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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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Jan 25, 2019 - 09:12am PT
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But the idea that he crawled up from the dirt without any help from others is false.
You're refuting a claim no one made.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Jan 25, 2019 - 09:19am PT
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Anecdote is not data Reilly.
I have friends and family that have done very well from poor backgrounds too. My dad being a great example.
That doesn't mean at a societal level, we don't have a situation where income/social mobility is becoming harder, and where the rich have used their wealth to make it easier to get a bigger share of the pie.
My goal is not necessarily some kind of highly punitive redistribution, and I'm not sure exactly what the best method is to correct for those issues. But I do think society as a whole would be better off if we did try to address them.
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originalpmac
Mountain climber
Timbers of Fennario
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Jan 25, 2019 - 08:47pm PT
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Keith Reeds post on the third page about there is only conservatism and nothing else is the dumbest idea I have ever read.
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Jan 26, 2019 - 09:43am PT
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The problem with capitalism, is capitalists.
The problem with socialism, is socialism.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jan 26, 2019 - 09:58am PT
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Anecdote is not data
Another cute phrase that will be beaten into triteness. It is data when the anecdotes are endless.
London is full of Frenchmen who have left France because entrepreneurs are an endangered
species there despite the word’s origin. It takes a minimum of 6 months to open a business
in France. It takes a couple of days to do so in Britain. You hire somebody for yer small
business in France and you better be damn sure you can keep them profitably employed
because you will have to declare bankruptcy before you can lay them off. That’s also true to a
worse degree in Argentina and that is a big reason why their economy is such a sad joke.
Socialism - be very careful what you wish for.
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formerclimber
Boulder climber
CA
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Jan 26, 2019 - 10:54am PT
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That’s because poor Americans make very bad life choices. I spend a lot of time at health care facilities and they are full of recent immigrants from the Phillipines and China who made good life choices in getting educations that pay. Lots of Filipino nurses are making $100K or more here and I’ve met a number who are getting their RNP and/or Masters while they make their $100K. They’ll be making $150K soon.
American-born people are actually entitled to a lot of things, simply because the country had been built by their ancestors (who were going through hardships that are unthinkable now) -- and I say this as an immigrant (with engineering degree too). American inheritance is being sold to the highest bidder now...and this won't end well on a long run. People born here are entitled to live a simpler life with strong social protections without having to make any particularly "smart" choices.
Today they need Masters...tomorrow PHD...next, they'll just need to sign a contract selling their life, from childhood to death to some globalist sc*m corporation from China. Oh, and they're laden with student loans while forced to compete with foreign born persons who got free or dirt cheap education. Good immigrants, doing their part, helping to feed the greed machine, making more, more and more, diligently helping other competitors with the Johnses to drive up the prices up.
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Jan 26, 2019 - 11:11am PT
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"Capitalism is an Apple store.
Socialism is the DMV...sweaty pissed off workers who can't get fired. And they laugh at you...ha, ha, ha ha...you got the wrong line you f***ing idiot."
Dana Carvey
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Jan 26, 2019 - 04:49pm PT
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Some of the billionaires that spoke at the Davos gathering think the cure for poverty is for everyone to have a BA...A BA will get you a job at Taco Bell making minimum wage...On the bright side you can swap shifts with Lituya...
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Jan 26, 2019 - 07:49pm PT
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You have to love the fantasy passed off here that the US is some kind of shining example of a "free" market economy. 700 billion dollars of bailouts handed out to wealthy investors who made bad investments and who, in turn, used that taxpayer money to pay themselves big dividends at the country's expense while the toughest debt laws on the books are applied to students who struggle to earn a college degree. Those 1.5 trillion dollars are the only debts in the country that are absolutely unforgivable. Isn't that what a "free" market is all about?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jan 26, 2019 - 08:26pm PT
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^^^ I totally agree! Attacking the "capitalism" of the USA is quite the straw-man. The distortions here are epic.
Both sides of the aisle get credit for that.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jan 27, 2019 - 08:03pm PT
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So Did Our Founders.
It's so nice to find just what you're looking for when you're looking for it.
The article does not sustain the plural. Its cites one primary quotation from ONE founder, and that quotation is his musings without actual solutions. He sure wasn't talking about taxation in anything like the form of taxation we have today! Further, the article does admit a crucial point that Jefferson was not "consistent" in his expressed views of such matters.
Besides, liberals can't cite the founders as authorities! Libs on these very threads forever talk about how the founders were "just guys," and what a good thing it is that the constitution can just be interpreted HOWEVER by the SCOTUS and changed by the will of a (big enough) mob, without regard to founding principles. So, seriously, who gives a hoot about what Jefferson mused?
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Jan 27, 2019 - 08:13pm PT
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Those god damn liberals....!!!!
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Jan 27, 2019 - 08:20pm PT
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RJ! Re your post:
Those god damn liberals....!!!!
Indeed! ST & AmeriKa would be such fine places to post conservative bullschist, without all them "foooking liberals,"
always making foooking trouble.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jan 27, 2019 - 08:30pm PT
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Nah, it's just superficial thinkers on both sides of the aisle.
Always looking for popular "fixes" that will satisfy/inflame base/opponents.
It's like people that have no idea about mechanics hearing a rattle they don't like "in the engine compartment," opening the hood and staring in, and then just removing parts at random with the arrogance to believe that they are qualified to "fix" anything.
Cherry pick parts of how this nation's politic was designed, and you can only break things. The popular election of senators is a classic example. Oh, "we all" like it, but it has had very subtle (and baleful) consequences. So, then, more "fixes" are needed (pull more stuff out from under the hood, and bolt on entirely other stuff).
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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Jan 27, 2019 - 08:41pm PT
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When discussing socialism please include
The US Military
The US Highway System
Medical Universities
Hospitals
Emergency Services
Police
Fire
Coast Guard
National Guard
Elementary Schools
Middle Schools
High School
Junior Colleges
State Universities
Building Codes
Trains
Ports
Court Systems
City Parks
Sport Arenas
State Parks
National Parks
National Forests
Public Beaches
Bay Watch Bikinis
Ad infinitum
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 27, 2019 - 09:04pm PT
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If you're stuck on that term, try "exchanging," and see if that helps you get over the hump.
that doesn't work either, the idea the bumblebee exchanges its time for the energy it receives in its foraging is an inadequate representation of what is going on.
there is a much more subtle interaction that goes on, dynamically, which we describe in terms of evolution and co-evolution, and within the ecological setting.
ecology is the study of the interactions of living things with each other and their surroundings, which economics deals with limiting the living things to humans and their surroundings.
"ownership" in ecological systems may be a description of a living thing acquiring access to resources for their own use, could be a group of living things. the act of establishing a territory and defending it conveys a sense of ownership which is quite familiar to humans. territorial behaviors in social animals, e.g. wolves, is well documented.
here there is no "right" to have a territory, these must be actively defended and in the process lost to other groups. having a territory generally provides the resources for the group and their young which are required to survive. however, there is no guarantee that the territory be productive, and failure of the prey species results in the death of the "owning" group.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jan 27, 2019 - 11:36pm PT
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^^^ I told you that I'm not going to dance with you, Ed.
Your account provides for no morality and nothing other than "might makes right." Talk about "inadequate."
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jan 27, 2019 - 11:40pm PT
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Flip Flop, I don't think that anything on your list qualifies as "socialism."
With everything on your list, I purchase a direct benefit to myself via my taxes or being part of the particular "collective" to which you refer. But when my taxes are take to "redistribute" to, say, some corporation, well, then entirely other people than me benefit from my money.
If GM gets bailed out, and GM then turns around and gives a massive bonus to the CEO, well, then that's my money going into that bonus. I never agreed to that "collective," and I get no direct benefit from my FORCED participation in that "collective."
If you don't agree, then I guess that you actually do favor corporate welfare! After all, I guess it's all "socialism."
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 28, 2019 - 12:11am PT
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I told you that I'm not going to dance with you, Ed.
ok with me...
Preference Transitivity and Symbolic Representation in Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus apella)
Elsa Addessi , Alessandra Mancini, Lara Crescimbene, Camillo Padoa-Schioppa, Elisabetta Visalberghi
Abstract
Background
Can non-human animals comprehend and employ symbols? The most convincing empirical evidence comes from language-trained apes, but little is known about this ability in monkeys. Tokens can be regarded as symbols since they are inherently non-valuable objects that acquire an arbitrarily assigned value upon exchange with an experimenter. Recent evidence suggested that capuchin monkeys, which diverged from the human lineage 35 million years ago, can estimate, represent and combine token quantities. A fundamental and open question is whether monkeys can reason about symbols in ways similar to how they reason about real objects.
Methodology/Principal Findings
Here we examined this broad question in the context of economic choice behavior. Specifically, we assessed whether, in a symbolic context, capuchins' preferences satisfy transitivity - a fundamental trait of rational decision-making. Given three options A, B and C, transitivity holds true if A≥B, B≥C and A≥C (where ≥ indicates preference). In this study, we trained monkeys to exchange three types of tokens for three different foods. We then compared choices monkeys made between different types of tokens with choices monkeys made between the foods. Qualitatively, capuchins' preferences revealed by the way of tokens were similar to those measured with the actual foods. In particular, when choosing between tokens, monkeys displayed strict economic preferences and their choices satisfied transitivity. Quantitatively, however, values measured by the way of tokens differed systematically from those measured with the actual foods. In particular, for any pair of foods, the relative value of the preferred food increased when monkeys chose between the corresponding tokens.
Conclusions/Significance
These results indicate that indeed capuchins are capable of treating tokens as symbols. However, as they do so, capuchins experience the cognitive burdens imposed by symbolic representation.
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