Galt's Gulch

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  • Posted by Bandera 10 years, 4 months ago
    People who drive foreign cars may be foreigners. Therefore they may not be aware of the crosswalk rule. In the UK the driver has right of way and NOT the pedestrian.

    Logic of the entire study is chock full of flaws.

    Leasing a foreign car does NOT mean I have any wealth. That supposition is in error. Only that I budget poorly.

    To jump to the conclusion that people who drive foreign cars are versed with the laws and/or wealthy is very poor study design.

    I stopped watching at this point in the video because my time is worth much more than what was being offered.

    Btw Hello
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  • Posted by $ Mimi 10 years, 4 months ago
    I don’t know Maph, I see twisted logic.

    The average age of a person who drives a Porsche or a BMW is close to 40.
    http://www.tescocompare.com/why/media-ce...
    Since the invention of a crosswalk the rule of law has always been stop for those “in” the crosswalk, which has always meant in the past to stop if they are stepping off the curb. Every time i drive up to one of these pedestrian crosswalks, I drive through if you haven’t stepped off the curb. Personally, I think it’s in the interpretation of the law that is the problem. Common sense tells me if you step of a curb without looking both ways it’s your problem not mine. Anyway, I think that the real answer does not lie in people with nice cars and money feeling entitled to drive through, as much as it is more logical to presume older people with nice cars were taught to drive when laws made sense. Thanks for posting it, though> I was wondering why all these idiots were just stepping off the curb like they had some sense of entitlement for the last ten years.
    Second, the candy-thief...lovely lady. I would have done the same thing. There was something about the spiel given to her that was irritating. You put me in a room with only a bowl of hard candies, stall courtesies, then before you exit the room you say something to me in a manner that gives me the feeling you think I’m going to eat all your candy--guess what is going to happen? When you close the door, I’m going to steal all your candy just on principle.

    The study is really reaching.



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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 4 months ago
    http://www.xtimports.com/text/Hyperdemoc...
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    " Suppose two individuals, Tom and Dick, are given equal opportunity to develop their individual abilities. Tom winds up a millionaire, and dick winds up on a skimpy retirement pay. The objective evidence clearly shows that Tom and Dick did not have equal opportunities, doesn't it?

    Yes, it does. Tom had superior opportunities, he had the gift of learning very rapidly, so that, exposed to the same information sources, and the same situations Dick was, Tom learned fifteen times as much. Tom, going to the same school Dick did, learned that Columbus discovered America... and that Leif Ericson probably landed in Labrador five or six centuries earlier. That various French and Spanish pioneers explored the area of the western United States, but the Lewis and Clarke expedition was more important.

    And Dick, having answered the school examinations properly, knew that he had learned what the proper citizen was supposed to learn.


    But Tom, having answered the school examinations the same way Dick did, learned something quite different. “It doesn't do much good to open a pathway if people don't want to go there. There's no point in discovering a continent until people need a new continent. There's no use exploring a new territory until people are present to move in, and want a new territory to move into.” That was a great help to Tom in later life, when he was organizing the companies and enterprises that made his millions."
    ----
    http://humanachievementinitiative.wordpr...
    ----
    "Take a man of good character. He finds himself in a position where he’s so broke he doesn’t even know where his next meal will come from. He finds a five dollar bill on the floor of his local 7/11. He takes it to the clerk and turns it in.

    Take that same man. Make him the CEO of a major corporation. His CFO comes to him with a scheme to get the gov’t (aka taxpayers) to pay for the R&D of a project, keep the resultant product, and write off the gov’t investment. He fires the CFO.

    Make him a Senator, Governor, President. Lobbyists assault him with offers; campaign funding, post-office employment, what have you. All he has to do is create and/or pass legislation favoring their cause, profitable to them. He won’t stay in office long, because he’ll tell them to go get stuffed.

    Take a man of poor character. He finds the five dollar bill, and pockets it. His mind fills with rationalizations; no one will miss it; his need is acute; he’ll find the owner and pay it back when he’s rich.

    Now take that same man, and make him the CEO of a major corporation. When the CFO comes, the CFO is rewarded. He finds a way to funnel some of the ill-gotten gains into his own pocket. And cries his innocence when he’s hopefully hauled off to jail.

    Make the man of poor character a Senator, Governor, President, and you can guess the result. He’s the puppet of any lobbyist with an agenda and a dollar.

    “Rich” and “poor” are not genetic types. A man is an individual, and he will behave according to his character, regardless of the monetary situation in which he finds himself."
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    • Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 4 months ago
      “Rich” and “poor” are not genetic types. A man is an individual, and he will behave according to his character, regardless of the monetary situation in which he finds himself."
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      Obviously genetics do not play a roll here, but the evidence does suggest that a man's character can indeed be influenced by his monetary situation. If you intend to refute that point, you must provide evidence, not merely hypothetical speculation.
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      • Posted by TruthFreedom1 10 years, 4 months ago
        Agreed.
        We are all born innocent... It is the values we learn growing up in our social and cultural surrounding which have the most influence on a persons character. Yes we can all change and become different than we once were and money is one of those influences most capable of doing that.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago
    What do I think? I think I wouldn't enter into a game of monopoly with more or less money at the start of the game. I don't play with cheaters and I don't cheat. THAT would be cheating. This study is ridiculous. (If you've gotten someone to play this game under these circumstances you're already dealing with an unprincipled cheater...making them fake rich isn't going to change that, or their eating manners, or their taking of supplied free snacks.)
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      Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 4 months ago
      I think the purpose behind starting players with an unequal distribution of wealth in the game was done to emulate the unequal distribution of wealth in real life, and to point out that those who are born into wealth achieve success at least partially because of the circumstances of their birth, and that such success cannot be attributed entirely to their own efforts and abilities (though that certainly does play a role).

      If you say that you're opposed to starting players with an unequal distribution of wealth, and that such an act constitutes cheating, does that mean you're in favor of wealth redistribution?
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      • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago
        Wealth is EARNED...it's not 'distributed'.
        A person's 'success' can't always be represented by how much money they have either. I consider success as being a principled person who doesn't cave to others...and that doesn't always pay so well. My idea of wealth is living within our means. No, I am not in favor of stealing one person's earnings and giving them to a moocher. I'm also not in favor of playing games with cheaters. Cheaters and moochers have very similar meanings in my book. What's your point?
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        • Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 4 months ago
          The phrase "distribution of wealth" is just a figure of speech. And yes, wealth is certainly earned at some point (though sometimes fortunes are amassed through theft), but wealth is not always earned by the person who happens to currently posses it. Tell me, if a man starts a company and makes a fortune off of it, and then dies and passes his fortune onto his son, what did that son do to earn the fortune other than be fathered by the man who earned it? In other words, how does inheritance factor into the theory that all wealth comes as a result of having earned it?
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          • Posted by khalling 10 years, 4 months ago
            actually it is not just an innocuous figure of speech. It is an insidious concept and plan to separate individuals into groups-force groups to pander for taking from other groups or pander for keeping what is theirs. IT is only accomplished by force. It is very easy and heady power to have the control of choosing which groups should take and which groups get to keep. It completely changes the real meaning of the word fair. It is a dangerous political concept that should be called stealing. It is immoral and the opposite of productive and makes government evil.
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          • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago
            It was earned by someone and that someone has a right to choose who gets it if he/she dies. It's their choice...it's their money. If someone is willed money then the person who left it to them felt they deserved it, so in that sense they earned it. People get written into and out of wills all the time.
            Do you think someone else has a right to someone's money when they die...it's suddenly up for grabs? And what's the beef with people inheriting money?...it doesn't make it any less THEIRS just because it was left to them. That money WAS earned...it didn't grow on a tree and it wasn't taken from someone else against their will..(ha..their will.) "Distribution of wealth" is NOT a figure of speech...is it a leftist crafted, feel good, guilt inducing phrase to make it sound like less than theft and some how fair for all. barf.
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              Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 4 months ago
              Alright, then why is it unfair in the game of Monopoly for the players to start off with unequal amounts of money?
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              • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago
                Because that defeats the whole purpose of the GAME. It's a GAME with rules. If I beat you 4 times in a row...are you going to cry that that's not faaaaair and punch me and steal my fake money?
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                  Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 4 months ago
                  I think you're missing the point...
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                  • Posted by khalling 10 years, 4 months ago
                    aarrrggghhh. why would anyone play the game in the first place if they started off with less money? WHO decides who gets more or less to start the game? It's like saying before the game begins-one person gets to pick the winner. no one would play unless these were all children and one child was the bully.
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                      Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 4 months ago
                      They stated in the video that the person who started with more money was determined by a coin toss.
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                      • Posted by $ Mimi 10 years, 4 months ago
                        How the experiment played out has nothing to do with the conclusions they came up with. Say I am in line at the grocery store and I’m standing there for ten minutes in a line that just isn’t moving. I turn my head, catching sight of an item that is just five feet from where I am standing. I take a step or two to retrieve the item and turn back to my place in line. At the same time, another customer has stepped into my spot. Now, for half-a-second this person clearly saw me standing in this line, envisioned I wouldn’t be returning to the line so doesn’t want to acknowledge I haven’t really left it. Both of us at that moment feel ‘entitled’. One of us coming from the point of view:”You snooze, you lose.”; the other person is coming from the point of view: "I spent time waiting in this line. I earned it”. Who is right? I’m using this example because we have all been through this and had that ‘private’ conversation with ourself about whether or not to say something to the person we feel has stolen our place in line.

                        Why didn’t they speak about the guy who didn’t win the game? Would he state he was expected to lose thereby he had fulfilled his obligation or would he had spoken about all the obstacles in his way keeping him from winning, as if he was “entitled to have chance to win?” I wonder how many trials with the one given less money actually won and felt entitled to do so. We will never know because a true scientific experiment of this nature should have been done by mathematicians in a game theory study, not in a social studies department while trying to find ways to fit a squared-pegged social behavior into a round-hole class structure.

                        Merry Christmas, btw. Rum-de-la-la

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                        • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago
                          You get the okay from the people behind you to step out of line to retrieve the item prior to stepping out. You don't assume they'll be okay with you leaving the line.
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                          • Posted by $ Mimi 10 years, 4 months ago
                            LS, the person wasn’t in line to begin with.
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                            • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago
                              You stepped out of line....OUT of line, not in it anymore... personally I'll let you back in if it were me and I saw you jet out quickly for an item...but you can't be IN line and OUT of line at the same time.
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                              • Posted by $ Mimi 10 years, 4 months ago
                                You see? Your coming from a position of entitlement. So am I. What about the fact I had been standing in line for ten minutes while the other person just happened to walk up? Mind you: The person saw what I was doing and could easily see I was not abandoning the line. Since I waited I do feel like I ‘earned’ my spot, just saying...
                                It’s just natural behavior to view advantage as an entitlement. Otherwise early men would have been chasing down the eagles looking to return the field mice they may have dropped.
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                                • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago
                                  How is that being entitled? They're are rules to waiting in line. If you're not IN line then you're not waiting...if just happened to walk up when the person who used to be waiting isn't there anymore then you're not line jumping either. A smart person with a cart full of stuff, with a bunch of people already in line behind them, will wait til they start getting rung up and then say, "Oh I forgot something keep ringing up I'll be right back." OR if there's no, or not much of, a line behind them, they just go get what they need and get back into the line which is obviously going to be short anyway..big deal. It's your problem you forgot something not the person's who comes up behind you. I really don't get the 'entitled' aspect of this. (And that sounds a lot like "priviledged" a term I abhor.)
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                          • Posted by TruthFreedom1 10 years, 4 months ago
                            If they are not OK with it they have no social etiquette. I for one would have no problem letting someone move two paces to grab something from a display while waiting behind them. Hopefully most people (and that is my experience) have the same outlook. Certainly no harm in looking over your shoulder and asking if its OK though. What would you do if they said no to your preemptive act of courtesy?
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                        • Posted by TruthFreedom1 10 years, 4 months ago
                          Very well said Mimi. Everyone's circumstance and thus view of the world is different. If I had stepped out of line and had that happen on a good day then maybe I would do nothing and just Shrug it off... On the other hand if it was a bad day maybe I would speak up. Each situation is its own circumstance and we each determine the outcome by reacting as we may or may not... After all that I do believe that many of the very wealthy do feel a sense of entitlement or have a superiority complex. We see it among athletes and Hollywood types all the time.
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                      • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago
                        THAT'S where the study should have ended... they're both numbskulls for agreeing to play a game that starts out slanted. And everybody knows you roll dice to see who gets the highest number to go first...flipped a coin (eye roll)... good Jesus, these people are so desperate to be a part of SOMEthing even if it's a raunchy 'study'. I could gag.
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                  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago
                    The point IS... life is what you make of it...everyone has there own shit in the closet that they have to over come...sometimes people have to overcome a rich childhood even... there are no guarantees in life and THAT is what you think making everything 'fair' and 'equal' will accomplish. It won't. It will steal from others' ability to succeed on their own merit... If you want to believe life is like a game of slanted monopoly you go right ahead.... but I won't play slanted, and I get to be the shoe, and I will kick your ass and not cheat while I do it.
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                      Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 4 months ago
                      I think you're getting the wrong idea here. I never endorsed redistribution of wealth, I just wanted to discuss the ideas presented in the video. Sheesh.
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                      • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago
                        The "idea" stinks... and it's been discussed to death in here. It does NOT make anything fair or equal. And sheesh I don't think you have a sense of humor.
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                          Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 4 months ago
                          Humor? What humor? All I see here is you getting angry and verbally attacking me. If that's supposed to be a form of humor, then I'm sorry, but I don't get the joke.
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      • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago
        "circumstances of their birth" ... wtf?? maybe newborns should all be handed over to the government at birth so they all have equal "birth circumstances", equal wealth, equal healthcare, equal attention, equal food, equal belongings, equal everything...surely that will make them ALL equal and then life will be FAIR. Right, Maph? And we can name them all 'Equality 7-2521' and they can never refer to themselves as "I", only as 'we'... Hey you might be on to something...maybe you could write a book about it.... don't forget the part where you save the planet by eliminating electricity and cars and stuff too. Everyone will be happily employed as well with no need for redistributing the earnings of some to the unearners. Title the book "Bliss"...no wait...title it "Anthem". While you're working on that I'll go work on a great idea for a book titled "Agenda 21".
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          Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 4 months ago
          Haha, I wasn't endorsing wealth redistribution, just asking you to clarify your position since you seemed to think it was only fair if everyone started the game with an equal amount of money. ;)

          Also, I think Glenn Beck beat you to that book idea:
          www.glennbeck.com/agenda21/
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          • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago
            And Rand beat you to Anthem. Perhaps you should read it...and Glenn Beck's book too. It's shows the horrible outcomes of making everything equal for everyone... Unintended Consequences. (ha..another excellent book title... although I think the consequences are intended.)
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            • Posted by TruthFreedom1 10 years, 4 months ago
              Agreed, people should earn what they get in life not be spoon fed. That being said millions of us are born with less of an opportunity compared to others. They become stigmatized as inferior whether that is a cultural, monetary or social stigmatization is irrelevant. They truly do have less opportunity. Do we help them and if so how? Equalization removes competition. It is not the answer. We are supposed to have equal rights but racial profiling is a huge problem as well and removes a persons rights. Is it fair that a murderer should get 5-10 while a person caught with a bag of weed gets life... It happens and it is wrong.
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            • Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 4 months ago
              If you've been paying attention to my other posts on this board, you'll know that I only favor equality in regards to human rights. That is, everyone should have the same rights.

              http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/26...

              And you were the one who brought up Anthem. ;)
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              • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago
                I know I brought up Anthem... I was being a smart ass...that the book I was suggesting you write has already been written and maybe you should read it, ye who's in favor of all things equal and fair.
                Should a murder have the same rights as the average individual? "everyone should have the same rights" that's what you just said.
                I'm not going down Drury lane with you again.
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                  Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 4 months ago
                  Well naturally when a person commits a crime, their rights are forfeit. But otherwise, everyone should have the same rights under the law.
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                  • Posted by khalling 10 years, 4 months ago
                    they do. certain groups make up new ones and you promote them
                    no extra rights are essential.. it screws things up. The state and federal govt are up front about that. If you are the owner of a business and want a state or federal contract-you get preferential treatment if youre a minority owned company. If you are an african american applicant to college, you get preferential treatment on admission when admissions are limited. I have posted before about Asian american students who refuse to check the box that they are asian because it reduces their admittance chances. so THAT minority group is not given the same status as other minority groups. Pitting groups against one another and doling out favors to one group at the expense of another. evil, maph
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