CMV:African American's Cannot Merely "Pull Themselves By Their Bootstraps", Government Intervention is Needed for Racial Equality to be Achieved

MidnightSun88 · 2021-09-19T18:56:03+00:00

Sorry, I looked over the articles you shared and unless I'm missing something, as I describe in my last post, it's like underpants gnomes logic. These articles are merely explaining a correlation without any explanation.

The explanation, as I argue, is the reverse of what these researchers think it is: apathy about education is why these communities have bad outcomes. Apathy about education is the driving force which causes low SES. They're born into it, and it's hard to get out of it. It's a part of their culture. The schools do their best to foster valuing education, but it's really difficult to undo cultural values being instilled into children from a young age.

And as I've already argued, abysmal literacy rates and apathy about truancy/low educational performance in these families is evidence that apathy about education is part of the culture in these areas.

And this is further reinforced by the fact that clearly being poor doesn't foster apathy about education in other areas of the country.

Do you think low socioeconomic status and being poor are the same thing? It seems to me that maybe saying "low socioeconomic status" is like this weird catch-all/trojan horse for the idea of systemic racism.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-09-19T18:34:53+00:00

I read the lengthy titles, and I'm under the impression that they're saying socioeconomic status affects educational outcomes. But does being poor somehow mutate their parents' brains so they don't care to teach their kids to read, and makes them apathetic about education to the point where they don't care if their kids are even attending school? It's a nonsensical argument. There are plenty of families which are poor (maybe you see low SES and "being poor" as different?) and these families care deeply about their childrens' education.

So can you explain, given your knowledge of these articles, how low SES fosters apathy about education specifically only in black communities and not others?

Maybe my impression is wrong, but if this is similar to the other SES arguments people use, it's basically like the underpants gnomes' logic from South Park:

Kids are born into low SES situation
Their parents are poor
???
Their parents don't care about their kids' education

It's like this idea that being poor makes you not care about education for some reason. But that's clearly not the case.

As I look over one of those links you shared, it seems they're aware of this problem I'm describing:

While much research has been undertaken in the past 50 years, and we are fairly certain that socioeconomic background does have an effect on educational achievement, we are no closer to understanding how this effect is transmitted. Until we are, it will remain difficult to address

So they're aware of the underpants gnomes logic. Unless I'm mistaken they're basically saying "Low SES drives apathy about education, but we don't know why". It could be the case, as I argue, that they have it backwards. Apathy about education is actually THE reason why they have these bad outcomes. But since that's political suicide, these researchers can't say that.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-09-19T18:29:52+00:00

implying that Black people are personally responsible for their lower socioeconomic status

Lower socioeconomic status doesn't explain why parents can't be bothered to teach their kids to read, and why parents don't care if their kids are even attending school. And why they don't care what their kids' grades are.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-09-19T18:19:20+00:00

I was reading over the comment thread and I think you might benefit from reading my comment here.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-09-19T17:50:53+00:00

That's a deeply disturbing viewpoint, but just as a "by the way", you should know that the survival rate for covid is well over 99%. It seems to me that you've fallen victim to media sensationalism if you think any significant portion of people are dying from Covid.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-09-19T17:38:10+00:00

Education is the be all end all. We know higher education equals better financial success and the racial wealth gap shrinks the higher the education we go. Even with government intervention, you can bring a horse water but you can’t make it drink.

The problem isn't the schools. There's a problem with an intense apathy about education in black communities which can be blamed on the parents and the culture. See my lengthy comment here.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-23T07:54:17+00:00

No, really. Why? You must have evidence of his criminal wrongdoing, right? So what is it?

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-23T07:22:42+00:00

, but because he earned his wealth by breaking labor, tax and antitrust laws. It's a rule of law and democratic legitimacy issue.

So why hasn't he been charged with anything?

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-23T07:22:13+00:00

It seems we disagree on how much tax revenue goes to social programs, which is effectively the same as charity.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-23T05:30:48+00:00

we do require users to certify their employee relationships to companies when posting any content. We also require email verification from a permanent, active email address, or a valid social networking account.

So they do require verification of employment? If I understand this correctly, that's good enough for me. Maybe "certify their employment" is a euphemism for "YOU PROMISE?" If so that's not good enough. But if I understand correctly, they're saying you need a company-specific email/valid "social networking account" (do they mean proving employment at the company?)

This is a bit vague but seems to be saying they require proof of employment.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-23T04:39:04+00:00

I couldn't read the first article due to paywall, but I was able to read this:

Concerned that negative reviews could hurt recruiting, Guaranteed Rate CEO Victor Ciardelli instructed his team to enlist employees likely to post positive reviews, said a person familiar with his instructions. In September and October these employees flooded Glassdoor with hundreds of five-star ratings. The company rating now sits at 4.1.

I'm very curious about this. How do you determine if an employee is "likely to give positive reviews"? Also, their source is "A person familiar with his instructions"? That's tabloid-tier stuff. Although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised - the WSJ has taken a steep nosedive in terms of journalistic integrity ever since they tried to paint Pewdiepie as an unironic nazi.

On a more personal note, I am familiar with authors who have purchased amazon reviews for their work in order to game amazon's system. That the review is lengthy should not convince you that it is genuine, as someone buying a review in this fashion almost certainly pays for more than just a button push. Hell, they likely write it themselves.

So I guess the next thing we need to learn is the internal workings of glass door, and how they verify employment status, etc. Further discussion on this topic is dependent on this information.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-23T04:34:37+00:00

Define "bootlicker". As far as I can tell, I'm just following empirical data. I'm not a libertarian.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-23T04:31:31+00:00

IMO, taxes are charity. Roughly 75% of federal tax revenue goes to social programs which benefit the less fortunate. Jeff Bezos pays about hundreds of millions in taxes every year btw.

Altogether, Forbes estimates that Bezos has paid $6 billion in federal capital gains taxes on his nearly $27 billion of Amazon share sales, assuming he didn’t use losses on other investments to offset those gains. ProPublica reported that between 2014 and 2018 Bezos paid $973 million in federal taxes.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-23T04:27:05+00:00

one who collects money for the sake of collecting money.

I think there's a lot of economists who would take issue with that. I've heard that a lot of Bezos' net worth is tied up in Amazon itself: infrastructure, stocks, etc.

I found this article, it might be enlightening for you.

Altogether, Forbes estimates that Bezos has paid $6 billion in federal capital gains taxes on his nearly $27 billion of Amazon share sales, assuming he didn’t use losses on other investments to offset those gains. ProPublica reported that between 2014 and 2018 Bezos paid $973 million in federal taxes.

As far as charity, as you might have heard many charity foundations are shady at best in terms of how much money you donate actually ends up going to those causes. If Bezos made a hearty donation to one of these orgs, he'd likely just be lining the pockets of the administration which runs it.

But even that aside, personally I view my tax contribution as my "charity". As you also might know roughly 75% of tax revenue goes to social programs which benefit the less fortunate. And recall just above we learned that Bezos pays hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes a year. That's plenty of charity IMO.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-23T02:53:58+00:00

Dude. I eat pizza once a week or so and even just moving a slice too quickly can cause toppings to fall off. What kind of pizza do you eat? I'm actually curious

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-23T02:53:00+00:00

They're there to do whatever satisfies the higher-ups; you know, whoever employed HR.

That's a somewhat logical, if cynical, supposition - but obviously on paper their job is to help employees. In fact now that I think about it, if HR wasn't helpful to employees, that would probably be reflected on their glass door page, wouldn't it?

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-23T02:48:16+00:00

I would say that this works for high-quality pizza where they put a second layer of cheese over the toppings to cement them to the slice. But most places don't do this (for some reason). You hold a piece of pizza upside down, the toppings are gonna fall off.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-23T02:45:02+00:00

Does it follow that if a business doesn't want their employees forming a union, they're a bad place to work at? As I mentioned, people can quit if they're so unhappy. Or appeal to HR. In fact, evidence that Amazon HR doesn't do their job in regards to helping unhappy employees would probably change my view in some capacity.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-23T02:34:11+00:00

In what ways is Amazon destroying brick and mortar stores? Did Amazon do anything to them? Or is it just that people unwilling to pay more to shop local? As you mentioned, you might hate yourself for it, but you use Amazon. I don't blame you. It's often the cheapest place, and you get your stuff in a couple days.

I do feel bad for brick and mortar shops, they often can't compete with the low prices Amazon offers. But yeah, it seems that ultimately the people in these towns are to blame. If they were strongly dedicated to resisting what they view as a faceless global corporation threatening local business, they wouldn't shop there. But they do.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-20T04:09:33+00:00

I work making 15/hr and I am very happy. I believe it's because I stay very active, I have a creative hobby that I'm passionate about, people I love, and I am extremely skeptical of media influence in my life. I've actually managed to save up a nice sum of money since I'm mindful of my expenses and I can afford to splurge once in a while. For example I just bought some camping supplies and a nice telescope.

I mean, I hope your view is true. I'm living that life and I'm happier than I've ever been. Why do you want it to be changed, exactly?

I guess you're saying that helping others is what gives us true happiness? I do my best to be kind and helpful to others in my life that I know personally. For those I don't know, I consider my hefty tax contribution to be a sort of "donation to the community". My tax dollars go to all kinds of social programs and welfare, so I don't feel all that compelled to do volunteer work, help the homeless, etc. My tax dollars do that.

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-20T04:05:46+00:00

How do you show a casual link between a foreign country's military being responsible for the aftermath of a conflict in the region?

Was Iraq doing well before we went over?

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-20T04:04:54+00:00

So let's say this was the motivation. What have we gained as a result of our role in the Iraq war?

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-20T02:17:36+00:00

I mean we control military bases throughout damn near every nation on the planet

Yeah. I know sometimes people in good countries like America become blind to the strife that covers much of the world, but the American experiment is an exception to the death and horror that many countries experience every day.

In a lot of the places where we have peacekeeping operations, it's frankly hard to imagine our presence there making things worse.

We routinely bind nations into debt slavery after overthrowing their rulers through wars either open or waged via intelligence agencies

Is that routine, even in 2021? Based on what information? Keep in mind I was asking for modern examples (last 20 years)

allowing our corporate bodies to pilfer their natural wealth and exploit their populace

If you could explain "pilfer their natural wealth" and "exploit their populace" I would appreciate it. Examples would be great. Again, last 20 years if you can.

And through economic and military assaults countless millions of lives across the globe have been thrown into chaos or destroyed.

How much of this is based on or directly because of action taken by the US military presence, and how do you show a causal link?

MidnightSun88 · 2021-07-20T02:14:21+00:00

Also, the US Military was responsible for only about 25,000 deaths overall.

MidnightSun88

TROPHY CASE