Showing posts with label Q&A. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Q&A. Show all posts
Monday, August 08, 2016
What psychological factors lead to poverty, and what factors/beliefs lead to wealth?
The idea that poverty or wealth are based on the psychological makeup of a person is a fallacy. It is amply established that the single most significant factor in poverty or wealth is the socioeconomic status of the family into which each person is born.
Studies on social mobility show repeatedly that socioeconomic status is downwardly “sticky.” That is, most people have a stronger likelihood of sliding downward in the socioeconomic ladder that upward.
Studies about the United States show that it takes at least five generations to climb from the bottom 20% of the income distribution to the top 20%; exception: immigrants. In any case, upward mobility happens to a small minority of people. A recent study of Sweden, recently expanded to Scandinavia and Britain found that a large share of those at the top 20% today were descendants of people in the top 20% in the 1700s.
If the question were rephrased to what traits help the rare few who climb up the socioeconomic ladder, that might elicit a different answer. But beware the Horatio Alger mythology. If hard work made people rich, African bush women would all be billionaires.
This is a repost from my replies to questions posted on Quora, a question-and-answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users, at quora.com. The questions and their subtexts are not mine.
Friday, August 05, 2016
Why wasn't I born in a developed country?
Q. Why wasn't I born in a developed country?
A. This is one of those questions that reveals the silliness of patriotism, the pride in supposedly having chosen well one’s birthplace. One might as well take pride in the color of one’ s eyes.
It also begs the question of the term “developed country,” which economists no longer use. When it was, many observed that there are precious few actually developed countries, perhaps the Netherlands or Norway. In reality, the majority of countries fall into the basket of those that are “underdeveloped,” meaning that their systems of political economy fail to deliver basic needs and a degree of transparency to their citizens. A minority of very wealthy nations are actually overdeveloped, with systems that yield pollution, expansionist wars and neocolonial oppression of other countries, plus a measure of internal socioeconomic injustice.
There is no paradise on Earth.
This is a repost from my replies to questions posted on Quora, a question-and-answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users, at quora.com. The questions and their subtexts are not mine.
A. This is one of those questions that reveals the silliness of patriotism, the pride in supposedly having chosen well one’s birthplace. One might as well take pride in the color of one’ s eyes.
It also begs the question of the term “developed country,” which economists no longer use. When it was, many observed that there are precious few actually developed countries, perhaps the Netherlands or Norway. In reality, the majority of countries fall into the basket of those that are “underdeveloped,” meaning that their systems of political economy fail to deliver basic needs and a degree of transparency to their citizens. A minority of very wealthy nations are actually overdeveloped, with systems that yield pollution, expansionist wars and neocolonial oppression of other countries, plus a measure of internal socioeconomic injustice.
There is no paradise on Earth.
This is a repost from my replies to questions posted on Quora, a question-and-answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users, at quora.com. The questions and their subtexts are not mine.
Wednesday, August 03, 2016
Would Christians have better luck at converting people if they abolished their dogma of hell?
Q. Would Christians have better luck at converting people if they abolished their dogma of hell?
A. Believing in something because you will get a reward or for fear of punishment is not genuine faith. The teaching about punishment as one of the possibilities at the end of one’ s life or at the end of history (mileage may vary according to the denomination) is about recognizing that God is merciful bust also just.
Incidentally, while churches have recognized many people as saints, not one single solitary human being has been officially consigned to eternal punishment by any major church body of which I am aware.
This is a repost from my replies to questions posted on Quora, a question-and-answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users, at quora.com. The questions and their subtexts are not mine.
A. Believing in something because you will get a reward or for fear of punishment is not genuine faith. The teaching about punishment as one of the possibilities at the end of one’ s life or at the end of history (mileage may vary according to the denomination) is about recognizing that God is merciful bust also just.
Incidentally, while churches have recognized many people as saints, not one single solitary human being has been officially consigned to eternal punishment by any major church body of which I am aware.
This is a repost from my replies to questions posted on Quora, a question-and-answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users, at quora.com. The questions and their subtexts are not mine.
Tuesday, August 02, 2016
Is zero unemployment a good thing?
No and it's not possible. It would mean that no one was seeking to gain or change employment and no one was seeking to hire or fire. In essence, it would mean a static situation without growth or change in the labor market; given that population tends to increase and people tend to shifts in various demographic characteristics (age, marital status, etc.), a static labor market would be necessarily underserving any society.
This is a repost from my replies to questions posted on Quora, a question-and-answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users, at quora.com. The questions and their subtexts are not mine.
This is a repost from my replies to questions posted on Quora, a question-and-answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users, at quora.com. The questions and their subtexts are not mine.
Monday, August 01, 2016
What's a good estimate of believing Christians?
[This is the beginning of reposts from my replies to questions posted on Quora, a question-and-answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users, at quora.com. The questions and their subtexts are not mine.]
Q: What's a good estimate of believing Christians?
The official number is around 2 billions but for example in my family we are all (6) baptized but only 50% are real Christians, the other 50% are atheist but still nominal Christians.
A: My rule of thumb, about any religion or none, is about 10% really know, understand and assent to the fullness of their nominal faith. Of those, probably none live out such beliefs perfectly. Augustine of Hippo, bishop, scholar and saint, wrestled with this question when he compared the visible ecclesiastical community with the communion of saints, dead and alive, known only to God.
As for Christian statistics in particular, there are many problems. First, different denominations count members in different ways. Many Protestant denominations count only confirmed members. Catholics and Orthodox count baptized people. That already distorts the number.
Sociologists of religion tend to prefer, as a yardstick, behavior indicating adherence. Here again, there is the problem of finding measurable behavior. A common, if imperfect yardstick, is attendance or participation in ritual services or events beyond major holidays. People who go to church one a month throughout the year, for example, are likely to be more seriously committed to a belief (regardless of whether they succeed at meeting the faith’ s ethical demands) than people who go just for Christmas and Easter.
Q: What's a good estimate of believing Christians?
The official number is around 2 billions but for example in my family we are all (6) baptized but only 50% are real Christians, the other 50% are atheist but still nominal Christians.
A: My rule of thumb, about any religion or none, is about 10% really know, understand and assent to the fullness of their nominal faith. Of those, probably none live out such beliefs perfectly. Augustine of Hippo, bishop, scholar and saint, wrestled with this question when he compared the visible ecclesiastical community with the communion of saints, dead and alive, known only to God.
As for Christian statistics in particular, there are many problems. First, different denominations count members in different ways. Many Protestant denominations count only confirmed members. Catholics and Orthodox count baptized people. That already distorts the number.
Sociologists of religion tend to prefer, as a yardstick, behavior indicating adherence. Here again, there is the problem of finding measurable behavior. A common, if imperfect yardstick, is attendance or participation in ritual services or events beyond major holidays. People who go to church one a month throughout the year, for example, are likely to be more seriously committed to a belief (regardless of whether they succeed at meeting the faith’ s ethical demands) than people who go just for Christmas and Easter.
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