
To Help Tackle Inequality, Remember the Advantages You’ve Had - yarapavan
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/upshot/income-equality-isnt-just-about-headwinds-tailwinds-count-too.html
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socrates1998
I think the illusion we have is that we suffer more than others, or that other
people do not suffer as much as we do.

Sure, we have all had advantages in life, but we have all had problems as
well. Rich people have problems just as much as poor people. Rich people
problems are much different than poor people ones, but they are still there.

Too, I think that American culture tends to create the illusion that if you
are not super successful, then you are a loser.

I think this especially applies to middle class and upper middle class people.

For whatever reason, our culture has cultivated this cult of success and it
just drives people crazy, and sadly, to depression and suicide.

We have deluded ourselves into thinking that more success and more money will
somehow result in a lot less suffering. Then, when we taste success or money,
we realize that it has very little to do with happiness or suffering.

I know a lot of successful people who hate their lives and other people who
are not "successful" that are much more satisfied with their lives.

~~~
pasquinelli
i'm having trouble thinking of a rich person problem that wouldn't also be a
problem poor people face at least as much.

~~~
bob_theslob646
Terminal cancer,etc.

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InitialLastName
> a problem poor people face at least as much.

I'll see your "terminal cancer" with "any cancer with no ability to pay for
treatment or care". Even if it's terminal, the wealthy can afford to die much
more comfortably.

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justinator
It seems appropriate to plug Vicktor Frankl's book, Man's Search For Meaning
to anyone who can clearly see themselves in an advantage position of privilege
in life, but who still feels terribly empty inside.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning)

~~~
birdmanjeremy
I just read this (again) during a bit of an existential crisis. It's certainly
a good read, and puts things in perspective.

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yarapavan
Freakonomics podcast - [http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-my-life-so-
hard/](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-my-life-so-hard/)

~~~
YinglingLight
Interesting how they discount the "headwinds" that white males are feeling,
and don't go into detail about the perceived "headwinds" that half the country
is currently hallucinating in.

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dominotw
I've seen this argument that if outcomes of public services( like education)
is not upto par then the problem is that there wasn't enough funding for these
programs and solution is to increase funding.

is this argument is fundamentally unfalsifiable?

Is it possible to do estimations like we do for software projects. Improving
education by x% will cost y$ or are there way too many moving variable to any
sort of estimations.

~~~
bena
I've discovered a term recently that I'm fascinated by: "wicked problem"[1].

Could education be a wicked problem? We know that the students didn't meet the
standards. So there is a problem. But are the standards too high? Are the
teachers not doing well enough? Are the materials not adequate enough? Etc.

And we can't know what will fix the problem until we attempt the solution. And
if the proposed solution doesn't work, we might not even know because the
issue could have multiple causes.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem)

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polskibus
The asymmetry depends on the culture. In some cultures moaning is more common
than in the others, using Google in English to gauge that, results in serious
skew.

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cheez
Anecdata shows that summer camps in things children are interested in are the
single most important thing for building esteem, which is its own tailwind.

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dhamma999
Could anyone link to the non-paywalled source research paper listed at
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27869473](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27869473)
?

