Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

vivatifosi

Spirit, what direction do you see your volunteering taking?

When I read your last post, straight away I thought of Citizens Advice as you are personable, practical, have a wealth of relevant experience and in some cases will have "walked the walk". If that is something you are interested in, it may be worth contacting early as it requires a lot of training and shadowing. I wondered if you could fit this round your rehab?

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

By far the biggest determinants of your income as an adult are:

1. Your father's education level
2. Your father's income

At an individual level other things matter but at a population level those things are hugely more important than anything else.

It's interesting. The two things that shaped my whole career in the early days were...

1) My grandfather. We had many chats about what I wanted to do and he made everything seem possible. He was one of the most interesting people I have ever met... in many ways a polymath without the education, he was good at a lot of really different things. He died just as I started work. He played two different sports at the highest level, was a multi-instrumentalist, had a great understanding of music, started several businesses in different areas, some of these failed, but he'd just dust himself off and try something else.

2) Access to London... I lived near the train station and had a much wider pick of jobs.

I did get my degrees and they undoubtedly helped, but they came later.

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

Tax discs - will I get a letter? I think mine's due this month and it's already the 9th and had no letter. I applied online last year and it just turned up - but I'm sure I logged in with the letter in my hand.

If you have the V5C certificate for your car, that has all the info you need on it.

GDB2222

Generali wrote: »

By far the biggest determinants of your income as an adult are:

1. Your father's education level
2. Your father's income

At an individual level other things matter but at a population level those things are hugely more important than anything else.

Those are proxies for your father's genes and work ethic, which are hard to measure direct.

michaels

PasturesNew wrote: »

Tax discs - will I get a letter? I think mine's due this month and it's already the 9th and had no letter. I applied online last year and it just turned up - but I'm sure I logged in with the letter in my hand.

I got mine this week and did it straight away as it was free.

Generali wrote: »

By far the biggest determinants of your income as an adult are:

1. Your father's education level
2. Your father's income

At an individual level other things matter but at a population level those things are hugely more important than anything else.

It is pretty hard to untangle nature vs nurture. We would all accept that to a large extent height or hair colour are determined by genes and yet seem to want success in terms of academic grades and work ethic to be the same regardless of genetic background. I wonder why we find it easy to accept that physical characteristics are genetic but that other outcomes must be the fault of 'society'?

Doozergirl

michaels wrote: »

I got mine this week and did it straight away as it was free.


It is pretty hard to untangle nature vs nurture. We would all accept that to a large extent height or hair colour are determined by genes and yet seem to want success in terms of academic grades and work ethic to be the same regardless of genetic background. I wonder why we find it easy to accept that physical characteristics are genetic but that other outcomes must be the fault of 'society'?

Because the overwhelming evidence is that the most influential factor on academic success is social class. Your exam results are determined by your postcode.

Better performing schools are more dependent on the social standing of their cohort than they are the quality of their teaching staff.

Sure, we all have different talents, and learn in different ways and some children will do better than others without having to work as hard, but everyone's liklihood of success is determined first by nuture.

Generali

GDB2222 wrote: »

Those are proxies for your father's genes and work ethic, which are hard to measure direct.

Interesting that genes from the male side should be such a good proxy but those from the female side aren't.

Perhaps you should think again.

PasturesNew

It is difficult to nail what's important, but I think location/funds is also key.

e.g. I could have been the gold medal holder for skiing in the Olympics ... except I've never ever been on a ski in my life.

I could've been the greatest actress ever, except I didn't live where there was any access to acting school - and if you read wiki of a lot of actors they mostly went to one, usually in London.

So you need to know something exists, and be able to access it, and be able to pay for it.

silvercar

PasturesNew wrote: »

Ah, the folded A3 sheet of ownership. It's round here somewhere. It's the sort of thing you only dig out annually, if at all.

It looks like I might've omitted to update them with my change of address.... that involves sending off the whole form and I don't recall ever doing that.

Oops.

Naughty, PN. You need to keep that updated or any parking fines/ speeding tickets etc won't reach you.

silvercar

PasturesNew wrote: »

BBC - Some new programme on the telly tonight. 200 years ago some toffs went into the slums of London for some reason.

What the programme's done is started with those roughs and toffs and have traced both down 200 years and got all their living descendants together.

It's a series, not a one off.

I've not got the time/name of it yet, they're on The One Show discussing it.

It looks at social mobility as a purpose for the programme.

They 'discovered' if you're born into wealth, 200 years later your descendants will probably still be wealthy; if not, your descendents will still be working class/etc.

Reminds me of the saying: From riches to rags in three generations. The first generation in a family makes money (goes from rags to riches); the second generation holds or keeps the money; and the third generation squanders or loses the money (and so goes back to rags).

Was listening to a radio discussion yesterday that some research has shown that taller men and women and thinner women earn 12-17% more in the same job role.