Malarkey73

It's just really difficult to understand what this means.

The first big caveat is that 1990s to 2010s stops at the financial crisis. Due to austerity the UK has since then seen the greatest period of wage stagnation of all the advanced nations except Greece. But employment has remained high. So whilst the report is a picture of time before the crash its not clear to me what has happened since.

Second - Yes I think I do care more about the overall level of poverty and inequality. I'm not happy if people are moving in and out of destitution.

Third - I really don't understand how to square this analysis with the obvious fact that half as many people own their own home now as in the 80s. For 25-34 year olds its gone from 65% to 27% during the period of this study . What's that downward income mobility? I sthat a good thing? Or does that not count as it's not income?

.. I just don't really know what this is saying..?

The article uses the same "tone" that we regularly use to write about the Romans - who crucified people, ritually strangled prisoners during their triumphs, kept slaves, and made people fight to death for their fun. That said I'm not sure the Gauls or Parthians or Carthaginians were saintly.

I don't think the author is implying that the Aztecs were better or the same or worse than Tlaxcala or Cortez conquistador. The neutral tone is adopted for European and Native American ancestors alike because of the separation of time not cultural sensitivity. And so we adopt this historical voice because we realise that the past was bloody and awful and the same society that had Cicero also had Crassus crucifying 6000 slaves along the Via Appia during the same lifetime. And the same people who built towers of skulls were enslaved and wiped out by Cortes.

But honestly it's not a competition. You adopt the neutral tone to avoid endless whataboutery.

I'm sure there are plenty of bad actors who will keep spamming regardless. Thankfully those ones seldom get through my spam filter - so barely trouble my consciousness.

Indeed. I was reading a tragic article about the energy cost of bitcoin and I started to wonder how much energy, bandwidth,HD space is totally wasted on sending everybody spam, junk, messages every day that they will never read. And keeping info for the same. I wonder if it is a reasonably large chunk of the total energy and infrastructure of the whole web?

Maybe we could power a big Chinese city just by getting ourselves deleted from gym mailing lists (weirdly a gym in Cardiff sends me spam mail -- I have never been to Cardiff???).

Here in UK I have been receiving about 5-10 emails a day from various companies - most of whom I don't remember - telling me I need to sign up again so they can keep my details and keep spamming me.

Fantastic.

Hear hear...

Nope that's not my claim. Try reading what I wrote.

If I understand you correctly. Nobody had run a 4 minute mile before Roger Bannister.

Now lots of people have so standards must have dropped.

1. I don't mention nor advocate social justice. 2. I don't anywhere imply everyone should be average. 3. I don't say ability is random among the population but I don't actually understand what you are getting at here? 4. If we couldn't lift the ability of pupils or indeed people generally then we would still be living in caves. If we educate more people better then more people will be better educated no matter their innate starting ability. 5. Did the government make everyone smarter or lower standards you ask? I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I think that moving from 3.4% to 50% University population has possibly diluted the fraction of geniuses within academia but greatly increased the number of geniuses within academia and improved education and academia as a whole.

That presumes

That the top 3.4% really were just the smartest - not the also the wealthiest and best connected. There is probably both some dilution of talent and also more competition from all levels of society.

And as to point 1. In the UK at least there is no doubt many many more are doing a lot better at school nowadays. Schools have evened up and pupils work far harder as most jobs require qualifications.

"He attributes the earnings reversal overwhelmingly to one factor: education. For every two guys who graduate from college or get a higher degree, three women do."

It's interesting itself that more women graduate than men. But equal pay means equal pay for people with similar qualifications doing similar jobs. This comparison means nothing to me.