What is your point. Also all our statistics counter your point on class mobility
The stats are really not that relevant IMHO because you don't know which way the people are thinking, that make up those stats. I bet stats show a vast difference in upward mobility between Asian immigrants and others, for example, because Asians think about how to get unstuck...
Sometimes someone really didn't have a point, or stated it badly enough that it's not very clear. But more often, "What's your point?" is being used as a cheap rhetorical trick, to try to make everyone else not see the point that is being made, because the one who says "What's your point?" very much doesn't want anyone to see the point, or to acknowledge it as an actual point with any validity.
Take comfort when you get asked that. You've made a point that they have no real response to, so all they can do is ineffectively try to get everyone else to ignore it.
Now in this case, they did go one step further. They said that statistics disprove your anecdata. That's at least a bit of a rebuttal. But they didn't actually cite any statistics, so it's just this unsupported claim.
For some reason, for some people, it's very important to insist that "no, you can't change your own stickiness" - if you are poor, you are poor. If you are fat, you are fat. If women hate you, they will hate you. This reveals something about their own approach in life but worse, I worry that it can influence someone who's on the fence ("should I try to lose weight, should I try to better my economics, etc?") and being barraged with messages of impossibility is poisonous to them.
It is not your successful friends staying online all day posting negative messages.
That’s the line I tell anyone who needs some unstuckitude and feels it’s impossible. Has worked well for me personally. The people bitching and moaning on Reddit are not the people busting their butts getting unstuck.
Commies want everybody to think that class warfare is the only solution to their problems. They lose their composure whenever somebody points out that individual determination and responsibility have proven effectiveness. I almost fell for their ruse and but pulled myself out of it and have turned my life around. Screw their crab bucket hell.
The truth is that it is both true that there is a 'system' - in the sense that large groupings of independent organisms self organize into an emergent property that behaves with 'rules' that appear like a systemic thing - and also that individuals are not equal in capacity. From will, to intelligence, to resourcefulness, to bravery, to then the more nefarious luck, and many other factors, some people succeed and some fail.
The 'systemic' emphasis, at the exclusion of any and all other factors, is the problem, here, as it's a reductionism.
There is no objective scientific measure to disprove political ideals - you can't prove or disprove that capitalism, or socialism are good or bad. And you can certainly not falsify any claims of "systemic." These are claims of values masquerading as science and objective facts.
I think there's a bit of individual / group culture that plays a role in relative success (such as immigrants often doing better than richer but still poor Americans) and also there is some systemic factors, residually.
But here the systemic folks are going to lash out, because it is considered that not prioritizing the systemic factors is a lack of education, at best, and perhaps racism, at worst.
It's a very complex problem.
My point is that the same mindset is available to others if they chose to seek it out. Telling yourself how poor and stuck you are precludes that.
Remember that the immigrants who come to america already have enough resources at minimum to immigrate!
... and are usually unable to do anything with that education because most American employers (outside the very unusual field of software engineering) discount or ignore non-American degrees. An immigrant with an engineering or medical degree making a living by driving an Uber in America is a stereotype very much based in reality. I personally know people who fit that stereotype.
Some people's circumstances are a result of systemic racism that has kept them from succeeding. Some people have been deliberately kept from better jobs, better schools, and better neighborhoods. Some people have consistently bad experiences from the power structure.
Possibly it could be argued that many of these barriers can be overcome in the modern age but that is a questionable assertion and the experiences of one's parents and grandparents is not easily overlooked.
Which is frankly something as a child of an asian immigrant im tired of hearing. Its such a self-congratulatory nonsense.
Personally, I think the explanation is structural, or if you prefer, just math. Just statistical distribution will assure that if you're poor, 99 percent of you won't get into the 1%. You'll never amass the required 5.8 million dollar net worth.
In fact, I almost hate to say this, but it should be implied, whether you are poor or middle class, 90% of you will never even get into the 10%.
I'm not sure that it's a psychological state of mind, or even a statement on the innate abilities of poor or middle class people? I'm more confident that it's a simple structural barrier. There is not room in the 10% for every law abiding, intelligent, ambitious, hard working individual. Which means many law abiding, intelligent, ambitious, hard working individuals who are poor or middle class, will need to aim lower to increase their chances of success. It sucks, but just in my opinion, that's how things are, I'm not sure there's a way around it?
So I think what's happening is more along the lines of people, perhaps even unconsciously, realizing the structural reality, and adjusting their strategies accordingly. That poor or middle class kid says:
"You know it's a lot safer if I just become a nurse, teacher, or regular software engineer instead of trying to swing for the fences on a startup since I have no safety net to work with."
In fact, in a societal moral hazard kind of way, the more intelligent and rational that poor or middle class kid is, the more likely s/he is to say that. (Or maybe it isn't a societal moral hazard? Since we do need nurses, teachers, fire fighters, and so on. I don't know?)
[1] Net Worth of 1%-er: https://money.com/richest-1-percent-america-other-countries/
While this is true as a simple matter of distribution, it conflates two very different things.
In terms of relative wealth, yes, there's no way everybody can be in the top 10%.
But in terms of absolute wealth, there is lots of room to make even the bottom 10% wealthier than they are today. Indeed, the bottom 10% in the US are already wealthier than most humans who ever lived. But they could be much wealthier still, even if their relative wealth stays the same.
Focusing kids on "getting out of the bad situation" doesn't have to mean "shoot for being in the top 10%" (and if the GP was implying that it does, I think the GP is wrong on that point). It just has to mean "go out and create wealth instead of staying stuck in this place". And doing that will make those kids better off--not to mention society as a whole--even if their relative wealth never makes it anywhere near the top 10%.
To the extent that our society has "structural problems", I think they are about preventing people from creating wealth, by imposing all manner of nanny state micromanagement and by allowing people in power to bully others.
I am the GP. I agree with everything you wrote here. My reference to the "1%" was specifically applicable to the kids growing up in my neighborhood in the 90s - the public school and other education OPPORTUNITIES were good enough to launch many of us into this stratosphere.
Meanwhile, a ton of our neighbors didn't even try to avail their kids of these opportunities (namely, to work hard and optimize for education) and their kids got stuck too.
I totally agree with you that 1% or 10% is not the goal. We both agree that if people try to look for ways to grow vs accept stickiness and limitation, they are likely to move up SOMEWHAT and that's really important.
I know your type, I came from your world. You are not being truthful.
And even if you are the extreme statistical abnormality of that is nothing you should based a white ranging judgment on.
Even if it were true, I'd bet dollars to donuts that there was something different about the public school to which those kids were assigned. That's just way too high of a statistical variance to be, "Oh they just thought positively."
I'll make this point again. If in the 90s your parents made you take the hard math classes, try for the AP courses, try for the magnet school, try for a good college/major/scholarship, you're on track to earn 350K at baseline.
If this really bothers you, fine - let's talk top 10%. Going from broke-ass to top 10% is an impressive feat. top-10% is under 170K.
> Every one of your friends has a net worth of 6 million or more.
You are intentionally strawmanning. When people say 1% they usually mean income (in my experience) and sometimes are using it as a figure of speech. Your usage of wealth really stuck out to me badly in your original comment - I actually thought you were trolling by choosing an obviously silly figure.
HN rule: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
> I know your type, I came from your world. You are not being truthful.
HN rule: "In Comments: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes."
And your strong stereotyping is likely not helpful to you. Perhaps be a little less discriminiating and a bit less judgemental. No one likes to be bucketed. You know nothing about the OP.
Wait, by definition, 99% of anybody - poor or not - won't get into the 1%.
To tell people it's their "state of mind" is nonsense. It doesn't matter what everyone's state of mind is, only 1% ever get into the 1%. So arguing about "state of mind" or "accelerated classes" is meaningless to that structural reality. If you need 5.8 million dollars to get into the one percent, there is a 99% chance you won't get there.
I'm also skeptical of these people who say they grew up in the ghetto surrounded by poverty, but several of their friends who were also in the same ghetto and suffered the same childhood poverty, have 5.8 million in assets. The statistical likelihood of multiple children from the exact same impoverished neighborhood, of similar age cohort, all going on to amass 5.8 million in assets is,
well,
remote in the extreme.
Not saying you can't have a neighborhood like that where everyone goes on to become millionaires. I'm saying it's statistically unlikely.