How many of you really think it is possible??

[nonseq]

I'm trying to remember something I was told when I was in school. Something about American mythos of hope, of Average Joe making good, of rags to riches, of an orphan being put on a train, shipped out West and succeeding! becoming a rich rich man....of entrepreneurial endeavor ALWAYS pays off....That that story, that myth, is so embedded in our souls that we refuse to see the reality of exactly who makes good and why or that most small businesses fail - usually due to owner's missteps, not the govt. That as long as we sincerely believe that anybody can pull himself up by his bootstraps, we will never demand change. As long as we blame the individual entirely for his success or failure, we will not see the effect that others of a society have on the individual.

I dunno if I am making sense.


Bread and circuses and religion and the sick certainty that it is always someone else's fault keep us quiescent.


This actually does relate to the topic. Maybe I should make a youtube video.......see how that flies.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Interesting thoughts. Can anyone still make it? Ask Bill Gates.

I believe having a chance to succeed includes having a chance to fail. If you don't allow failure, you do not allow success. I'm afraid we are on the way of not allowing failure when it is well earned.

Editted to remove a story that I don't think really adds to the conversation.

 

[Dunkopf]

Quote:
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You are on the computer....Google it. It's a rabid, foaming at the mouth, far left website, and it definately is not filled with the Kumbaya Love, which the left claims, as their final goal.

There is nothing, that self serving politicians love more than an apathetic constituency. As long as everyone can be dealt a modicum of happiness and contentment, then, they can put their agendas into place, without any resistance.....Well, what has happened, in the last 4 years, is that these politicians saw no reason to turn up the heat, slowly, on the frog boiling kettle, and that was their mistake. All of these frogs, which have been basking in the 140 degree water, suddenly realize that it's getting hot, and are starting to hop out of the kettle.

Now, the politicians, instead of recognizing their mistake, are wanting to blame the frogs, for not staying in the kettle.

Remember this, politicians are our servants, not our rulers....They are not smarter than us, and it is not their place to enact legislation, just because they think it will be good for us.

There is definately something wrong with the system, when a very small minority, of the population, can force the majority to bend to their will, thus, taking away the freedom of the majority.

Here's something else the politicians haven't thought about. When you continually raise taxes and fees on the people, who have been living the laissez faire, apathetic lifestyle, and suddenly, they can't afford the car or the food or the house, which they believe is their God given right, people start to wake up and get restless. I see all of this, as a good thing.....Politicians are the ones who need to wake up, every morning and toe the line, not the populace.

I fully agree with everything you just said. Good post.

 

[Dunkopf]

Quote:
I understood it and fully agree

 

[Dunkopf]

Quote:
I like your pre-edited post better. That story has a lot to do with it. It very closely mimics our system.

Yes Bill gates made it big. Look at the kid that did Facebook. Some people also fall out of planes and survive. The chance for that kind of success is there for all of us. The odds are about the same or less as losing the Powerball Lottery. If you grow up in the right family you have a much better chance than most. Does anyone think Bush would have been anything other than a drug addict if he didn't have a very wealthy powerful family? The same can be said for a lot of politicians on both sides. Bush was just the first to come to mind. Obama has a story about the poor disadvantaged child do good. He had grandparents that were very supportive and made sure he had chances. Would he have had the same results if he grew up with a crack head for a mother and had a hard time getting something to eat. The fact is that our chances are not all even. Some people come from the lucky sperm club and are destined to always be in good financial condition. others have a lot of help but still have to work very hard at it. Others don't stand a chance.

The problem is that the groups on both ends are getting bigger and the one in the center keeps getting smaller.

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

nonseq,

It goes like this. Horatio Alger was a minister who wrote moving, compelling novels of young men working very hard and being good and moving from abject poverty to comfortable sort of like middle class. There are no riches, but it just doesn't have that rags to riches ring does it? The novels were about hard work and being good. The jibed nicely with the Calvinistic belief that success is god's reward for you being good. In that system you worked hard and made lots of money. The more money you made the more god loved you. BUT, you were not supposed to spend your wealth on yourself in ostentatious displays. It was to be reinvested in your business for the good of the community.

Sound familiar? This ties in nicely with Adam Smith's "invisible hand of the market" stuff. Adam Smith was completely right a couple of hundred years ago. In those days you lived near your factory, you saw it and your workers every day. Money you paid them was spent right there. So, we adopted these ideas as core american values: you should work hard (we loathe sloth) you should be god fearing, and people succeed because they worked hard and god loves them.

Later on in our history John Nash wrote something called game theory. (John Nash of a Beautiful Mind fame?) The original theory was designed to be used in military maneuvers in attempting to anticipate the enemies' moves. It tied in well to the cold war paranoia especially since Nash was paranoid! Originally the game was called F you buddy! No, I am not making that up.

Nash' theory about how to determine what decisions people would make was extrapolated out to alot of things other than war. Things like social policy and even marriage counseling. Nash now says he is appalled that it was extrapolated out so far. In a wonderful interview a few years back he said, "I was very ill when I wrote that!"

But, in the 80s a new school of thought called neo-liberal economics took hold. One of its major players was Milton Friedman. Friedman was a huge fan of Ayn Rand and others who believed in Adam Smith taken to the nth degree. Friedman was Reagan's economic adviser. The idea was that based on Nash's theory you could winnow out people's motivations entirely to rewards. The thinking is that people make all of their decisions based rationally on what is in their own self interest. It also assumes that everyone is behaving this way so you need to protect yourself and get there first. There is alot of self determination and freedom in it. It leaves out any version of altruism or sense of a greater good or selflessness. It is simply not built in. But, since it ties in to what we already believe about hard work and success it takes hold like nobodies business.

So, here we are. Economic and social policy based in large part on a paranoid schizophrenic's world view. even Friedman admitted that toward the end of his life he realized that deregulation had gone too far. That you cannot tell people to always look out for only themselves and take away any rules. People stopped doing what was in the best interest of their firms and started looking out only for themselves. It got ugly. It IS ugly.

Nothing of what we are facing will change until some of these ideas are given their proper burial. Dan Ariely proved conclusively that people do what we all know to be true - we make financial decisions based on emotion. We spend money when we are sad. We buy things to prove something to some one else when we cannot afford it. We are highly irrational creatures.

We are also altruistic much of the time. We just need to get back to Horatio's original premise. Work hard, do good works, obey the rules and you will be made comfortable.

 

[nonseq]

Thank you! It's been a long time since I studied any of that.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The thinking is that people make all of their decisions based rationally on what is in their own self interest.

I kinda sorta agree with some of this. What is rational to some people is not necessarily rational to others. How many people do you know that wake up and say "I am going to make nothing but irrational decisions today", yet I can think of people that seem to make a lot of what I consider irrational decisions. I consider most of them as sane (or more so) than I am. I'd like to think some of my decisions are based on what is in the best interests of my grandchildren more than my own immediate self-interest. I don't agree that we are irrational creatures. We just have different rationalities since we have different personalities and experiences. Why would anyone jump out of a perfectly good airplane? To some, that would be an irrational decision. To some, it is perfectly natural.

Since you used the term, I thought I'd look it up. This is a Wikipedia definition, so take it for what it is worth.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of the process of thinking and of emotional responsiveness.[1] It most commonly manifests as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social or occupational dysfunction. The onset of symptoms typically occurs in young adulthood, with a global lifetime prevalence of around 0.3–0.7%.[2] Diagnosis is based on the patient's self-reported experiences and observed behavior.

Genetics, early environment, neurobiology, psychological and social processes appear to be important contributory factors; some recreational and prescription drugs appear to cause or worsen symptoms. Current research is focused on the role of neurobiology, but this inquiry has not isolated a single organic cause. As a result of the many possible combinations of symptoms, there is debate about whether the diagnosis represents a single disorder or a number of discrete syndromes. Despite the etymology of the term from the Greek roots skhizein (σχίζειν, "to split") and phrēn, phren- (φρήν, φρεν-; "mind"), schizophrenia does not imply a "split mind" and it is not the same as dissociative identity disorder—also known as "multiple personality disorder" or "split personality"—a condition with which it is often confused in public perception

So, here we are. Economic and social policy based in large part on a paranoid schizophrenic's world view. even Friedman admitted that toward the end of his life he realized that deregulation had gone too far. That you cannot tell people to always look out for only themselves and take away any rules. People stopped doing what was in the best interest of their firms and started looking out only for themselves. It got ugly. It IS ugly.

While as a child of the 60's I do not consider paranoia or delusions as totally bad things, I agree with your conclusion. I had good friends who were paranoid and/or delusional. I just did not enhance those qualities within myself with drug use. Maybe I was boring, but I had some uses. You have to have rules, both for businesses and for people. Your civilization and society is defined by how you balance those rules with enough freedom to succeed or fail. I think our electoral system has done a pretty good job of achieving that balance, although there have been periods of excess.

My main concern now is that with the instant communication available, the system may need to be tweaked to get us back to where we are better balanced. We've always had the demogogues and hate-mongers spreading misinformation and outright lies, playing to people's emotions. Can you think of anything more delusional or irrational than the War of 1812? We had no standing army or navy to speak of. We were not close to a match militarily to the greatest power on earth. We thought that the Canadians were just waiting for an opportunity to jump over to us. Boy, was that a mistake. It was called Mr. Madison's War, although Madison personally opposed it. Yet the Warhawks got their war, although the issue they used most to stir it up, impressing seamen, was settled before war was officially declared. With the lack of communication, we just did not know that the British had changed that policy. Then the one battle at Chalmette Batttlefield that really meant anything was fought after the war had ended. Talk about delusional! Yet we survived and were stronger for it.

I'm not sure what that last part is about. While I am an engineer and don't consider the glass as either half full or half empty, just that the glass is too big (some may want more water), I am at heart an optimist. I think there is hope for us.

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

You might want tot read Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational. Irrationality is not necessarily a bad thing. We are the only species that will run into a burning building to save the life of a stranger. The behavior is clearly irrational and we applaud it. Was the medal of honor winner rational when he went into the lne of fire repeatedly to save his comrades? Of course not. Are parents rational when they sacrifice their savings and their lives for their children? Arguably genetically this may be rational, but it sure doesn't look rational when a teacher risks her life to save some one else's child. The statement is that people make ALL of their decisions this way and that is simply not true.

When you read game theory you can hear how Nash viewed the world as everybody was out to get him. His paranoia really made sense! It WAS rational to be paranoid about the Soviets at that time in that framework. It is not rational to be paranoid about all of your relationships. Again, thats not saying that you shouldn't sometimes recognize that partners cheat both in business and in love and we all need a decent sense of self preservation. There is a healthy balance that was missing in the dialogue for many years.

Heck its still missing.

But, we are irrational about money at least as often as we are rational. We pay too much for something because the commercial is good. We refuse to pay for good quality things because we can get stuff we know will fall apart in two weeks more cheaply. We are always better in our future selves than we are right now. We're going to save, diet, work out whatever tomorrow. And we believe that! Sincerely.

It is our altruism that gives me hope. It is our stubbornness and denial that gives me nightmares.

 

[Royd]

Quote:
Since you asked, because there is no such thing....In my case, because I only bought 1/2 of a ticket.



Since you used the term, I thought I'd look it up. This is a Wikipedia definition, so take it for what it is worth.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of the process of thinking and of emotional responsiveness.[1] It most commonly manifests as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social or occupational dysfunction. The onset of symptoms typically occurs in young adulthood, with a global lifetime prevalence of around 0.3–0.7%.[2] Diagnosis is based on the patient's self-reported experiences and observed behavior.

Genetics, early environment, neurobiology, psychological and social processes appear to be important contributory factors; some recreational and prescription drugs appear to cause or worsen symptoms. Current research is focused on the role of neurobiology, but this inquiry has not isolated a single organic cause. As a result of the many possible combinations of symptoms, there is debate about whether the diagnosis represents a single disorder or a number of discrete syndromes. Despite the etymology of the term from the Greek roots skhizein (σχίζειν, "to split") and phrēn, phren- (φρήν, φρεν-; "mind"), schizophrenia does not imply a "split mind" and it is not the same as dissociative identity disorder—also known as "multiple personality disorder" or "split personality"—a condition with which it is often confused in public perception

So, here we are. Economic and social policy based in large part on a paranoid schizophrenic's world view. even Friedman admitted that toward the end of his life he realized that deregulation had gone too far. That you cannot tell people to always look out for only themselves and take away any rules. People stopped doing what was in the best interest of their firms and started looking out only for themselves. It got ugly. It IS ugly.

While as a child of the 60's I do not consider paranoia or delusions as totally bad things, I agree with your conclusion. I had good friends who were paranoid and/or delusional. I just did not enhance those qualities within myself with drug use. Maybe I was boring, but I had some uses. You have to have rules, both for businesses and for people. Your civilization and society is defined by how you balance those rules with enough freedom to succeed or fail. I think our electoral system has done a pretty good job of achieving that balance, although there have been periods of excess.

My main concern now is that with the instant communication available, the system may need to be tweaked to get us back to where we are better balanced. We've always had the demogogues and hate-mongers spreading misinformation and outright lies, playing to people's emotions. Can you think of anything more delusional or irrational than the War of 1812? We had no standing army or navy to speak of. We were not close to a match militarily to the greatest power on earth. We thought that the Canadians were just waiting for an opportunity to jump over to us. Boy, was that a mistake. It was called Mr. Madison's War, although Madison personally opposed it. Yet the Warhawks got their war, although the issue they used most to stir it up, impressing seamen, was settled before war was officially declared. With the lack of communication, we just did not know that the British had changed that policy. Then the one battle at Chalmette Batttlefield that really meant anything was fought after the war had ended. Talk about delusional! Yet we survived and were stronger for it.

I'm not sure what that last part is about. While I am an engineer and don't consider the glass as either half full or half empty, just that the glass is too big (some may want more water), I am at heart an optimist. I think there is hope for us.