just look at Europe: they have social programs and services galore, and yet they have all kinds of problems with problem kids from immigrants, radicalized youth, etc. Throwing money at the problem doesn't fix it; the problem is their upbringing, and the only way to fix that is to seize kids very early on, and then sterilize the parents so they can't have any more. Obviously, society isn't willing to do the latter and almost never does the former. We have plenty of foster care here in the US and it really doesn't work; my ex worked in foster care for a while and had all kinds of stories; it was really sad, but it was pretty clear these poor kids were already too broken and were unlikely to get very far in life. By the time the state intervenes, it's just too late, and worse than that, they end up getting placed with people who don't help or even make it worse. It's not like there's a huge number of wonderful, loving families begging to take in kids with serious mental and emotional problems, so what happens is you get low-income jerks who just use it as an income source and do the minimum required, and don't really care about the kids (or worse, abuse them, just like they went through with their real parents), or they get put into a group home which isn't much better and basically they're just a way for a corporation to get revenue from the government.
Social programs would be great if we could find plenty of great, caring, selfless people to actually *do* the work needed. There just aren't many of those out there, and this stuff costs a lot of money (social workers need to eat too), and there's only so many resources to go around, and no shortage of screwed-up kids, plus a legal system that makes it very very difficult to take kids away from their abusive parents in the first place. It's even worse now in many ways; now the courts have given too many rights to natural parents, so a lot of people don't even want to bother getting involved with foster kids with the intent to adopt, because the natural parent can pop up at any time and demand custody, and the court will give it to them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:40PM
In twenty years 90% of people will be unemployable, unable to compete with automation. Attempting to educate people to better compete for the small number of remaining jobs will be futile. Only the small percentage who own and control the means of production, or those who are extraordinarily talented, will be able to support themselves. Not saying I know the answer.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday December 16 2016, @04:51AM
Impossible without government stupidity that would probably quickly collapse and thus self correct. Barring true AI, all bets are off then as we likely hit the Singularity and by definition no useful thing can be discussed from this side of it, so we will assume no AI.
Why would people have all these machines, vs hiring lots of people? Because they produce goods far cheaper. So it follows that the goods so produced will be CHEAP but still require expending effort and resources to keep making the goods. Why would they make goods nobody can trade them anything for? Why indeed. But people would want them, in the case of some, obtaining them would be a matter of life and death. So would we see a dystopia; where armies of robotic farmers sit idle as hungry people turn to subsistence farming on substandard lands not owned by big agribusiness because the owners of the machines wouldn't put the machines to work, deeming the pitiful coins the starving masses offered to not be worth the effort? Does that really seem like a likely outcome in a sane world?
Capitalism is a willing buyer and a willing seller coming to an agreement. Well the goods are now CHEAP, remember? So the service provided in exchange need not have an especially high value, at least when viewed from our viewpoint. Rich people will be able to hire people to indulge their every whim, to do all the things their machines can't yet do. Surely you can think of a hundred possibilities without effort. Maybe vast hordes of humans find work as NPCs in a super MMOG and trade ingame gold for the food and shelter needed to sustain themselves in the real world; all so a few super rich people can enjoy more realistic games. We will more likely see even stranger than that, but who cares? Maybe being carried around on the backs of servants like in ancient times will become a custom, as a way to demonstrate wealth.
Economics is about humans exchanging goods and services between themselves. Robots and other automation are just capital goods, nothing more. Their existence hasn't rewrote the basic rules of economics yet and aren't likely to. An economic transaction must always have a acting human on both sides and if we are still using Capitalism both sides must value the item received in the trade above the item traded. Always. Again, barring AI from the discussion.
(Score: 1) by charon on Friday December 16 2016, @11:25PM
(Score: 1) by ilsa on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:42PM
The last fifty years of the 20th Century were unprecedented in terms of social mobility in the Western world.
Don't worry... The elite are working overtime (not like real overtime, but overtime for them), to correct that imbalance. We'll all be poor serfs again before you know it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:17PM
The answer has already been found: A free market.
Subsidizing such substandard behavior will certainly not solve the problem.
(Score: 3, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:49PM
Oh, I'm so glad that the entire answer can be summed up in 3 words. Heaven forbid a complex problem would require a complex solution. Out of interest, just how "free" is your "free" market? Is it so free for example, that monopolies can form unobstructed and remove competition?
The thing to remember is that capitalism is not a goal. It is not a quest, it is not a holy mission. The human race does exist to serve capitalism, capitalism exists to serve the human race.
Capitalism is a tool, and like any tool it is good for some jobs and not so good for others. You wouldn't trust a carpenter who only ever uses hammers , and sneers at anyone who suggests he use a saw or screwdriver once in a while.
Capitalism is not the tool for this job.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:15PM
Capitalism is not the tool for this job
When you start shitting out gold nuggets to pay for your utopian ideas, or at least manage to pay for them out of your own damn pocket, you can lecture the rest of us on what the appropriate tool is.
As I see it, capitalism is the engine that makes all of your social engineering possible, and in fact has done more to raise the most amount of people out of poverty than all of your social programs combined.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:23PM
The butthurt is strong with this one. Let me guess, taxes==theft at gunpoint. Government regulation==Manacles on the invisible hand, yadda yadda yadda. Am I close?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:25PM
No, it means you absolutely lack a counter-argument.
Not that I'm surprised.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:37PM
For me to have a counter argument, you would first have to have an argument. All I've got from you is "The free market is the answer to every question." You'll have to do a it better than that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:04PM
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/global-povertys-defeat-capitalisms-triumph [cato.org]
Argue away.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:23PM
No one argued that the idea of entrepreneurship is bad and everything should be owned by the government.... But there are also a lot of other variables at play throughout history.
Personally my take on this "analysis" (sorry, but a short article that is very light on details doesn't make the grade) is that giving humans freedom to pursue their own best interests is what made things better. Unshackling people from the state's oppressive dictatorships (Kings, Queens, Despots, Etc.) is what led to greater prosperity.
Capitalism itself is a tool, the free market is a tool, and they must all be used properly. The US is the result of nearly unchecked capitalism, and it is tearing our country apart. Welfare programs are not a replacement for doing something with your life, they are to help the people in need. But why am I arguing with you, you're a true believer of free market capitalism and anything others say will be interpreted as "everyone on welfare forever!!!" which is of course impossible to sustain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:17PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWj5T-0lAf4 [youtube.com]
Argue.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday December 15 2016, @07:50PM
Are the slums smaller because they are all lifted out of poverty?
Or do the 35,000 private security forces just keep the undesirables out of sight?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:01PM
I dunno, if you bothered to fucking watch it instead of grandstanding your ignorance, you might learn that yes, the slums are generally less than average.
But of course it is better to have most people living under poverty instead of having some path forward. In a short period of time, 100 million were lifted out of poverty.
I defy you to show me any other program that has had such dramatic results.
You know you can't, I know you can't, so the best you have to offer is complain that capitalism hasn't done more while decrying capitalism in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @11:33PM
I have yet to see any comments about capitalism being bad, only arguments that "the free market" will not solve all of the problems. Also, it isn't "capitalism" that is doing the work, its people! Humans used to live in huts, then millenia go by and they're building pyramids, castles, cities. All that without this modern capitalism. Progress is what humans do, and it isn't the magic "system of the day" which did the heavy lifting.
Unchecked capitalism has also done a huge amount of harm, but I guess you don't want to address that...
Now as for the video, that has to be the biggest joke ever and you fell for it!!!
Unregulated city gets massive influx of international corporate financing so they can cut costs and reduce taxes. So, we shift the prosperity from one section of the world to another. This isn't magic, its globalization. Everyone agrees that globalization has helped a lot of people out of poverty, but it sure as hell wasn't the ideal way to go about it. The US is plunging fast into chaos for exactly this reason. Where did your jobs go? To India, Mexico, China, etc. Your magic capitalism is just wealth distribution, at least some people are helped by it but its the very thing you free market types like to complain so bitterly about.
The only grandstanding ignorance is your own, you lack the ability to see the interconnected variables and effects. I personally won't complain too bitterly since this wealth redistribution is what I advocate, but don't kid yourself that this is some magic accomplishment. Roads get better in India, and worse in the US. Ideally we wouldn't need to make this trade off, but we're using a stupid economic system that does not favor a humane approach to problems. Instead we get slash and burn, in this case wealthy western countries are slashed and burned to make way for 3rd world growth.
And to give myself that emotional little bump so I can personally feel better: you're a fucking close minded idiot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:23PM
Unrestrained capitalism is a wildfire and it will consume everything until there is nothing left. Capitalism must be shackled and controlled; it is a fine slave but a brutish master.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:29PM
You may be shocked to learn that capitalism doesn't equal anarchism. By necessity it requires regulation to operate.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday December 15 2016, @07:18PM
Which is why you got called on calling it a "free market".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:28PM
Oh dear, you can't buy and sell slaves.
"That's not a free market then!!!!111!!!"
Piss off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:30PM
You can't murder people because you dislike the prices they have.
"That's not a free market."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @04:16PM
The holy mission is Voluntary Interaction between every set of 2 individuals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @10:12PM
The ultimate cause (genetic, cultural, behavioral, whatever) hardly matters
Its a good thing scientists generally don't share your viewpoint. The causes matter greatly because that is the only way to figure out solutions. Killing / marginalizing people results in greater suffering and potential civil war.
Can society do anything useful to break these cycles? So far, the answer seems to be "no".
Many countries have done a lot, and we have examples of policy that greatly reduced poverty and crime. You just don't like that its all "socialism" so you ignore it and hope that others will bury their heads in the sand along with you. Most of the programs that have failed were badly designed, or specifically designed to fail to support your viewpoint. Also, many programs are undermined by rich folks calling for "austerity" because they don't want to pay their fair share. That is specifically what is going on in the UK right now with their NHS, and I imagine that reports such as these are commissioned specifically to be scientific propaganda pieces to make ignorant blue collar folks say "yeah, down with the NHS its a waste of money for FREE LOADING BUMS!"
Ugh, even dealing with this discussion is painful. The majority of people realized that eugenics is a terrible idea with badly flawed science. To have people on this site promoting it.... ugh. I guess just because someone reads "news for nerds" does not mean they have a well rounded education. In fact, I find a lot of Comp Sci folks tend to overvalue their intelligence while seriously lacking good general background knowledge. Which are you bradley13?
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @02:52PM
Scientists at Kings College London
Social science does not qualify you for the title "scientist".
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:37PM
Is why the science part is prefixed with social. Just because they don't reach conclusions by mixing chemicals in a lab or drilling holes in a persons skull, does not mean scientific method was not applied.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:01PM
I view the word "social" when out in front of science as "take this with a large grain of salt, because I very likely haven't given you all the data I collected. I've thrown out data that would muddy the waters. There is no control group here, sometimes because it would be unethical and other times just because a control group would disprove my pet theory. Instead, I've presented only the data that will give my preconceived, (re|pro)gressive notions the veneer of 'science.'"
Research along these lines is simultaneously very important and the beginning of an atrocity.
Maybe the problem is that people are too eager to apply social science to individuals. You're not allowed to do $x even though they get to do $x because "research shows!" We're going to mutilate your body at birth but it's the end of the fucking world if anybody thinks about mutilating their body at birth because "research shows!"
The problem could also be rationalization. Maybe humans are simply too eager to rationalize their atrocious nature with this kind of research. Perhaps if humans were more honest about being vile, petty, wrathful creatures this kind of science wouldn't send shivers up my spine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:44PM
I view the word "social" when out in front of science as "take this with a large grain of salt, because I very likely haven't given you all the data I collected. I've thrown out data that would muddy the waters. There is no control group here, sometimes because it would be unethical and other times just because a control group would disprove my pet theory. Instead, I've presented only the data that will give my preconceived, (re|pro)gressive notions the veneer of 'science.'"
Well, get ready to open your mind because all those problems and more exist in other fields too. Like bio-medical science [slate.com] and even physics. [fabiusmaximus.com]
Yeah, turns out the problem isn't the field of science, its the fact that people do science and people are universally fallible. Ironically, one of the biggest reasons that psychology was the first to get a lot of shit over replication is because the culture of psychology research is the most open. [andrewgelman.com] Nobody's trying to keep their research secret so they can patent it or gain some other business advantage. It also gets tons of coverage in the popular press as compared to esoteric subatomic experiments and chemical reactions that make laymen's eyes glaze over. So all of their problems are the easiest to see. But its just the tip of the iceberg.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:31PM
That's all true, but nobody creates policy based on esoteric subatomic experiments. That would be the other reason psychology gets a ton of coverage. At least, I've never been discriminated against because of a subatomic experiment that I know of.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:53PM
> but nobody creates policy based on esoteric subatomic experiments.
Hello? Our entire nuclear energy program is based on the concept of producing weapons grade material. We could have designed our reactors around different principles but chose not to and consequently our engineering and operational knowledge of much less dangerous designs with much less waste is exponentially smaller.
And then there was the use of aersols that caused the ozone hole. And the use anti-biotics in our meat industries that have caused weird effects on children and the development of anti-biotic resistant diseases. Mercury poisoning of our fish. etc And don't even mention CO2 pollution being potential civilization ender.
The number of times when half-assed so-called "hard science" has enabled bad policy is at least as great as when social science has.
You are going to have move those goal posts way, way further before you'll find solid ground for your myopic complaints about social sciences.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:44PM
Well, get ready to open your mind because all those problems and more exist in other fields too.
But not to the same degree. No field of science is going to be perfect, but the social sciences are especially bad. I would even say that medical science is in a terrible position.
It also gets tons of coverage in the popular press
Which frankly just take already bad studies and frequently fail to inform people of their flaws. One problem with the press is that they mostly don't even bother to make it clear that a study that has yet to be replicated and conclusions that have yet to have a consensus formed around them based on years of study are far from set in stone. The social sciences are more effective at promoting political pet agendas than other fields of science, which isn't really the fault of the field itself but it makes errors potentially more costly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:38PM
They often apply the scientific method poorly, their data relies on too much subjectivity, their studies can't be replicated, and/or they reach faulty, arbitrary conclusions based on the data. The social sciences are not very reliable at this point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @02:36AM
Just because you claim the scientific method was not applied does not mean the scientific method was applied. Postulate your hypothesis and then prove it's not incorrect through reproducible prospective studies. When you come up with accurate predictions we'll talk. Anyone can come up with bullshit to explain away a given data set but that is NOT science.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:28PM
First, you follow the lead of a shaved orangutan with Owen Wilson's hair and you Brexit, then you rush to install encryption back doors into anything and everything, now you want to identify and brand children as dregs on the future economy. Geez Louise, I thought all the Dickens stuff I read was supposed to be fiction. Your society is really effed up. I guess it is true why the Sun never sets on the British Empire. . .
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:17PM
Um... the British Empire spanned the globe; literally, the sun never did set on the British Empire.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:44PM
Um, no. You got it wrong: I know why the sun never sets on the British Empire: God wouldn't trust an Englishman in the dark.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @02:38AM
Past tense.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:54PM
If there are about 30k gov-supported medical researchers in the US at any given time[1] and they are wasting about $30 billion a year in total[2], that means for each active medical researcher, society needs to support around $1 million of useless activity each year. Over a 40 year career, that would work out to a lifetime drain of about $40 million each. This is all "on average" of course.
How much drain per person per year in the current study? I skimmed it but did not see anything on that.
[1] https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2016/05/31/how-many-researchers/ [nih.gov]
[2] http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002165 [plos.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:09PM
From your second link: " To be clear, this does not imply that there was no return on that investment. "
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:29PM
Sure, you cannot deduce "no return" from the fact a study is irreproducible. As they clarify in the next sentence: “it is conceivable that some of the research resulting in [even] a retracted article still provides useful information for other nonretracted studies.”
It is conceivable someone might get something out of an apple falling on their head too. Doesn't mean we should spend $30 billion a year to drop apples on people's heads, or not count that as useless activity.
Also, these isn't there some return from the "drains on society" described in the current article? For example, doctors, nurses, etc are all getting practice. Once you start accepting such arguments about vague indirect "returns", it becomes pointless to talk about the topic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:55PM
> Also, these isn't there some return from the "drains on society" described in the current article?
That sounds an awful lot like you are selling eugenics or even euthanasia. Sometimes you aspies are fucking evil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @07:10PM
1) I am not, in fact I am trying to save you from the people who are attempting to do so.
2) I have no idea how you got that idea.
3) Really, how?
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:31PM
As u have noted, we are nearing the end.
Mostly due automatization.
This implies that 1/100000 of population will be really rich, 1/3 of population will be emloyed as guards patrolling the slums and beating the shit out of people, and 2/3 will have mindless sex, mindless drug abuse, and horrible diseases.
It is time to ressurect aristocracy, and start putting down the lines that can not be crossed.
Also remember that a lot of the "problem people" are the support troops of evolution: natural born military people, agents, units, psychos... More or less everyone else but the jews and the people mentally dependent on jewish entertainment.
So the cockroaches and worms, albeit intelligent and sofisticated, start to feel terror on an unprecedented level.
As example, there is this saying: fear thoes who dont fear death. So, if I dont fear death, it means that the loop that feeds the self back to, hmm, myself, is attenuated.
I am a good military, but bad jew.
neurology, evolution and so forth...
we dont desire all of those whe came for us :D
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:57PM
> old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity"
No, the saying is a "a troll is window the soul of the troller's humanity"
And your window clearly opens into a black hole.
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:37PM
kind of interesting, since i get the kind of responses from anons...
but honestly i do not understand what my humanity has to do with my observation skills.
and there is the thing: you must distinguish between opinion as preference and opinion formed from observation.
as such, the only thing i can say is that you missunderstand and are frightened by the character you perceive, or maybe feel unjustly refered to, but i can no make a lot from your contribution...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:10PM
Different AC here. I honestly couldn't make heads or tails of your original comment. I was thinking you were being serious about bringing the aristocracy back, except I was wondering where you thought it went. It seems to me that the tyrants of yesteryear were called governments, and megacorporations are the tyrants of today, so the aristocracy perhaps isn't strictly hereditary like it used to be but it's still around.
But I also thought that might be tangential to what you were trying to say. Are you saying that democracy is a failed experiment?
Not really offering an argument yet, just trying to understand what you were saying.
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:42PM
Dunno bro, your question is kind of stupid.
Democracy as such have not even existed a generation, that is a lifetime of a man.
Secondly, even in the USA it is kind of a meh, and that is an understatement. You should have gotten the hang of things by now.
Then there is the "fact" that for the first time ever humanity is facing the problem of having nothing to do. Except science.
Drivers, pizza makers, industry workers are all replaced in lesser then 30 years.
The only govenment types that could ever deal with that kind of (potetial) civil unrest was kings. They were kind of hard people, by and large.
Then there is the fact that the most violent places on earth are still not ready for democracy in any shape or form, and the tyrants are needed to keep the clans calm...
By the way, I am educated as hell, and from talking to the "small people" i kind of dont get what democracy is, or what it was supposed to be.
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @03:47AM
I'm glad you told us you are "educated as hell", as we'd never have guessed it from your semicoherent, grammar-deficient ramblings.
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Friday December 16 2016, @08:24AM
it has become a hobby of mine in recent years, on the internet at least...
you do not know (or u do) how little it takes to be worse then ________.
(fill in random tyrant or murderer)
i am only giving you what you want: to be able to lable someone as idiot and FeelTheBetterMan...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:35PM
This is social science, so take it with a grain of salt.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday December 15 2016, @11:38PM
My IQ is 160.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @12:48AM
geez. smart and dumb. isnt that relative?
i am sure some people considered "dumb" or bum today would have been
really important during other times in history.
maybe take a soldier from alexanders army and dump him in a modrrn world and he wont work.
or take a pyramid builder and dump him in a modern world.
or take a bum and a modern high heeled working lady and give them a nice earth quake situation.
i wonder who would break down and who would keep on living ...
who is a bum and who is productive really dpends on the society and there is more then one form of society ?
also i think that education is important. i am not refering to school institutions. i am talking
about sharing knowledge.
the world today handles information and knowledge ike a comodity.
something to aquire and to be sold for money.
i belive if we all would share knowledge and insights (chance of on the job training?) and experience
more openly (no not that twitter and facebook knowledge of what youre eating right now) this
would improve many impovrished lifes, maybe more then handing out cold hard cash?
(sry typo uwing tor .. quick post)
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday December 16 2016, @01:04AM
If you really want to take the economic view, you have to analyze the cost-benefit of social programs benefiting these so-called drains on society. We have done many things to impact the slew of issues that result in disbursing government services, so we already have plenty of data.
Social services are not a closed system at all. They interact with the overall economy and other facets of the government. And what we know from the data is that a properly targeted and administered social service can end up reducing costs to society down the line by decreasing law enforcement and imprisonment costs most especially. Insurance costs of all kinds can go down as well. And it starts with looking at the data without even allowing subjective analysis likely to paint anyone as "lazy bums who are freeloading off the taxpayer and exploiting the public purse". Because when you look at the data, often the most effective programs are ones that feel like giveaways, and the most ineffective programs are the ones that feel like the recipient really worked to earn that benefit.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @04:52AM
Taking money from people under threat of violence is not a suitable foundation for building a society that is concerned with social welfare.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday December 19 2016, @09:55PM
There is no other way. Think of the classic firefighter problem:
Firefighters need expensive specialized equipment and need to be in a ready state at all times. This means that they need to be funded at all times, even when there isn't a fire, because if you don't then nobody will be ready to help before the fire burns down the building. People could pay for fire service, but few will of their own volition. Fire service will be more expensive for those that pay for it, not just because there are fewer people but also because of the additional overhead of identifying fire service users from non-users.
Then say that a house catches fire and it isn't covered. Nobody's inside, and a bystander calls the firefighters. Now they are mobilizing for a fire without knowing whether they can actually fight it. They get there, having now spent fuel, perishable resources, and the time of everyone who pulled over to make room for the fire truck. Assuming they can determine with certainty that the house isn't covered, what do they do?
They can't go back to the fire depot, because the fire could spread. So they have to watch the house burn down to be prepared to keep it from spreading to other houses. And if the area is sufficiently densely populated, it is almost certain that the fire will spread not just to one other building, but three on all sides. Protecting those three is probably more expensive than simply putting out the fire. It's certainly less likely to lead to an uncontrollable blaze sweeping through the whole city.
So the cheapest and most effective solution is just to protect everybody, regardless of whether they paid. People will notice that, and probably nobody will pay for it anymore.
So you collect taxes. Now you need an answer when somebody says "f*** off". And that answer, ultimately, requires the application of force. There just isn't any other way.
Unless you had in mind some Orwellian scheme to get people to pay into the system without any threats, knowing that they all really want to act against their own self-interest for the collective good.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?