Your Vision of Human Nature

https://www.investopedia.com/articl...can-funds-mutual-funds-long-track-records.asp
https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-average-mutual-fund-return-4773782
Unless your are paying crazy fees 8% looks about right. I’m sure they didn’t pick that number arbitrarily. If you add in employer matching 8% could be on the very low end.

Most people who are poor are not poor because of no opportunity or even lack of work ethic. It’s mostly poor decisions.

 

Both I and my sister got mostly A's in school, yet our two younger brothers struggled with C's and D's. My sister and I have had nice sit down jobs while our brothers have had stand up, physically demanding jobs.

 

Success is:

25% intelligence
25% hard work
25% who you know
25% pure luck

You can be smart and hard working. But if you’re a white male living at a time when corporate America only promotes women and minorities, you’re SOL.

 

Completely wrong. We are born tabula rasa. Whatever your tendencies are develop later. We are a blank slate until sensations become perceptions and perceptions become concepts.
The opposite assertion would have to presuppose some innate prior consciousness which is logically impossible since you would have nothing to be conscious of.

 

Historical note:

In October 1981, the federal government of the United States of America auctioned off thirty-year treasury bonds at a rate of 14.8%, the highest in its recorded history. At the time, the United States was steeped in annual inflation of 10.5%.

 

Most of what I know on the subject comes from reading scientific journals and magazines. I've also read a few books on the subject. I find the twin studies to be quite telling.

The blank slate theory originated with John Locke in his book on human understanding and was in contrast to the Plato/Socrates idea that claimed people were born with all they needed to know.

Most major philosophers of the Enlightenment era wrote a book on human understanding. What I have always thought as a failure in their reasoning was their idea of man in nature. Most of these philosophers began with the idea of man in nature as having been a solidary creature and built up from there. Yet by all indications, man has never existed as solitary creatures. Maybe a person here or there, but humans in general have always been social creatures, just like other primates. This was something that the early philosophers were quite ignorant of and I think it makes their philosophies questionable.

For instance the idea of the social contract. The social contract is based upon the idea that independent solitary men comming together to form a society. Yet men were social animals long before the human spices had fully evolved and into humans. Thus the idea of a social contract does not make as much sense when almost all people cannot live without regular contact with other people. Thus being a part of society is our natural state. We do not need a social contract to exist within a society. In fact it is kind of the other way around. An infant is socialized as it grows up to become a functioning member of society.

I think, as with everything else, one is born with certain potentials. Each of which will be developed depending on the interest and needs of the individual.

I also think that many things are inherited, or generic. Things like intelligence, musical and athletic ability. I have heard more than one educator claim that the best indicator of how well a student will do, is to see how well the parents of that student have done.

I think the most interesting things I have read of late is that identical twins tend to have near identical political views even if they were separated at birth and raised by different families.

The other is the long term studies, where they visit a child every so many years, to get a life long profile, that they have discovered that boys who grow up to be strong liberals, (one who is open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values) tend to have certain dicernable traits as early as age 4 or 5, and other more pronounced traits at around 9 or 10.

 

Not near that simple. I am reminded of a story of the richest man in a small town. He owned a clothing store. He was being interviewed by a reporter from the local newspaper. At the conclusion of the interview the reporter said, "Your story is amazing. Imagine what you could have done if you'd have graduated high school."

The man smiled, looked him right in the eye, and said, "Son, I don't have to imagine where I'd be. I know. I'd be the high school janitor. You see they wouldn't hire me for that job because I didn't graduate high school."

People, you see are strange. Different people will respond quite differently to exactly the same stimulus. One man's idea if success might be another's notion of horror. The boundaries that constrain one the most are those you've established in your own mind.

 

Generally speaking, there are gender differences in interest. Men tend to prefer to work with things and women with people..and the outcome of this tends to be women in professions that don't pay as much. The problem with working with people is that it's hard to scale.

In my Graduate class, I was the only male in a class of about 12-13.

 

Oh, and I think a lot of people are confusing individual anecdotes with population level phenomena.

If I say that:
On average, men are lazier than women (i made this up..but let's pretend I did a study, we totally agreed on the criteria of what made someone lazy, and the study got replicated a million times and each time we had the same result)

If you then bring up the fact that you personally know a woman that is a lot lazier than any male you know..this in no way refutes the point above.

 

You can keep believing this but no real scientist believes this.

 

You are right that I shouldn't have made it political but not sure how it's a non-political topic. Social Science/Humanities research are very biased.

The fact that it's not commonly accepted that interest is a primary determinant of income, and that there exists a clear gender difference in terms of interest, seems largely a result of the left equating any unequal outcome as proof of discrimination/prejudice/sexism.

Only in the social sciences would this be considered science.

It takes two seconds to refute this kind of link but there is literature like this all over the place.

 

That is a great question! Of course, my answer is YES. Even right now during this pandemic, we are expected to use our stimulus money to spend on the economy, to drive our economic engine forward. I think we are seeing this angst about our definition of "success" being played out right now in so many varied ways. We as a country do not seem to have the same definition in mind as more of us grapple with what our society is supposed to be instead of what it has become.

 

The primary reason I asked the question is that I think it is very telling about how we think, or as you accurately stated, how we actually don't think things through.

Thinking things through from the root, where something can't be deduced any further, is first principle thinking. Most people think via analogy.

By asking a question about human nature, we see the implicit assumptions individuals make that lead them to particular positions (ie policy positions..healthcare, education, etc). When people write out their implicit assumptions explicitly, the thoughts don't sound well thought out because they aren't. These assumptions are dormant most of the time.

So, when we have a narrow discussion about healthcare policy, we are having surface discussions (ie you don't want universal healthcare because you're selfish, racist, lack compassion) ..and the proof of this is because (insert analogy). So much easier than thinking things through.

 

most of the atrocities in human history have been caused by complicated people, not simple minded people.

 

thank you for your service, but i disagree because Trump allows the uneducated, lazy, and inferior not to be constrained by environment nor genetics.