The Rich get a little less RichFollow

Possibly, gbaji, but that doesn't mean that your later self is right and your younger self is wrong. There's no guarantee that your life experiences will change you for the better, or that society at large would consider your older self more grown up than your younger self. "Growing up" seems to have a value judgement attached - a poor choice of words, perhaps.

Anyway, you can't judge what Pensive will do either - which of the two of you is likely to have the most insight into his behavior? Him - and I'd hope that is the case. As Pensive previously stated, the only way to know what he'd do if he was rich is for him to aquire wealth in some way.

Good. It wasn't about comparing you to a child, but to illustrate that as our life experiences and perspective changes so do our opinions.



Except that it's unlikely that any amount of normal life experiences are going to make me or you think that child-rape is ok. But a very high percentage of people, after spending a decade or two in the work force, tend to oppose the idea of wealth redistribution. More so if we're looking at people in the middle class (or higher) who've put large amount of their income over the years into investment portfolios and/or started their own businesses.


Do you see how my analogy correctly models the likely change to position on this issue over time, while your analogy does not?



No no no! You're still not getting it. At that point, you'll realize that generosity has to do with you choosing to give to others, and nothing to do with creating a system in which everyone is forced to give up what they have.

You'll think it's silly that you ever thought that not wanting wealth redistribution was a sign of a lack of generosity.


It's your perspective today that makes you assume that generosity and wealth redistribution are related. You'll realize one day that you were wrong. Of course, there will be a new generation of young and foolish kids who'll insist that you're selfish in your beliefs... Gotta love the "circle of life".




I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that it's not generosity, but a desire for martyrdom which motivates you here. I suspect you believe that by denying yourself the "good things" in life, that you somehow gain some kind of moral superiority or something. Dunno. Just guessing.

That's not generosity Pensive. Cause you're not doing anything for anyone else. Ok. Maybe you're doing a little bit. But you'd be a whole lot more generous if you worked really hard for a few decades, amassed a fortune and then started donating it to large charities. You know. Like pretty much all the evil "rich" people do.

Want to know how many millions of dollars are donated to schools, hospitals, theatres, music programs, sports programs, after school programs, in the US every single year? The people who do that are "generous". And they're able to give a lot more because they spent a ton of effort to become wealthy.


You're just being lazy Pensive. It's not the same thing. It's not like I didn't hang out with a whole crowd of people who thought just like you when I was your age. Heck. I was like you when I was your age. And don't get me wrong. It's fun for about 8 or 10 years. Then you realize you'd really like to do something more productive with your life than work part time jobs, hang out with your friends, play games, write poetry, and discuss philosophy...


That or you don't. But that's your choice Pensive. The difference is that I'm not advocating a penalty be applied to yours.

Perhaps. I contemplated replacing it with "maturing", but it's got the same connotations. We really don't have an expression for getting older and having your perspective change on things which doesn't imply that the new perspective is "better" than the earlier one. But that's likely because our society does tend to value the wisdom gained with age.

I honestly didn't mean it in any demeaning way. Again. It's somewhat of a social norm to assume that our decisions get better as we get older, so don't blame me for that assumption...



Nope. By example, it's almost certainly a person who's been through the events who will be better able to predict, not the person himself. Same deal with the "new parents" example I gave earlier. Almost all new parents say the same things. They're sure they're going to do X better, and Y better. Who's better able to predict what they will actually do once they are parents? Yup. People who have already been through it. It's pretty universal. There's a reason why we normally seek advice of those who've got experience with something we're about to do or experience for the first time. Because they know what it will be like. They know how it'll change our lives. And they will have the wisdom to know what choices are likely to be good and which are bad within the context of that new thing.


I tend to bash on Pensive because he's a lot like I was at his age. I was sure I was right about everything (hah! Haven't changed much there), but the things I relied upon to make those decisions were things I realized over time were not the be-all end-all I thought they were back then. I too, tended to assume life could be intellectually analyzed and the right answers derived. As I've aged, I've learned that it's usually better to actually look around at the real world rather than theorize about it. But then you have to actually experience it for a long time to get it.




Yes. But as someone who spent most of his teens and 20s "poor", and then went out and acquired a moderate amount of wealth, I suspect I have a better idea of what he's likely to do when/if he were to get there. Now, I was never a raving wealth-redistribution advocate, so it's entirely possible (likely in fact) that he'll retain his love of liberal causes when/if he's wealthy, but he wont see elimination of wealth as the answer. He'll spend a portion of his earnings each year on political causes, but never enough to consume or eliminate said wealth.


That's my bet. And the odds of me losing this bet are pretty much zero.

God I love this. This is Liberalism in one sentence.

Pensive takes money that his mom gave him and he hands a dollar or two to a homeless guy and therefore he is superior than most.

Liberalism = Give another persons money to someone else makes you a better person. LMAO

That's an extremely stupid bet for you to take. Even assuming that we would still be in contact, and even assuming that I will ever land a job that pays enough to be "wealthy," and even assuming that in doing so I would change my appreciation of cash, my levels of pure spite and pride are probably high enough to simply force me to give my crap away, because you said I wouldn't.

***



You know, there's a difference between these actions: when gbaji says crap like this, it's often due to arrogance or just haughty judgments. He is rarely totally false about his assertions.

Edited, Aug 24th 2009 11:16pm by Pensive

I doubt it's going to happen. I have very little desire to change a subconsciously enabled affectation that proves a minor annoyance.

Well, if that's true anyone who knows that that generally happens to new parents will be equally able to predict what happens. Going through the experience is not neccessary to gain knowledge of how most people react to a certain experience, and may result in an incorrect extrapolation from one's own anecdotal experience. A lot of things that "everyone knows" are total ********* though, so to be sure it;s generally nice to have statistical data. Of course, general trends don't take into account individual circumstances, and by relying on them alone to make your judgements about how an experience will affect someone you disrehard information and potentially lower the success rate of your predictions. In the case we're looking at, getting rich, Pensive is an oddity, as he is not trying to get rich - I assume that most people that get rich want to be. Thus there is reason to believe he would behave differently if he were to have a million pounds.



I doubt it. We're talking about life here, man, not just one experience (though, granted, even the stage of parentthood we were talking about is a large, vague experience). It's a colossal chain of experiences, and your chain and Pensive's are unlikely to look that alike. Plus, he's different from past you in several ways even from our superficial understanding of Pensive, as you acknowledge.



Well, he has to get rich first, so yeah, slim chance. Slim chance of you winning, too.

I can say the same about christianity.

A Jehova's witness with a Yorkshire accent, maybe?

Is this peer assessment day or something?

Mrs Pensive: Honey! Honey! Look! We've just won ten million dollars! Could you believe it? We're finally millionares! /squeals

Pensive: That's wonderful news sweetums!

Mrs Pensive: We can finally move out of this shack and go live in a beautiful house by the beach! And we could go on a romantic luxury cruise around the world for our anniversary! We could even book a rocket to space if you want! Can you imagine it? Our lives are going to be transformed into a wonderful dreamland with limitless possibilities! What do you think honey? <3

Pensive: Haha, my plans are far grander than that, sweety. I'm going to donate all our winnings to those poor jobless, drunks, drug addicts and $5 ho's that wander our streets everyday. Ah, my generous heart bleeds for these innocent victims who have been so cruelly robbed by the rich of our society. Honey, you know you're a lucky woman to have married a big man, with an even bigger heart. :)

Mrs Pensive: .............
If I divorce you now, I get to keep half of the money right?

Edited, Aug 25th 2009 4:33am by McGame

McGame sounds like he had a special ed. plan when he was a student. His bus was shorter than expected.

Two things:

1) I like how we've gone from "the gap is too wide" to "OMG you guys want rich people to give all their money to hmeless drunks."

2) If gbaji was alive during feodalism, he would defending the system in exactly the same terms. "Of course, the Lords could give their peasants more money for the grain they produce, but it would only hurt them in the long term! If the Lords gave all their money away, the peasants will only spend it on booze. Whereas the Lords spends his money on wars, or "investment", which brings new lands to cultivate, and more jobs for peasants, so everybody wins! Really, all you people wanting to change this system are just children who want more cookies."

Also, can we please stop this fallacy that "investment" = wealth/job creation"? In some cases it does, in many cases it simply doesn't. You could invest money for 20 years and never create a single job. The equivalent is me saying spending money = job creation. So yeah, let's give the money to homeless drunks, since it will increase employment in alcohol-related industries.