23, back from travelling, and can't afford a house in London

kabayiri

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

...
Three years studying the subtle complexity of human character in one of the world's most expressive languages doesn't seem to have left you with much understanding of life choices that aren't exactly the same as your own.

It is about life choices, and feels like an argument over nothing.

One thing not mentioned about the girl in the OP. She moved back to her parent's place.

For some, the desire to be near their family overrides a financial interest.

With regards to the places, I have a relative who did a degree in Newcastle; worked there and then moved to London. He now wants to go to Toronto, and his siblings are in California and Sydney. It's a big wide world out there. No need to restrict to just London IMO.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

Two of the most intelligent people I've met in my jobs round the world had not been to university. They were astute judges of character, sharp assessors of situations, flexible, resourceful and always seemed to be thinking one step ahead without effort. Interestingly both had a millitary background.

westernpromise

It's not about life choices, it's about the quality of decisions. You can study anything as literature at Oxbridge as long as you can convince someone to supervise you in it, which entails showing that it is literature. This is how people get to do dissertations on Bob Dylan; they persuaded the faculty that he was a poet and that he could be studied as literature.

At the same time it's not possible to turn it into a Crewe and Alsager poly type of degree, in which the entire 3-year "degree" course was less than one paper of Part I because you spent three years on something you liked or found easy.

If people don't understand that, they simply made a poor decision. Nottingham is currently the 84th best university in the world; Cambridge is 5th and is currently perceived as being harder to get into than Oxford, which is and has always been a complete explanation for why people pick #84 over #5.

The other two possible explanations are indolence (who wants a hard degree when you could doss around and do an easy one?), and a need to be the smartest person in the room (if you've always been top of the class of As to Fs, it's hard, for some people, to be the bottom of a class of other As).

LydiaJ

westernpromise wrote: »

This is known as the Argument From Incredulity:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity
- you don't understand something, therefore it can't be right.

You do not understand why a terrace in Dulwich is worth 12 times one on Newcastle, therefore its price is wrong. You can't afford a Bugatti Veyron, therefore it must be a bad car. You can't afford a bespoke suit, therefore they must be a ripoff. Evolution seems impossible, so it can't have happened.

If London were so awful, and Newcastle were so great, it would be the Dulwich terrace that was worth the price of a decent kitchen, and it would be the Newcastle one that was worth £1.35 million.

The prices are conclusive, I'm afraid. London is a better place to live than Newcastle - unless you think the better and more desirable a place is, the cheaper it will become to live there.

You have still not responded to my point that London is, inescapably, much smaller than the rest of the UK. Thus, even though the people who want to live in London are significantly less numerous than the people who don't want to live in London, nevertheless the Londoners (and would-be-Londoners) will face much tougher competition for living space than the non-Londoners.

London is "better" according to some people's priorities (including yours), and "worse" according to other people's priorities (including mine and several other posters on this thread). People who don't want to live in London aren't deluded. We just like, value, and want, different things from you. Why is that so hard for you to grasp? Assimilating the idea that "different people like different things and you can't expect everyone to have the same tastes as you happen to have" is a pretty basic element of childhood development. Did you skip that part?

ETA I have 2 Oxford physics degrees - both a bachelor's and a doctorate. Bob Dylan wasn't mentioned in either of them. So I don't think my lack of desire to live in London can be put down to a lack of education etc.

System

I thought we nailed supply and demand in 2007.

GreatApe

LydiaJ wrote: »

You have still not responded to my point that London is, inescapably, much smaller than the rest of the UK. Thus, even though the people who want to live in London are significantly less numerous than the people who don't want to live in London, nevertheless the Londoners (and would-be-Londoners) will face much tougher competition for living space than the non-Londoners.

London is "better" according to some people's priorities (including yours), and "worse" according to other people's priorities (including mine and several other posters on this thread). People who don't want to live in London aren't deluded. We just like, value, and want, different things from you. Why is that so hard for you to grasp? Assimilating the idea that "different people like different things and you can't expect everyone to have the same tastes as you happen to have" is a pretty basic element of childhood development. Did you skip that part?

ETA I have 2 Oxford physics degrees - both a bachelor's and a doctorate. Bob Dylan wasn't mentioned in either of them. So I don't think my lack of desire to live in London can be put down to a lack of education etc.

You are both right

Sure plenty of people have no desire to live in London that is obvious

But it is also right in that people who do have money want to live in expensive places and for the UK that means London and particular 5 or so boroughs

It doesn't take an Oxford physics grad to work out that if you make millions you don't dream of buying a two up two down in Stoke on Trent. If you hit the euromillions you don't buy your mother a terrace in Doncaster. If you are a CEO of a big company you don't have a second home in Middlesborough

What all this means is while Stoke on Trent is likely priced on income, London and especially the most expensive 5-10 London borough prices are set on capital not income. And people with capital often only desire being around other capital and the capital of capital is London

GreatApe

westernpromise wrote: »

It's not about life choices, it's about the quality of decisions. You can study anything as literature at Oxbridge as long as you can convince someone to supervise you in it, which entails showing that it is literature. This is how people get to do dissertations on Bob Dylan; they persuaded the faculty that he was a poet and that he could be studied as literature.

At the same time it's not possible to turn it into a Crewe and Alsager poly type of degree, in which the entire 3-year "degree" course was less than one paper of Part I because you spent three years on something you liked or found easy.

If people don't understand that, they simply made a poor decision. Nottingham is currently the 84th best university in the world; Cambridge is 5th and is currently perceived as being harder to get into than Oxford, which is and has always been a complete explanation for why people pick #84 over #5.

The other two possible explanations are indolence (who wants a hard degree when you could doss around and do an easy one?), and a need to be the smartest person in the room (if you've always been top of the class of As to Fs, it's hard, for some people, to be the bottom of a class of other As).

You don't choose anything you don't even have a lot of control over 'you'

A persons intelligence is almost as fixed as a persons height.
So while you can be happy that you are smart I'm not sure you can be proud of it
In that same way a tall person might be happy that they are tall but it would be silly to be proud of being tall

Moby

Interesting thread. Originally from Wales I did an Msc at Jesus College, Oxford and loved Oxfordshire but moved to London to work and have stayed there ever since, (27 years). I don't actually like it very much and resent being charged £6 for a small glass of prosecco in a local bistro in Palmers Green. So why do I stay? I think a lot of people end up in places due to work, relationships etc and end up staying there even if they don't like it very much. London is such a place. It's a metropolis that draws you in. It's an impersonal rat race place, dominated by transient individuals who will be often planning to leave but sometimes never do. I wonder if I will?
On a side note we are now at 60 murders in the capital this year up to April. The life that you can have in London can be a good one but for millions of people who don't have the economic security to insulate themselves there is a grim reality to living in a transient metropolis:-
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/26/lordship-lane-the-london-road-paying-a-heavy-toll-for-gang-warfare

GunJack

Moby wrote: »

Interesting thread. Originally from Wales

Should've come back, it's pretty darn great here, and that's after us returning after 9 years living and working in Cambridgeshire

Herzlos

GreatApe wrote: »

But it is also right in that people who do have money want to live in expensive places and for the UK that means London and particular 5 or so boroughs

There are plenty of people up here with money, living in enormous properties and estates away from the rat race.

But you are largely right; those wealthy probably all have properties in London as well for business, and some areas of London are largely self selecting - it's where the rich live because only the rich can afford to live there.