Saturday, December 16, 2017

Are You A Self Made Person?

I have believed for a long time that most "successful people" owe much of "their success" to luck. Of course most of those "successful people" also have big egos and are very resistant to this simple logical concept.

This a post I did in 2010 that discussed the topic. G2A Beliefs, Environment and Choice And the following link does an excellent job of addressing it also. VOX Why the myth of a perfect meritocracy is so pernicious Here are some interesting quotes.
"I mentioned a study in the book that is quite chilling on this point. It found that kids from lower-income families who scored in the top quartile on math tests in the eighth grade were less likely to graduate from college than students who scored in the bottom quartile in math but happened to be born into homes in which their parents were in the top third of income distribution. This is a very troubling statistic, and it says quite a lot about why and how people succeed in this country." 
"You cite a revealing statistic in the book, which is that the correlation between parents’ income and children’s income in America is the same as the correlation between parents’ height and their children’s height. If true, that’s awfully instructive."
Why is it so hard for us to look at these facts with clear eyes?
"The cynical view is that the people who have succeeded are just trying to reinforce their claim to the bounty they've captured. But you don't need to go there. A plausible interpretation is that it's just a consequence of normal human cognition: You try to build your life story from ingredients that you can summon in memory. The people who succeed often worked hard, and that's easy to remember. 
What they don't remember are all those seemingly inconsequential events that changed the trajectory of their lives: a committed teacher who steered them out of trouble, an early promotion thanks to a friend or family connection, the luxury of a second chance. Those sorts of things are rare, but they're important and often life-altering. They are also, importantly, not a product of our conscious effort. They happened to us, you might say."
Now though I have taken good advantage of the blessings I have been given in life, I can list many of them and understand that things could have ended up very different...  Some include:

  • Born in the USA to smart hard working still married highly educated Parents who took the time to care for, coach, correct, tutor, hug, etc me.
  • Raised by somewhat stingy upper middle class Parents who taught me the value of living below my means, saving often and investing consistently. (ie children learn from role models: good or bad)
  • Since I drank a lot of alcohol in late High School and Early College, I was so lucky not be killed, arrested (ie not seriously at least) or to flunk out school.
  • I married a smart stable woman who has been willing to put up with all my unique eccentricities for over 25 years.  And we have both stayed relatively healthy.
  • And someday I will likely inherit well and continue "My Wonderful Life"
  • I am just praying that I never start believing that I deserved this due to "MY DOING" !!!
  • I put Gratitude and Humility in my G2A Principles for that reason.

The big question then being a Christian who loves being charitable and helping others to improve their lives is...  HOW DO WE AS A SOCIETY HELP MORE CHILDREN BE LUCKY?

While many Conservatives choose to ignore the LUCK in their lives.  Preferring instead to say that they are "SELF MADE PEOPLE", and that OTHERS WHO DON'T MAKE IT ARE LAZY, IRRESPONSIBLE, STUPID or SINFUL...  And/or blaming the government for the poor choices made by these individuals and families.  And with these limiting beliefs in mind, they fight tooth and nail to avoid sharing their good fortune with their much less fortunate fellow citizens via taxes or charitable giving.

The Liberals choose to ignore that many of the people who are failing generation after generation need some real tough love to change their learned / modeled beliefs, habits, etc.  Instead they seem to believe that if we keep giving them services and money with few expectations and little accountability for meeting them... These people who are locked in generational poverty will by some miracle adopt Lifes Greatest Lessons and start living by them.

On the upside I will likely have blog content for as long as I choose to keep doing this. 😎


27 comments:

Anonymous said...

No. I am very much aware that I stand on the shoulders of not just giants but many others who have gone before.

—hiram

John said...

Yes, however you are a liberal. (for the most part)

And that supports the point of the VOX article.

Now if Jerry replies that "he is a self made man"...

We will have confirmed both points. :-)

jerrye92002 said...

I prefer to think of my good fortune as a result of capitalism. If each of us had to invent our own computers from scratch, we would not have them. Instead, over generations we built upon electricity, vacuum tubes, transistors, integrated circuits and all those other things-- KNOWLEDGE capital-- to let us do far more than we could with quill pen and parchment.

Self-made? Yes and no. I must say that I took advantage of the opportunities available to me. And I think the mistake we like to make these days is to assume that government can magically make things "nice" for everybody, and it just cannot. I believe it is more likely that government can prevent opportunity, rather than create it, just as they can prevent wealth but not create it. Maybe if government would get over this fantabulous notion, the rest of us might step up and create real equal opportunity for all, and then let natural inclinations sort folks out accordingly.

John said...

Well thank you for staying the stereotypical Far Right Conservative, it seems the VOX article is right on point. :-)

John said...

Now what could "government do to help" with this disturbing situation?

"It found that kids from lower-income families who scored in the top quartile on math tests in the eighth grade were less likely to graduate from college than students who scored in the bottom quartile in math but happened to be born into homes in which their parents were in the top third of income distribution."

What would a tight walleted / govt't bad far Right Individual recommend?

John said...

Or this disturbing statistic?

"the correlation between parents’ income and children’s income in America is the same as the correlation between parents’ height and their children’s height."

Now I am a strong believer that the adult(s) raising the child(ren) are by far the biggest influence in their development. Some may escape this shadow or fall out of that sun, but it is unusual.

Now how does a "let the parents" conservative plan to break the this generational reality.

"a object in motion stays in motion until another force acts on it..."

jerrye92002 said...

"What would a tight walleted / govt't bad far Right Individual recommend?"

Here's a far right idea, but common sense like most "far right" ideas: Instead of having government take money from the successful to redistribute, how about people keep their money with a government-offered incentive to buy K-12 and college scholarships for poor kids? How about incentives for parents to marry, help their kids with school, and get a REAL education? How about government stops promoting black youth unemployment? Poor kids cannot afford college? What a surprise.

Maybe we should just turn this around. How does any major government initiative break your "generational reality"? You shouldn't be criticizing "right wing" solutions until you can offer at least ONE solution that you think is not.

John said...

First of all we already give people a tax deduction for charitable giving and the "American Giving Rate is still pretty low". And if you subtract the "Church Giving" that much of goes to pay staff, fund the buildings, etc (ie not truly help people)... It gets even lower.

And the reality is that "incentives" cost money also. And often they help people who don't need helping.

As for alternatives... G2A Baby Makers or Parents

John said...

Simple issue: Pre-Conception to Age 5 are most important.

Summary of some of the best ideas

Make it easy to avoid birth of unwanted babies or ease their adoption to capable Parents who want them..
- Make Long Acting Reversible Contraception easily available and free.
- Make morning after pill easily available and free.
- Make first term abortions easily available and low cost.
- Make birth costs / adoptions very inexpensive.

Support and train Mamas / Papas and hold them accountable
- Increase ECFE and other programs
- Get kids into Pre-K Early
- Have Teachers grade Parents on basics. (kids fed, clean, attending school, doing home work, etc parents attending conferences, taking action, etc)

jerrye92002 said...

There you go again, punishing parents who do not measure up to YOUR standards. All of those things you want are already here, and have been for a while, yet it is not working.
-Roughly 40% of pregnancies end in abortion. How many more do you want?
-Roughly 70% of black children are born out of wedlock. How much higher do you want that to go?
-Most studies show that government-run ECFE and pre-K programs do not confer any lasting educational advantage.
--And having teachers grade parents? Isn't that like the employees rating the boss, and mandating behavior?
What is wrong with, rather than all sticks, put out some carrots?

John said...

First, get yours facts straight

"•Nearly half (45%) of all pregnancies among U.S. women in 2011 were unintended, and about four in 10 of these were terminated by abortion.[1]
•Nineteen percent of pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) in 2014 ended in abortion"

Now let's remember my first bullet. My first priority would be to get the "unintended pregnancy" number down into the low single digits. Then the abortion, adoption and addicted baby issues pretty much go away. Just think of all the little babies one would save. And yet Conservatives resist...

The next priority is the Morning After pill which eliminates some cells long before they have had a chance to have brain or heartbeat. And yet the Conservative resist...

Is it easier to judge people and their behaviors than to just help them stay out of trouble?

John said...

As for 70% born out of wedlock... See above...

Not sure what your point is...

Please remember that my goal is to make it easy and cheap for every woman in America to avoid being pregnant with a baby who they are not ready to care for appropriately.

Let's put the kids first, not your moral judgments.

CNN Forget Abortion... This is what Women really want

John said...

As for ECFE, Headstart, etc, to make a difference they have to be required participation and learning for every Mama / Papa who is receiving government welfare of any kind. And the number of hours in class need to be significant.

And yes the mature trained adults do get to grade the immature poor low education Mamas / Papas. That is how people learn and improve.

Please remember the core problem, Mom / Dad are "not successful"...

They are not successful for a reason...

The child's primary role models are modeling failed beliefs / behaviors.

John said...

Remember the different areas where these folks need help...

Education, Family and Community, Health

jerrye92002 said...

Sounds like a chicken/egg problem the way you describe it. Nobody teaches baby mama the value of abstinence until marriage, nobody teaches baby daddy the necessity to support his offspring, nobody teaches either parent the value and dignity of getting and holding a job rather than randying about aimlessly. Nobody in government offers to help them get a job, or how to care for a kid, or how to pick a good school/pre-school for the kid. Just exactly how does this miracle of "accountable" take place? Are you going to punish people for not making the right choice when you haven't offered them a choice? Show me that government program which says, "If you will refrain from sex, we will help you find a good job."

Abstinence is free. B/C pills are nearly so, and condoms are pretty cheap unless you are a real Lothario. Yet we have all these "unintended pregnancies" anyway. There is a whole system of perverse incentives out there, most caused by government policy of one kind or another. "More of the same" is not going to reverse the terrible result.

Anonymous said...

'"More of the same" is not going to reverse the terrible result.'

'More of the same' is exactly what you are asking for. Liberals want education and access, which has been proven to work to bring down the numbers of unintended pregnancies and abortions.

Moose

John said...

Jerry,
You did not read the link... Did you.

Here it is again. Again you are so busy judging that you prefer abortions over real prevention.

CNN Forget Abortion... This is what Women really want

"She lives in Lexington now but never forgets where she's from. She recalls the abstinence-only education she got in grade school and how two of the seven girls in her class got pregnant before the end of eighth grade. One miscarried; the other married."

"The abstinence pledge and promise ring didn't keep Cheryl from becoming sexually active. They didn't protect her from being gang-raped. And they didn't prevent the loss of her fertility."

John said...

As for cost of reliable long term reversible contraception... From the linked article.

"If an IUD is approved by insurance, it's often on a "buy and bill" basis, meaning the patient must pay for it up-front, she says. At $600 to $800 a pop, she says, that's usually a deal-breaker.

This means that for a woman experiencing heavy bleeding, it can be easier to get a hysterectomy, which is covered by insurance, than it is to manage the problem with a simple form of birth control, she says.

"The algorithms of who gets what, I will never understand," Branham says."

John said...

Moose,
You are correct. The Religious Right seems dedicated to keeping poor women uneducated pregnant and poor. And worse yet they want to blame them for their situation.

"Gov. Matt Bevin, they say, is hell-bent on outlawing abortion. Under him, state officials are threatening to close Kentucky's only abortion clinic. And though a pre-abortion ultrasound requirement was recently struck down, Bevin signed into law a ban on abortions after 20 weeks. Meantime, the Trump administration has rolled back Obamacare's contraceptive coverage requirement and proposed a budget that would cut programs to prevent teen pregnancy -- while sinking millions more into abstinence-only education."

jerrye92002 said...

Sorry, but the Religious Right is an anonymous and exclusive club, so none of us can POSSIBLY know to what they are "dedicated." And that sort of blame-casting doesn't fly with me. Just because some stereotypical group supposedly holds some straw-man view that you get to both describe and dislike, does not prove all such viewpoints incorrect.

Back to the issue. If none of us are "self-made," but rather benefited from all those around us past and present, then are we not all responsible for not doing enough to make those opportunities available for others to "make it" likewise? And if we choose government, rather than private initiatives like HCZ, to offer those opportunities, whose fault is it that the current situation permits losing such vast amounts of human potential? We are not talking theoretical futures, here. The question is how to get from what IS, to what we all say we want, taking into account all the foibles of human nature as conditioned by circumstance. I'm not hearing it.

John said...

Jerry,
Seemingly the ladies of Kentucky agree that their problems are in part caused by government.

Of course they are complaining about the things you support...

The Religious Right policies that block a thorough sex education curriculum. And strive to keep them from low cost readily available long acting reliable birth control, morning after pills, readily available first term abortions, etc.

So I am with them that it is folks like you who are responsible for us losing all that potential and driving all those government expenditures.

As I said before, our goal should be that children are only born to those who truly want them and are ready for them. Ensuring that training is complete and "guard rails" are easily available to young women is in the country's best interest.

Where as you seem to prefer helping them by not teaching them to drive and having them drive slippery steep roads with no guard rails. Meaning that any error by this inexperienced young person will be traumatic, debilitating and life changing for them and their kid(s).

John said...

Maybe when my kids were learning to ride a bike, I should have:
- simply told them - don't fall
- then pushed them down a steep hill with no training wheels or brakes

I mean isn't that the Religious Rights philosophy? We should:

- teach them little except "don't have sex", even
though your hormones are raging and you are surrounded
by messages regarding it in our society...

- make sure that birth control and morning after pills
are hard to get, so if they do make an error, the results
cost them a great deal in the short, and possibly long term

- shame any young woman who does make an error.

- punish the child by not helping them with early
childhood education classes, and mandatory parental
training for the young woman who has proven
herself irresponsible

Now before you say it... Yes I am focused on the Mom. These could apply to the Father also.

jerrye92002 said...

Oh, I see. Eugenics will solve this problem.

As for what the Religious Right wants or proposes or whatever, I have no idea. I don't recognize anything I believe in your straw-man arguments. Are you really going to insist that our 70% out-of-wedlock birth rate is the result of abstinence-only sex ed?

Let me ask one more time. How is the current "let-George-do it" government-run "program" fixing all of these problems? If you don't want to blame government-- I do-- then you still need to define how government can change the existing programs to achieve a better result.

John said...

Such silly statements. Here is a definition of eugenics.

Eugenics: "the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the Nazis."

Since my program is volunteer only and has no control method, I think we are pretty safe.

Now please remember that women with money already have access to long acting reversible contraception, all I am proposing is to give young poor women the same easy access.

Where as your goal seems to keep it hard for them, the result is that they stay poor.

John said...

Very simple. Government should ensure all young people:

- have a thorough and complete sex education

- have easy inexpensive access to long acting reliable contraception

And 50 percent of all pregnancies are unplanned, yes I would say that poor sex education and poor access to good birth control are REAL BIG PROBLEMS...

John said...

Now if you truly want to end abortions and poverty, help these young people not get pregnant until they truly believe they are ready.

Or is it more fulfilling for you to judge and shame them for not being abstinent?

jerrye92002 said...

I am having a lot of trouble with your thinking.
"Very simple. Government should ensure all young people: have a thorough and complete sex education, have easy inexpensive access to long acting reliable contraception"

Other than "long lasting," how is that different than what we have today, provided by government? What CHANGE are you proposing to make the current government "contribution" to this sad state of affairs better?

"Now if you truly want to end abortions and poverty, help these young people not get pregnant until they truly believe they are ready."

So, what you are suggesting is that we should be teaching them some VALUES? Like the value of abstinence and the value of marriage? Maybe the value of an education? Gee, what a novel idea.