America is as good as it gets in human history and yet look at all the legit whining and flailing about inequality invoked by posters to these threads.So why is europes standard of living higher? If its partially due to their own college policies why not adopt some of them here?
It isn't. The wealth gap in Europe is just as staggering as it is here.
Any perceived sense of general wealth can easily be attributed to a millennia of pillaging whatever they wanted from the entire rest of the world and holding on to that wealth as tightly and completely as possible.
In 100 years, the entire continent will look like Detroit.
Breezing over the roughly five millenia of recorded human history we see that it flat out doesn't matter what culture or time period you look at.
"Breezing over it" is probably an entirely appropriate metaphor for your relationship with history.
For yet another example,
The last 60-70 years has been somewhat of an anomaly in human history and I think that is mostly do to all the "free" energy we've gotten from oil.
Industrial-scale oil production and cheap fuel have been around for a lot longer than the post-WWII period. The Texas oil boom began in 1901-05 or so, and oil was already a big enough industry to make Rockefeller history's richest man off of Standard Oil's breakup in 1911. Gasoline and gas stations became widespread in the 1920s. If you're looking for something to set off the last 60-70 years, pure oil isn't going to cut it.
I liked your post better when it had all the spelling errors, Alex.
English spelling wasn’t always so convoluted; there was much more rhyme and reason to Old and even Middle English.
[...]
The first English printing press, in the 15th century, was operated by Belgians who didn’t know the language and made numerous spelling errors (such as "busy" in place of "bisy"). And because they were paid by the line, they sometimes padded words with extra letters; "frend," for example, became "friend."
áwiergaþ þá wanhogan!
The apparent total lack of effort by those who would correct my thinking [who don't apparently actually do anything that matters about modern slavery e.g.], makes my point about the pointlessness of long term effective political change among humans. Especially long term change brought about through voting and/or education. Is America not the oldest going democracy on the planet, with the first instituted public education system, and we sit here and do nothing but argue how relevant our opinions are to solving these problems. Problems like education for all or modern sex slavery.Quick question... how old do you think America is? By that I mean it's current governmental form, being organized through our constitution.
You're claiming nothing has changed in 5000 years. Are you operating under the assumption that America as we know it is 5000 years old?
Trying real hard not to be sarcastic here since I know you know what I've already said on the other thread.
Reiterating what I said here:
America is as good as it gets in human history and yet look at all the legit whining and flailing about inequality invoked by posters to these threads.Breezing over the roughly five millenia of recorded human history we see that it flat out doesn't matter what culture or time period you look at. Each generation has to learn wisdom the hard way and every invention of statecraft that has advanced the general populace has eventually been turned into chains.
The last 60-70 years has been somewhat of an anomaly in human history and I think that is mostly do to all the "free" energy we've gotten from oil. If we can make controlled and scaled nuclear fusion, then maybe we can continue on this anomalous course for several more generations and institute some of the Utopian thinking others have been promulgating re education.
I won't be holding my breath though
So, nothing changes, but things have been different.
Interesting theory. Something seems inconsistent about it though.
Switzerland has had citizen legislation in various forms since the 13th century, and continues to this day. Each canton has their own laws regarding the process of voting (some are more direct, some indirect), but as a whole the citizens have had veto authority over their government for about the equivalent of the entire history of the US.
Iceland, Isle of Mann and Faroe Island have had parliamentary systems that have been in continuous use since the 9th to 10th centuries, though they have been ruled by outside powers at times.
And you have to be careful about how you define democracy. Remember, in the US we've had significant periods of time where massive portions of our population (african-americans, women) have not had the right to vote. Similarly, feudal England could be considered a democracy, with only the landed aristocracy being able to vote, since their slaves (or serfs) weren't allowed representation in government.
The problem with the debate you guys were having on things changing/not changing, is that just because one thing changes (or doesn't) does not mean something else didn't change (or did).
Silly example: just because I change my clothes one day, does not mean that I change my clothes every day. Nor does wearing the same clothes 2 days in a row mean I never change my clothes.
Arguing from all or nothing positions is stupid and idiotic.
Would you consider people who speak different languages as different ethnic groups?
I hate the GPA thing to tell the truth. I took some lower end classes and made straight A's, so I moved onto classes that were Advanced and AP to challenge myself...and didn't have all A's. The Valedictorian...they remained in the "standard" classes and never took an Advanced or AP class EVER.
To rate someone based on their GPA from that school simply means that you are choosing the ones that go for the easy classes instead of trying to expand their education.
If that is the measure of success in college, it would appear those that are successful are NOT the ones that get educated, but the ones that try to take every Physical Education class and every class where they don't really stand a chance of failure if they put minimal effort into it.
Who wants to go to a college like that?
My school gave a +1 to any Grade points obtained from an AP class. So an A in one of those was a 5.0. As a result it was impossible to be in the top 20% of the class without taking a huge number of AP classes. Though this and our valedictorian taking every single science class available may be a product of living in a town where 40% of adults are employed by a single engineering firm and the next largest employer is the electrical company/nuke plant.
...GPA padding in affluent neighborhoods is common place, and the immigrant is far more likely to have a life event disrupt their GPA. Even if that student comes back to class after failing a semester they can achieve content mastery but a semester full of F's will trash even the best GPA....If you receive an "F", then when you retake the class the new grade replaces your former grade. Or it ought to. Hence, no impact on long term GPA.Yeah, your institution may do that for the purpose of your internal GPA, but if you want to transfer or get into a post grad program then they will want a full transcript with a full accounting of courses, including retaken.
Same reason EVERY college wants your high school transcript, they want to see the skeletons. They assign your acceptance GPA based on their own criteria which will often include everything.
Also, sometimes you have a bad semester and part of going back is reevaluating what you are studying. Why should an F in Animal Phisiology have an impact on an entrance application for an Art History program?
Depends on the school. My full college transcript has no mention of the classes I failed, as the college has a policy of not recording anything below a C. That semester it just looks like I took one fewer classes than normal.
Culture is what you ate at your grandmother's table.
Culture comes from a petri dish.
Would you consider people who speak different languages as different ethnic groups?Yes, because frequently they are. You will also have different ethnic groups even within a mostly common language. In 17th century New Amsterdam, (now New York City) as many as 35 different languages could be heard speaking each day. Spain itself has about 5 or six variants of Spanish spoken with in, despite the frequently brutal efforts of Francisco Franco to homogenize the country.
In Switzerland you have 4 national languages, all moderately different (German, French, Italian and Romansh). Within German you have it split into Standard German and Swiss German (as a non-native standard German speaker, I can only understand about 50-60% of Swiss German).
So yes, it is a small country, but it is a country that is heavily influenced by it's neighbors, and that influence is felt more acutely in each quadrant of the country that borders somewhere else. There are cultural aspects shared across the country, but there are significant differences (language being one of the strongest).
This is probably why democracy took root so early in the region, as aspects of modern Switzerland did start to coalesce in the 13th century, but having to moderate between those various cultural differences (despite the similarities) the most effective method was a democratic one. Having input and influence on the greater whole gave each smaller group greater confidence in belonging to the whole, providing stability to the region.
I definitely buy the argument that their size does more easily allow them to have aspects of a direct democracy. In Switzerland citizens have been allowed to introduce laws for over 150 years. Something like 230 such laws have been introduced over that span, with only 10% being approved. They can also introduce constitutional amendments.
Side track: One of my favorite memories as a kid was going to Fasnacht. Imagine Carnival (Brazil), but run by Northern European protestants. It's still a party, though a bit less gaudy and more sedate. It's a bid deal in Basel, which sits right on the with France, Germany and Switzerland. It starts right after lent (my theory being to piss off the Catholics who had to fast at that point). It starts with a big parade, floats, marching bands, etc. The bands proceed to continue marching through the streets for the next 3 days (it lasts exactly 72 hours and the bands play continuously during that period). The bands often play off-key intentionally too. It's amazing, I highly recommend attending if you can.
It also has a highly political bent to it. The majority of floats are made with meaning and leaflets are constantly distributed during these days, pushing one political agenda or another. It doesn't lean one way or the other, floats/leaflets represent all sorts of political ideas. One constant is that this is often represented sarcastically, it's more to make fun of the opposition than push your own position.
Like many American parades, there are participants that throw candy to the crowd. Unlike American parades, they also throw blood oranges (why that type of orange specifically I don't know). If they see you taking pictures, they often try to bean you with the orange.
Last interesting thing about it, no other large city in Switzerland does this. Nothing even close. A few small towns have traditions of smaller events that are similar in concept, but the execution is orders of magnitude less elaborate.
I liked your post better when it had all the spelling errors, Alex.Those were typing errors.
So I figured. But, before, I thought you were going for irony. It was more amusing.
I haven't really been paying attention, Citizen Blast, but did you mention cars in the post Citizen Coriat quoted from? I was under the impression that they were using oil for other things before the birth of the automobile industry. Which might be what Citizen Coriat was getting at.
Beats me.
School sucks!
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And I'm accused of being "breezy" about history. <eye-roll>
Sure there was a blip up in the 1920's but that was shutdown and walked back by the Great Depression and WWII. So pretty much it's post-WWII before you see the modern trend we've all lived in (us, our parents, our grandparents, and, for some, our grandparents as well). Oil may have been cheap before but cars weren't till after the war.
Yeah, let's read about how expensive cars got during the Great Depression:
To reduce inventories, GM aggressively cut prices by as much as 70 percent on its expensive cars—a move that would have been unthinkable under any other circumstances.
[...]
At the heart of GM’s success during the Great Depression was its decision to realign its product offering to fit the needs of a consumer base with less money to spend—creating “a car for every purse and purpose,” as Sloan put it. GM expanded aggressively into the lowpriced car market by shifting production from high-end brands to Chevrolet, its high-volume discount brand.
Good to see we're maintaining the 0.000 batting average.
Thanks for playing discussion facilitator (no sarcasm, srsly) but I was using autos as a proxy for what can be done with all the "free" energy that came from the oil boom. Had not the Great Depression and WWII interrupted the trend the Crow would have a relevant counter to my prior point, pushing the time span out from 70 years to around 100.I haven't really been paying attention, Citizen Blast, but did you mention cars in the post Citizen Coriat quoted from? I was under the impression that they were using oil for other things before the birth of the automobile industry. Which might be what Citizen Coriat was getting at.
Beats me.
School sucks!
So the Great Depression interrupted the trend of cheap/nearly free oil?
Hmmm. Let's check that one out too.
In 1932, U.S. heavy crude oil averaged 87 cents per barrel (about $12 today), and light crude averaged 82 cents. By spring 1933, heavy crude had fallen to 44 cents and light crude to 66 cents. Then the bottom fell out.
I want you to know, by the way, I'm neither a car nor a Great Depression expert. I didn't have any idea of either of these things before five minutes ago. I'm just googling whatever you say about history, on the so far ironclad theory that it all will turn out to be the opposite.
...possibly more than the next guy
Again (3rd time now) I'll point out that people are quick to talk on the OP topic, and the many asides, but exceedingly slow to mention what they are actually doing about these problems.
So, you're point here is what exactly?
If I'm not doing something to solve the problem...
1) the problem doesn't exist
2) the problem is unsolvable
3) anything I say about the problem HAS to be wrong
Does that logic apply to you and anything you have to say?
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It's been a while, I admit, since I've carried a sign that read "For Open Admissions, Free Tuition and a Living Stipend for All Students!" but I have been encouraging my hawt commie NY schoolteacher girlfriend to start an "opt out of Common Core testing" campaign.
It's either that or listen to her scream "Why won't they let me teach!!!!" every time I go down to Brooklyn.
Get used to it, Doodles, and welcome to the pleasure-dome. :P
Vehicles were in great use prior to WWII. Where in the world did someone get the idea that they weren't?
That's crazy talk!
If you use film as somewhat representative of culture, you can see that in the culture presented, vehicles were widely used at least from the 1930s (when the Great Depression was at it's greatest) onwards.
You can even see them in films prior to that, but it seemed the films portrayed everyone having them by the 1930s, at least those who could afford them.
I believe the Model T was hugely popular, to the point that it's not so hard to find them even today (at least compared to some other harder to find antique vehicles of that time period). This implies that somebody was buying these vehicles back in the day.
Will have to remember to share this one with La Principessa, who is thinking of running for Chapter Leader (UFT jargon for shop steward) this spring:
If Teachers Can’t Make Their Unions More Democratic and Social Justice-Minded, Public Ed Is Doomed
Vehicles were in great use prior to WWII. Where in the world did someone get the idea that they weren't?
That's crazy talk!
If you use film as somewhat representative of culture, you can see that in the culture presented, vehicles were widely used at least from the 1930s (when the Great Depression was at it's greatest) onwards.
You can even see them in films prior to that, but it seemed the films portrayed everyone having them by the 1930s, at least those who could afford them.
I believe the Model T was hugely popular, to the point that it's not so hard to find them even today (at least compared to some other harder to find antique vehicles of that time period). This implies that somebody was buying these vehicles back in the day.
If you take film to be representative of culture then every oil rig has a roughneck/roustabout who is actually an engineering genius and carries plans for an asteroid drill in his pocket. Also we have, in our technology today, shuttles able to land on a non-earth body and take back off to make it safely to Earth.
Also, it's totally possible for the DPRK to take over the White House with a tourist army, sleight-of-hand, and surveillance drones (that they totally have, by the way.)
We are able to brainwash and super-train spies.
We can make men pregnant with in vitro fertilization.
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If the Walker tide really starts cresting, Teacher's Unions themselves are doomed. In NJ, charter schools are not required to let teachers unionize and they've been taking over public schools even in Jersey City itself.Will have to remember to share this one with La Principessa, who is thinking of running for Chapter Leader (UFT jargon for shop steward) this spring:
If Teachers Can’t Make Their Unions More Democratic and Social Justice-Minded, Public Ed Is Doomed
Pretty easy to do when you skim the cream off the top and leave the problem kids and special ed to the public schools
While there's a point in film not being representative, are you actually still arguing cars were rare until after WWII?Vehicles were in great use prior to WWII. Where in the world did someone get the idea that they weren't?
That's crazy talk!
If you use film as somewhat representative of culture, you can see that in the culture presented, vehicles were widely used at least from the 1930s (when the Great Depression was at it's greatest) onwards.
You can even see them in films prior to that, but it seemed the films portrayed everyone having them by the 1930s, at least those who could afford them.
I believe the Model T was hugely popular, to the point that it's not so hard to find them even today (at least compared to some other harder to find antique vehicles of that time period). This implies that somebody was buying these vehicles back in the day.
If you take film to be representative of culture then every oil rig has a roughneck/roustabout who is actually an engineering genius and carries plans for an asteroid drill in his pocket. Also we have, in our technology today, shuttles able to land on a non-earth body and take back off to make it safely to Earth.
Also, it's totally possible for the DPRK to take over the White House with a tourist army, sleight-of-hand, and surveillance drones (that they totally have, by the way.)
We are able to brainwash and super-train spies.
We can make men pregnant with in vitro fertilization.
I supposed you would need to define "rarity," during the 20's car ownership did go from about 8.5% up to 22% in 1930, however that was due mostly to the reduction of cost associated with scale and was still seen more akin to a luxury as during the 30's that growth virtually stalled and had only become 24.5% by 1940. By the end of WWII that number had actually gone back down to 22%. But by the end of the 40's had jumped up to 32.3%.
So yes, I do believe that preWWII cars were significantly more rare than after. And there was clearly a car market boom in the 5 years following the war.
Post WW2 you had two decades of a boom in building superhighways, auto usage goes up like a banshee and the public rail system dies an agonizing death.
Yep, absolutely no doubt that the interstate highway act gave way for the *actual* car boom that put a vehicle in every driveway by the end of the 60's (54.5% ownership.)
22% is actually pretty common to a degree and would jive with the Hollywood portrayals.
For example, there have been only 84 million Xbox's sold worldwide. Compared to just the populations of NA and Europe (though theoretically it would have been sold to a much larger audience). If each individual ONLY bought ONE xbox360 (even though we know many bought more than one Xbox 360, especially in the early years), that's ONLY a percentage of around 6.5% ownership of an Xbox360 in N.A. and Europe. However, it seemed like the Xbox360 was everywhere during that time.
And that's being extremely generous with the stats (Only two continents of the world which only have 1.271 Billion people), utilizing that only ONE Xbox360 per individual was ever bought...etc.).
So at 20+% that's actually doing pretty good.
22% is actually pretty common to a degree and would jive with the Hollywood portrayals.
For example, there have been only 84 million Xbox's sold worldwide. Compared to just the populations of NA and Europe (though theoretically it would have been sold to a much larger audience). If each individual ONLY bought ONE xbox360 (even though we know many bought more than one Xbox 360, especially in the early years), that's ONLY a percentage of around 6.5% ownership of an Xbox360 in N.A. and Europe. However, it seemed like the Xbox360 was everywhere during that time.
And that's being extremely generous with the stats (Only two continents of the world which only have 1.271 Billion people), utilizing that only ONE Xbox360 per individual was ever bought...etc.).
So at 20+% that's actually doing pretty good.
But it is also completely in line with Quark's statement that car ownership (and by extension, oil use) has been on a sharp rise since WWII. He is completely correct in that statement. Reframing the argument won't change that.
Edit: also, "it seemed like Xbox was everywhere," is almost certainly clique bias, generational bias, and confirmation bias hard at work.
Edit edit: namely, those car ownership rates are "per person," not "per household," AND how many 40 y/o+ with out kids did your survey? How many females did you survey? How many 1st and 2nd generation children of migratory immigrants did you survey? How many people in poverty did you survey? How many white males who are approximately your age and socioeconomic level did you survey?
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Well, a Social Darwinist would say the cream is the only thing we should worry about, and the rest should be left to fend for themselves since trying to help them achieves nothing but wasteful resource depletion.
Enlightened self interest should show why this is bunk to anyone under 60. Education now is cheaper than prison down the road and the increased unemployment. Until we go full on Darwinian death-match you pay for member of society one way or another.
The problem is i think policy being crafted by rich people over 60 who don't need to live with the consequences of their actions, they just want the tax cut now.
Nice effort. Ignores U.S. history though.
Wow. You are accusing Coriat of ignoring history?
Post WW2 you had two decades of a boom in building superhighways, auto usage goes up like a banshee and the public rail system dies an agonizing death.
I think part of the analysis is that cheap energy and abundance of resources have played a part in the progressive nature of society in the US.
I doubt we'll find a lot of cause and effect in the car buying boom of the 1950's and say... women's suffrage in 1920, or improvement in the protection of worker's rights during the 1910's.
Quark's point being that only because America has had great abundance have we also sometimes been nice to those less fortunate.
Of course, this theory also rests inside his theory that nothing has ever changed, except for the parts where he adds his theory that explains change.
A lot of that advocacy also comes from young up and coming Randian Libertarians as well. I knew quite a few of this type at Rutgers who were my own (the) age of 19 something. Like the group you mentioned, they tended to feel insulated from the consequences of what they were fond of proposing.
And did they come to those ideas on accident or were they astroturfed from somewhere?
stuff about defining rarity and car ownership rates
This is aiming at somewhat of a different goalpost than the earlier one, but I will say that I agree with the comment that ~.20 to .25 cars per capita circa 1930-1940 should not be interpreted as cars being rare in society. .22 in 1930 was certainly enough for one car families to be widespread*, although you saw a lot less of the two or three cars per family thing back then, sure.
(*Consulting Google, it would appear that circa 1930 you had ~.75 cars per household, nationally - and Google also tells me that the car was viewed as part of a normal family's life by the twenties).
I certainly won't argue with the idea that car ownership increased further postwar, it did, and it would appear that especially women joining the workforce sparked a major expansion in 2+ car households, but that's going off in yet another direction.
Now, returning to the claim of Quark's that brought up this tangent of automobiles (after being shown wrong on the previous tangent, oil):
Oil may have been cheap but cars weren't till after the war
Maybe we can Google even more. We'll look at how much cars cost in 1930, before the war (and during the Depression)
1930 - average income - $1970, average new car, $640 (32.4%)
Now let's compare to after the war.
1950 - average income - $3210, average new car, $1510 (47%)
1960 - average income - $5315, average new car, $2600 (48.9%)
1970 - average income - $9350, average new car, $3900 (41.7%)
1980 - average income - $19170, average new car, $7210 (37.6%)
1990 - average income - $28970, average new car, $16000 (55.2%)
2000 - average income - $40343, average new car, $24750 (61.3%)