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Comment by random023987 | Hacker News Reader

I think underlying many of these discussions is a fundamental question:

"If not all cultures and values are equally successful in modern society, should we (as a society) encourage people to adopt a more successful values, or should we adapt society to make all cultures and values equally successful?"

(edit: obviously I have biases, but I tried to phase this in a way that masked my biases. If there's a more neutral way to phrase this, I'd be interested in hearing it)

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The only way to accomplish the latter is to pull the excellent down to the level of mediocrity or worse. How do you propose to raise up a culture that doesn't value creativity and hard work, for example, to the level of success of one that does. Culture is much more than what food you eat and music you listen to.

This reminds me of a famous Tocqueville quote:

There is in fact a manly and legitimate passion for equality that spurs all men to wish to be strong and esteemed. This passion tends to elevate the lesser to the rank of the greater.

But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.

Not attributing this to you, but you could deploy your argument against abolishing slavery.

> How do you propose to raise up a culture that doesn't value diligent hard work

Which culture? Don't be abstract. Name what culture you think doesn't value hard work and I will and we'll see if I can't find a counterexample.

I prefer positive examples. It's no secret that the Jewish people have done so phenomenally well, despite two millennia of persecution, because of their strong values of hard work, family, and creativity.

> It's no secret that the Jewish people have done so phenomenally well, despite two millennia of persecution, because of their strong values of hard work, family, and creativity

This is a commonly held hypothesis but the question of "why are the Jews successful despite being outsiders" is complicated and not in any way settled. What I know of it comes from reading some of "the origins of totalitarianism" Hannah Arendt. "The Jews are really hardworking" is a lazy and easy explanation for the question of how some Jews have flourished despite persecution.

It is not simply the case that culture is the proximal cause of (some) Jewish wealth than the particular material conditions of certain Jews throughout history that has lead to the affluence of and importance of some, mostly European Jews. For example, many Jews came to have a privileged position in European courts because of the rise of protestantism (a hardworking culture that doesn't value credit, something that Wax would probably say is "bad"). You're ignoring politics and history when you just chalk everything up to culture. It's survivorship bias at it's finest.

Edit: I butchered a sentence in the middle of my comment. Added a line break.

Many, if not all, successful cultures have a tradition of helping others overcome difficulties. Maybe that's what we should be looking at, rather than making too much of a deal of the fate of the excellent, who are generally well-able to look after themselves. Society is not a zero-sum game, unless we choose to play it that way.

They are also benefiting heavily from genetics, their average IQ being roughly an entire standard deviation above average.

It is a fact that different cultures value things differently. Japanese culture has different values than Hawaiian culture, or southern white culture. Where there is difference in kind, there is different in adaptation. Every culture likely has its advantages in some areas, but not every one of those areas is deemed valuable by a modern society or economy. It is an inescapable fact that some ways of living, and some systems of moral and social values are more conducive to a modern, democratic capitalist society than others.

What we choose to do about that is up for debate. The fact of the situation, however, is not.

>Not attributing this to you, but you could deploy your argument against abolishing slavery.

I don't follow. The quote strongly applies that freedom is preferable to slavery even if some would want otherwise.

This is not a very meaningful argument if you don't provide metrics for 'excellence' and 'success'

Some metrics that assume long happy healthy secure lives are preferable.

* Life expectancy: this assumes longer is better

* Rate of suicide: happy secure people generally don't commit suicide

* Rate of preventable deceases: says something about health

* Rate of violent crime: secure people don't have to deal with crime

Culture and society engage with one another. To take an extremely concrete example, our society takes every possible opportunity to treat young unwed mothers like absolute shit.

"Raising up" the culture of people who are unsurprised that people at the peak of their fertility tend to get pregnant even in an environment where marriage is increasingly unattainable to that population is more about not going out of our way to kick people while they're down than hobbling the excellent.

I take huge issue with this statement because it tries to sneak certain statements past the reader without evidence.

How do you mean marriage is increasingly unattainable ? A marriage license costs $55. Are you alluding to something else here?

Single mothers are one of the last bastions of subsidies and welfare, especially considering how everything else has been scaled down in the recent years.

> our society takes every possible opportunity to treat young unwed mothers like absolute shit.

I have plenty of anecdata to the contrary. I'd like to hear why you think this, there must be a somewhat personal reason.

A little googling:

TANF (the last vestige of single-mother welfare) is ~$30bn/yr for the whole US, state & federal contribution.

SSDI (a mix of people with severe medical problems and the work-shy) is $150bn/yr.

OASI (I'm old - gimmie money) is $813bn/yr

Medicare (I'm old - gimmie healthcare) is $709bn/yr

Single mother welfare is a rounding error in the budget compared to other subsidies and welfare, which is mostly diverted towards older and wealthier people.

I'm not just talking about cash welfare -- try holding down a job while raising a kid by your own and see how much our society will bend over backwards to accommodate any lifestyle choice other than single child-rearing.

I don't have a dog in this fight - I'm a middle-aged, childless single guy. But I have eyes to see and it doesn't take much research to figure out who's getting the short end of the stick in our social order.

I appreciate the elaboration of your position, we seem to have more in common than originally thought.

> But I have eyes to see and it doesn't take much research to figure out who's getting the short end of the stick in our social order.

Part of the plight of single mothers is rising inequality and inability of the fathers to find decent jobs. Whenever arguments about children are made, I strongly believe at looking at a broader picture - how can we make sure the child grows up in a nuclear family for at least 16-18 years? I think that has to be looked at in the context of both sexes.

Thanks for the numbers as well, although I believe medical care is also subsidized for single mothers (at their median income level). It's hard to argue against expanding TANF (One of my college Economics courses examined effectiveness of welfare programs, and found that TANF was the most beneficial as far as how far each dollar goes).

Not op and not exactly what you ask for.

Welfare is structured so that single moms get more money if they stay single. It is bad for the kids to grow up without a father and it is bad for society to encourage it.

Source: Wife worked in a homeless shelter.

Appreciated all the same.

Poor policies that leave people in poverty traps (e.g. having a single mom find a job that pays barely above her welfare benefits shouldn't be stripping her of benefits, but a much more gradual sliding scale instead) should constantly be brought to light and fixed.

> It is bad for the kids to grow up without a father and it is bad for society to encourage it.

Absolutely, but to fix that we also have to look at why the fathers aren't sticking around, not only why single mothers aren't remarrying and/or getting out of poverty quicker.

I think we agree, poverty traps need to be fixed.

I think there are a lot of reasons fathers aren't sticking around. I think a lot of those can be helped if there was less drug use and gang violence and more enfranchise on education, family planning, and marriage.

I think there are both structural (welfare, education, ect) and cultural changes that need to be made before all of those areas can be improved.

I would recommend people read or re-read "Democracy in America". I've read it several times and each time I find a new layer of truth in the work.

How do you propose to raise up a culture that doesn't value creativity and hard work, for example, to the level of success of one that does.

Lots of welfare, which gets back to the original point about marriage vs. single parents.

Where's the instinct towards doing nothing and minding your own business? I feel left out.

successful cultures don't necessarily scale within a society if some of what makes them successful is taking advantage of other cultures.

And the question below that is, who's "we"?

>should we adapt society to make all cultures and values equally successful?

Given that this includes people who value a society where particular values aren't successful, it is probably not possible to have a society like that.

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