Comment on Pay Day with demographer Liz Allen: 'Poverty grants perspective that can never be bought'
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks agoDo we agree that choices are not free? That the set of choices available to someone is determined by precededing moments, a chain of which extends back well beyond anything a person could be held not merely responsible for but indeed capable of having any influence over at all?
Ilandar@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
You seem to be misunderstanding the point I am making. I am not arguing that the only thing that dictates wealth are the decisions of the individual. I am arguing that the decisions of the individual contribute to their wealth. Maybe you see the world from a determinist mindset, but I certainly don’t. There are always choices we can make about how we choose to live. Sometimes these require sacrifices, such as the choice to not have 7 children.
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
But 7 children doesn’t influence your geographical location, the quality of your education, your skin colour, the quality of your parents’ education, your familial wealth, your health, the stability of your home life, your gender, your health, the job opportunities upon attaining your majority etc etc etc. It is negligible and largely downstream of the good luck required to be well off and does nothing to undermine wealth being all luck.
Ilandar@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
I never said it did. Please refer to my previous reply:
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
What determines what choices you want to make? What determines your ability to exercise agency? what determines your values?
You’re looking at people who sit around a table, get dealt a hand of cards, have randomly assigned levels of skill and then after everyone has played their hands you’re trying to argue luck wasn’t what determined how people scored…