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Debate offshoot - The importance of delayed gratification
CSARdiver
Posts: 6,252 Member
As part of a separate topic discussing why marketers often mislead (whether purposefully or not) clients to focus on "shocking the system" and on the wrong solutions.
As a core philosophy behind weight management - one eats within budget to ensure their weight is maintained over time. A sacrifice of one's present wants for a future goal.
In speaking with other members on and off MFP I've noted a common trend, that at one point they believed a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their lives.
Does this core philosophy carry into other aspects of your life? Financially, professionally, academically, etc.
As a core philosophy behind weight management - one eats within budget to ensure their weight is maintained over time. A sacrifice of one's present wants for a future goal.
In speaking with other members on and off MFP I've noted a common trend, that at one point they believed a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their lives.
Does this core philosophy carry into other aspects of your life? Financially, professionally, academically, etc.
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Replies
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To answer your question from the other thread - things like racism and sexism play into economic and educational disparities. If your family was not able to own property of any kind because there were laws against the books barring them from doing so, it's going to be awfully difficult to build generational wealth. Never mind biases that occur in hiring (and firing) practices. And then there's the whole segregation bit.
The same is true for education which is also linked to where students live during their primary and secondary education. As I asked you in the previous thread, Lastly, how would you explain the fact that academia is overwhelmingly white? Is that about impulse control? If so, how so?
And yes, I know multiple tenured and early career professors who are people of color, but they are not the norm in, among other places, the US, Canada, and Europe.11 -
You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
Generational wealth is below 1% of the population, so I'm not sure what impact this has, especially considering that it is rarely maintained passed 2 generations. As wealth is an output of behavior the core principle of managing a budget still applies.
Every discipline has challenges, both internal and external, but to only focus on challenges without offering a solution is a moot point.
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
Not really the point of bringing up the relation of health and wealth, but a core theme to wealth and the common misunderstandings around it - nearly all the points you bring up and a myriad more. Just as in weight management it highlights the lack (some would say deliberate) of education around both subjects.4 -
You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
Generational wealth is below 1% of the population, so I'm not sure what impact this has, especially considering that it is rarely maintained passed 2 generations. As wealth is an output of behavior the core principle of managing a budget still applies.
Every discipline has challenges, both internal and external, but to only focus on challenges without offering a solution is a moot point.
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
Not really the point of bringing up the relation of health and wealth, but a core theme to wealth and the common misunderstandings around it - nearly all the points you bring up and a myriad more. Just as in weight management it highlights the lack (some would say deliberate) of education around both subjects.
Fungible wealth. When one comes from a class that have historically been disadvantaged, there is a huge impact that continues on generationally in terms of wealth of connections.
Just consider hiring. Most jobs are never actually publicly listed and hiring happens based on people knowing people. This blocks opportunities in a major way when people tend hire people they know and people tend to know people that look like them. Tying back into people that previously never could own property, it means the people who are very likely to actually own the kinds of property that lets them be someone that hires people (those hallowed "job creators") are very likely not going to be members of the class that has faced prejudice, and aren't very likely to know and therefore hire people. And that is just working under the assumptions of things done without any intentionality - just moment of prior history, even when dealing with well intentioned and equitable people.
I'd also have to know how exactly generational wealth is even being defined and calculated when coming up with that 1% to make a real analysis. It is the glib kind of statistic that could mean a million different things. Like if it simply means that all wealth in the US right now, take 1% and that is the amount that is inherited, that is a bit deceptive. Wealth grows with every generation, so it doesn't speak much about what the actually disparity in what each generation or group inherited in comparison to each other is.5 -
You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
...
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
My academic success, especially as a child, has been negatively affected because of academic disparities due to race yes. I could probably point to ways that my physical health has as well (and I'm not talking about my weight). If you think that the ways in which people respond to others in relation to race isn't important and doesn't play a role in various things in really all societies (though in varying ways globally - which is actually rather fascinating), then that says quite a lot. That would would seemingly require ignoring history and require one to have blinders on to what's going on in the present.
Now, can you answer my question (the third time of me asking it to someone who is apparently rather open to asking questions...)? How would you explain the fact that academia is overwhelmingly white? Is that about impulse control? If so, how so?12 -
You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
...
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
My academic success, especially as a child, has been negatively affected because of academic disparities due to race yes. I could probably point to ways that my physical health has as well (and I'm not talking about my weight). If you think that the ways in which people respond to others in relation to race isn't important and doesn't play a role in various things in really all societies (though in varying ways globally - which is actually rather fascinating), then that says quite a lot. That would would seemingly require ignoring history and require one to have blinders on to what's going on in the present.
Now, can you answer my question (the third time of me asking it to someone who is apparently rather open to asking questions...)? How would you explain the fact that academia is overwhelmingly white? Is that about impulse control? If so, how so?
My senior thesis was on geographical location as one of the driving forces behind innovation and behavior - the concept of sacrifice is a life saving skill to those in colder or temperate climates. I've yet to see any substative evidence suggesting race as an impact other than a factor used to control by the controlling class.
I have as well and let this mire me down for several years until finally changing my behavior. One of my trigger moments was hearing Dr. Thomas Sowell debate.
As for history I still don't see how it applies to the individual. I do see how this perception keeps people down thinking they can never alter course. The notion is similar to thinking one has obese genes.
I see academia is a failing institution and why I left, so I'm not sure your obsession with this or how it relates to the topic. I'm not aware it is. Which discipline? Looking back at my career sociology, anthropology, microbiology - my professors were very diverse.0 -
@CSARdiver I'd like context - would you please link to the parent thread, and, if it is long, say at about what page this tangent started?5
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kshama2001 wrote: »@CSARdiver I'd like context - would you please link to the parent thread, and, if it is long, say at about what page this tangent started?
About page 2 - fascinating debate!
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10763918/muscle-building-and-fat-loss/p20 -
Thanks!0
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magnusthenerd wrote: »You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
Generational wealth is below 1% of the population, so I'm not sure what impact this has, especially considering that it is rarely maintained passed 2 generations. As wealth is an output of behavior the core principle of managing a budget still applies.
Every discipline has challenges, both internal and external, but to only focus on challenges without offering a solution is a moot point.
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
Not really the point of bringing up the relation of health and wealth, but a core theme to wealth and the common misunderstandings around it - nearly all the points you bring up and a myriad more. Just as in weight management it highlights the lack (some would say deliberate) of education around both subjects.
Fungible wealth. When one comes from a class that have historically been disadvantaged, there is a huge impact that continues on generationally in terms of wealth of connections.
Just consider hiring. Most jobs are never actually publicly listed and hiring happens based on people knowing people. This blocks opportunities in a major way when people tend hire people they know and people tend to know people that look like them. Tying back into people that previously never could own property, it means the people who are very likely to actually own the kinds of property that lets them be someone that hires people (those hallowed "job creators") are very likely not going to be members of the class that has faced prejudice, and aren't very likely to know and therefore hire people. And that is just working under the assumptions of things done without any intentionality - just moment of prior history, even when dealing with well intentioned and equitable people.
I'd also have to know how exactly generational wealth is even being defined and calculated when coming up with that 1% to make a real analysis. It is the glib kind of statistic that could mean a million different things. Like if it simply means that all wealth in the US right now, take 1% and that is the amount that is inherited, that is a bit deceptive. Wealth grows with every generation, so it doesn't speak much about what the actually disparity in what each generation or group inherited in comparison to each other is.
Wealth remains an output of behavior, in this case learned behavior.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be considering. We live in a family economy, so yes - children exhibiting positive learned behavior are going to have a more positive output. The more I think about this I wonder why two critical elements - financial and calorie management - are not part of the core public school curriculum? Is this not the entire purpose behind public education? To ensure a level playing field?
Wealth does not necessarily grow with every generation. Statistically speaking this is exceptionally rare. Wealth is typically generated by the first generation, benefited by the second, and by the third this has been exhausted. The habits born of necessity are rarely imparted for the desire to give children a better life. Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad is possibly the greatest resource on the difference in mindset on wealth.
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I'm a little confused. This is a branch off another thread, but the OP here is a narrowed focus vs. all the many places the other thread went. It seems unwieldy to me to bring over other sub-threads that aren't clear in this new context. Because I'm a small woman of small mind, I'm going to stick with the OP in this thread, and see where the discussion goes from there. So:As part of a separate topic discussing why marketers often mislead (whether purposefully or not) clients to focus on "shocking the system" and on the wrong solutions.
As a core philosophy behind weight management - one eats within budget to ensure their weight is maintained over time. A sacrifice of one's present wants for a future goal.
In speaking with other members on and off MFP I've noted a common trend, that at one point they believed a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their lives.
Does this core philosophy carry into other aspects of your life? Financially, professionally, academically, etc.
For me, weight management is very much about balancing current wants with future wants or even needs. (Notice how I didn't use the word "sacrifice" in there? Probably intentional.
). So, that general idea resonates with me.
I can also relate to the idea of "budgeting" in a calorie/activity balancing situation.
To me, neither of those is the same concept as "they believed that a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their life."
That part doesn't seem to (1) be the same idea as either of the other metaphors, (2) follow from them, or (3) frankly, even make sense to me.
Is there anyone who's never achieved a goal? Um, maybe, but not many. And that was a big leap from a small goal to "the impossible" - kinda lost me.
I do think that there are things to be learned on (for lack of better terms) both technical and psychological fronts, from goal accomplishment, especially accomplishment of complex or very long term goals.
By "technical", I mean things like figuring out how to break a big goal (that might seem overwhelming) into smaller incremental goals, or how to identify small steps that move incrementally toward the big goal, or something along those lines. By "psychological", I mean things like figuring out out to feel rewarded and reinforced in the short run for doing things whose main or full benefits are far in the future.
Under "psychological", at least for some people, I'd include developing (through success) a sense of mastery or agency that makes one feel like one has strengths one can bring to bear on other big goals in the future, so feel like big goals are in fact possible. (This vaguely has something to do with how I'd understand that paragraph that I said didn't make sense to me, but it's not the same thing . . . I think.)
I do think that many of these foregoing things (the balancing of current/future wants, the attacking of complex/long-term goals, the sense of personal agency or mastery) are too often parsed in common conversation in terms of abstract trait-like things such as "discipline", "willpower", "motivation", etc., that make it easy to believe that some people have those traits (or talents), and other people don't. That's not helpful.
Personally, I think that what's really involved are in fact more like skills. Some people may have more preinstalled "natural talent" for some of them, but they're still skills that can be learned, practiced, improved, and potentially used in various scenarios . . . if one can figure out how to practice them. (Abstractions are hard. ) Practicing things improves them, makes them sharper tools. I think that applies even to rather abstract skills like "patience" and "persistence" (yes, I think those are more skills than traits, too).
So, I think there are things that can be learned or refined in the weight management scenario, that can potentially be transferrable to financial, professional, social, familial, etc., aspects of life. Also, vice versa, that skills learned in those domains potentially transfer to weight management and fitness, and make that more achievable.
I don't think of any of it as a "core philosophy" at all, though. I think of it as a skill set, or techniques, or practices.
(There were things hinted at in the other thread about perceived personal power, sense of agency, etc., that I think are kind of important in all of this, too, but I don't so far see a great jumping-off point in this thread. I also don't think that has anything with "core philosophy", either.)4 -
Wow, this seems like an easy topic to cross the line from polite to offensive!
There are massive disparities in the number of words spoken to infants per day depending on the demographics of the parents. It’s impossible to overestimate the effect of that sort of inheritance. I also don’t buy those numbers on generational wealth. What’s the value of having uncles and aunts who are willing and able to pay your bail, spot you money so you don’t get evicted and lose your credit, or offer you a white collar job out of high school so you can learn useful skills and build a resume as opposed to slinging burgers for minimum wage?5 -
You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
...
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
My academic success, especially as a child, has been negatively affected because of academic disparities due to race yes. I could probably point to ways that my physical health has as well (and I'm not talking about my weight). If you think that the ways in which people respond to others in relation to race isn't important and doesn't play a role in various things in really all societies (though in varying ways globally - which is actually rather fascinating), then that says quite a lot. That would would seemingly require ignoring history and require one to have blinders on to what's going on in the present.
Now, can you answer my question (the third time of me asking it to someone who is apparently rather open to asking questions...)? How would you explain the fact that academia is overwhelmingly white? Is that about impulse control? If so, how so?
My senior thesis was on geographical location as one of the driving forces behind innovation and behavior - the concept of sacrifice is a life saving skill to those in colder or temperate climates. I've yet to see any substative evidence suggesting race as an impact other than a factor used to control by the controlling class.
I have as well and let this mire me down for several years until finally changing my behavior. One of my trigger moments was hearing Dr. Thomas Sowell debate.
As for history I still don't see how it applies to the individual. I do see how this perception keeps people down thinking they can never alter course. The notion is similar to thinking one has obese genes.
I see academia is a failing institution and why I left, so I'm not sure your obsession with this or how it relates to the topic. I'm not aware it is. Which discipline? Looking back at my career sociology, anthropology, microbiology - my professors were very diverse.
My field is linguistics, though I can count on one hand how many black teachers and professors I've had from kindergarten through college. If we expand that to people of color more broadly, that doesn't expand past counting on two hands. While my field is very diverse with regards to gender, it really isn't in regards to race. The past three years that I've gone to one of the largest linguistic conferences in the US, I've counted no more than 10 black people each year. This is a major conference with over 1,200 attendees who are based at universities around the world. For what it's worth, I didn't start counting until one of my now friends who was then a first year doctoral student introduced himself to me and mentioned it.
That said, this is a broader issue. The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a number of articles about it (see this google link). I personally wouldn't call my focus on this an obsession which is the word that you've been using. If you compare how much I think about how few professors of color there are vs. how many what food I'm going to eat and how much, the food wins out by far (and I don't obsess over that either). That said, it is a topic that affects me in a major way because I'm a black budding academic who is navigating academia. It's a safe assumption that I think about it more than my white peers, but that's a function of being directly affected by it.
Also for reference - my mother, who went to college in the late 60s/early 70s, had a professor who told the students in his statistics class (which she was in) that he would fail all of the black students. This was at a liberal arts college in California that many people would recognize the name of (one of the Claremont colleges).10 -
You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
...
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
My academic success, especially as a child, has been negatively affected because of academic disparities due to race yes. I could probably point to ways that my physical health has as well (and I'm not talking about my weight). If you think that the ways in which people respond to others in relation to race isn't important and doesn't play a role in various things in really all societies (though in varying ways globally - which is actually rather fascinating), then that says quite a lot. That would would seemingly require ignoring history and require one to have blinders on to what's going on in the present.
Now, can you answer my question (the third time of me asking it to someone who is apparently rather open to asking questions...)? How would you explain the fact that academia is overwhelmingly white? Is that about impulse control? If so, how so?
My senior thesis was on geographical location as one of the driving forces behind innovation and behavior - the concept of sacrifice is a life saving skill to those in colder or temperate climates. I've yet to see any substative evidence suggesting race as an impact other than a factor used to control by the controlling class.
I have as well and let this mire me down for several years until finally changing my behavior. One of my trigger moments was hearing Dr. Thomas Sowell debate.
As for history I still don't see how it applies to the individual. I do see how this perception keeps people down thinking they can never alter course. The notion is similar to thinking one has obese genes.
I see academia is a failing institution and why I left, so I'm not sure your obsession with this or how it relates to the topic. I'm not aware it is. Which discipline? Looking back at my career sociology, anthropology, microbiology - my professors were very diverse.
My field is linguistics, though I can count on one hand how many black teachers and professors I've had from kindergarten through college. If we expand that to people of color more broadly, that doesn't expand past counting on two hands. While my field is very diverse with regards to gender, it really isn't in regards to race. The past three years that I've gone to one of the largest linguistic conferences in the US, I've counted no more than 10 black people each year. This is a major conference with over 1,200 attendees who are based at universities around the world. For what it's worth, I didn't start counting until one of my now friends who was then a first year doctoral student introduced himself to me and mentioned it.
That said, this is a broader issue. The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a number of articles about it (see this google link). I personally wouldn't call my focus on this an obsession which is the word that you've been using. If you compare how much I think about how few professors of color there are vs. how many what food I'm going to eat and how much, the food wins out by far (and I don't obsess over that either). That said, it is a topic that affects me in a major way because I'm a black budding academic who is navigating academia. It's a safe assumption that I think about it more than my white peers, but that's a function of being directly affected by it.
Also for reference - my mother, who went to college in the late 60s/early 70s, had a professor who told the students in his statistics class (which she was in) that he would fail all of the black students. This was at a liberal arts college in California that many people would recognize the name of (one of the Claremont colleges).
Fascintating - linguistics from a anthropological sense or communications? My favorite anthropologist professor specialiled in linguistics.
On an individual level is this important though? Especially considering the climate and push towards diversity of experience I find the most value in promoting what you personally bring to the table.
Ugh, I'm sorry for your mother's experience. I wonder if racists, or any bigots for that matter, act so as a form of narcissism. People who think this way appear to love themselves, but actually find themselves digusting. Rather than address this and grow they project their disgust onto anyone who challenges their reality. It's a sad, but fascinating self defense mechanism of the human mind and caused during the formative years - often out of some other authority figure who abused them.
As to my contempt for academia this was the only time I encountered true racism and this was in the sociology department as an undergrad contemplating graduate studies in the late 80s. I never encountered this in the sciences though and never in business. I've encountered racist individuals, but over time people just stop doing business with them. I think there's an element involved related to results and challenging hypothesis. This resonates with the "iron sharpens iron" philosophy - without rigorous debate and resistance we grow soft.
One of my treasured experiences was in boot camp. One black recruit from Philadelphia and one white recruit from rural New York. The tension between these two was palpable and daily one would call the other a racial slur and they would start fighting. We'd break it up or the drill instructors would (hopefully us or we'd all PT as group discipline). This went on for weeks, until cycle week - this is a week where you just get broken - hourly inspections where you quickly realize that you cannot succeed - the purpose is for you to deal with failure and still keep going. Those two started talking and constantly amazed and the wealth of shared experiences. The two became inseperable friends and are to this day like brothers.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
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I'm a little confused. This is a branch off another thread, but the OP here is a narrowed focus vs. all the many places the other thread went. It seems unwieldy to me to bring over other sub-threads that aren't clear in this new context. Because I'm a small woman of small mind, I'm going to stick with the OP in this thread, and see where the discussion goes from there. So:As part of a separate topic discussing why marketers often mislead (whether purposefully or not) clients to focus on "shocking the system" and on the wrong solutions.
As a core philosophy behind weight management - one eats within budget to ensure their weight is maintained over time. A sacrifice of one's present wants for a future goal.
In speaking with other members on and off MFP I've noted a common trend, that at one point they believed a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their lives.
Does this core philosophy carry into other aspects of your life? Financially, professionally, academically, etc.
For me, weight management is very much about balancing current wants with future wants or even needs. (Notice how I didn't use the word "sacrifice" in there? Probably intentional. ). So, that general idea resonates with me.
I can also relate to the idea of "budgeting" in a calorie/activity balancing situation.
To me, neither of those is the same concept as "they believed that a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their life."
That part doesn't seem to (1) be the same idea as either of the other metaphors, (2) follow from them, or (3) frankly, even make sense to me.
Is there anyone who's never achieved a goal? Um, maybe, but not many. And that was a big leap from a small goal to "the impossible" - kinda lost me.
I do think that there are things to be learned on (for lack of better terms) both technical and psychological fronts, from goal accomplishment, especially accomplishment of complex or very long term goals.
By "technical", I mean things like figuring out how to break a big goal (that might seem overwhelming) into smaller incremental goals, or how to identify small steps that move incrementally toward the big goal, or something along those lines. By "psychological", I mean things like figuring out out to feel rewarded and reinforced in the short run for doing things whose main or full benefits are far in the future.
Under "psychological", at least for some people, I'd include developing (through success) a sense of mastery or agency that makes one feel like one has strengths one can bring to bear on other big goals in the future, so feel like big goals are in fact possible. (This vaguely has something to do with how I'd understand that paragraph that I said didn't make sense to me, but it's not the same thing . . . I think.)
I do think that many of these foregoing things (the balancing of current/future wants, the attacking of complex/long-term goals, the sense of personal agency or mastery) are too often parsed in common conversation in terms of abstract trait-like things such as "discipline", "willpower", "motivation", etc., that make it easy to believe that some people have those traits (or talents), and other people don't. That's not helpful.
Personally, I think that what's really involved are in fact more like skills. Some people may have more preinstalled "natural talent" for some of them, but they're still skills that can be learned, practiced, improved, and potentially used in various scenarios . . . if one can figure out how to practice them. (Abstractions are hard. ) Practicing things improves them, makes them sharper tools. I think that applies even to rather abstract skills like "patience" and "persistence" (yes, I think those are more skills than traits, too).
So, I think there are things that can be learned or refined in the weight management scenario, that can potentially be transferrable to financial, professional, social, familial, etc., aspects of life. Also, vice versa, that skills learned in those domains potentially transfer to weight management and fitness, and make that more achievable.
I don't think of any of it as a "core philosophy" at all, though. I think of it as a skill set, or techniques, or practices.
(There were things hinted at in the other thread about perceived personal power, sense of agency, etc., that I think are kind of important in all of this, too, but I don't so far see a great jumping-off point in this thread. I also don't think that has anything with "core philosophy", either.)
I didn't mean literally never achieving a goal, but talking to people who are on "the elevator going down" they often see themselves in this state. Despite many achievements in the past the lack of current goal accomplishments feels like an insurmountable hill which causes a terminal cascade of failure, depression, more failue.
My original thought in going down this rabbit hole is to deconsctruct the misinformation/disinformation (as I believe much of this to be intentional) and dispel much of the myth around other disciplines. That despite "common knowledge" success is achievable, but you have to know and understand the roadblocks set before you.
Apologies as I'm writing this long before the idea is fully formed - just a connection I made within the original thread with some other books I'm reading.
Dispelling the myth of natural talent is definitely a core concept/correction to a root cause.0 -
You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
...
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
My academic success, especially as a child, has been negatively affected because of academic disparities due to race yes. I could probably point to ways that my physical health has as well (and I'm not talking about my weight). If you think that the ways in which people respond to others in relation to race isn't important and doesn't play a role in various things in really all societies (though in varying ways globally - which is actually rather fascinating), then that says quite a lot. That would would seemingly require ignoring history and require one to have blinders on to what's going on in the present.
Now, can you answer my question (the third time of me asking it to someone who is apparently rather open to asking questions...)? How would you explain the fact that academia is overwhelmingly white? Is that about impulse control? If so, how so?
My senior thesis was on geographical location as one of the driving forces behind innovation and behavior - the concept of sacrifice is a life saving skill to those in colder or temperate climates. I've yet to see any substative evidence suggesting race as an impact other than a factor used to control by the controlling class.
I have as well and let this mire me down for several years until finally changing my behavior. One of my trigger moments was hearing Dr. Thomas Sowell debate.
As for history I still don't see how it applies to the individual. I do see how this perception keeps people down thinking they can never alter course. The notion is similar to thinking one has obese genes.
I see academia is a failing institution and why I left, so I'm not sure your obsession with this or how it relates to the topic. I'm not aware it is. Which discipline? Looking back at my career sociology, anthropology, microbiology - my professors were very diverse.
My field is linguistics, though I can count on one hand how many black teachers and professors I've had from kindergarten through college. If we expand that to people of color more broadly, that doesn't expand past counting on two hands. While my field is very diverse with regards to gender, it really isn't in regards to race. The past three years that I've gone to one of the largest linguistic conferences in the US, I've counted no more than 10 black people each year. This is a major conference with over 1,200 attendees who are based at universities around the world. For what it's worth, I didn't start counting until one of my now friends who was then a first year doctoral student introduced himself to me and mentioned it.
That said, this is a broader issue. The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a number of articles about it (see this google link). I personally wouldn't call my focus on this an obsession which is the word that you've been using. If you compare how much I think about how few professors of color there are vs. how many what food I'm going to eat and how much, the food wins out by far (and I don't obsess over that either). That said, it is a topic that affects me in a major way because I'm a black budding academic who is navigating academia. It's a safe assumption that I think about it more than my white peers, but that's a function of being directly affected by it.
Also for reference - my mother, who went to college in the late 60s/early 70s, had a professor who told the students in his statistics class (which she was in) that he would fail all of the black students. This was at a liberal arts college in California that many people would recognize the name of (one of the Claremont colleges).
Reminds me of Philosophy Tube - in one his videos he mentions a British philosopher who said that there are about 5 black philosopher professors in Britain - and he meant that literally, not as in he can think of, or knew of, or met, but there were in fact only 5.
I myself remember being at a very socially progressive school and one day accidentally realizing how segregated it was just by habits. I had started a conversation with someone in a lunch line, sat down next to them to continue the talk. When I got up to move my tray, I suddenly realized, I was the only white person sitting at a table of black students. It was a weird feeling, suddenly aware of the color of my skin in an uncomfortable way that I imagine doesn't even begin to compare to what those black students felt every day. From that day, I noticed that the particular table in the dorm was always segregated like that - at most, there was a white woman from Detroit who would sit there with any regularity.
Funnily enough, I did have a linguistics professor at one time who was a black woman.2 -
magnusthenerd wrote: »You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
Generational wealth is below 1% of the population, so I'm not sure what impact this has, especially considering that it is rarely maintained passed 2 generations. As wealth is an output of behavior the core principle of managing a budget still applies.
Every discipline has challenges, both internal and external, but to only focus on challenges without offering a solution is a moot point.
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
Not really the point of bringing up the relation of health and wealth, but a core theme to wealth and the common misunderstandings around it - nearly all the points you bring up and a myriad more. Just as in weight management it highlights the lack (some would say deliberate) of education around both subjects.
Fungible wealth. When one comes from a class that have historically been disadvantaged, there is a huge impact that continues on generationally in terms of wealth of connections.
Just consider hiring. Most jobs are never actually publicly listed and hiring happens based on people knowing people. This blocks opportunities in a major way when people tend hire people they know and people tend to know people that look like them. Tying back into people that previously never could own property, it means the people who are very likely to actually own the kinds of property that lets them be someone that hires people (those hallowed "job creators") are very likely not going to be members of the class that has faced prejudice, and aren't very likely to know and therefore hire people. And that is just working under the assumptions of things done without any intentionality - just moment of prior history, even when dealing with well intentioned and equitable people.
I'd also have to know how exactly generational wealth is even being defined and calculated when coming up with that 1% to make a real analysis. It is the glib kind of statistic that could mean a million different things. Like if it simply means that all wealth in the US right now, take 1% and that is the amount that is inherited, that is a bit deceptive. Wealth grows with every generation, so it doesn't speak much about what the actually disparity in what each generation or group inherited in comparison to each other is.
Wealth remains an output of behavior, in this case learned behavior.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be considering. We live in a family economy, so yes - children exhibiting positive learned behavior are going to have a more positive output. The more I think about this I wonder why two critical elements - financial and calorie management - are not part of the core public school curriculum? Is this not the entire purpose behind public education? To ensure a level playing field?
Wealth does not necessarily grow with every generation. Statistically speaking this is exceptionally rare. Wealth is typically generated by the first generation, benefited by the second, and by the third this has been exhausted. The habits born of necessity are rarely imparted for the desire to give children a better life. Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad is possibly the greatest resource on the difference in mindset on wealth.
Seems weird to me that you can embrace epigenetics with one hand and call something a learned behavior (seeming to imply purely learned) on the other. It is also begging the question really hard, and at a certain level, absolutely wrong. It is absolutely possible to receive inherited wealth or win a lottery and that not be a learned behavior. And yes, some trust fund people and a lot of lottery winners squander their fortune, but then you're just saying not squandering wealth is a learned behavior, rather than building or earning wealth.
To be as blunt as possible, I don't think there can be a dialog between us. I think you're entrenched in a Horatio Algers mindset about people can just overcome things with a mindset and that's it.
I guess I'll give you the best example I've ever had to deal with about racism as systemic and undermining wealth: redlining. It is, in an economic sense, a perfectly economically rational behavior that pushes people to behave in racist ways when they don't agree with racism, but it will be to their economic advantage to do so for as long as there exists some people who are intentionally racist.
So, take there exists at least one racist person in the majority group - so in America, this would be a white person. This person's preferences automatically reduce - as just one, very small, immeasurable on the scale of economics - the value of homes in any neighborhood that is of mixed races, right? This has a knock on effect - any rational white person has to either value diversity more than the difference in their home's value, or they have an incentive to keep out or move out of neighborhoods that become mixed. It also means pure minority neighborhoods have a lower value because the majority of buyers have a disincentive from moving into a minority neighborhood. This also feeds back in on itself, so that also, banks, being rational actors, have a disincentive to give loans to any minority looking to buy a house in a traditionally white neighborhood. It is one of the impetus's behind the equal housing acts, and there's some cases to suggest it still goes on to some extent.
So does this mean home ownership is impossible for African Americans? Obviously not. Does it mean we can say the difference in home ownership between African Americans and white is at least partially explainable, even in the present day, by racism? I'd say absolutely.13 -
I greatly value and find delayed gratification very important - tailored to my personal needs. I call it "health for little wealth" and is very simple: One good walk to our nearest shopping centre (and back) equals about 4 km (2.5 miles) equals one most satisfying, large cup of strong cappucino at the shopping centre. If I don't get there, tough luck! I am losing out! So far this hot cup of beverage has worked wonders and I even managed to consume it during some rain storms. Voila!4
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I'm a little confused. This is a branch off another thread, but the OP here is a narrowed focus vs. all the many places the other thread went. It seems unwieldy to me to bring over other sub-threads that aren't clear in this new context. Because I'm a small woman of small mind, I'm going to stick with the OP in this thread, and see where the discussion goes from there. So:As part of a separate topic discussing why marketers often mislead (whether purposefully or not) clients to focus on "shocking the system" and on the wrong solutions.
As a core philosophy behind weight management - one eats within budget to ensure their weight is maintained over time. A sacrifice of one's present wants for a future goal.
In speaking with other members on and off MFP I've noted a common trend, that at one point they believed a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their lives.
Does this core philosophy carry into other aspects of your life? Financially, professionally, academically, etc.
For me, weight management is very much about balancing current wants with future wants or even needs. (Notice how I didn't use the word "sacrifice" in there? Probably intentional. ). So, that general idea resonates with me.
I can also relate to the idea of "budgeting" in a calorie/activity balancing situation.
To me, neither of those is the same concept as "they believed that a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their life."
That part doesn't seem to (1) be the same idea as either of the other metaphors, (2) follow from them, or (3) frankly, even make sense to me.
Is there anyone who's never achieved a goal? Um, maybe, but not many. And that was a big leap from a small goal to "the impossible" - kinda lost me.
I do think that there are things to be learned on (for lack of better terms) both technical and psychological fronts, from goal accomplishment, especially accomplishment of complex or very long term goals.
By "technical", I mean things like figuring out how to break a big goal (that might seem overwhelming) into smaller incremental goals, or how to identify small steps that move incrementally toward the big goal, or something along those lines. By "psychological", I mean things like figuring out out to feel rewarded and reinforced in the short run for doing things whose main or full benefits are far in the future.
Under "psychological", at least for some people, I'd include developing (through success) a sense of mastery or agency that makes one feel like one has strengths one can bring to bear on other big goals in the future, so feel like big goals are in fact possible. (This vaguely has something to do with how I'd understand that paragraph that I said didn't make sense to me, but it's not the same thing . . . I think.)
I do think that many of these foregoing things (the balancing of current/future wants, the attacking of complex/long-term goals, the sense of personal agency or mastery) are too often parsed in common conversation in terms of abstract trait-like things such as "discipline", "willpower", "motivation", etc., that make it easy to believe that some people have those traits (or talents), and other people don't. That's not helpful.
Personally, I think that what's really involved are in fact more like skills. Some people may have more preinstalled "natural talent" for some of them, but they're still skills that can be learned, practiced, improved, and potentially used in various scenarios . . . if one can figure out how to practice them. (Abstractions are hard. ) Practicing things improves them, makes them sharper tools. I think that applies even to rather abstract skills like "patience" and "persistence" (yes, I think those are more skills than traits, too).
So, I think there are things that can be learned or refined in the weight management scenario, that can potentially be transferrable to financial, professional, social, familial, etc., aspects of life. Also, vice versa, that skills learned in those domains potentially transfer to weight management and fitness, and make that more achievable.
I don't think of any of it as a "core philosophy" at all, though. I think of it as a skill set, or techniques, or practices.
(There were things hinted at in the other thread about perceived personal power, sense of agency, etc., that I think are kind of important in all of this, too, but I don't so far see a great jumping-off point in this thread. I also don't think that has anything with "core philosophy", either.)
I didn't mean literally never achieving a goal, but talking to people who are on "the elevator going down" they often see themselves in this state. Despite many achievements in the past the lack of current goal accomplishments feels like an insurmountable hill which causes a terminal cascade of failure, depression, more failue.
My original thought in going down this rabbit hole is to deconstruct the misinformation/disinformation (as I believe much of this to be intentional) and dispel much of the myth around other disciplines. That despite "common knowledge" success is achievable, but you have to know and understand the roadblocks set before you.
Apologies as I'm writing this long before the idea is fully formed - just a connection I made within the original thread with some other books I'm reading.
Dispelling the myth of natural talent is definitely a core concept/correction to a root cause.
I think we disagree in material ways.
I agree that there is much misinformation/disinformation (and suspect I agree with you about the general nature of maybe 80% of it).
I agree that success is potentially achievable, and that understanding the roadblocks and finding levers for change is very important - essential, in fact. A gut sense that one has agency is very important (and that sense can grow over time with successful goal accomplishment). But success is never guaranteed, even to people who do all the right things. Some situations are completely intractable, in ways sometimes unforseeable. Failure despite amazing, insightful effort is a thing. Certain kinds of obstacles make that failure more likely. I suspect you'd say that failure is a form of learning, and that people who fail should adjust and soldier on. I don't disagree, but I think there are limits to what we can realistically expect of people.
Also, I don't agree that natural talent is a myth. I think that some people have abilities with a strong genetic component, and/or an early-nurture component. For best success, they still need to develop/practice the related skills, but almost any given set of skills will come more easily to some people than to others. (There are child prodigies, right? Not many, but I think it's common sense and good observation to believe that there are also people with talents short of prodigy, but in excess of average.)
I do think that many people overestimate the value of "talent" and "luck" in some other people's life stories, and underestimate the value of work and practice. (As just one example, I see people react to excellent art/craft objects some of my friends have made with "You have such talent" when I know very well that the craftsperson started from pretty close to zilch, and has worked very hard, over a very long time, to achieve that level of skill.) Work and practice is somewhat invisible to the outside observer.
I think that many people use the ideas of "talent" and "luck" (unbeknownst even to themselves) as a cognitive out or dodge, in thinking about why they themselves are unable to achieve the same outcomes as the "lucky" "talented" people.
Sometimes, actual talent (genetic or early-life disposition to a skill) can be a trap for the talented: Because they easily exceed the performance of those around them early on, they don't practice enough or learn enough to reach anything like their potential. They may even be bettered, in the long term, by a similarly-situated person of mediocre talent who is more focused and persistent at skill development. People who think they're good at something can be undermotivated to improve at it.
So, talent is a thing IMO, but so is work, and taking responsibility for doing the work. The person with both - natural talent plus hard work - has the best odds of highest success. One or the other can get a person part way there (in an ill-defined sense of "there"). I'd guess that those half-a**ed cases are where actual luck (also a thing) may improve odds of success. Privilege, narrowly or broadly defined, is IMO a form of luck in this kind of scenario.
Backing up a little, I also don't agree that "much of the misinformation/disinformation is intentional". I think this particular class of misinformation/disinformation is often an emergent property of cognitive dodges (like the one mentioned explicitly above) added to the arm-waving of hucksterism for quick fixes (which is often intentional, but sometimes just delusion on the part of the huckster . . . but even in the latter case, the audience has to have some psychological motivation to believe and be manipulated by the huckster). To put it in more starkly oversimplified/cartoonish terms, much of the misinformation/disinformation is about simple laziness on the part of all parties to the cognitive transaction, added to self-interest (maybe misguided self-interest) all around. I think this is true even if you're only talking about misinformation/disinformation in the diet and fitness realm.
Stepping back still further, I'm feeling like you want to try to take things back to big principles that are abstract, generalized, kind of pure and universal. I think I like variation and situational reasoning and nuance and messiness, and dislike abstractions and universal principles. (I think that's part of what makes my posts so stinkin' rambling and non-pithy.
) To be more pointed, I think root causes (of nearly anything) are more likely to be very specific, and not about something as abstract as (say) "deferred gratification).
Enough for now.6 -
You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
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I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
My academic success, especially as a child, has been negatively affected because of academic disparities due to race yes. I could probably point to ways that my physical health has as well (and I'm not talking about my weight). If you think that the ways in which people respond to others in relation to race isn't important and doesn't play a role in various things in really all societies (though in varying ways globally - which is actually rather fascinating), then that says quite a lot. That would would seemingly require ignoring history and require one to have blinders on to what's going on in the present.
Now, can you answer my question (the third time of me asking it to someone who is apparently rather open to asking questions...)? How would you explain the fact that academia is overwhelmingly white? Is that about impulse control? If so, how so?
My senior thesis was on geographical location as one of the driving forces behind innovation and behavior - the concept of sacrifice is a life saving skill to those in colder or temperate climates. I've yet to see any substative evidence suggesting race as an impact other than a factor used to control by the controlling class.
I have as well and let this mire me down for several years until finally changing my behavior. One of my trigger moments was hearing Dr. Thomas Sowell debate.
As for history I still don't see how it applies to the individual. I do see how this perception keeps people down thinking they can never alter course. The notion is similar to thinking one has obese genes.
I see academia is a failing institution and why I left, so I'm not sure your obsession with this or how it relates to the topic. I'm not aware it is. Which discipline? Looking back at my career sociology, anthropology, microbiology - my professors were very diverse.
My field is linguistics, though I can count on one hand how many black teachers and professors I've had from kindergarten through college. If we expand that to people of color more broadly, that doesn't expand past counting on two hands. While my field is very diverse with regards to gender, it really isn't in regards to race. The past three years that I've gone to one of the largest linguistic conferences in the US, I've counted no more than 10 black people each year. This is a major conference with over 1,200 attendees who are based at universities around the world. For what it's worth, I didn't start counting until one of my now friends who was then a first year doctoral student introduced himself to me and mentioned it.
That said, this is a broader issue. The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a number of articles about it (see this google link). I personally wouldn't call my focus on this an obsession which is the word you've been using. If you compare how much I think about how few professors of color there are vs. how many what food I'm going to eat and how much, the food wins out by far (and I don't obsess over that either). That said, it is a topic that affects me in a major way because I'm a black budding academic who is navigating academia. It's a safe assumption that I think about it more than my white peers, but that's a function of being directly affected by it.
Also for reference - my mother, who went to college in the late 60s/early 70s, had a professor who told the students in his statistics class (which she was in) that he would fail all of the black students. This was at a liberal arts college in California that many people would recognize the name of (one of the Claremont colleges).
This is a complete digression from the thread. Aokoye, please read this next sentence very carefully: I think the weight of racial discrimination is very different from sex/gender discrimination, but your post struck me by how similar the shape of it feels, within a limited domain, from my perspective.
I grew up in a time when there weren't many women anything among professions or respected/well-compensated jobs, except for K-12 teachers and nurses: Virtually no women doctors, attorneys, professors, broadcasters, engineers, . . . etc. For example, in my entire childhood/youth, I encountered one female physician (a pediatrician, BTW).
My higher ed related to my career field (Computer Science/IT) had one woman professre, otherwise all male (more men of color than women by a good bit, but I think that's an artifact of the particular field - quite a few profs were not US-born so more diverse race/ethnicity). My fellow students, especially in advanced classes, were men. I was very frequently the only woman in those classes.
Things were improving a bit as I got into the working world (especially in higher ed adminstrative IT), but women were still distinctly in the minority, and I would often be far in the minority at certain conferences or the only woman at large meetings. I was mostly lucky, but same-age peers had shocking stories of discrimination (one described a previous workplace where female systems analysts assigned to a project would not be invited to full project team meetings, for example).
I don't have any particular larger point I'm making here, but just found it interesting how similar the overall shape of the situation felt (again, different weight, very different social constructs that create obstacles, on different levels of life beyond the profession: I'm not trying to minimize your lived experience, or claim broad equivalence beyond the very general shape of the professional role models - professional peers - workplace constraints. I can't even imagine how it would be, but sympathize . . . maybe even empathize, in the limited way possible.)
I can certainly understand the point I believe you're making about the difference between obsession and a mere steady recognition that there's an ongoing structural issue, and the idea that there's inequity to be addressed as such (somehow!), in addition to (not instead of) working one's hardest to navigate around and through all the obstacles, the ones related to this situation as well as ones that anyone and everyone might encounter.4 -
magnusthenerd wrote: »magnusthenerd wrote: »You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
Generational wealth is below 1% of the population, so I'm not sure what impact this has, especially considering that it is rarely maintained passed 2 generations. As wealth is an output of behavior the core principle of managing a budget still applies.
Every discipline has challenges, both internal and external, but to only focus on challenges without offering a solution is a moot point.
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
Not really the point of bringing up the relation of health and wealth, but a core theme to wealth and the common misunderstandings around it - nearly all the points you bring up and a myriad more. Just as in weight management it highlights the lack (some would say deliberate) of education around both subjects.
Fungible wealth. When one comes from a class that have historically been disadvantaged, there is a huge impact that continues on generationally in terms of wealth of connections.
Just consider hiring. Most jobs are never actually publicly listed and hiring happens based on people knowing people. This blocks opportunities in a major way when people tend hire people they know and people tend to know people that look like them. Tying back into people that previously never could own property, it means the people who are very likely to actually own the kinds of property that lets them be someone that hires people (those hallowed "job creators") are very likely not going to be members of the class that has faced prejudice, and aren't very likely to know and therefore hire people. And that is just working under the assumptions of things done without any intentionality - just moment of prior history, even when dealing with well intentioned and equitable people.
I'd also have to know how exactly generational wealth is even being defined and calculated when coming up with that 1% to make a real analysis. It is the glib kind of statistic that could mean a million different things. Like if it simply means that all wealth in the US right now, take 1% and that is the amount that is inherited, that is a bit deceptive. Wealth grows with every generation, so it doesn't speak much about what the actually disparity in what each generation or group inherited in comparison to each other is.
Wealth remains an output of behavior, in this case learned behavior.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be considering. We live in a family economy, so yes - children exhibiting positive learned behavior are going to have a more positive output. The more I think about this I wonder why two critical elements - financial and calorie management - are not part of the core public school curriculum? Is this not the entire purpose behind public education? To ensure a level playing field?
Wealth does not necessarily grow with every generation. Statistically speaking this is exceptionally rare. Wealth is typically generated by the first generation, benefited by the second, and by the third this has been exhausted. The habits born of necessity are rarely imparted for the desire to give children a better life. Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad is possibly the greatest resource on the difference in mindset on wealth.
Seems weird to me that you can embrace epigenetics with one hand and call something a learned behavior (seeming to imply purely learned) on the other. It is also begging the question really hard, and at a certain level, absolutely wrong. It is absolutely possible to receive inherited wealth or win a lottery and that not be a learned behavior. And yes, some trust fund people and a lot of lottery winners squander their fortune, but then you're just saying not squandering wealth is a learned behavior, rather than building or earning wealth.
To be as blunt as possible, I don't think there can be a dialog between us. I think you're entrenched in a Horatio Algers mindset about people can just overcome things with a mindset and that's it.
I guess I'll give you the best example I've ever had to deal with about racism as systemic and undermining wealth: redlining. It is, in an economic sense, a perfectly economically rational behavior that pushes people to behave in racist ways when they don't agree with racism, but it will be to their economic advantage to do so for as long as there exists some people who are intentionally racist.
So, take there exists at least one racist person in the majority group - so in America, this would be a white person. This person's preferences automatically reduce - as just one, very small, immeasurable on the scale of economics - the value of homes in any neighborhood that is of mixed races, right? This has a knock on effect - any rational white person has to either value diversity more than the difference in their home's value, or they have an incentive to keep out or move out of neighborhoods that become mixed. It also means pure minority neighborhoods have a lower value because the majority of buyers have a disincentive from moving into a minority neighborhood. This also feeds back in on itself, so that also, banks, being rational actors, have a disincentive to give loans to any minority looking to buy a house in a traditionally white neighborhood. It is one of the impetus's behind the equal housing acts, and there's some cases to suggest it still goes on to some extent.
So does this mean home ownership is impossible for African Americans? Obviously not. Does it mean we can say the difference in home ownership between African Americans and white is at least partially explainable, even in the present day, by racism? I'd say absolutely.
Challenging I agree - as I'm asking the next question - Why?
While I appreciate the reference, no. More about separating myth from reality. Identifying real roadblocks and developing strategies to remove them as opposed to being mired in the status quo.
I note the comparison to one believing that as their parents were obese, that they carry a gene that predisposes them to obesity. Is it helpful to remind this person daily of their demographic state and that they have an increased chance of obesity? I'm questioning the stress of recognizing an issue without any possibility of a solution and that focusing on what cannot be controlled greatly diminishes that which can be controlled.0 -
I'm going to bring this in from the parent thread:magnusthenerd wrote: »magnusthenerd wrote: »
From the NPR story,magnusthenerd wrote: »
Kind of to be expected. The prefrontal cortex starts coming online in a strong way around puberty. By 15, a lot of dietary restraint patterns are already going to be there.
Cut for brevityThe ability to delay gratification may be the single greatest ability humans hold and the root cause of disparity. It requires knowledge of self and the environment. It requires not only seeing the immediate reward, but requires seeing the abstract potential of a greater reward at the risk of immediate suffering.
By disparity I mean all inequality, or at least the vast majority of cases to the point all else becomes statistically insignificant. Those who manage weight do so due to through sacrificing present for future.
So I'm assuming you're not talking about things like economic, health, education, and wealth disparities right? If you are, then there's a lot more to it than the ability to delay gratification. In fact, the ability to delay one's gratification doesn't play a role.
With regards to the marshmallow test, more recent research has shown that it's fairly flawed. There's an episode of Invisibilia from 2016 that discusses it which is how I first came across the idea that the results of the original study were likely flawed. Here are three articles about it in The Atlantic, The Guardian and Smithsonian Magazine.
Lastly, here's an abstract from a 2018 paper that replicated the 1990 study http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797618761661 . Note the last sentence of the abstract, "Associations between delay time and measures of behavioral outcomes at age 15 were much smaller and rarely statistically significant."
edit: the Invisibilia link is especially interesting because the person who ran the 1990 study is saying in part, "I said X and everyone ran with it and turned it into Y - it is not Y".
You also have to consider that last sentence is prefaced by:But this bivariate correlation was only half the size of those reported in the original studies and was reduced by two thirds in the presence of controls for family background, early cognitive ability, and the home environment
So the factors they're using to diminish the correlation are also possible factors that foster delayed gratification - like I don't honestly understand how you remove the component cognitive ability from delayed gratification, I would consider delayed gratification a cognitive ability.
Note - these kids weren't 15 when they were told how to reframe their interpretation. Additionally, the article from The Atlantic also mentions the socioeconomic factors that can lead a child to choose the instant gratification route. Those, quite logically, are not about cognitive ability. Nor is home environment or family background.The vast majority of children in Mischel's study were able to delay gratification when they reframed their interpretations of the situation in front of them.
The point of the marshmallow test was to show how flexible people are — how easily changed if they simply reinterpret the way they frame the situation around them. But that's not the moral that our culture drew from the marshmallow study. We decided that those traits in the preschoolers were fixed — that their self-control at age 4 determined their success throughout life.
...
The marshmallow test became the poster child for the idea that there are specific personality traits that are stable and consistent. And this drives Walter Mischel crazy.
"That iconic story is upside-down wrong," Mischel says. "That your future is in a marshmallow. Because it isn't."
And of course, none of this has to do with the causes of educational, wealth, and health disparities (among other disparities that I can think of at 6:40am).
One cherry picked article and case closed? Can you think of a situation which disproves your assertion?
A statement closes the mind. A question opens the mind.
Does sacrifice impact disparity? Of course. To say otherwise is an act of escape - of ego protection. Just as one blames their weight on metabolism or some other minor variable, weight is an output of behavior. Wealth, education, etc. all the same. The competing variables may change, but the core concept is identical. The issue with each is a misunderstanding of the subject.
Over 79% of millionaires in the United States grew their wealth through the basic principle of sacrificing their present wants for future goals maintaining the simple concept of spending less that income.
It is an interesting standard that one study doesn't dismiss one other other study, but you logically pontificating do, somehow, negate an empirical matter.
I have absolutely no idea how you come up with that 79%. Spending less than you earn isn't a principle of sacrifice. That's some serious aggrandizing to say "well, he makes 200K a year, but he only lives on 100K, that's sacrifice."
A possible explanation. You have another, more accurate explanation?
This originated from a study on millionaires and their activity - published in "Everyday Millionaires" by Chris Hogan. It dispels much of the misinformation on the wealthy just and MFP does on weight management.
I don't know how it can be an explanation when it doesn't even have an explanation of what is meant by sacrifice because it seems a potentially very idiosyncratic use of the term, and rather than correcting misinformation, seems to be a semantics game to give a connotation to investment that sounds more noble than it is.
I could as easily say 100% of millionaires derive their wealth via exploiting surplus value, be just as accurate, and it certainly doesn't sound nice. I'd also doubt you'd consider it myth dispelling.
Regardless, I don't think it addresses what is meant by disparity. I don't want to put words in someone else's mouth, but I took it to be a kind of class disparity. To say that 79% of millionaires did X to become millionaires, therefore we can't say class disparity exists because you can just do X doesn't really work.
Consider the counter example. 100% of Olympic athletes train hard. Therefore, genetics can't explain disparities in athletics. Do you agree with that reasoning?
I had been, trying to figure out what types of things CSARdiver meant when they said "disparities". Where they only talking about weight or where they talking about health (more broadly), educational, wealth, and other disparities. Eventually it became clear that they were talking about all types of disparities which is when I started disagreeing because how would one be able to say, equate self control to educational disparities?
Donna prefers to have fun with video games rather than do her homework well, or at all sometimes - so her grades suffer.
Tim prefers to joke around with his peers during school classes and misses a lot - so his grades suffer.
Donna's parents prefer to watch TV or go out with friends or insert-list-of-other-hobbies most nights rather than dealing with hassle of helping her do homework.
Tim's parents would rather not have difficult discussions with him about his class behavior. Few comments, that's it.
Easier to just let things happen in either case.
So some self-control there, pouring on over to self-sacrifice of the here and now for the future.
But as grades suffer, educational opportunities suffer. Disparities occur.
Now there's Don whose parents want him to have better than what they had, and the self-control to sacrifice their time now in order to give him better in the future helps him with his grades even when he's not thrilled to., and their sacrifice to have monetary means to do so goes along with their time.
Doesn't guarantee it by any means since Don must have same thinking - but it makes it more possible than Donna & Tim.
I got a head start on reading, because my mom was a reader, and her father was a reader. My OH isn't a (book) reader, and wasn't read to much as a child.
I was lucky to have a stay-at-home mom, who was available and capable of helping with homework.
But what if Donna's parents are too tired after working all day, at one or two or three jobs? What if Donna's parents didn't get far enough in school to help past the basics, or if they learned in a different language?6 -
To answer your question from the other thread - things like racism and sexism play into economic and educational disparities. If your family was not able to own property of any kind because there were laws against the books barring them from doing so, it's going to be awfully difficult to build generational wealth. Never mind biases that occur in hiring (and firing) practices. And then there's the whole segregation bit.
The same is true for education which is also linked to where students live during their primary and secondary education. As I asked you in the previous thread, Lastly, how would you explain the fact that academia is overwhelmingly white? Is that about impulse control? If so, how so?
And yes, I know multiple tenured and early career professors who are people of color, but they are not the norm in, among other places, the US, Canada, and Europe.You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
Generational wealth is below 1% of the population, so I'm not sure what impact this has, especially considering that it is rarely maintained passed 2 generations. As wealth is an output of behavior the core principle of managing a budget still applies.
Every discipline has challenges, both internal and external, but to only focus on challenges without offering a solution is a moot point.
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
Not really the point of bringing up the relation of health and wealth, but a core theme to wealth and the common misunderstandings around it - nearly all the points you bring up and a myriad more. Just as in weight management it highlights the lack (some would say deliberate) of education around both subjects.
I don't think we are all defining "generational wealth" the same. I believe it can be as simple as parents leaving their house to their kids. And if someone was prevented from buying a house, their descendants are disadvantaged.
Ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/nyregion/memories-of-segregation-in-levittown.html
...From 1934 to 1962, less than 2 percent of the $120 billion in housing financing underwritten by the government went to minorities, while today, the net worth of the average black family is one-eighth that of its white counterpart, the film says.6 -
I'm a little confused. This is a branch off another thread, but the OP here is a narrowed focus vs. all the many places the other thread went. It seems unwieldy to me to bring over other sub-threads that aren't clear in this new context. Because I'm a small woman of small mind, I'm going to stick with the OP in this thread, and see where the discussion goes from there. So:As part of a separate topic discussing why marketers often mislead (whether purposefully or not) clients to focus on "shocking the system" and on the wrong solutions.
As a core philosophy behind weight management - one eats within budget to ensure their weight is maintained over time. A sacrifice of one's present wants for a future goal.
In speaking with other members on and off MFP I've noted a common trend, that at one point they believed a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their lives.
Does this core philosophy carry into other aspects of your life? Financially, professionally, academically, etc.
For me, weight management is very much about balancing current wants with future wants or even needs. (Notice how I didn't use the word "sacrifice" in there? Probably intentional. ). So, that general idea resonates with me.
I can also relate to the idea of "budgeting" in a calorie/activity balancing situation.
To me, neither of those is the same concept as "they believed that a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their life."
That part doesn't seem to (1) be the same idea as either of the other metaphors, (2) follow from them, or (3) frankly, even make sense to me.
Is there anyone who's never achieved a goal? Um, maybe, but not many. And that was a big leap from a small goal to "the impossible" - kinda lost me.
I do think that there are things to be learned on (for lack of better terms) both technical and psychological fronts, from goal accomplishment, especially accomplishment of complex or very long term goals.
By "technical", I mean things like figuring out how to break a big goal (that might seem overwhelming) into smaller incremental goals, or how to identify small steps that move incrementally toward the big goal, or something along those lines. By "psychological", I mean things like figuring out out to feel rewarded and reinforced in the short run for doing things whose main or full benefits are far in the future.
Under "psychological", at least for some people, I'd include developing (through success) a sense of mastery or agency that makes one feel like one has strengths one can bring to bear on other big goals in the future, so feel like big goals are in fact possible. (This vaguely has something to do with how I'd understand that paragraph that I said didn't make sense to me, but it's not the same thing . . . I think.)
I do think that many of these foregoing things (the balancing of current/future wants, the attacking of complex/long-term goals, the sense of personal agency or mastery) are too often parsed in common conversation in terms of abstract trait-like things such as "discipline", "willpower", "motivation", etc., that make it easy to believe that some people have those traits (or talents), and other people don't. That's not helpful.
Personally, I think that what's really involved are in fact more like skills. Some people may have more preinstalled "natural talent" for some of them, but they're still skills that can be learned, practiced, improved, and potentially used in various scenarios . . . if one can figure out how to practice them. (Abstractions are hard. ) Practicing things improves them, makes them sharper tools. I think that applies even to rather abstract skills like "patience" and "persistence" (yes, I think those are more skills than traits, too).
So, I think there are things that can be learned or refined in the weight management scenario, that can potentially be transferrable to financial, professional, social, familial, etc., aspects of life. Also, vice versa, that skills learned in those domains potentially transfer to weight management and fitness, and make that more achievable.
I don't think of any of it as a "core philosophy" at all, though. I think of it as a skill set, or techniques, or practices.
(There were things hinted at in the other thread about perceived personal power, sense of agency, etc., that I think are kind of important in all of this, too, but I don't so far see a great jumping-off point in this thread. I also don't think that has anything with "core philosophy", either.)
I didn't mean literally never achieving a goal, but talking to people who are on "the elevator going down" they often see themselves in this state. Despite many achievements in the past the lack of current goal accomplishments feels like an insurmountable hill which causes a terminal cascade of failure, depression, more failue.
My original thought in going down this rabbit hole is to deconstruct the misinformation/disinformation (as I believe much of this to be intentional) and dispel much of the myth around other disciplines. That despite "common knowledge" success is achievable, but you have to know and understand the roadblocks set before you.
Apologies as I'm writing this long before the idea is fully formed - just a connection I made within the original thread with some other books I'm reading.
Dispelling the myth of natural talent is definitely a core concept/correction to a root cause.
I think we disagree in material ways.
I agree that there is much misinformation/disinformation (and suspect I agree with you about the general nature of maybe 80% of it).
I agree that success is potentially achievable, and that understanding the roadblocks and finding levers for change is very important - essential, in fact. A gut sense that one has agency is very important (and that sense can grow over time with successful goal accomplishment). But success is never guaranteed, even to people who do all the right things. Some situations are completely intractable, in ways sometimes unforseeable. Failure despite amazing, insightful effort is a thing. Certain kinds of obstacles make that failure more likely. I suspect you'd say that failure is a form of learning, and that people who fail should adjust and soldier on. I don't disagree, but I think there are limits to what we can realistically expect of people.
Also, I don't agree that natural talent is a myth. I think that some people have abilities with a strong genetic component, and/or an early-nurture component. For best success, they still need to develop/practice the related skills, but almost any given set of skills will come more easily to some people than to others. (There are child prodigies, right? Not many, but I think it's common sense and good observation to believe that there are also people with talents short of prodigy, but in excess of average.)
I do think that many people overestimate the value of "talent" and "luck" in some other people's life stories, and underestimate the value of work and practice. (As just one example, I see people react to excellent art/craft objects some of my friends have made with "You have such talent" when I know very well that the craftsperson started from pretty close to zilch, and has worked very hard, over a very long time, to achieve that level of skill.) Work and practice is somewhat invisible to the outside observer.
I think that many people use the ideas of "talent" and "luck" (unbeknownst even to themselves) as a cognitive out or dodge, in thinking about why they themselves are unable to achieve the same outcomes as the "lucky" "talented" people.
Sometimes, actual talent (genetic or early-life disposition to a skill) can be a trap for the talented: Because they easily exceed the performance of those around them early on, they don't practice enough or learn enough to reach anything like their potential. They may even be bettered, in the long term, by a similarly-situated person of mediocre talent who is more focused and persistent at skill development. People who think they're good at something can be undermotivated to improve at it.
So, talent is a thing IMO, but so is work, and taking responsibility for doing the work. The person with both - natural talent plus hard work - has the best odds of highest success. One or the other can get a person part way there (in an ill-defined sense of "there"). I'd guess that those half-a**ed cases are where actual luck (also a thing) may improve odds of success. Privilege, narrowly or broadly defined, is IMO a form of luck in this kind of scenario.
Backing up a little, I also don't agree that "much of the misinformation/disinformation is intentional". I think this particular class of misinformation/disinformation is often an emergent property of cognitive dodges (like the one mentioned explicitly above) added to the arm-waving of hucksterism for quick fixes (which is often intentional, but sometimes just delusion on the part of the huckster . . . but even in the latter case, the audience has to have some psychological motivation to believe and be manipulated by the huckster). To put it in more starkly oversimplified/cartoonish terms, much of the misinformation/disinformation is about simple laziness on the part of all parties to the cognitive transaction, added to self-interest (maybe misguided self-interest) all around. I think this is true even if you're only talking about misinformation/disinformation in the diet and fitness realm.
Stepping back still further, I'm feeling like you want to try to take things back to big principles that are abstract, generalized, kind of pure and universal. I think I like variation and situational reasoning and nuance and messiness, and dislike abstractions and universal principles. (I think that's part of what makes my posts so stinkin' rambling and non-pithy. ) To be more pointed, I think root causes (of nearly anything) are more likely to be very specific, and not about something as abstract as (say) "deferred gratification).
Enough for now.
I realize that amongst all topics finance is of the utmost taboo, so thanks for everyone for being respectful. 20 years of financial counseling and I find people will talk about their sex life easier than about money. Yet another behavior creating disparity.
A key talking past point is the very defition of wealth. I see this as simple as spending less than one earns and gradually increasing over time. A benchmark being - did you do as well as or better than your parents?
I find it insteresting that even in discussing this our minds turn immediately to the unforseen circumstances that cause us to fail. I've done the same for years and quesioning my own behavior. Would you mention this when coaching someone new to MFP, or would you instead prepare them mentally for the inevitable failure and that this isn't a short term goal, but a long one. I certainly recognize the setbacks, but believe these are incredibly overstated, especially when it comes to individuals. Statistics are useful in large populations, but meaningless when it comes to individuals. It does carry a massive psychological impact if I were to continually point out to a group that x% of them will fail, especially if I target a subset within that group. Part of my thinking when I brought up deliberate misinformation/disinformation.
I believe that largely due to the lack of education regarding finance that even when people go about setting their house in order they expend a tremendous amount of energy and resources that make things worse, much like weight management. It creates a terminal cascade where the person gets quagmired.
Regarding the misinformation/disinformation I find in very effective in identifying the root cause to follow motivation. I think you are correct in identifying laziness on all parties in not assessing the risk. Take the housing crisis for example - willing bankers knew to make profit in massive scale utilizing incredibly risky repo markets. Government coerced the same willing lenders to create high risk vehicles selling the American dream - your home. The same is occuring with education and student loan despite the demand never being able to meet supply in specific disciplines.
Pith is much appreciated - it enables difficult conversations. TMI - I'm in the middle of pulling and replacing my septic sump, so would love some pith.
0 -
I'm a little confused. This is a branch off another thread, but the OP here is a narrowed focus vs. all the many places the other thread went. It seems unwieldy to me to bring over other sub-threads that aren't clear in this new context. Because I'm a small woman of small mind, I'm going to stick with the OP in this thread, and see where the discussion goes from there. So:As part of a separate topic discussing why marketers often mislead (whether purposefully or not) clients to focus on "shocking the system" and on the wrong solutions.
As a core philosophy behind weight management - one eats within budget to ensure their weight is maintained over time. A sacrifice of one's present wants for a future goal.
In speaking with other members on and off MFP I've noted a common trend, that at one point they believed a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their lives.
Does this core philosophy carry into other aspects of your life? Financially, professionally, academically, etc.
For me, weight management is very much about balancing current wants with future wants or even needs. (Notice how I didn't use the word "sacrifice" in there? Probably intentional. ). So, that general idea resonates with me.
I can also relate to the idea of "budgeting" in a calorie/activity balancing situation.
To me, neither of those is the same concept as "they believed that a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their life."
That part doesn't seem to (1) be the same idea as either of the other metaphors, (2) follow from them, or (3) frankly, even make sense to me.
Is there anyone who's never achieved a goal? Um, maybe, but not many. And that was a big leap from a small goal to "the impossible" - kinda lost me.
I do think that there are things to be learned on (for lack of better terms) both technical and psychological fronts, from goal accomplishment, especially accomplishment of complex or very long term goals.
By "technical", I mean things like figuring out how to break a big goal (that might seem overwhelming) into smaller incremental goals, or how to identify small steps that move incrementally toward the big goal, or something along those lines. By "psychological", I mean things like figuring out out to feel rewarded and reinforced in the short run for doing things whose main or full benefits are far in the future.
Under "psychological", at least for some people, I'd include developing (through success) a sense of mastery or agency that makes one feel like one has strengths one can bring to bear on other big goals in the future, so feel like big goals are in fact possible. (This vaguely has something to do with how I'd understand that paragraph that I said didn't make sense to me, but it's not the same thing . . . I think.)
I do think that many of these foregoing things (the balancing of current/future wants, the attacking of complex/long-term goals, the sense of personal agency or mastery) are too often parsed in common conversation in terms of abstract trait-like things such as "discipline", "willpower", "motivation", etc., that make it easy to believe that some people have those traits (or talents), and other people don't. That's not helpful.
Personally, I think that what's really involved are in fact more like skills. Some people may have more preinstalled "natural talent" for some of them, but they're still skills that can be learned, practiced, improved, and potentially used in various scenarios . . . if one can figure out how to practice them. (Abstractions are hard. ) Practicing things improves them, makes them sharper tools. I think that applies even to rather abstract skills like "patience" and "persistence" (yes, I think those are more skills than traits, too).
So, I think there are things that can be learned or refined in the weight management scenario, that can potentially be transferrable to financial, professional, social, familial, etc., aspects of life. Also, vice versa, that skills learned in those domains potentially transfer to weight management and fitness, and make that more achievable.
I don't think of any of it as a "core philosophy" at all, though. I think of it as a skill set, or techniques, or practices.
(There were things hinted at in the other thread about perceived personal power, sense of agency, etc., that I think are kind of important in all of this, too, but I don't so far see a great jumping-off point in this thread. I also don't think that has anything with "core philosophy", either.)
I didn't mean literally never achieving a goal, but talking to people who are on "the elevator going down" they often see themselves in this state. Despite many achievements in the past the lack of current goal accomplishments feels like an insurmountable hill which causes a terminal cascade of failure, depression, more failue.
My original thought in going down this rabbit hole is to deconstruct the misinformation/disinformation (as I believe much of this to be intentional) and dispel much of the myth around other disciplines. That despite "common knowledge" success is achievable, but you have to know and understand the roadblocks set before you.
Apologies as I'm writing this long before the idea is fully formed - just a connection I made within the original thread with some other books I'm reading.
Dispelling the myth of natural talent is definitely a core concept/correction to a root cause.
I think we disagree in material ways.
I agree that there is much misinformation/disinformation (and suspect I agree with you about the general nature of maybe 80% of it).
I agree that success is potentially achievable, and that understanding the roadblocks and finding levers for change is very important - essential, in fact. A gut sense that one has agency is very important (and that sense can grow over time with successful goal accomplishment). But success is never guaranteed, even to people who do all the right things. Some situations are completely intractable, in ways sometimes unforseeable. Failure despite amazing, insightful effort is a thing. Certain kinds of obstacles make that failure more likely. I suspect you'd say that failure is a form of learning, and that people who fail should adjust and soldier on. I don't disagree, but I think there are limits to what we can realistically expect of people.
Also, I don't agree that natural talent is a myth. I think that some people have abilities with a strong genetic component, and/or an early-nurture component. For best success, they still need to develop/practice the related skills, but almost any given set of skills will come more easily to some people than to others. (There are child prodigies, right? Not many, but I think it's common sense and good observation to believe that there are also people with talents short of prodigy, but in excess of average.)
I do think that many people overestimate the value of "talent" and "luck" in some other people's life stories, and underestimate the value of work and practice. (As just one example, I see people react to excellent art/craft objects some of my friends have made with "You have such talent" when I know very well that the craftsperson started from pretty close to zilch, and has worked very hard, over a very long time, to achieve that level of skill.) Work and practice is somewhat invisible to the outside observer.
I think that many people use the ideas of "talent" and "luck" (unbeknownst even to themselves) as a cognitive out or dodge, in thinking about why they themselves are unable to achieve the same outcomes as the "lucky" "talented" people.
Sometimes, actual talent (genetic or early-life disposition to a skill) can be a trap for the talented: Because they easily exceed the performance of those around them early on, they don't practice enough or learn enough to reach anything like their potential. They may even be bettered, in the long term, by a similarly-situated person of mediocre talent who is more focused and persistent at skill development. People who think they're good at something can be undermotivated to improve at it.
So, talent is a thing IMO, but so is work, and taking responsibility for doing the work. The person with both - natural talent plus hard work - has the best odds of highest success. One or the other can get a person part way there (in an ill-defined sense of "there"). I'd guess that those half-a**ed cases are where actual luck (also a thing) may improve odds of success. Privilege, narrowly or broadly defined, is IMO a form of luck in this kind of scenario.
Backing up a little, I also don't agree that "much of the misinformation/disinformation is intentional". I think this particular class of misinformation/disinformation is often an emergent property of cognitive dodges (like the one mentioned explicitly above) added to the arm-waving of hucksterism for quick fixes (which is often intentional, but sometimes just delusion on the part of the huckster . . . but even in the latter case, the audience has to have some psychological motivation to believe and be manipulated by the huckster). To put it in more starkly oversimplified/cartoonish terms, much of the misinformation/disinformation is about simple laziness on the part of all parties to the cognitive transaction, added to self-interest (maybe misguided self-interest) all around. I think this is true even if you're only talking about misinformation/disinformation in the diet and fitness realm.
Stepping back still further, I'm feeling like you want to try to take things back to big principles that are abstract, generalized, kind of pure and universal. I think I like variation and situational reasoning and nuance and messiness, and dislike abstractions and universal principles. (I think that's part of what makes my posts so stinkin' rambling and non-pithy. ) To be more pointed, I think root causes (of nearly anything) are more likely to be very specific, and not about something as abstract as (say) "deferred gratification).
Enough for now.
I realize that amongst all topics finance is of the utmost taboo, so thanks for everyone for being respectful. 20 years of financial counseling and I find people will talk about their sex life easier than about money. Yet another behavior creating disparity.
A key talking past point is the very defition of wealth. I see this as simple as spending less than one earns and gradually increasing over time. A benchmark being - did you do as well as or better than your parents?
I find it insteresting that even in discussing this our minds turn immediately to the unforseen circumstances that cause us to fail. I've done the same for years and quesioning my own behavior. Would you mention this when coaching someone new to MFP, or would you instead prepare them mentally for the inevitable failure and that this isn't a short term goal, but a long one. I certainly recognize the setbacks, but believe these are incredibly overstated, especially when it comes to individuals. Statistics are useful in large populations, but meaningless when it comes to individuals. It does carry a massive psychological impact if I were to continually point out to a group that x% of them will fail, especially if I target a subset within that group. Part of my thinking when I brought up deliberate misinformation/disinformation.
I believe that largely due to the lack of education regarding finance that even when people go about setting their house in order they expend a tremendous amount of energy and resources that make things worse, much like weight management. It creates a terminal cascade where the person gets quagmired.
Regarding the misinformation/disinformation I find in very effective in identifying the root cause to follow motivation. I think you are correct in identifying laziness on all parties in not assessing the risk. Take the housing crisis for example - willing bankers knew to make profit in massive scale utilizing incredibly risky repo markets. Government coerced the same willing lenders to create high risk vehicles selling the American dream - your home. The same is occuring with education and student loan despite the demand never being able to meet supply in specific disciplines.
Pith is much appreciated - it enables difficult conversations. TMI - I'm in the middle of pulling and replacing my septic sump, so would love some pith.
I feel like almost every time when you paraphrase me or pick out some aspect to agree with, you are misunderstanding the main thrust of what I was trying to say. This suggests that possibly I'm not writing my thoughts clearly.
In this particular case, just to choose one example, my use of the word "laziness" was intended in a very small sense - I used it once in a sentence that started "To put it in more starkly oversimplified/cartoonish terms . . .".
My meaning had nothing to do with assessing risk, but rather more like folks being so busy and pulled in many directions that they're not necessarily paying attention, so easy cognitive defaults take over - yeah, the thing in question (diet and fitness, or whatever) may be important, but so are lots of things. So, we can end up not thinking very critically or analytically or independently about that thing. You've seemngly picked out "laziness" as a key element . . . maybe because it's important in your conceptual scheme here, I don't know. And I'm not understanding how the housing market or education or student loans relate to this, or to "deferred gratification", exactly.
In any case, the bottom line is that I'm failing to communicate.
Good luck with your septic pump!
1 -
kshama2001 wrote: »To answer your question from the other thread - things like racism and sexism play into economic and educational disparities. If your family was not able to own property of any kind because there were laws against the books barring them from doing so, it's going to be awfully difficult to build generational wealth. Never mind biases that occur in hiring (and firing) practices. And then there's the whole segregation bit.
The same is true for education which is also linked to where students live during their primary and secondary education. As I asked you in the previous thread, Lastly, how would you explain the fact that academia is overwhelmingly white? Is that about impulse control? If so, how so?
And yes, I know multiple tenured and early career professors who are people of color, but they are not the norm in, among other places, the US, Canada, and Europe.You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
Generational wealth is below 1% of the population, so I'm not sure what impact this has, especially considering that it is rarely maintained passed 2 generations. As wealth is an output of behavior the core principle of managing a budget still applies.
Every discipline has challenges, both internal and external, but to only focus on challenges without offering a solution is a moot point.
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
Not really the point of bringing up the relation of health and wealth, but a core theme to wealth and the common misunderstandings around it - nearly all the points you bring up and a myriad more. Just as in weight management it highlights the lack (some would say deliberate) of education around both subjects.
I don't think we are all defining "generational wealth" the same. I believe it can be as simple as parents leaving their house to their kids. And if someone was prevented from buying a house, their descendants are disadvantaged.
Ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/nyregion/memories-of-segregation-in-levittown.html
...From 1934 to 1962, less than 2 percent of the $120 billion in housing financing underwritten by the government went to minorities, while today, the net worth of the average black family is one-eighth that of its white counterpart, the film says.
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released figures showing that the wealth disparity between black households and non-Hispanic white households as of 2015 (it takes them a while to crunch numbers, apparently) was more than 10 to 1 ($139,300 for non-Hispanic white households, $12,780 for black households -- median, not mean). That's what I would take wealth to mean -- what's on the bottom line of your household's balance sheet.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/08/gaps-in-wealth-americans-by-household-type.html
I don't understand attributing that disparity to a lack of impulse control rather than generations of economic discrimination, job discrimination, educational discrimination, credit redlining, and racial disparities in farm loans -- not to mention law enforcement and judicial systems that sometimes looked the other way if white people cheated, threatened, or outright stole from black people.
11 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »To answer your question from the other thread - things like racism and sexism play into economic and educational disparities. If your family was not able to own property of any kind because there were laws against the books barring them from doing so, it's going to be awfully difficult to build generational wealth. Never mind biases that occur in hiring (and firing) practices. And then there's the whole segregation bit.
The same is true for education which is also linked to where students live during their primary and secondary education. As I asked you in the previous thread, Lastly, how would you explain the fact that academia is overwhelmingly white? Is that about impulse control? If so, how so?
And yes, I know multiple tenured and early career professors who are people of color, but they are not the norm in, among other places, the US, Canada, and Europe.You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
Generational wealth is below 1% of the population, so I'm not sure what impact this has, especially considering that it is rarely maintained passed 2 generations. As wealth is an output of behavior the core principle of managing a budget still applies.
Every discipline has challenges, both internal and external, but to only focus on challenges without offering a solution is a moot point.
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
Not really the point of bringing up the relation of health and wealth, but a core theme to wealth and the common misunderstandings around it - nearly all the points you bring up and a myriad more. Just as in weight management it highlights the lack (some would say deliberate) of education around both subjects.
I don't think we are all defining "generational wealth" the same. I believe it can be as simple as parents leaving their house to their kids. And if someone was prevented from buying a house, their descendants are disadvantaged.
Ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/nyregion/memories-of-segregation-in-levittown.html
...From 1934 to 1962, less than 2 percent of the $120 billion in housing financing underwritten by the government went to minorities, while today, the net worth of the average black family is one-eighth that of its white counterpart, the film says.
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released figures showing that the wealth disparity between black households and non-Hispanic white households as of 2015 (it takes them a while to crunch numbers, apparently) was more than 10 to 1 ($139,300 for non-Hispanic white households, $12,780 for black households -- median, not mean). That's what I would take wealth to mean -- what's on the bottom line of your household's balance sheet.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/08/gaps-in-wealth-americans-by-household-type.html
I don't understand attributing that disparity to a lack of impulse control rather than generations of economic discrimination, job discrimination, educational discrimination, credit redlining, and racial disparities in farm loans -- not to mention law enforcement and judicial systems that sometimes looked the other way if white people cheated, threatened, or outright stole from black people.I'm a little confused. This is a branch off another thread, but the OP here is a narrowed focus vs. all the many places the other thread went. It seems unwieldy to me to bring over other sub-threads that aren't clear in this new context. Because I'm a small woman of small mind, I'm going to stick with the OP in this thread, and see where the discussion goes from there. So:As part of a separate topic discussing why marketers often mislead (whether purposefully or not) clients to focus on "shocking the system" and on the wrong solutions.
As a core philosophy behind weight management - one eats within budget to ensure their weight is maintained over time. A sacrifice of one's present wants for a future goal.
In speaking with other members on and off MFP I've noted a common trend, that at one point they believed a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their lives.
Does this core philosophy carry into other aspects of your life? Financially, professionally, academically, etc.
For me, weight management is very much about balancing current wants with future wants or even needs. (Notice how I didn't use the word "sacrifice" in there? Probably intentional. ). So, that general idea resonates with me.
I can also relate to the idea of "budgeting" in a calorie/activity balancing situation.
To me, neither of those is the same concept as "they believed that a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their life."
That part doesn't seem to (1) be the same idea as either of the other metaphors, (2) follow from them, or (3) frankly, even make sense to me.
Is there anyone who's never achieved a goal? Um, maybe, but not many. And that was a big leap from a small goal to "the impossible" - kinda lost me.
I do think that there are things to be learned on (for lack of better terms) both technical and psychological fronts, from goal accomplishment, especially accomplishment of complex or very long term goals.
By "technical", I mean things like figuring out how to break a big goal (that might seem overwhelming) into smaller incremental goals, or how to identify small steps that move incrementally toward the big goal, or something along those lines. By "psychological", I mean things like figuring out out to feel rewarded and reinforced in the short run for doing things whose main or full benefits are far in the future.
Under "psychological", at least for some people, I'd include developing (through success) a sense of mastery or agency that makes one feel like one has strengths one can bring to bear on other big goals in the future, so feel like big goals are in fact possible. (This vaguely has something to do with how I'd understand that paragraph that I said didn't make sense to me, but it's not the same thing . . . I think.)
I do think that many of these foregoing things (the balancing of current/future wants, the attacking of complex/long-term goals, the sense of personal agency or mastery) are too often parsed in common conversation in terms of abstract trait-like things such as "discipline", "willpower", "motivation", etc., that make it easy to believe that some people have those traits (or talents), and other people don't. That's not helpful.
Personally, I think that what's really involved are in fact more like skills. Some people may have more preinstalled "natural talent" for some of them, but they're still skills that can be learned, practiced, improved, and potentially used in various scenarios . . . if one can figure out how to practice them. (Abstractions are hard. ) Practicing things improves them, makes them sharper tools. I think that applies even to rather abstract skills like "patience" and "persistence" (yes, I think those are more skills than traits, too).
So, I think there are things that can be learned or refined in the weight management scenario, that can potentially be transferrable to financial, professional, social, familial, etc., aspects of life. Also, vice versa, that skills learned in those domains potentially transfer to weight management and fitness, and make that more achievable.
I don't think of any of it as a "core philosophy" at all, though. I think of it as a skill set, or techniques, or practices.
(There were things hinted at in the other thread about perceived personal power, sense of agency, etc., that I think are kind of important in all of this, too, but I don't so far see a great jumping-off point in this thread. I also don't think that has anything with "core philosophy", either.)
I didn't mean literally never achieving a goal, but talking to people who are on "the elevator going down" they often see themselves in this state. Despite many achievements in the past the lack of current goal accomplishments feels like an insurmountable hill which causes a terminal cascade of failure, depression, more failue.
My original thought in going down this rabbit hole is to deconstruct the misinformation/disinformation (as I believe much of this to be intentional) and dispel much of the myth around other disciplines. That despite "common knowledge" success is achievable, but you have to know and understand the roadblocks set before you.
Apologies as I'm writing this long before the idea is fully formed - just a connection I made within the original thread with some other books I'm reading.
Dispelling the myth of natural talent is definitely a core concept/correction to a root cause.
I think we disagree in material ways.
I agree that there is much misinformation/disinformation (and suspect I agree with you about the general nature of maybe 80% of it).
I agree that success is potentially achievable, and that understanding the roadblocks and finding levers for change is very important - essential, in fact. A gut sense that one has agency is very important (and that sense can grow over time with successful goal accomplishment). But success is never guaranteed, even to people who do all the right things. Some situations are completely intractable, in ways sometimes unforseeable. Failure despite amazing, insightful effort is a thing. Certain kinds of obstacles make that failure more likely. I suspect you'd say that failure is a form of learning, and that people who fail should adjust and soldier on. I don't disagree, but I think there are limits to what we can realistically expect of people.
Also, I don't agree that natural talent is a myth. I think that some people have abilities with a strong genetic component, and/or an early-nurture component. For best success, they still need to develop/practice the related skills, but almost any given set of skills will come more easily to some people than to others. (There are child prodigies, right? Not many, but I think it's common sense and good observation to believe that there are also people with talents short of prodigy, but in excess of average.)
I do think that many people overestimate the value of "talent" and "luck" in some other people's life stories, and underestimate the value of work and practice. (As just one example, I see people react to excellent art/craft objects some of my friends have made with "You have such talent" when I know very well that the craftsperson started from pretty close to zilch, and has worked very hard, over a very long time, to achieve that level of skill.) Work and practice is somewhat invisible to the outside observer.
I think that many people use the ideas of "talent" and "luck" (unbeknownst even to themselves) as a cognitive out or dodge, in thinking about why they themselves are unable to achieve the same outcomes as the "lucky" "talented" people.
Sometimes, actual talent (genetic or early-life disposition to a skill) can be a trap for the talented: Because they easily exceed the performance of those around them early on, they don't practice enough or learn enough to reach anything like their potential. They may even be bettered, in the long term, by a similarly-situated person of mediocre talent who is more focused and persistent at skill development. People who think they're good at something can be undermotivated to improve at it.
So, talent is a thing IMO, but so is work, and taking responsibility for doing the work. The person with both - natural talent plus hard work - has the best odds of highest success. One or the other can get a person part way there (in an ill-defined sense of "there"). I'd guess that those half-a**ed cases are where actual luck (also a thing) may improve odds of success. Privilege, narrowly or broadly defined, is IMO a form of luck in this kind of scenario.
Backing up a little, I also don't agree that "much of the misinformation/disinformation is intentional". I think this particular class of misinformation/disinformation is often an emergent property of cognitive dodges (like the one mentioned explicitly above) added to the arm-waving of hucksterism for quick fixes (which is often intentional, but sometimes just delusion on the part of the huckster . . . but even in the latter case, the audience has to have some psychological motivation to believe and be manipulated by the huckster). To put it in more starkly oversimplified/cartoonish terms, much of the misinformation/disinformation is about simple laziness on the part of all parties to the cognitive transaction, added to self-interest (maybe misguided self-interest) all around. I think this is true even if you're only talking about misinformation/disinformation in the diet and fitness realm.
Stepping back still further, I'm feeling like you want to try to take things back to big principles that are abstract, generalized, kind of pure and universal. I think I like variation and situational reasoning and nuance and messiness, and dislike abstractions and universal principles. (I think that's part of what makes my posts so stinkin' rambling and non-pithy. ) To be more pointed, I think root causes (of nearly anything) are more likely to be very specific, and not about something as abstract as (say) "deferred gratification).
Enough for now.
I realize that amongst all topics finance is of the utmost taboo, so thanks for everyone for being respectful. 20 years of financial counseling and I find people will talk about their sex life easier than about money. Yet another behavior creating disparity.
A key talking past point is the very defition of wealth. I see this as simple as spending less than one earns and gradually increasing over time. A benchmark being - did you do as well as or better than your parents?
I find it insteresting that even in discussing this our minds turn immediately to the unforseen circumstances that cause us to fail. I've done the same for years and quesioning my own behavior. Would you mention this when coaching someone new to MFP, or would you instead prepare them mentally for the inevitable failure and that this isn't a short term goal, but a long one. I certainly recognize the setbacks, but believe these are incredibly overstated, especially when it comes to individuals. Statistics are useful in large populations, but meaningless when it comes to individuals. It does carry a massive psychological impact if I were to continually point out to a group that x% of them will fail, especially if I target a subset within that group. Part of my thinking when I brought up deliberate misinformation/disinformation.
I believe that largely due to the lack of education regarding finance that even when people go about setting their house in order they expend a tremendous amount of energy and resources that make things worse, much like weight management. It creates a terminal cascade where the person gets quagmired.
Regarding the misinformation/disinformation I find in very effective in identifying the root cause to follow motivation. I think you are correct in identifying laziness on all parties in not assessing the risk. Take the housing crisis for example - willing bankers knew to make profit in massive scale utilizing incredibly risky repo markets. Government coerced the same willing lenders to create high risk vehicles selling the American dream - your home. The same is occuring with education and student loan despite the demand never being able to meet supply in specific disciplines.
Pith is much appreciated - it enables difficult conversations. TMI - I'm in the middle of pulling and replacing my septic sump, so would love some pith.
I feel like almost every time when you paraphrase me or pick out some aspect to agree with, you are misunderstanding the main thrust of what I was trying to say. This suggests that possibly I'm not writing my thoughts clearly.
In this particular case, just to choose one example, my use of the word "laziness" was intended in a very small sense - I used it once in a sentence that started "To put it in more starkly oversimplified/cartoonish terms . . .".
My meaning had nothing to do with assessing risk, but rather more like folks being so busy and pulled in many directions that they're not necessarily paying attention, so easy cognitive defaults take over - yeah, the thing in question (diet and fitness, or whatever) may be important, but so are lots of things. So, we can end up not thinking very critically or analytically or independently about that thing. You've seemngly picked out "laziness" as a key element . . . maybe because it's important in your conceptual scheme here, I don't know. And I'm not understanding how the housing market or education or student loans relate to this, or to "deferred gratification", exactly.
In any case, the bottom line is that I'm failing to communicate.
Good luck with your septic pump!
I believe I get it, but I'm doing the same and not effectively communicating either. I think the key is that we are both trying to understand one another's point of view.
As background what prompted me to make the original post was largely due me being asked to open up a series of talks on personal finance and I've been pulling together a presentation based upon successful systems. I see several similarities between financial and caloric budget management.
Have to admit a bit of confusion on how the base disagreement started here, but I was thinking of a person entering a sister site - "My Financial Pal" and what one would say to set them off on the best path. Delayed gratification was one of a few other characteristics I was investigating.
In doing so I pulled data from several sites and articles and surprised that the chances of overcoming obesity are far worse than rising above/returning to poverty (which highlights the confirmation bias just being on this site). Despite this it would be incredibly demotivating to state that women have a 1 in 124 and men 1 in 210 chance of successfully losing weight and maintaining. Disturbing considering ~75% obesity in men and 60% obesity in adult women. I would love to see how MFP fares or the latest data from NWCR (I requested a data pull from both).
Considering the same for poverty anywhere from 20% to 45% will experience poverty depending on the nuances within the US census data. On average per US census data 1 in 3 escape poverty with 2/3 returning within five years.
If someone came to you for help would you hit them with all the statistics highlighting their chance of failure? I'm hitting a wall on the rationale behind this if the goal is to improve lives.1 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »To answer your question from the other thread - things like racism and sexism play into economic and educational disparities. If your family was not able to own property of any kind because there were laws against the books barring them from doing so, it's going to be awfully difficult to build generational wealth. Never mind biases that occur in hiring (and firing) practices. And then there's the whole segregation bit.
The same is true for education which is also linked to where students live during their primary and secondary education. As I asked you in the previous thread, Lastly, how would you explain the fact that academia is overwhelmingly white? Is that about impulse control? If so, how so?
And yes, I know multiple tenured and early career professors who are people of color, but they are not the norm in, among other places, the US, Canada, and Europe.You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
Generational wealth is below 1% of the population, so I'm not sure what impact this has, especially considering that it is rarely maintained passed 2 generations. As wealth is an output of behavior the core principle of managing a budget still applies.
Every discipline has challenges, both internal and external, but to only focus on challenges without offering a solution is a moot point.
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
Not really the point of bringing up the relation of health and wealth, but a core theme to wealth and the common misunderstandings around it - nearly all the points you bring up and a myriad more. Just as in weight management it highlights the lack (some would say deliberate) of education around both subjects.
I don't think we are all defining "generational wealth" the same. I believe it can be as simple as parents leaving their house to their kids. And if someone was prevented from buying a house, their descendants are disadvantaged.
Ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/nyregion/memories-of-segregation-in-levittown.html
...From 1934 to 1962, less than 2 percent of the $120 billion in housing financing underwritten by the government went to minorities, while today, the net worth of the average black family is one-eighth that of its white counterpart, the film says.
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released figures showing that the wealth disparity between black households and non-Hispanic white households as of 2015 (it takes them a while to crunch numbers, apparently) was more than 10 to 1 ($139,300 for non-Hispanic white households, $12,780 for black households -- median, not mean). That's what I would take wealth to mean -- what's on the bottom line of your household's balance sheet.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/08/gaps-in-wealth-americans-by-household-type.html
I don't understand attributing that disparity to a lack of impulse control rather than generations of economic discrimination, job discrimination, educational discrimination, credit redlining, and racial disparities in farm loans -- not to mention law enforcement and judicial systems that sometimes looked the other way if white people cheated, threatened, or outright stole from black people.I'm a little confused. This is a branch off another thread, but the OP here is a narrowed focus vs. all the many places the other thread went. It seems unwieldy to me to bring over other sub-threads that aren't clear in this new context. Because I'm a small woman of small mind, I'm going to stick with the OP in this thread, and see where the discussion goes from there. So:As part of a separate topic discussing why marketers often mislead (whether purposefully or not) clients to focus on "shocking the system" and on the wrong solutions.
As a core philosophy behind weight management - one eats within budget to ensure their weight is maintained over time. A sacrifice of one's present wants for a future goal.
In speaking with other members on and off MFP I've noted a common trend, that at one point they believed a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their lives.
Does this core philosophy carry into other aspects of your life? Financially, professionally, academically, etc.
For me, weight management is very much about balancing current wants with future wants or even needs. (Notice how I didn't use the word "sacrifice" in there? Probably intentional. ). So, that general idea resonates with me.
I can also relate to the idea of "budgeting" in a calorie/activity balancing situation.
To me, neither of those is the same concept as "they believed that a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their life."
That part doesn't seem to (1) be the same idea as either of the other metaphors, (2) follow from them, or (3) frankly, even make sense to me.
Is there anyone who's never achieved a goal? Um, maybe, but not many. And that was a big leap from a small goal to "the impossible" - kinda lost me.
I do think that there are things to be learned on (for lack of better terms) both technical and psychological fronts, from goal accomplishment, especially accomplishment of complex or very long term goals.
By "technical", I mean things like figuring out how to break a big goal (that might seem overwhelming) into smaller incremental goals, or how to identify small steps that move incrementally toward the big goal, or something along those lines. By "psychological", I mean things like figuring out out to feel rewarded and reinforced in the short run for doing things whose main or full benefits are far in the future.
Under "psychological", at least for some people, I'd include developing (through success) a sense of mastery or agency that makes one feel like one has strengths one can bring to bear on other big goals in the future, so feel like big goals are in fact possible. (This vaguely has something to do with how I'd understand that paragraph that I said didn't make sense to me, but it's not the same thing . . . I think.)
I do think that many of these foregoing things (the balancing of current/future wants, the attacking of complex/long-term goals, the sense of personal agency or mastery) are too often parsed in common conversation in terms of abstract trait-like things such as "discipline", "willpower", "motivation", etc., that make it easy to believe that some people have those traits (or talents), and other people don't. That's not helpful.
Personally, I think that what's really involved are in fact more like skills. Some people may have more preinstalled "natural talent" for some of them, but they're still skills that can be learned, practiced, improved, and potentially used in various scenarios . . . if one can figure out how to practice them. (Abstractions are hard. ) Practicing things improves them, makes them sharper tools. I think that applies even to rather abstract skills like "patience" and "persistence" (yes, I think those are more skills than traits, too).
So, I think there are things that can be learned or refined in the weight management scenario, that can potentially be transferrable to financial, professional, social, familial, etc., aspects of life. Also, vice versa, that skills learned in those domains potentially transfer to weight management and fitness, and make that more achievable.
I don't think of any of it as a "core philosophy" at all, though. I think of it as a skill set, or techniques, or practices.
(There were things hinted at in the other thread about perceived personal power, sense of agency, etc., that I think are kind of important in all of this, too, but I don't so far see a great jumping-off point in this thread. I also don't think that has anything with "core philosophy", either.)
I didn't mean literally never achieving a goal, but talking to people who are on "the elevator going down" they often see themselves in this state. Despite many achievements in the past the lack of current goal accomplishments feels like an insurmountable hill which causes a terminal cascade of failure, depression, more failue.
My original thought in going down this rabbit hole is to deconstruct the misinformation/disinformation (as I believe much of this to be intentional) and dispel much of the myth around other disciplines. That despite "common knowledge" success is achievable, but you have to know and understand the roadblocks set before you.
Apologies as I'm writing this long before the idea is fully formed - just a connection I made within the original thread with some other books I'm reading.
Dispelling the myth of natural talent is definitely a core concept/correction to a root cause.
I think we disagree in material ways.
I agree that there is much misinformation/disinformation (and suspect I agree with you about the general nature of maybe 80% of it).
I agree that success is potentially achievable, and that understanding the roadblocks and finding levers for change is very important - essential, in fact. A gut sense that one has agency is very important (and that sense can grow over time with successful goal accomplishment). But success is never guaranteed, even to people who do all the right things. Some situations are completely intractable, in ways sometimes unforseeable. Failure despite amazing, insightful effort is a thing. Certain kinds of obstacles make that failure more likely. I suspect you'd say that failure is a form of learning, and that people who fail should adjust and soldier on. I don't disagree, but I think there are limits to what we can realistically expect of people.
Also, I don't agree that natural talent is a myth. I think that some people have abilities with a strong genetic component, and/or an early-nurture component. For best success, they still need to develop/practice the related skills, but almost any given set of skills will come more easily to some people than to others. (There are child prodigies, right? Not many, but I think it's common sense and good observation to believe that there are also people with talents short of prodigy, but in excess of average.)
I do think that many people overestimate the value of "talent" and "luck" in some other people's life stories, and underestimate the value of work and practice. (As just one example, I see people react to excellent art/craft objects some of my friends have made with "You have such talent" when I know very well that the craftsperson started from pretty close to zilch, and has worked very hard, over a very long time, to achieve that level of skill.) Work and practice is somewhat invisible to the outside observer.
I think that many people use the ideas of "talent" and "luck" (unbeknownst even to themselves) as a cognitive out or dodge, in thinking about why they themselves are unable to achieve the same outcomes as the "lucky" "talented" people.
Sometimes, actual talent (genetic or early-life disposition to a skill) can be a trap for the talented: Because they easily exceed the performance of those around them early on, they don't practice enough or learn enough to reach anything like their potential. They may even be bettered, in the long term, by a similarly-situated person of mediocre talent who is more focused and persistent at skill development. People who think they're good at something can be undermotivated to improve at it.
So, talent is a thing IMO, but so is work, and taking responsibility for doing the work. The person with both - natural talent plus hard work - has the best odds of highest success. One or the other can get a person part way there (in an ill-defined sense of "there"). I'd guess that those half-a**ed cases are where actual luck (also a thing) may improve odds of success. Privilege, narrowly or broadly defined, is IMO a form of luck in this kind of scenario.
Backing up a little, I also don't agree that "much of the misinformation/disinformation is intentional". I think this particular class of misinformation/disinformation is often an emergent property of cognitive dodges (like the one mentioned explicitly above) added to the arm-waving of hucksterism for quick fixes (which is often intentional, but sometimes just delusion on the part of the huckster . . . but even in the latter case, the audience has to have some psychological motivation to believe and be manipulated by the huckster). To put it in more starkly oversimplified/cartoonish terms, much of the misinformation/disinformation is about simple laziness on the part of all parties to the cognitive transaction, added to self-interest (maybe misguided self-interest) all around. I think this is true even if you're only talking about misinformation/disinformation in the diet and fitness realm.
Stepping back still further, I'm feeling like you want to try to take things back to big principles that are abstract, generalized, kind of pure and universal. I think I like variation and situational reasoning and nuance and messiness, and dislike abstractions and universal principles. (I think that's part of what makes my posts so stinkin' rambling and non-pithy. ) To be more pointed, I think root causes (of nearly anything) are more likely to be very specific, and not about something as abstract as (say) "deferred gratification).
Enough for now.
I realize that amongst all topics finance is of the utmost taboo, so thanks for everyone for being respectful. 20 years of financial counseling and I find people will talk about their sex life easier than about money. Yet another behavior creating disparity.
A key talking past point is the very defition of wealth. I see this as simple as spending less than one earns and gradually increasing over time. A benchmark being - did you do as well as or better than your parents?
I find it insteresting that even in discussing this our minds turn immediately to the unforseen circumstances that cause us to fail. I've done the same for years and quesioning my own behavior. Would you mention this when coaching someone new to MFP, or would you instead prepare them mentally for the inevitable failure and that this isn't a short term goal, but a long one. I certainly recognize the setbacks, but believe these are incredibly overstated, especially when it comes to individuals. Statistics are useful in large populations, but meaningless when it comes to individuals. It does carry a massive psychological impact if I were to continually point out to a group that x% of them will fail, especially if I target a subset within that group. Part of my thinking when I brought up deliberate misinformation/disinformation.
I believe that largely due to the lack of education regarding finance that even when people go about setting their house in order they expend a tremendous amount of energy and resources that make things worse, much like weight management. It creates a terminal cascade where the person gets quagmired.
Regarding the misinformation/disinformation I find in very effective in identifying the root cause to follow motivation. I think you are correct in identifying laziness on all parties in not assessing the risk. Take the housing crisis for example - willing bankers knew to make profit in massive scale utilizing incredibly risky repo markets. Government coerced the same willing lenders to create high risk vehicles selling the American dream - your home. The same is occuring with education and student loan despite the demand never being able to meet supply in specific disciplines.
Pith is much appreciated - it enables difficult conversations. TMI - I'm in the middle of pulling and replacing my septic sump, so would love some pith.
I feel like almost every time when you paraphrase me or pick out some aspect to agree with, you are misunderstanding the main thrust of what I was trying to say. This suggests that possibly I'm not writing my thoughts clearly.
In this particular case, just to choose one example, my use of the word "laziness" was intended in a very small sense - I used it once in a sentence that started "To put it in more starkly oversimplified/cartoonish terms . . .".
My meaning had nothing to do with assessing risk, but rather more like folks being so busy and pulled in many directions that they're not necessarily paying attention, so easy cognitive defaults take over - yeah, the thing in question (diet and fitness, or whatever) may be important, but so are lots of things. So, we can end up not thinking very critically or analytically or independently about that thing. You've seemngly picked out "laziness" as a key element . . . maybe because it's important in your conceptual scheme here, I don't know. And I'm not understanding how the housing market or education or student loans relate to this, or to "deferred gratification", exactly.
In any case, the bottom line is that I'm failing to communicate.
Good luck with your septic pump!
I believe I get it, but I'm doing the same and not effectively communicating either. I think the key is that we are both trying to understand one another's point of view.
As background what prompted me to make the original post was largely due me being asked to open up a series of talks on personal finance and I've been pulling together a presentation based upon successful systems. I see several similarities between financial and caloric budget management.
Have to admit a bit of confusion on how the base disagreement started here, but I was thinking of a person entering a sister site - "My Financial Pal" and what one would say to set them off on the best path. Delayed gratification was one of a few other characteristics I was investigating.
In doing so I pulled data from several sites and articles and surprised that the chances of overcoming obesity are far worse than rising above/returning to poverty (which highlights the confirmation bias just being on this site). Despite this it would be incredibly demotivating to state that women have a 1 in 124 and men 1 in 210 chance of successfully losing weight and maintaining. Disturbing considering ~75% obesity in men and 60% obesity in adult women. I would love to see how MFP fares or the latest data from NWCR (I requested a data pull from both).
Considering the same for poverty anywhere from 20% to 45% will experience poverty depending on the nuances within the US census data. On average per US census data 1 in 3 escape poverty with 2/3 returning within five years.
If someone came to you for help would you hit them with all the statistics highlighting their chance of failure? I'm hitting a wall on the rationale behind this if the goal is to improve lives.
For me personally...my chances of success regardless of want I want to achieve is to concentrate on the positive...I need to believe that I can succeed. It is not that I want to be in the dark about obstacles that I might face but IMO attitude plays a big aspect to success. If I go into something knowing that the failure rate is high and the success rate is low then there is this doubt that creeps in my mind. That doubt becomes even more prevalent when obstacles are having to be faced.
On the other hand...I don't want people pushing false hopes either. Some people can make you believe that a pig sty is a palace. Give me the truth but also give me the tools to help me succeed.
2 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »To answer your question from the other thread - things like racism and sexism play into economic and educational disparities. If your family was not able to own property of any kind because there were laws against the books barring them from doing so, it's going to be awfully difficult to build generational wealth. Never mind biases that occur in hiring (and firing) practices. And then there's the whole segregation bit.
The same is true for education which is also linked to where students live during their primary and secondary education. As I asked you in the previous thread, Lastly, how would you explain the fact that academia is overwhelmingly white? Is that about impulse control? If so, how so?
And yes, I know multiple tenured and early career professors who are people of color, but they are not the norm in, among other places, the US, Canada, and Europe.You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
Generational wealth is below 1% of the population, so I'm not sure what impact this has, especially considering that it is rarely maintained passed 2 generations. As wealth is an output of behavior the core principle of managing a budget still applies.
Every discipline has challenges, both internal and external, but to only focus on challenges without offering a solution is a moot point.
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
Not really the point of bringing up the relation of health and wealth, but a core theme to wealth and the common misunderstandings around it - nearly all the points you bring up and a myriad more. Just as in weight management it highlights the lack (some would say deliberate) of education around both subjects.
I don't think we are all defining "generational wealth" the same. I believe it can be as simple as parents leaving their house to their kids. And if someone was prevented from buying a house, their descendants are disadvantaged.
Ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/nyregion/memories-of-segregation-in-levittown.html
...From 1934 to 1962, less than 2 percent of the $120 billion in housing financing underwritten by the government went to minorities, while today, the net worth of the average black family is one-eighth that of its white counterpart, the film says.
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released figures showing that the wealth disparity between black households and non-Hispanic white households as of 2015 (it takes them a while to crunch numbers, apparently) was more than 10 to 1 ($139,300 for non-Hispanic white households, $12,780 for black households -- median, not mean). That's what I would take wealth to mean -- what's on the bottom line of your household's balance sheet.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/08/gaps-in-wealth-americans-by-household-type.html
I don't understand attributing that disparity to a lack of impulse control rather than generations of economic discrimination, job discrimination, educational discrimination, credit redlining, and racial disparities in farm loans -- not to mention law enforcement and judicial systems that sometimes looked the other way if white people cheated, threatened, or outright stole from black people.I'm a little confused. This is a branch off another thread, but the OP here is a narrowed focus vs. all the many places the other thread went. It seems unwieldy to me to bring over other sub-threads that aren't clear in this new context. Because I'm a small woman of small mind, I'm going to stick with the OP in this thread, and see where the discussion goes from there. So:As part of a separate topic discussing why marketers often mislead (whether purposefully or not) clients to focus on "shocking the system" and on the wrong solutions.
As a core philosophy behind weight management - one eats within budget to ensure their weight is maintained over time. A sacrifice of one's present wants for a future goal.
In speaking with other members on and off MFP I've noted a common trend, that at one point they believed a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their lives.
Does this core philosophy carry into other aspects of your life? Financially, professionally, academically, etc.
For me, weight management is very much about balancing current wants with future wants or even needs. (Notice how I didn't use the word "sacrifice" in there? Probably intentional. ). So, that general idea resonates with me.
I can also relate to the idea of "budgeting" in a calorie/activity balancing situation.
To me, neither of those is the same concept as "they believed that a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their life."
That part doesn't seem to (1) be the same idea as either of the other metaphors, (2) follow from them, or (3) frankly, even make sense to me.
Is there anyone who's never achieved a goal? Um, maybe, but not many. And that was a big leap from a small goal to "the impossible" - kinda lost me.
I do think that there are things to be learned on (for lack of better terms) both technical and psychological fronts, from goal accomplishment, especially accomplishment of complex or very long term goals.
By "technical", I mean things like figuring out how to break a big goal (that might seem overwhelming) into smaller incremental goals, or how to identify small steps that move incrementally toward the big goal, or something along those lines. By "psychological", I mean things like figuring out out to feel rewarded and reinforced in the short run for doing things whose main or full benefits are far in the future.
Under "psychological", at least for some people, I'd include developing (through success) a sense of mastery or agency that makes one feel like one has strengths one can bring to bear on other big goals in the future, so feel like big goals are in fact possible. (This vaguely has something to do with how I'd understand that paragraph that I said didn't make sense to me, but it's not the same thing . . . I think.)
I do think that many of these foregoing things (the balancing of current/future wants, the attacking of complex/long-term goals, the sense of personal agency or mastery) are too often parsed in common conversation in terms of abstract trait-like things such as "discipline", "willpower", "motivation", etc., that make it easy to believe that some people have those traits (or talents), and other people don't. That's not helpful.
Personally, I think that what's really involved are in fact more like skills. Some people may have more preinstalled "natural talent" for some of them, but they're still skills that can be learned, practiced, improved, and potentially used in various scenarios . . . if one can figure out how to practice them. (Abstractions are hard. ) Practicing things improves them, makes them sharper tools. I think that applies even to rather abstract skills like "patience" and "persistence" (yes, I think those are more skills than traits, too).
So, I think there are things that can be learned or refined in the weight management scenario, that can potentially be transferrable to financial, professional, social, familial, etc., aspects of life. Also, vice versa, that skills learned in those domains potentially transfer to weight management and fitness, and make that more achievable.
I don't think of any of it as a "core philosophy" at all, though. I think of it as a skill set, or techniques, or practices.
(There were things hinted at in the other thread about perceived personal power, sense of agency, etc., that I think are kind of important in all of this, too, but I don't so far see a great jumping-off point in this thread. I also don't think that has anything with "core philosophy", either.)
I didn't mean literally never achieving a goal, but talking to people who are on "the elevator going down" they often see themselves in this state. Despite many achievements in the past the lack of current goal accomplishments feels like an insurmountable hill which causes a terminal cascade of failure, depression, more failue.
My original thought in going down this rabbit hole is to deconstruct the misinformation/disinformation (as I believe much of this to be intentional) and dispel much of the myth around other disciplines. That despite "common knowledge" success is achievable, but you have to know and understand the roadblocks set before you.
Apologies as I'm writing this long before the idea is fully formed - just a connection I made within the original thread with some other books I'm reading.
Dispelling the myth of natural talent is definitely a core concept/correction to a root cause.
I think we disagree in material ways.
I agree that there is much misinformation/disinformation (and suspect I agree with you about the general nature of maybe 80% of it).
I agree that success is potentially achievable, and that understanding the roadblocks and finding levers for change is very important - essential, in fact. A gut sense that one has agency is very important (and that sense can grow over time with successful goal accomplishment). But success is never guaranteed, even to people who do all the right things. Some situations are completely intractable, in ways sometimes unforseeable. Failure despite amazing, insightful effort is a thing. Certain kinds of obstacles make that failure more likely. I suspect you'd say that failure is a form of learning, and that people who fail should adjust and soldier on. I don't disagree, but I think there are limits to what we can realistically expect of people.
Also, I don't agree that natural talent is a myth. I think that some people have abilities with a strong genetic component, and/or an early-nurture component. For best success, they still need to develop/practice the related skills, but almost any given set of skills will come more easily to some people than to others. (There are child prodigies, right? Not many, but I think it's common sense and good observation to believe that there are also people with talents short of prodigy, but in excess of average.)
I do think that many people overestimate the value of "talent" and "luck" in some other people's life stories, and underestimate the value of work and practice. (As just one example, I see people react to excellent art/craft objects some of my friends have made with "You have such talent" when I know very well that the craftsperson started from pretty close to zilch, and has worked very hard, over a very long time, to achieve that level of skill.) Work and practice is somewhat invisible to the outside observer.
I think that many people use the ideas of "talent" and "luck" (unbeknownst even to themselves) as a cognitive out or dodge, in thinking about why they themselves are unable to achieve the same outcomes as the "lucky" "talented" people.
Sometimes, actual talent (genetic or early-life disposition to a skill) can be a trap for the talented: Because they easily exceed the performance of those around them early on, they don't practice enough or learn enough to reach anything like their potential. They may even be bettered, in the long term, by a similarly-situated person of mediocre talent who is more focused and persistent at skill development. People who think they're good at something can be undermotivated to improve at it.
So, talent is a thing IMO, but so is work, and taking responsibility for doing the work. The person with both - natural talent plus hard work - has the best odds of highest success. One or the other can get a person part way there (in an ill-defined sense of "there"). I'd guess that those half-a**ed cases are where actual luck (also a thing) may improve odds of success. Privilege, narrowly or broadly defined, is IMO a form of luck in this kind of scenario.
Backing up a little, I also don't agree that "much of the misinformation/disinformation is intentional". I think this particular class of misinformation/disinformation is often an emergent property of cognitive dodges (like the one mentioned explicitly above) added to the arm-waving of hucksterism for quick fixes (which is often intentional, but sometimes just delusion on the part of the huckster . . . but even in the latter case, the audience has to have some psychological motivation to believe and be manipulated by the huckster). To put it in more starkly oversimplified/cartoonish terms, much of the misinformation/disinformation is about simple laziness on the part of all parties to the cognitive transaction, added to self-interest (maybe misguided self-interest) all around. I think this is true even if you're only talking about misinformation/disinformation in the diet and fitness realm.
Stepping back still further, I'm feeling like you want to try to take things back to big principles that are abstract, generalized, kind of pure and universal. I think I like variation and situational reasoning and nuance and messiness, and dislike abstractions and universal principles. (I think that's part of what makes my posts so stinkin' rambling and non-pithy. ) To be more pointed, I think root causes (of nearly anything) are more likely to be very specific, and not about something as abstract as (say) "deferred gratification).
Enough for now.
I realize that amongst all topics finance is of the utmost taboo, so thanks for everyone for being respectful. 20 years of financial counseling and I find people will talk about their sex life easier than about money. Yet another behavior creating disparity.
A key talking past point is the very defition of wealth. I see this as simple as spending less than one earns and gradually increasing over time. A benchmark being - did you do as well as or better than your parents?
I find it insteresting that even in discussing this our minds turn immediately to the unforseen circumstances that cause us to fail. I've done the same for years and quesioning my own behavior. Would you mention this when coaching someone new to MFP, or would you instead prepare them mentally for the inevitable failure and that this isn't a short term goal, but a long one. I certainly recognize the setbacks, but believe these are incredibly overstated, especially when it comes to individuals. Statistics are useful in large populations, but meaningless when it comes to individuals. It does carry a massive psychological impact if I were to continually point out to a group that x% of them will fail, especially if I target a subset within that group. Part of my thinking when I brought up deliberate misinformation/disinformation.
I believe that largely due to the lack of education regarding finance that even when people go about setting their house in order they expend a tremendous amount of energy and resources that make things worse, much like weight management. It creates a terminal cascade where the person gets quagmired.
Regarding the misinformation/disinformation I find in very effective in identifying the root cause to follow motivation. I think you are correct in identifying laziness on all parties in not assessing the risk. Take the housing crisis for example - willing bankers knew to make profit in massive scale utilizing incredibly risky repo markets. Government coerced the same willing lenders to create high risk vehicles selling the American dream - your home. The same is occuring with education and student loan despite the demand never being able to meet supply in specific disciplines.
Pith is much appreciated - it enables difficult conversations. TMI - I'm in the middle of pulling and replacing my septic sump, so would love some pith.
I feel like almost every time when you paraphrase me or pick out some aspect to agree with, you are misunderstanding the main thrust of what I was trying to say. This suggests that possibly I'm not writing my thoughts clearly.
In this particular case, just to choose one example, my use of the word "laziness" was intended in a very small sense - I used it once in a sentence that started "To put it in more starkly oversimplified/cartoonish terms . . .".
My meaning had nothing to do with assessing risk, but rather more like folks being so busy and pulled in many directions that they're not necessarily paying attention, so easy cognitive defaults take over - yeah, the thing in question (diet and fitness, or whatever) may be important, but so are lots of things. So, we can end up not thinking very critically or analytically or independently about that thing. You've seemngly picked out "laziness" as a key element . . . maybe because it's important in your conceptual scheme here, I don't know. And I'm not understanding how the housing market or education or student loans relate to this, or to "deferred gratification", exactly.
In any case, the bottom line is that I'm failing to communicate.
Good luck with your septic pump!
I believe I get it, but I'm doing the same and not effectively communicating either. I think the key is that we are both trying to understand one another's point of view.
As background what prompted me to make the original post was largely due me being asked to open up a series of talks on personal finance and I've been pulling together a presentation based upon successful systems. I see several similarities between financial and caloric budget management.
Have to admit a bit of confusion on how the base disagreement started here, but I was thinking of a person entering a sister site - "My Financial Pal" and what one would say to set them off on the best path. Delayed gratification was one of a few other characteristics I was investigating.
In doing so I pulled data from several sites and articles and surprised that the chances of overcoming obesity are far worse than rising above/returning to poverty (which highlights the confirmation bias just being on this site). Despite this it would be incredibly demotivating to state that women have a 1 in 124 and men 1 in 210 chance of successfully losing weight and maintaining. Disturbing considering ~75% obesity in men and 60% obesity in adult women. I would love to see how MFP fares or the latest data from NWCR (I requested a data pull from both).
Considering the same for poverty anywhere from 20% to 45% will experience poverty depending on the nuances within the US census data. On average per US census data 1 in 3 escape poverty with 2/3 returning within five years.
If someone came to you for help would you hit them with all the statistics highlighting their chance of failure? I'm hitting a wall on the rationale behind this if the goal is to improve lives.
My intention, eventually, is to try to give you a fuller and more thoughtful answer (I think you're smart, knowledgeable, analytic . . . but your cognitive style and philosophy are mega different from mine, so it's a learning opportunity for me). Right now, I'm time and cognition strapped.
Two quick reactions: Track record suggests I can do (mostly) intuitive finance and budgeting, but can't do intuitive eating. So I think they're not the same, somehow. There is a common skillset . . . but maybe (hah!) different conveyors? (I come from genius blue collar, kinda low income money people, but they had weight struggles.)
(Shifting topics!)
I'd suggest sharing the failure stats, but picking at the "why" and potential counter-strategies: Try (to an extreme) to get your audience to brainstorm those, but come with some prompts in your back pocket if they come up dry after extensive silence. Silence - long silence - in groups/seminars, is powerful.
They need to beat the odds, to succeed, right? Would you play a poker game without understanding the odds?2 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »To answer your question from the other thread - things like racism and sexism play into economic and educational disparities. If your family was not able to own property of any kind because there were laws against the books barring them from doing so, it's going to be awfully difficult to build generational wealth. Never mind biases that occur in hiring (and firing) practices. And then there's the whole segregation bit.
The same is true for education which is also linked to where students live during their primary and secondary education. As I asked you in the previous thread, Lastly, how would you explain the fact that academia is overwhelmingly white? Is that about impulse control? If so, how so?
And yes, I know multiple tenured and early career professors who are people of color, but they are not the norm in, among other places, the US, Canada, and Europe.You've experienced this personally and this inhibited your success?
Generational wealth is below 1% of the population, so I'm not sure what impact this has, especially considering that it is rarely maintained passed 2 generations. As wealth is an output of behavior the core principle of managing a budget still applies.
Every discipline has challenges, both internal and external, but to only focus on challenges without offering a solution is a moot point.
I've always found the entire concept of race fascinating, particular the obsession some have with it. I admittedly do not understand it as to obsess upon race defies all logic and rationale, unless your goal is to purposely divide and cause chaos.
Not really the point of bringing up the relation of health and wealth, but a core theme to wealth and the common misunderstandings around it - nearly all the points you bring up and a myriad more. Just as in weight management it highlights the lack (some would say deliberate) of education around both subjects.
I don't think we are all defining "generational wealth" the same. I believe it can be as simple as parents leaving their house to their kids. And if someone was prevented from buying a house, their descendants are disadvantaged.
Ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/nyregion/memories-of-segregation-in-levittown.html
...From 1934 to 1962, less than 2 percent of the $120 billion in housing financing underwritten by the government went to minorities, while today, the net worth of the average black family is one-eighth that of its white counterpart, the film says.
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released figures showing that the wealth disparity between black households and non-Hispanic white households as of 2015 (it takes them a while to crunch numbers, apparently) was more than 10 to 1 ($139,300 for non-Hispanic white households, $12,780 for black households -- median, not mean). That's what I would take wealth to mean -- what's on the bottom line of your household's balance sheet.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/08/gaps-in-wealth-americans-by-household-type.html
I don't understand attributing that disparity to a lack of impulse control rather than generations of economic discrimination, job discrimination, educational discrimination, credit redlining, and racial disparities in farm loans -- not to mention law enforcement and judicial systems that sometimes looked the other way if white people cheated, threatened, or outright stole from black people.I'm a little confused. This is a branch off another thread, but the OP here is a narrowed focus vs. all the many places the other thread went. It seems unwieldy to me to bring over other sub-threads that aren't clear in this new context. Because I'm a small woman of small mind, I'm going to stick with the OP in this thread, and see where the discussion goes from there. So:As part of a separate topic discussing why marketers often mislead (whether purposefully or not) clients to focus on "shocking the system" and on the wrong solutions.
As a core philosophy behind weight management - one eats within budget to ensure their weight is maintained over time. A sacrifice of one's present wants for a future goal.
In speaking with other members on and off MFP I've noted a common trend, that at one point they believed a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their lives.
Does this core philosophy carry into other aspects of your life? Financially, professionally, academically, etc.
For me, weight management is very much about balancing current wants with future wants or even needs. (Notice how I didn't use the word "sacrifice" in there? Probably intentional. ). So, that general idea resonates with me.
I can also relate to the idea of "budgeting" in a calorie/activity balancing situation.
To me, neither of those is the same concept as "they believed that a goal was impossible. It wasn't until they managed to achieve a small goal that their perception changed and the "impossible" became reality. This in turn carried over into other aspects of their life."
That part doesn't seem to (1) be the same idea as either of the other metaphors, (2) follow from them, or (3) frankly, even make sense to me.
Is there anyone who's never achieved a goal? Um, maybe, but not many. And that was a big leap from a small goal to "the impossible" - kinda lost me.
I do think that there are things to be learned on (for lack of better terms) both technical and psychological fronts, from goal accomplishment, especially accomplishment of complex or very long term goals.
By "technical", I mean things like figuring out how to break a big goal (that might seem overwhelming) into smaller incremental goals, or how to identify small steps that move incrementally toward the big goal, or something along those lines. By "psychological", I mean things like figuring out out to feel rewarded and reinforced in the short run for doing things whose main or full benefits are far in the future.
Under "psychological", at least for some people, I'd include developing (through success) a sense of mastery or agency that makes one feel like one has strengths one can bring to bear on other big goals in the future, so feel like big goals are in fact possible. (This vaguely has something to do with how I'd understand that paragraph that I said didn't make sense to me, but it's not the same thing . . . I think.)
I do think that many of these foregoing things (the balancing of current/future wants, the attacking of complex/long-term goals, the sense of personal agency or mastery) are too often parsed in common conversation in terms of abstract trait-like things such as "discipline", "willpower", "motivation", etc., that make it easy to believe that some people have those traits (or talents), and other people don't. That's not helpful.
Personally, I think that what's really involved are in fact more like skills. Some people may have more preinstalled "natural talent" for some of them, but they're still skills that can be learned, practiced, improved, and potentially used in various scenarios . . . if one can figure out how to practice them. (Abstractions are hard. ) Practicing things improves them, makes them sharper tools. I think that applies even to rather abstract skills like "patience" and "persistence" (yes, I think those are more skills than traits, too).
So, I think there are things that can be learned or refined in the weight management scenario, that can potentially be transferrable to financial, professional, social, familial, etc., aspects of life. Also, vice versa, that skills learned in those domains potentially transfer to weight management and fitness, and make that more achievable.
I don't think of any of it as a "core philosophy" at all, though. I think of it as a skill set, or techniques, or practices.
(There were things hinted at in the other thread about perceived personal power, sense of agency, etc., that I think are kind of important in all of this, too, but I don't so far see a great jumping-off point in this thread. I also don't think that has anything with "core philosophy", either.)
I didn't mean literally never achieving a goal, but talking to people who are on "the elevator going down" they often see themselves in this state. Despite many achievements in the past the lack of current goal accomplishments feels like an insurmountable hill which causes a terminal cascade of failure, depression, more failue.
My original thought in going down this rabbit hole is to deconstruct the misinformation/disinformation (as I believe much of this to be intentional) and dispel much of the myth around other disciplines. That despite "common knowledge" success is achievable, but you have to know and understand the roadblocks set before you.
Apologies as I'm writing this long before the idea is fully formed - just a connection I made within the original thread with some other books I'm reading.
Dispelling the myth of natural talent is definitely a core concept/correction to a root cause.
I think we disagree in material ways.
I agree that there is much misinformation/disinformation (and suspect I agree with you about the general nature of maybe 80% of it).
I agree that success is potentially achievable, and that understanding the roadblocks and finding levers for change is very important - essential, in fact. A gut sense that one has agency is very important (and that sense can grow over time with successful goal accomplishment). But success is never guaranteed, even to people who do all the right things. Some situations are completely intractable, in ways sometimes unforseeable. Failure despite amazing, insightful effort is a thing. Certain kinds of obstacles make that failure more likely. I suspect you'd say that failure is a form of learning, and that people who fail should adjust and soldier on. I don't disagree, but I think there are limits to what we can realistically expect of people.
Also, I don't agree that natural talent is a myth. I think that some people have abilities with a strong genetic component, and/or an early-nurture component. For best success, they still need to develop/practice the related skills, but almost any given set of skills will come more easily to some people than to others. (There are child prodigies, right? Not many, but I think it's common sense and good observation to believe that there are also people with talents short of prodigy, but in excess of average.)
I do think that many people overestimate the value of "talent" and "luck" in some other people's life stories, and underestimate the value of work and practice. (As just one example, I see people react to excellent art/craft objects some of my friends have made with "You have such talent" when I know very well that the craftsperson started from pretty close to zilch, and has worked very hard, over a very long time, to achieve that level of skill.) Work and practice is somewhat invisible to the outside observer.
I think that many people use the ideas of "talent" and "luck" (unbeknownst even to themselves) as a cognitive out or dodge, in thinking about why they themselves are unable to achieve the same outcomes as the "lucky" "talented" people.
Sometimes, actual talent (genetic or early-life disposition to a skill) can be a trap for the talented: Because they easily exceed the performance of those around them early on, they don't practice enough or learn enough to reach anything like their potential. They may even be bettered, in the long term, by a similarly-situated person of mediocre talent who is more focused and persistent at skill development. People who think they're good at something can be undermotivated to improve at it.
So, talent is a thing IMO, but so is work, and taking responsibility for doing the work. The person with both - natural talent plus hard work - has the best odds of highest success. One or the other can get a person part way there (in an ill-defined sense of "there"). I'd guess that those half-a**ed cases are where actual luck (also a thing) may improve odds of success. Privilege, narrowly or broadly defined, is IMO a form of luck in this kind of scenario.
Backing up a little, I also don't agree that "much of the misinformation/disinformation is intentional". I think this particular class of misinformation/disinformation is often an emergent property of cognitive dodges (like the one mentioned explicitly above) added to the arm-waving of hucksterism for quick fixes (which is often intentional, but sometimes just delusion on the part of the huckster . . . but even in the latter case, the audience has to have some psychological motivation to believe and be manipulated by the huckster). To put it in more starkly oversimplified/cartoonish terms, much of the misinformation/disinformation is about simple laziness on the part of all parties to the cognitive transaction, added to self-interest (maybe misguided self-interest) all around. I think this is true even if you're only talking about misinformation/disinformation in the diet and fitness realm.
Stepping back still further, I'm feeling like you want to try to take things back to big principles that are abstract, generalized, kind of pure and universal. I think I like variation and situational reasoning and nuance and messiness, and dislike abstractions and universal principles. (I think that's part of what makes my posts so stinkin' rambling and non-pithy. ) To be more pointed, I think root causes (of nearly anything) are more likely to be very specific, and not about something as abstract as (say) "deferred gratification).
Enough for now.
I realize that amongst all topics finance is of the utmost taboo, so thanks for everyone for being respectful. 20 years of financial counseling and I find people will talk about their sex life easier than about money. Yet another behavior creating disparity.
A key talking past point is the very defition of wealth. I see this as simple as spending less than one earns and gradually increasing over time. A benchmark being - did you do as well as or better than your parents?
I find it insteresting that even in discussing this our minds turn immediately to the unforseen circumstances that cause us to fail. I've done the same for years and quesioning my own behavior. Would you mention this when coaching someone new to MFP, or would you instead prepare them mentally for the inevitable failure and that this isn't a short term goal, but a long one. I certainly recognize the setbacks, but believe these are incredibly overstated, especially when it comes to individuals. Statistics are useful in large populations, but meaningless when it comes to individuals. It does carry a massive psychological impact if I were to continually point out to a group that x% of them will fail, especially if I target a subset within that group. Part of my thinking when I brought up deliberate misinformation/disinformation.
I believe that largely due to the lack of education regarding finance that even when people go about setting their house in order they expend a tremendous amount of energy and resources that make things worse, much like weight management. It creates a terminal cascade where the person gets quagmired.
Regarding the misinformation/disinformation I find in very effective in identifying the root cause to follow motivation. I think you are correct in identifying laziness on all parties in not assessing the risk. Take the housing crisis for example - willing bankers knew to make profit in massive scale utilizing incredibly risky repo markets. Government coerced the same willing lenders to create high risk vehicles selling the American dream - your home. The same is occuring with education and student loan despite the demand never being able to meet supply in specific disciplines.
Pith is much appreciated - it enables difficult conversations. TMI - I'm in the middle of pulling and replacing my septic sump, so would love some pith.
I feel like almost every time when you paraphrase me or pick out some aspect to agree with, you are misunderstanding the main thrust of what I was trying to say. This suggests that possibly I'm not writing my thoughts clearly.
In this particular case, just to choose one example, my use of the word "laziness" was intended in a very small sense - I used it once in a sentence that started "To put it in more starkly oversimplified/cartoonish terms . . .".
My meaning had nothing to do with assessing risk, but rather more like folks being so busy and pulled in many directions that they're not necessarily paying attention, so easy cognitive defaults take over - yeah, the thing in question (diet and fitness, or whatever) may be important, but so are lots of things. So, we can end up not thinking very critically or analytically or independently about that thing. You've seemngly picked out "laziness" as a key element . . . maybe because it's important in your conceptual scheme here, I don't know. And I'm not understanding how the housing market or education or student loans relate to this, or to "deferred gratification", exactly.
In any case, the bottom line is that I'm failing to communicate.
Good luck with your septic pump!
I believe I get it, but I'm doing the same and not effectively communicating either. I think the key is that we are both trying to understand one another's point of view.
As background what prompted me to make the original post was largely due me being asked to open up a series of talks on personal finance and I've been pulling together a presentation based upon successful systems. I see several similarities between financial and caloric budget management.
Have to admit a bit of confusion on how the base disagreement started here, but I was thinking of a person entering a sister site - "My Financial Pal" and what one would say to set them off on the best path. Delayed gratification was one of a few other characteristics I was investigating.
In doing so I pulled data from several sites and articles and surprised that the chances of overcoming obesity are far worse than rising above/returning to poverty (which highlights the confirmation bias just being on this site). Despite this it would be incredibly demotivating to state that women have a 1 in 124 and men 1 in 210 chance of successfully losing weight and maintaining. Disturbing considering ~75% obesity in men and 60% obesity in adult women. I would love to see how MFP fares or the latest data from NWCR (I requested a data pull from both).
Considering the same for poverty anywhere from 20% to 45% will experience poverty depending on the nuances within the US census data. On average per US census data 1 in 3 escape poverty with 2/3 returning within five years.
If someone came to you for help would you hit them with all the statistics highlighting their chance of failure? I'm hitting a wall on the rationale behind this if the goal is to improve lives.
If someone in poverty came to me for help, my response wouldn't be "if you just delay gratification, you'll be able to get out of poverty." I'd try to help them draw up a budget and see if there actually was any "gratification" to be delayed, and I'd look for ways in which their poverty was actually costing them money (e.g., paying fees to cash your paycheck at a retail establishment because you're unbanked) and see if there were ways to address that.
But I think it would be far more helpful if I made sure they were aware of and taking advantage of any programs that would help them cut costs on the basics (get a roommate? low-income transit assistance programs? subsidized health insurance? free phone and phone service? energy assistance in the winter? food banks? local housing credit programs?), and then helped them brainstorm on ways to increase their income, whether in the short, medium, or long term.
Delayed gratification = spending less. I think that's a good strategy for someone with a decent income and a load of consumer debt. For someone in poverty for lack of available good-paying jobs in their area for someone with their education, experience, and skill set, I don't think delayed gratification is much of a solution. "Oh, stop thinking you have to have a roof over your head, heat, and food this year."5 -
I've been asked to present to three groups in the SE Wisconsin area - all very diverse groups, so making sure I include connecting points to everyone.
What I've done traditionally is present the tactics - as @lynn_glenmont states with limited success. I works in the short term, but just as in weight loss if there's not some larger goal, people trend towards past habits. So presenting at several levels or order - core concept, strategies, and tactics to cover the immediate, short term, and long term. Following Maslow's Hierarchy this is tailored to the individual with teams to get people action based upon risk.
I've collected a good deal of data on the helpful tips and how successful these were or how important individuals believed them to be. Just as in weight management - the core concept of CICO is simple, but the trick is in how it's implemented and what works for the individual.
I wasn't going to include the larger statistical data, but having found the comparative rate between poverty and obesity I think I am, but setting this up as advanced planning for failure and that one derailment does not mean the end. @Annie_01 I agree and think the same way. I want to know all the gory details before tackling anything.
@AnnPT77 Your comment on intuitive spending/intuitive eating resonates with me and something I refer to often. It's rather easy to intuitive spend by comparison as the numbers are real, accurate, and concrete (although less so with the increase of virtual money management and credit). I reject the notion of intuitive eating and see this as a myth, so at the core people think that there is something wrong with them when they cannot manage weight, when this is fundamentally untrue. We are simply in a period of abundance. I've been thinking of including something like this is the discussion, but it derails - perhaps an after hours observation.
....and love the "Why?" and long silences - great tactic to get people to think outside their normal grooves.0
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