Because it's trivially obvious. It requires no explanation. Average income with regard to "poverty" is completely meaningless.
It means that it is theoretically impossible to ever eliminate "poverty" with such a definition. It is a definition that takes zero account of what it needs to live on say, how much is required for food or housing. 20% of
by any rational argument, one isn't. Dah...
Just as it is impossible, to engage a social program in an effort to educate people so that everyone is above average intelligence.
Because he is a human being.
Sure, there are some that are true psychopaths, those that have zero empathy for the misfortune of others, that these truly "mentally" ill people are rare.
There are very, very few people that have no empathy at all for say, a starving 5 year old. Human nature is just not like that. I don't accept that anyone posting in this NG is such a poor excuse of a human.
Generalising in such a negative way, the way you are doing about people that you really don't know anything about except from brief news group postings, is a statement on your quality, not theirs. Evolution and experience tells me that most people have quite strong innate ethics such that I would have to see significant evidence to the contrary before I would assume that someone has a completely bankrupt moral compass.
Some definitions of poverty lay emphasis on what people have vis-a-vis thei r better-off neighbours. Deep poverty is not having enough to eat and not h aving a roof over your head. Shameful poverty involves wearing old, patched and unfashionable clothes.
In the latter case, average income is important to the definition of povert y.
The triviality seems to be in the shallowness of your perceptions.
Why? If you are on an average, or a median income you aren't poor, but what proportion of the average income constitutes poverty differs from society to society. The US average income is $73,298 and the median income is $51,9
ng in poverty
The proportion of the average or median income that constitutes poverty isn 't specified, but at least defining the poverty threshold in terms of avera ge or median income does take out inflation adjustments, and reflects - to some extent - changing expectations.
ate
That is a different kind of problem. The Flynn Effect
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does illustrate the point that we do seem to be doing something that raises peoples scores on IQ tests.
The poverty level is set in terms of an income that is high enough that it is unlikely that anybody will be irretrievably damaged by deprivations that could have been alleviated by more money. Some people aren't very good wit h money and can end up damaged when they didn't need to be, but we can't do much about that.
What makes you think that? Krw is a better candidate for an Eliza-like prog ram, but Jim isn't a whole lot more impressive.
thy
hat
Jim talks about shooting his more left-wing neighbours "when the US falls a part". That is tolerably psychopathic. It has been claimed that this was so me kind of joke, but it is still a fairly psychopathic sort of joke,
hat
s,
I've used a couple of Jim's integrated circuits. I know more than enough ab out him.
e
Jim doesn't seem to have much in the way of innate ethics. His values seem to be pretty much those that were inculcated when he was growing up in West Virginia. His family might not be the Jukes or the Kallikaks, but his envi ronment can be expected to have included a few similar families.
This is a text-based group, and - to quote the New Yorker - on the internet nobody knows that you are a dog.
Jim-out-of-touch-with-reality-Thompson - if he exists - isn't the kind of human being who can be expected to have properly human responses to familiar human situations.
He does "do discussions". There are, of course, prerequisites for a discussion to take place; not all of the postings in this group satisfy the prerequisites.
Actually, I do. You just don't know what's involved. Kevin isn't all that well-informed about it either.
One has to suspect that both of you think that "discussion" is an exchange of mutually supportive silly ideas. You don't seem to have any other kind. Kevin has been known to have flashes of sense, but not recently.
I try my best to avoid making anything that could be taken as a personal insult or personal derogatory remarks. I don't always succeed, but its a goal. I try to address the issues, not the person. Its only if the person is clearly delusional, that you have to question their personal mental state. If you examine Bill's post, a good proportion of them concern peoples personal attributes, not the content of the discussion itself. Ad-hominem attacks are a well known debating fallacy.
When someone starts on the personal bit that is clearly way off the wall of reality, there is no point in continuing. I might disagree on many as to what type or level of "moral compass" they have, but I would never go as far as to claim people are subhuman, for example, on their views of say, the death penalty. Its never black and white. People may have a view that, the view itself might be considered shit by some, but to suggest the holder of that view are themselves, a complete piece of shit, because of that view, is not credible. It can only be taking as an insult. Discussions based on insults are pointless.
h.D. might have lead him to be snobbish about different irrelevant qualitie s.
Actually Ph.D's do not seem to be worth money. To get a Ph.D you have to fo rego at least two years of working and possibly have to fork up money to p ay for graduate school.
And then most of the jobs for Ph.D's are teaching at universities. Which i s so so as far a pay goes.
So in my opinion, getting a Ph.D is only worthwhile if you want to do pure research or if you want to teach.
Dan
to do the kind of work required. He's an adequate integrated circuit desig ner. If he had been asked to solve a wider variety of problems he might hav e found something that he was really good at - in the way the Bob Widlar an d Barry Gilbert were in integrated circuit design.
really messed up and should have gotten a Ph.D?
ou can see how he might have done better from a technical point of view, bu t the business of exploiting a natural monopoly doesn't encourage technical innovation, and does encourage tricks like squeezing Netscape out of the m arket, and trying to sell Explorer bundled into the operating system.
But if Bill Gates had stayed in school, he probably would not have the mone y to invest in helping people.
That sort of attitude doesn't play well in a research environment.
But he did not get a Ph.D and so did not work in a research environment. S o his getting a Ph.D would have been a handicap.
hich does make him someone who might have completed a Ph.D.
Yes Jim might have gotten a Ph.D, but the question was why should Jim have gotten a Ph.D. And you did not answer that. It was not could he have got ten a Ph.D.
Yes, a standard tactic of the Left is to resort to name-calling when they have no rational argument to advance. The poster who goes by the moniker "krw" is another example of this type of behaviour. Such people are always best avoided for obvious reasons. As soon as you prove they're talking bollocks they'll resort to smears and that's when you know for sure you've got the better of them - but why even bother with them in the first place?
Ph.D. might have lead him to be snobbish about different irrelevant qualit ies.
forego at least two years of working and possibly have to fork up money to pay for graduate school.
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and-phd.html
These figures - and I've been seeing similar figures since I was a graduate student - do suggest that the income forgone while working for a Ph.D. is amply repaid by a higher salary in subsequent employment.
is so so as far a pay goes.
Getting a Ph.D. is more or less essential if you want to work at a universi ty, but it's not the only career path open to you. I worked in industry for most of my professional life, and worked with quite a few other people who had also got a Ph.D. The kind of skill set you build up doing a Ph.D. in e xperimental science is useful in high-tech industry.
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e research or if you want to teach.
Your opinion on this subject - as on many others - is ill-informed.
- to do the kind of work required. He's an adequate integrated circuit des igner. If he had been asked to solve a wider variety of problems he might h ave found something that he was really good at - in the way the Bob Widlar and Barry Gilbert were in integrated circuit design.
ey really messed up and should have gotten a Ph.D?
you can see how he might have done better from a technical point of view, but the business of exploiting a natural monopoly doesn't encourage technic al innovation, and does encourage tricks like squeezing Netscape out of the market, and trying to sell Explorer bundled into the operating system.
ney to invest in helping people.
So somebody else would have. Probably Gary Kildall.
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s. That sort of attitude doesn't play well in a research environment.
So his getting a Ph.D would have been a handicap.
You don't need a Ph.D. to work in a research environment. Getting one - in experimental science - can show that you can do useful work in a research e nvironment, but I've seen a few that suggested that the people who had got them wouldn't be much use in an area that required original thinking.
Getting a Ph.D. is rarely a handicap. Having a rapacious attitude about you r colleagues contributions often is.
which does make him someone who might have completed a Ph.D.
ve gotten a Ph.D. And you did not answer that. It was not could he have g otten a Ph.D.
I didn't think that I needed to spell out the well-known - and well publici sed - fact that getting a Ph.D. typically adds 30% to your life-time earnin gs.
The plots of average income versus age go up more steeply for Ph.D. holders than those of people with lower degrees.
A Masters from the Harvard School of Business Administration was a pretty much unique exception to the general rule - it was worth more in terms of s tarting salary than any other academic qualification, but after five years the salary difference between Harvard MBA's and otherwise matched employees had gone away.
This was a famous result about thirty years ago - it probably isn't true an y more.
Wharton's degree now seems to be worth more, and Harvard may have found som e useful information to impart to its business students.
Slowman is unemployable, even with his wonderful PhD. No one wants to hire someone who takes decades to design a simple oscillator, and still can't get it done.
Krw is definitely on the right, though rarely in the right.
Claiming that "name-calling is a standard tactic of the Left" is indulging in name calling. Cursitor Doom is a little too prone to take this kind of i ntellectual short cut, but since he does seem to read the Express, and beli eve what he reads there, the fact he's talking bollocks can be establsihed without reference to any of his numerous other nasty personal habits.
a Ph.D. might have lead him to be snobbish about different irrelevant quali ties.
forego at least two years of working and possibly have to fork up money t o pay for graduate school.
h is so so as far a pay goes.
re research or if you want to teach.
h - to do the kind of work required. He's an adequate integrated circuit de signer. If he had been asked to solve a wider variety of problems he might have found something that he was really good at - in the way the Bob Widlar and Barry Gilbert were in integrated circuit design.
hey really messed up and should have gotten a Ph.D?
, you can see how he might have done better from a technical point of view, but the business of exploiting a natural monopoly doesn't encourage techni cal innovation, and does encourage tricks like squeezing Netscape out of th e market, and trying to sell Explorer bundled into the operating system.
oney to invest in helping people.
rs. That sort of attitude doesn't play well in a research environment.
So his getting a Ph.D would have been a handicap.
, which does make him someone who might have completed a Ph.D.
ave gotten a Ph.D. And you did not answer that. It was not could he have gotten a Ph.D.
At 74, employers don't seem to be queuing up to hire me. I was definitely e mployable when I was younger, and I spent most of my career working.
ator, > and still can't get it done.
The design is completed. It doesn't look much like what I started off with
- less than a decade ago - and it was never a simple oscillator. I'm trying to wind myself up enough to plug the circuit into KiCad and generate a pri nted circuit layout, but without a potential customer it's difficult to get all that motivated.
My opinion is based on observation of classmates of mine that got Ph.D's and those that did not. Of my close friends almost all of those with Ph.D's ended up being professors.
Only a minority of successful people think that sociopathic way, but in true Leftie style you've lumped every self-made man into the misanthrope category so you can 'justify' appropriating the fruits of their efforts and redistributing same among the lower orders, irrespective of their individual merits (or more likely lack thereof).
Governments have always appropriated some of the fruits of the efforts of s elf-made men (and the rather larger class who are what their ancestors made them) and redistributed them to the lower orders - initially only those se rving in the army, but as society grew more complicated, others came to ben efit.
The problem isn't about the appropriating of the fruits of those efforts, b ut about the re-distribution. The US does it badly, the UK little better, a nd Germany and Scandinavia a whole lot better.
The idea that tax money might be being usefully spent is an anathema to Cur istor Doom and the Express - it's much too complicated an idea for the Expr ess to make money out of, or for Cursitor Doom to cope with, but reality do esn't lend itself the kind of neat narrative that right-wing nitwits like t o hear.
Nobody likes taxes, but modern society runs on them. The only useful debate is about how big the tax take is, and how progressive the taxation system is.
By Cursitor Doom's logic, Sweden, which collects 55% of it's GDP in taxes, would have completely destroyed any incentive in any of it's citizens, but its economy is doing fine.
Germany collects 45% and does do appreciably better, but the US only collec ts 30% and does a whole lot worse.
These are Pekitty's numbers
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comes form the Heritage Foundation - a right-wing US think tank, which isn' t really all that trustworthy - and presents slightly lower numbers - Swede n is still close to the top, but at 45.8%, and Germany is still lower at 40 .6%. The UK is well down the lists at 34.4%, and the USA is remarkably low at 26%. Australian is even lower at 25.8%, but our current government is ru nning an unsustainable deficit and still wants to cut taxes. Our health car e is universal, but expensive for anybody who isn't destitute, and our educ ation system has been slipping down the league tables for years.
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