At some point, more people should take responsibility for the hand that they are given and run with those cards.
At the best, we now have more ammo as parents to deal with trauma so we don't pass it off to the offspring.
Without elaborating too much - both in my wife's and my family their traumas are for a large part World War II related. Active fighting, hunger, uncertainty, refugeeship, absence - it's all reflected in our (grand-)parents generation and thus in our genes and upbringing. We have our own traumas that I'm unable to reflect on yet. That's why I feel an extra sadness when watching Ukrainian children. Traumas live on for ages.
Thing that comes to mind: We have local cultures celebrating battles with Spain 400+ years ago. Humans are a hardy bunch. I don't think it's biological after many generations, but culture is an important part of humanity.
Don't you think that it makes sense in that context?
I am because we are. We are all irrevocably linked, even more so in the hyperconnected digital age.
It does, in an age of entitlement where we teach kids any of their feelings are valid reasons to bully other people to get what they want.
Wow. You have a lack of compassion you just do not see.
So if I punch you in the face ,the bruise that follows is your fault? I mean, why are you blaming me for that bruise on your face?
Trauma creates verified changes in brain structure. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-021-01357-z
You know, like a bruise, or a broken leg. So these people need help, not to be left alone with even more burden on themselves.
Yes, and why not? The point is not so much blame but making them responsible for their actions. To put the responsibility where is lay is part of healing from the trauma. To say that people should take responsibility for the trauma that other gave them will in no way help anyone heal.
My father was horrible and my mother was loving. If it were not for her I would probably be dead. I can hold my mother my mother for saving my life as much as I can my father for causing my suffering.
And we have no choice but to take responsibility for the trauma. But those who abused us? They have a choice, unless we force them into accountability by calling them out.
My brothers also abused me and that probably played a role in my mood disorder. So now they are all living fine lives and I am homeless with no health care and in and out of psyche wards. When I asked them if they could loan me $500 for a deposit on an apartment my sister said; "All you want is the money!"
:^/
It is these people that pass on the trauma, the people who think that those of us who had the trauma "should take responsibility" and do nothing to help us heal, both mentally and physically.
Better is to understand and live in the truth - that many aspects of our lives are random. Including our own decisions, free will is an illusion and whether we decide to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps (as is deemed 'good') or sink into misery, it is a foregone conclusion which will happen. All we can do is surf the experience moment to moment, year by year. Free yourself from blame, from responsibility, know that the void is merely playing with all possibilities. Let that very subtly different you in one of the other realities do the hard work of saving the world, or whatever grand scheme suits you best. They are the ones for whom it was meant to be.
These admonitions always start by saying we have no free will and then advising a course of action based on that knowledge, but that's incoherent.
There is a difference if you're empathetic or not. That's easily observable in reality. What you're arguing against is perhaps the moral attribution to a decision if you have no control? That is, of course, irrelevant to the discussion being had.
Huh?
That makes no sense. If I literally can't do anything except that I'm doing, then in no sense is it coherent to advise me to "act ethically." You're just saying what the causal chain made you say and I'm responding to it however the causal chain demands I respond. That is, you're saying it because you can't not say it and I'm responding like this because I also can't do otherwise. But intellectually the game is up.
You can't tell the plinko ball to "act ethically" on its way down. It's just gonna go whichever way the physics play out based on the state of the world when you let go of the ball.
They're never going to be financially stable in the way I am, though. I work hard too, but I also have luck.
You can be rich, lazy, and lucky. You can be rich, hardworking, and lucky.
But you can't be rich, hardworking, and unlucky. Luck is necessary ingredient.
I watch people work so hard and still struggle. And it’s upsetting. I think everyone should have it as easy as I have, or easier. There is so much wealth in this world. But it doesn’t go to the hard workers. It goes to the lucky. Amongst the lucky there will be some perception of fairness and equity, but that is only because they can’t see the people far above and below them.
Promise yourself that you will follow through when the time comes. That is how I assuage my guilt. If the time is ever right to create meaningful change for the betterment of all, I will be there on the front lines. But the world has to wake up a little first. Until then I will just keep waiting.
We absolutely do
> maybe one day there will be a social movement to make the world a fairer place
These movements have existed for hundreds of years
> When that day comes lean into the movement
That day is in the past
> Promise yourself that you will follow through when the time comes. That is how I assuage my guilt. If the time is ever right to create meaningful change for the betterment of all, I will be there on the front lines.
I don't want to be rude because you seem to want to help, but assuaging your guilt by hoping some day in the future you will contribute to something positive seems like a plan for inaction. This seems like a great way to ensure that things don't change. There are many movements to change the world for the better. I don't want to get in to specific ideologies but I changed my career so that I am always working in open source, trying to undercut for-profit companies that would patent ideas and charge high prices by offering open source alternatives that people all over the world can build for free (I am working on an open source farming robot project).
If you want to know more about how I view this topic more broadly, you can watch one of my videos on the subject.
This youtube news channel below is specifically dedicated to covering news of successes like these. You often don't hear about this stuff, but do not let yourself be convinced it is not happening. There is so much that can be done. So many people fighting every day and gaining wins. There isn't much we can do to affect national or global politics, but that doesn't mean we are powerless to make a positive change in some people's lives. Don't let yourself be convinced by those in power that you have none. That is what they want you to think so you won't try to fight back.
This just seems overly reductive in the opposite direction. Do you not know any housekeepers or garbage collectors? It feels like you're going so far out of your way to try to make the person you're responding to feel sorry for them that you're being cruel and dismissive.
My mother-in-law was an immigrant housekeeper who over the course of her life eventually became a well paid live-in private chef, for example.
And even if someone doesn't become rich they can often provide for subsequent generations. My Dad was able to become a doctor because his immigrant construction laborer father was able to give him enough stability to do well in school.
This thread is about having compassion, and certainly the top level comment lacks it. But your comment also kind of lacks it? I know it tries to, but it feels very condescending to me, and takes the agency from vast swathes of people. I can't imagine hanging out among "housekeepers and garbage collectors" and not seeing that they're just people, too, and some are among a vibrant community and have dreams and aspirations for themselves or their children, and hearing bragging of all the success stories of those who have become financially stable the way you are.
I know my housekeeper very well. We're friends, we've played online games together, and he's cleaned for me for almost 10 years. I help him with his side hustles whenever I can.
> It feels like you're going so far out of your way to try to make the person you're responding to feel sorry for them that you're being cruel and dismissive.
This is a bizarre reading of my comment. I was trying to think of the hardest-working people I know. I didn't choose them because they are people to pity.
Upward mobility in the US is at its lowest in several generations[1]. That's my whole point.
> My mother-in-law was an immigrant housekeeper who over the course of her life eventually became a well paid live-in private chef, for example.
Great! Doesn't change my point.
I don't work as hard as a garbage collector, and I earn 6x what a garbage collector in my city makes by working as a privileged software developer.
These people may be financially stable and have good lives, but they won't have money thrown at them the way I (and a lot of software developers) have.
> I know it tries to, but it feels very condescending to me, and takes the agency from vast swathes of people.
Yes, that is my whole point. We live in a society that takes away people's agency. They can work tirelessly and still not have the "pedigree" that a lot of companies look for. A lot of our society is determined by which family you're lucky enough to be born in, and that is what has taken people's agency away.
As for the rest of it, I can't control how you interpret my words. I feel condescending toward people who are lucky like me and don't realize it. I don't feel condescending toward people who work hard and take care of their families.
1. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/social-...
But so far, you probably either never experienced poverty or was lucky enough to get out. Lots of folks work their ass off and never are able to lift themselves out of poverty.
Chances are, you didn't get really sick in school and had to hold off on your studies. And you didn't lose a job because you wound up with an autoimmune disorder and weren't at the job long enough to qualify for FMLA, which was unpaid anyway. If you went to higher education, especially if you went for a Masters or higher - or had any degree that requires unpaid internship - you had someone to help support you during that time - parents, partner, etc.
And the list goes on. So many things in everyone's life are the result of just getting lucky and people have no control over this. Sometimes it is just luck avoiding things and sometimes it is just that some folks have a much better starting hand than other folks. Not everyone can get the good cards because the really good cards need to be unlocked with good cards. They still work their asses off, though.
I tried and it took years but I made it, that's my point, wasn't faith... didn't just happen, I guided it
Plenty of people work hard, smart, etc. and get nowhere or die. Pretending otherwise is silly.
"I worked really hard on this, and then I got sick and everything fell through" "Really sorry you had some bad luck, I know you worked hard on that"
Simply bringing up - in a public forum - that luck and hard work goes hand in hand isn't dismissive. It is just pointing out how things simply are. No one is dismissing that folks work hard on things. Working hard simply isn't enough for success.
What you should praise is the _input_. Their hard work. The effort. I believe there are studies reinforcing this difference being crucial wrt education of children but I don't have any on hand. :)
Which is a more important factor of AB, A or B? You can't disentangle them. And since you have control of A, and no control of B, people should be praised for and incentivized to increase A.
Lord, grant me the courage to increase A, the serenity to accept B, and the wisdom to tell them apart.
I think everyone (with the free time) should invest in learning Poker or card games. Lessons there can be applied elsewhere while still remaining intuitive and easy to understand!
Everybody already knows that. Determination, skill/natural ability, and luck are essentially how we get anything done in our lives. Usually a combination of all three, and you’re focusing on the one that an individual has no control over. It’s unproductive.
There are entire cultures out there that acknowledge and respect that where they are today is built, partly, on random chance. Saying that you are where you are entirely on your own individual merits is just /rude/ to many. Just because yours likes to pretend otherwise doesn't make that pretense universal.
Why not? A reasonable person can easily see that things are part luck and part work and will admit it outright. Sometimes 70% work, sometimes 70% luck.
How many people have worked harded than you and end up in a menial job, defeated and burned out? I bet they are a lot. And how many just inherited wealth and never lifted a finger in their life? I know they are a lot.