tyler cowen thinks it's great for some reason
because tyler cowen is an idiot, is why he would think this
― Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 17:43 (twelve years ago) link
he posts good links but he is like the ultimate troll, it is sad how many times a day he trolls me
― iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 17:51 (twelve years ago) link
well honestly if you can place yourself within murray's 5% elite this book is tremendously flattering to you. your moral and spiritual superiority to everyone else is never the result of longterm economic trends or technological changes or trade policy or manipulation of institutions on a scale so vast its practically invisible no its because you dont watch nascar and stayed married
― Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 17:54 (twelve years ago) link
example:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/02/department-of-huh.html
― iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 17:54 (twelve years ago) link
yeah I mean on the one hand I think it's true that we need to look at cultural factors - like, staying married pretty clearly helps you as an economic unit (having few kids too), so that's not *not* a thing, it's just a pretty shitty explanation for why certain people are billionaires
― iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 17:59 (twelve years ago) link
my friend sent me a link to the david brooks op-ed on this dude and on a brief skim it didn't seem that objectionable to me. like he frames it in vaguely OWS 1%/99% language and talks about tribalism & segmentation, which I broadly agree with is a problem (in-so-far as it fosters an us-against-them mentality. like maybe rich people would be more inclined to pay taxes if the thought was 'I am contributing towards a common good' rather than 'I can't believe POOR PEOPLE are attaching themselves like remoras to my veins of flowing money.')
but yeah as max's gawker post points out, the whole enterprise is really gross, but I do think every rich white family should take in at least one poor white child so that the rich family's industrious can ~vibe~ into the poor child, it would make for a good reality show, you could monetize this
― dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:01 (twelve years ago) link
nah see here's brooks: "Democrats claim America is threatened by the financial elite, who hog society’s resources. But that’s a distraction. The real social gap is between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent. The liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because it excuses them from the central role they themselves are playing in driving inequality and unfairness."
the liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because the top 1 percent narrative is the narrative that actually matters. talking about the social gap between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent is hiding the ball.
― iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:09 (twelve years ago) link
what if I adopt chinese baby girl instead? x-post
― mh, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:10 (twelve years ago) link
that depends entirely on whether or not you are a tiger mom
― iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:10 (twelve years ago) link
guess that means you're no longer part of the tribe
― dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:11 (twelve years ago) link
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/the-one-percent-versus-the-twenty-percent/
I didn't read this before I said that I swear
― iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:13 (twelve years ago) link
haha yeah I just kind of glossed over that
I do believe that americans should stop being so individualistic though ~love your brothers and sisters~
― dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:15 (twelve years ago) link
maybe I've just been interacting with too many libertarians lately
― dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:21 (twelve years ago) link
i am not reading david brooks take on this book because the idea of it i have in my head is already depressing enough
yeah I mean on the one hand I think it's true that we need to look at cultural factors
i think cultural factors have to be put in proper context though. like its weird to use the gingrichian idea that young working class men 'dont value work' rather than think about the way say, our culture constructs gender roles so that young men are often shut out of low-skill low-wage service jobs like office cleaning, health care &c
― Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:34 (twelve years ago) link
no for sure. or if you want to go one step further start taking apart the phrase 'don't value work', the concept of 'valuing work' is itself very culturally dependent.
anyway I'm thinking about starting a gen limbo blog as a clearinghouse for this sorta stuff outside of ilx.
― iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:42 (twelve years ago) link
for some reason you can be an individualist and still make lots of money from other people
makes you think
― mh, Saturday, 4 February 2012 19:24 (twelve years ago) link
Funniest thing about this stupid book is how all the publications giving it a good review don't publish the subtitle
― max, Saturday, 4 February 2012 19:40 (twelve years ago) link
seriously though lamp you should take that quiz its hilarious
haha i think im still much in the shaking with rage stage of my reaction to this whole thing to laugh at it much, even the idea of w/e illiterate nyt review its gotten is making me really mad in a way that suggests i cld use some ~distance~
the whole things is just so grotesque it should be funny but its getting treated so seriously! idk
― Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:35 (twelve years ago) link
just as a fun fact i was given a copy of the book by someone who works in securities at a party at bar specializing in craft and boutique beers i recognize that i am part of the problem
― Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:36 (twelve years ago) link
the american right-wing has shifted so far right that the 'moderate sensible doods' like him and brooks can just say whatever the fuck they want and get a lot of attention for it. I said it somewhere else on ilx but the easiest way to get an inordinate amount of attention is to be a moderate conservative thinker right now. like, if you're not screaming "where's the birth certificate?? where's the birth certificate??' you're already in the zone where your book gets nyt attention.
― iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:38 (twelve years ago) link
(becomes moderate conservative author)
p embarrassing that Murray didn't get laughed out of town over the bell curve but I guess ppl love scientific proof that their racism is okay
― max, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:40 (twelve years ago) link
this book is p racist too tbrr
― Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:42 (twelve years ago) link
i know this really should have sunk in by now but it blows my mind that the state of the right wing is such that charles fucking murray can be considered a moderate anything.
― horseshoe, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:51 (twelve years ago) link
lying w/ numbers = moderate
― iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:52 (twelve years ago) link
the funniest part is how he kinda hints around at the fact that asian people are essentially white, in america (xp to myself)
― Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:53 (twelve years ago) link
― iatee, Saturday, February 4, 2012 3:52 PM (44 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
yeah, this totally strikes me as right when you point it out it's just !!!
fuck a bunch of charles murray, at any rate
― horseshoe, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:54 (twelve years ago) link
ugh ive been reading some of the reviews and no one like NO ONE is willing to call out how the fundamental assumptions that govern his book are pernicious attempts to distort the underlying economic reasoning behind the stuffs hes talking abt
― Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:55 (twelve years ago) link
like the fact that its cheaper to have slaves in china build ipads than it would be to have an almost entirely automated factory in california build them might have more to do with stagnating real wages than how often poor whites go to church!
also the idea that the current system was simply such a perfect meritocracy that everyone at the top is just so much BRIGHTER than the poor is horrible and so widespread i dont get it. like the idea that people are just whizzing into harvard business school purely on the strength of their impeccable genetics and not a whole host of societal factors up to and including the way we measure 'intelligence' is so fucked up and disgusting
― Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:58 (twelve years ago) link
lol 'america is a true meritocracy' gets hammered into middle schoolers
― dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:59 (twelve years ago) link
i can read like three sentences at a time before i just start fuming abt how this is actually the worst book in the entire world since history
― Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:02 (twelve years ago) link
okay I started a gen limbo blog
http://genlimbo.tumblr.com/
― iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:08 (twelve years ago) link
aw http://generationlimbo.tumblr.com/
― dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:11 (twelve years ago) link
dang http://thelimbogeneration.tumblr.com/
― David Dees Weekly Top 40 (crüt), Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:11 (twelve years ago) link
ya it was taken in the other make ur own blogs too
― iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:11 (twelve years ago) link
haha :/
okay i will probably stop posting about this book or maybe at least start a proper thread about it elsewhere but ive been thinking about how this book feeds into an idea of the way the individual and society shape each other thats really comforting, that its the personal qualities of a person or a class that determines things and that broad trends are driven by choices individuals make rather than like big somewhat hidden things or unintended or unforeseen consequences or w/e
― Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:23 (twelve years ago) link
iatee I'd register generationlimbo.net for you if you want to make this into a serious thing.
― tinker tailor soldier sb (silby), Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:26 (twelve years ago) link
that its the personal qualities of a person or a class that determines things and that broad trends are driven by choices individuals make
rich people are all about justifying why they're rich
it's also the impulse behind libertarianism, imo
― dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:27 (twelve years ago) link
or maybe that's ayn randology
idk it all runs together, basically it's like, everything you have, you deserve, because you made all the right choices in life, champ
― dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:29 (twelve years ago) link
hmm that's an idea silby, pm me?
xp
all the libertarians I know are poor as fuck, idgi
― iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:30 (twelve years ago) link
maybe it's just free-market capitalist libertarianism (so wikipedia tells me)
the idea that everything I earned, I deserve, fuck all those who didn't work as hard as me
― dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:36 (twelve years ago) link
Getting born to my parents was probably the best choice I ever made, unless maybe it was choosing to be born healthy.
― Aimless, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:40 (twelve years ago) link
Well they've made all the right choices and should be rich & successful but since they aren't, it must be the other people who didn't choose as well, rigging the system to drag them down.
― one little aioli (Laurel), Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:43 (twelve years ago) link
i think its just a p human need to explain things through clear narratives, the attraction of the anecdotal and personal. i dont think the idea that people shape systems rather than being shaped by them is unique to the libertarian right i guess?
like obv the idea that the elite is simply better - more virtuous, harder working, more intelligent - is a v old conservative idea. but the left has it myths about the elite as well, i think, that are just as rooted in psychodrama. i guess my big overarching problem with this books is that its attempting to bolster a number of myths about the poor and the economy are that deeply harmful to society and the will perpetuate destructive and immoral policies. also the idea that the only reason rich people should help poor ppl - by doing them the great favor of watching nascar and eating kfc - is so that the gov't doesnt have to provide unemployment benefits
― Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:47 (twelve years ago) link
reminds me of someone I knew in college. I remember her telling me she had to drop out because her father went to jail and she needed to support her mom and younger brother. I thought, "wow ... I guess I have it pretty lucky."
maybe it's not in some of these peoples' frame of reference that there are factors that are beyond peoples' controls that limit their ability to acquire material wealth and financial stability. and since their voices are the loudest in democracy, it's their views that drive policy.
― Spectrum, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:47 (twelve years ago) link
well, not in democracy, but our current government.
― Spectrum, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:48 (twelve years ago) link
like obv the idea that the elite is simply better - more virtuous, harder working, more intelligent - is a v old conservative idea
I think the prob comes in w/ the fuzzy zone in between - there are examples of people who are in the elite because they were virtuous, harder working and intelligent and so it's pretty easy to find anecdotal evidence for either side of the argument (dubya vs. obama pretty much)
― iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:52 (twelve years ago) link
Laurel is on to something here
― mh, Saturday, 4 February 2012 21:55 (twelve years ago) link
Wonder if it's our culture driving this narrative. Individualism and the old idea that having a good life is a sign of being chosen by god. Wealth is virtuous because it's a sign that god favors them or some other bullcrap idea.
Individualism in that we each have an individual choice to make something of ourselves, and if we don't do it, then the blame is solely on us... and probably makes it harder to understand other peoples' circumstances. It's a really weird mixture of ideas that put the self above others, and make it seem that social obligations or help is morally wrong, or aren't even on the radar.
― Spectrum, Saturday, 4 February 2012 22:03 (twelve years ago) link