A bias against wealth?

Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

I would agree with Carolla - understanding our own bias and changing that - if we wish.

I would say that I have been biased against a middle class that considers themselves 'expert' and having 'authority'. To me nothing is more valuable than life 'experience'. Second to that would be 'book' education. Now with the internet and so much free source education ... it is so easy to work around 'the monopoly on expertise'.

''The Future of the Professions
explains how 'increasingly capable systems' - from telepresence to artificial intelligence - will bring fundamental change in the way that the 'practical expertise' of specialists is made available in society.

The authors challenge the 'grand bargain' - the arrangement that grants various monopolies to today's professionals. They argue that our current professions are antiquated, opaque and no longer affordable, and that the expertise of the best is enjoyed only by a few. In their place, they propose six new models for producing and distributing expertise in society.

The book raises important practical and moral questions. In an era when machines can out-perform human beings at most tasks, what are the prospects for employment, who should own and control online expertise, and what tasks should be reserved exclusively for people?

Based on the authors' in-depth research of more than ten professions, and illustrated by numerous examples from each, this is the first book to assess and question the relevance of the professions in the 21st century."

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Future-Pro...98713398/ref=cm_rdp_product#reader_0198713398

I have a definite bias against people that want to 'own and control' online expertise.
 
Carolla, I can't figure it out either.

I think that there are so many versions of the topics being discussed that it is difficult.
I own that as the thread starter.

There are parts of the thread which are about extreme wealth, and parts which are about those who have more than the other, but, are not wealthy, and the upper middle class who fall somewhere in between.

As the originator of the thread, feel some responsibility to stay in and try to have a dialogue, but, I must admit struggling keeping up on the various tangents.
 
I would agree with Carolla - understanding our own bias and changing that - if we wish.

I would say that I have been biased against a middle class that considers themselves 'expert' and having 'authority'. To me nothing is more valuable than life 'experience'. Second to that would be 'book' education. Now with the internet and so much free source education ... it is so easy to work around 'the monopoly on expertise'.

''The Future of the Professions
explains how 'increasingly capable systems' - from telepresence to artificial intelligence - will bring fundamental change in the way that the 'practical expertise' of specialists is made available in society.

The authors challenge the 'grand bargain' - the arrangement that grants various monopolies to today's professionals. They argue that our current professions are antiquated, opaque and no longer affordable, and that the expertise of the best is enjoyed only by a few. In their place, they propose six new models for producing and distributing expertise in society.

The book raises important practical and moral questions. In an era when machines can out-perform human beings at most tasks, what are the prospects for employment, who should own and control online expertise, and what tasks should be reserved exclusively for people?

Based on the authors' in-depth research of more than ten professions, and illustrated by numerous examples from each, this is the first book to assess and question the relevance of the professions in the 21st century."

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Future-Pro...98713398/ref=cm_rdp_product#reader_0198713398

I have a definite bias against people that want to 'own and control' online expertise.

Interesting, @monk.
My expertise is through experience, not book or school. Curious that I know you have felt challenged by it, or offended by it.
 
I am neither challenged nor offended by what you perceive to be your expertise through experience. I don't know what your area of expertise is ... yet I am quite sure that I will never be in need of the particular service that you have to offer ... whatever it is ... IT locksmith savant ? Whatever your expertise ... I can probably learn it free online should I choose to learn it at all. Now just because I do not charge people to share with them what I have learned in life does not mean that I have not learned it ... one can drive a car as well as one can drive a car with or without a license to drive a car. You believe that you are middle class and people that are not middle class are biased against you because you are? What I am saying is that ... what you do with your money and your time is totally up to you ... it is your responsibility. Accept it. Perhaps you are feeling guilty about something that you are or are not doing?
 
I am sure you can figure it out, Pinga. The tangents are not so divergent from the OP. It's about wealth - you can't talk about a perceived bias against wealth without bringing power and privelege into it. And then you can't discuss poverty vs wealth without looking at the relative privelege and power of the middle class - which is who those who are poor have most experience being "shepherded" (counselled, advised, ordered) by. And then, increasingly, you have those who are quite affluent calling themselves middle class - the line has moved - and it can sound a bit burguoise to those who are really financially struggling to hear those folks refer to themselves as middle class. Try to imagine which is worse - to be in that marginalized position, or to have to maybe take responsibility for one's privelege and with that have empathy for those who suffer most in the "class struggle" - and try to absorb and process the critique. It's not really about you. It's about inequality - if it's true it's not a bias. Those who are wealthy do have the advantage in this world. It not a bias to say so. It is, however, a bias to say all those who are wealthy are evil.
 
Last edited:
Kimmio, just to be clear. If you won a million dollars tomorrow, would your opinion no longer have any weight regardng disability or poverty?
Would you be less caring towards others? Would you be less generous than you are today or more?
 
No. @Pinga I guess I am asking those who have power - putting the thought out there - not to take it for granted and not look down on those who have less than. I think there's more of that going on than a 'bias against wealth'.


"Thinking people are dangerous" --- some powerful member of man's kind (perhaps Jude'n or Jule 'n if you have the serendipity to know what can't be changed ... avid avarice ... as a president/precedent) ... you just know that former-Deeds show that they're out there! Kind 've like distant Leers ...
 
I am neither challenged nor offended by what you perceive to be your expertise through experience. I don't know what your area of expertise is ... yet I am quite sure that I will never be in need of the particular service that you have to offer ... whatever it is ... IT locksmith savant ? Whatever your expertise ... I can probably learn it free online should I choose to learn it at all. Now just because I do not charge people to share with them what I have learned in life does not mean that I have not learned it ... one can drive a car as well as one can drive a car with or without a license to drive a car. You believe that you are middle class and people that are not middle class are biased against you because you are? What I am saying is that ... what you do with your money and your time is totally up to you ... it is your responsibility. Accept it. Perhaps you are feeling guilty about something that you are or are not doing?

To figure something else out in life should one do a book on insanity and experience it?

Why the rich demand the poor are crazy and deficit of means, and the opposing facts rise from experience of the other side ... allowing the reason to experience life as an odd place in the entire cosmos that works mostly by clockwork ... except when the powerful get there and heaven becomes like business chaos in a quiet, silent place like deep within the brae-ins of the entire populace ... those peoples wondering about card games and the players going to church ... happens everyday ... by chance, or quantum mechanics ... if you don't understand is that due to experience or loss of a flaming tome ... whatever that is understood to mean!

Thus satyrs ... or what was known in Greek times as demos ... weeze ... the peoples choice when their sol is smudged to get rid of bugging experience? These you read like a tome ... some say book-ah boey?
 
If a man was off his rock ere and now ... would he wonder about hard set roués ... like the forensic factor in crazy?

You know the determination depends on a legal decision ... perhaps without experience ...

What can you do with words ... create facetiae of satyr ... of every kind ... so that nothing and everything become in-carnal ... not earthy ... just a smoking passing thought about passions beyond us ...

The sun will expand and burn all traces ... a kind of conjunction ...
 
Kimmio, just to be clear. If you won a million dollars tomorrow, would your opinion no longer have any weight regardng disability or poverty?
Would you be less caring towards others? Would you be less generous than you are today or more?
I'll tell you what .... Let's pretend that happened, and/ or if it ever does ... I'll keep 10% and give the rest to you to spend and invest as you see fit. What are you going to do with $900,000?
 
Last edited:
Ok, so, now you have $100,000. have you changed?
As you gave me the $900k, I will ponder where you would have given it, and give it away....(if you aren't available to talk)
If you are able to talk, I will ask you why you gave it to me to manage for you? Do you wish me to invest it and disburse the earnings? If so, you picked the wrong person as I suck at investments, so I would likely give it back or ask you if you want me to help you find someone else.

Actually, I might also ask you if it is ok to use some of the money to fly @crazyheart and @Seeler somewhere for a wondercafe picnic. Hope you wouldn't mind.
 
Last edited:
Speaking of tangents, we are off on a lot of them. We speak of wealth with no definition of what it means. ditto for class.
Your topic Pinga. Tell us what it is you want to talk about. And please be specific.
 
Okay, wealth is having financial resources (and, generally, the physical goods and services that go with having those resources). It's a sliding scale. Some have more of it, some have less. Those who have more than what is needed to make a basic, comfortable existence are called "wealthy". The biggest sticking point is defining what is a "basic, comfortable existence".

I'm not sure, though, how that helps this conversation.
 
Yes, a "basic, comfortable existence" is a moving target.

I dare say a lot of people would call planning menus around what's in the 'ding bin' (the "freeze or use today" 30% off meat) and doing all of your shopping in thrift stores not quite as comfortable as I do...
 
Kimmio, just to be clear. If you won a million dollars tomorrow, would your opinion no longer have any weight regardng disability or poverty?
Would you be less caring towards others? Would you be less generous than you are today or more?

This question was for Kimmio, but if I would answer it, I am quite certain that it would change me. Just being in a position to do anything you want, to not depend on anybody, like I could pay for healthcare when I need it, not wait 2 years for a total knee replacement while my health deteriorates, or have a personal trainer.Instead of having to work, volunteer when and what I want.
Of course, this is likely to bring my understanding of reality further away from reality ( as it is reality for people with less money)as the time goes on.
And of course,it changes the relationships I have.
I would compare it to " living as a person with black skin "versus "understanding racism." You got to walk in someones shoes in order to understand them. The further you are away from their situation, the harder it is to understand them and the more bias is there.
People judge others about how they spend their money all the time, specially if they are not hanging out together.
"People on social assistance should not spend money on cigarettes. "
I personally don't understand how people can spend hundreds of $$ on a dress or a pair of shoes.
 
Well, to skip a lot of covered ground, most of us have a bias against people who are different from us - in religion, in income, whatever. And it ranges from intense down to largely unconscious. I think we can all agree with that.

Many of us have a bias against people who are smarter than us, better looking, not as "with it" as we (think we) are.....
Curing that is a long term project.

However, I have a dislike of people who look down on Jews. That's not a bias on my part. It rests on evidence that their behavior can cause suffering.

I have a dislike of the very wealthy who become wealthy at the expense of many, many others. That's not a bias, either. It's based on piles of evidence that their attitudes cause suffering and misery - often cause economic wars (as Iraq) which the poor, for the most part, have to do the fighting and dying.

Nor am I impressed by the charitable donations of those very wealthy. The money for those donations comes from the exploitation of others, from non-payment of taxes, other devices. I don't dislike the very wealthy simply because they're very wealthy. (that would be a bias.) I dislike them (most of them) because of the suffering they impose on millions.
 
Sliding scale on wealth ... a Sisyphus situation allowing backsliding into childish possession-aL-ism ... redacted to professional grasping ... or the bigger grab indicating success over the lesser ...

All just words compared to sol-spirit essences that just blow through!
 
Back
Top