Stop Bloody Moaning!!!

wotsthat

padington wrote: »

Your DNA is unique and your life experiences are unique and I personally think that for the best part, that had very little to with you or I and everything to do with the cards we were given at birth.

Cavemen had exactly the same DNA as us so that effect is negligible. If we all do the same as our parents this would be the 'debate cave prices board'.

We're in the position we are in this country because of a massive continued streak of luck and good choices. The test of a country is what happens to you if you have bad luck and make poor choices. Well here you'd have free access to a comprehensive healthcare system, your kids would still receive an enviable education, you'd get help with housing, food, water etc.

padington

wotsthat wrote: »

Cavemen had exactly the same DNA as us so that effect is negligible. If we all do the same as our parents this would be the 'debate cave prices board'.

We're in the position we are in this country because of a massive continued streak of luck and good choices. The test of a country is what happens to you if you have bad luck and make poor choices. Well here you'd have free access to a comprehensive healthcare system, your kids would still receive an enviable education, you'd get help with housing, food, water etc.

You have to factor in that we are a unique island that doesn't get extreme weather. It's possible that was simply the edge we needed. Every other good decision might have come from the fact that our environment was just more advanced, allowing us to be more development than the rest. One day no doubt the rest of the world will catch up.

ukcarper

padington wrote: »

Not sure I agree Hamish really,

If you had the same genes and the same life experiences as a fool, would it be possible to be less foolish ? I'm not sure it would.

You see families over hundreds of years replicating the same behaviour. Daughters daughters daughters turning out quite like their grand mother.

Older I get more I think the trick is to ensure the right people are in the right jobs and ensure there is a fair system to share the wealth, not to make the chickens pull the carts or berate them for there failure to do so and instead encourage everyone to judge themselves by there situation and no one else's.

People do have free will but only to a degree. Some people are compelled to talk, others compelled to save, some compelled to take risk.

Your DNA is unique and your life experiences are unique and I personally think that for the best part, that had very little to with you or I and everything to do with the cards we were given at birth.

I think the everybody has choice argument is to simply an argument people's outcome depends on many things. Including the above but also their environment some peoples future is spoilt by the time they go to school.

Generali

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Not intending to patronise you. So I apologise. Personally I've encountered many instances where misfortune or an unexpected event is the start of the slippery slope downwards. This is a reflection of society today as much as the people themselves.

I think you got pwned there mate. Good reply though.

Jason74

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

This is such a typical post from those of a certain viewpoint on here....

Graham you have once again taken the vanishingly rare exceptions to the rule and tried to portray such outcomes as commonplace.....

When in fact serious negative "unknowns" of the type you used as examples are so uncommon as to be noteworthy.

Rare nerve disorders, Downs syndrome, etc, are tragic things to have happen we can all agree, but they are very, very rare, and you're talking fractions of a percent of the population.

Nobody will dispute that a tiny, tiny percentage will be genuinely unlucky and succumb to rare illnesses, etc, and for those people it is no doubt very unfair and their challenges shouldn't be trivialised or understated....

But for the overwhelmingly vast majority of people achieving success in life is and always has been as simple as making sensible choices and working hard and luck has virtually nothing to do with it.

And for those that don't succeed, as NDG puts it......

If only life were that simple. On one level, you are of course largely right. The kind of exceptional circumstances Graham mentioned are not the norm. That’s why they’re called exceptional. But to say that “for the overwhelmingly vast majority of people achieving success in life is and always has been as simple as making sensible choices and working hard and luck has virtually nothing to do with it”, is a long way wide of the mark.

Yes, the choices we make and how hard we work have a large influence on the outcomes we experience. But sadly, that’s a long way from being the whole picture, and I think you’re intelligent enough to know that. Some people are born into or experience upbringings that maximise both the number of choices open to them, and their capacity to make the right choices from those available to them. Others have upbringings that severely limit their choices and fail to equip them to make even the best choices available to them.

Likewise, some people will be largely insulated from the effects of bad choices by supportive (both financially and otherwise) families, while others will have little or no personal “safety net” to protect them from bad choices, meaning that any bad decisions they make will have maximum impact on them. These factors are at least as significant in the outcomes people experience as “the choices they make and how hard they work”

Of course, there will always be those who succeed despite an unfavourable start in life, as there will be those who end up with nothing despite being afforded every opportunity. But the fact is that the most reliable indicator of the future wealth of a child will be the wealth of their parents, and the exceptions to that rule are just that . . . . .exceptional. If people’s outcomes were just about their own hard work and choices, this would not be the case.

I think people who have “done well” like to think it’s all about their own choices (and to be clear, I’m not denying that this is a big part of the equation), as it both makes them feel good about themselves, and absolves them of any responsibility to those who might not have had the same opportunities they had.

And to reference my own positrion, I say this as someone who at 40 owns their home outright, and has enough saved / invested to cover about 5 years living costs. All without a penny from BOMAD. So while far from rich, I’m doing just fine money wise (I raise this only to demonstrate that my take on this is not about any kind of dissatisfaction with my own position). But I’m acutely aware that while my own efforts were a big part of my favourable situation, the good start I was given played a huge role too. I'm certainly not arrogant enough to believe that I ould bein as good a position as I am without that.

N1AK

Graham_Devon wrote: »

If you are not, and, like many, have seen a decline in your living standards, this article is a bit hollow.

The decline they have seen would be nothing like that seen by many in other European countries over the last 8 years, and would still leave them vastly better off than the worst off in American society. The article isn't claiming that things are perfect, just that we've got very little to complain about, yet blaming and complaining is all a lot of people in the UK are doing.

wotsthat

padington wrote: »

You have to factor in that we are a unique island that doesn't get extreme weather. It's possible that was simply the edge we needed. Every other good decision might have come from the fact that our environment was just more advanced, allowing us to be more development than the rest. One day no doubt the rest of the world will catch up.

If the weather is thee edge that has allowed to compound riches faster than nearly every other country in the world it would be a bit of an irony. The weather is the thing we moan about the most!

Generali

wotsthat wrote: »

If the weather is thee edge that has allowed to compound riches faster than nearly every other country in the world it would be a bit of an irony. The weather is the thing we moan about the most!

I don't imagine it's the case. Most of France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany have pretty clement weather really.

It's a nice theory but not one I would subscribe to.

michaels

Jason74 wrote: »

And to reference my own positrion, I say this as someone who at 40 owns their home outright, and has enough saved / invested to cover about 5 years living costs. All without a penny from BOMAD. So while far from rich, I’m doing just fine money wise (I raise this only to demonstrate that my take on this is not about any kind of dissatisfaction with my own position). But I’m acutely aware that while my own efforts were a big part of my favourable situation, the good start I was given played a huge role too. I'm certainly not arrogant enough to believe that I ould bein as good a position as I am without that.

Had the govt been more progressive in taking from you according to your ability and giving to others according to their need then you would certainly not be in the comfortable position you now find yourself. Perhaps you would not even have bothered trying to get there given that without trying you would have been little worse off.

wotsthat

Generali wrote: »

I don't imagine it's the case. Most of France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany have pretty clement weather really.

It's a nice theory but not one I would subscribe to.

The rise of Britain is a much more recent phenomenon so we don't need to look so far back anyway Long periods of organised stable government are probably the simple but boring key to wealth. The channel helps too - a barrier to invasion but not trade.