We have no control over what we have when we’re born. To loathe Prince Charles because he was born into wealth is like blaming a slum-dweller’s child for being poor.

Nevertheless, the child can make something of herself and offer her own kids opportunities outside her grandparent’s reach.

Prince Charles is faced with a different set of challenges. He has to safeguard his advantages for Prince William’s grandchildren. Too many stupid princes in a row and everything is lost. (That’s why rich folk have institutions in place to prevent the dumb ones from ruining everything.)

People can say that the slum girl’s challenges are greater than Prince Charles’. Maybe that’s true but it changes nothing. We can spend time complaining about the obstacles brought about by random events. Or we can work to give more opportunities to ourselves and those who come after us.

“…and am secretly quite looking forward to, a significant pay drop by the time I arrive at my ‘dream job’.”

This is something that I don’t understand. Is there something worthwhile or enjoyable about having less money? Perhaps, and I expect this to be true for some people, being poor is a convenient excuse for not having achieved one’s potential.

Not 100% sure what those career aspirations are but they are somewhere along the lines of (at least for the next 20 years or so) a) work as regional manager for ‘Oxfam’ in West Africa, or b) work within the realms of ‘innovative science and technology’. When I say ‘Oxfam’, I’m not saying that I particularly admire then (nor charity work in general), but the jobs advertised on the website have the particular flavour of what I’d like to do, it’s kind of the ‘dream job’ for me. However, for such a position, I’m going to need something along the lines of ‘5 years management experience’. I’ve explored around a little, and found that being a qualified lawyer for x,y,z firm (as well as a potentially having a doctorate in mathematics) would allow me to aim for a job I would feel worthwhile doing. Hence, my current aim of becoming an intellectual property rights lawyer/construction lawyer and getting myself into a very nice law school for next year. This is great for me because hopefully it will satisfy both my ‘a’ and ‘b’ career paths, but also because I think it will make use of both my numerate skills and non-numerate skills.

I expect, and am secretly quite looking forward to, a significant pay drop by the time I arrive at my ‘dream job’. Although it’s a cliché, I don’t intend on turning a career in law into a money spinner-I’ll be quite happy to quit being a lawyer for the right job. It’d be much easier for me to simply go join a bank now as maths graduate (BSc), my salary would be just fine, but I’d be bored as sin (heck, I could even just start spread-betting on the internet right now). If I am to be wealthy, for there is no shame in wanting to be wealthy, then I don’t really see it coming off the back of my salary. Ideally, any significant wealth I have will come from some fantastic invention I dream up :-D Although, I think having a stint at running my own business could be fun too.

It’s hard not to agree with that statement, but the natural question that then arises is, where does the line end? Perhaps the ancestors of Prince Charles were brilliant enough to ensure their rise to royalty, but is he of the same stock? Why him and not Joe from down the road?

There are in fact numerous mathematical models out there that show how, even when all things are initially equal, random fluctuations can result in very uneven distributions. It’s the so called ’20/80′ rule. For example, there is lots of evidence which suggests that 80% of infectious diseases are spread on average by only 20% of a population. This had lead some biologists to theorise the concept of ‘super-spreaders’ as the results can be quite startling, but there is no obvious biological basis to their existence. In fact, on the contrary, mathematical modelling suggests that not only do you not need need super-spreaders, but that their existence would not produce the results seen (largely because you would still have disease being spread by normals).

It’s an open debate, but it’s not too hard to imagine that what applies for epidemiology may apply to, say, the financial markets. On a global scale, it certainly appears to be true that the vast majority of all capital wealth is held by a small percentage of the world’s population. Is the same true for Britain? I would suggest so but, of course, it would be a major leap to suggest that this is solely due to the the ‘random nature’ of Britain’s economic markets. But then why, for example, is my parent’s generation (on average) currently property rich, whilst my generation struggles to climb onto the property ladder? Wasn’t there even a housing recession in the early 90s? You could suggest that your property wealth is a random function of your age. Seems to me that if I was born 15 years earlier (or later, probably) than I was, I’d have found it much easier to get a foot on the property ladder. I’d have money left over to buy that Mercedes then…

Amusingly, that was also my very first thought.

Excuse me for butting in–I accidentally arrived here through Twitter. Rather than being boring, I find this thread fascinating.

The welfare state does seem to breed a mindset that, by simply existing, people deserve what others have. The thinking goes that poor Johnny should have a Mercedes because little rich Archie drives one. They say that the mere accident of birth shouldn’t entitle Archie to his privileges.

A problem with this line of thinking is that it assumes achievements to come from nowhere. Or that the good things in life are mysteriously allocated to certain groups of people. There is no thought to the effort, cunning, creativity or smarts needed to bring those advantages about.

Believing that everyone deserves the the same probably stems from assuming people are the same. But people are not and never have been. No amount of wealth redistribution will ever change this.

Subscribers to socialism and the welfare state focus so much on wealth. They forget that to create wealth you need excellence on one form or another. A common thread of the TED talks is in humanity’s capacity for excellence.

I suppose that people who think that there’s something wrong in having better, or being better, will probably always be worse off.

This is exactly why I think getting myself offline and talking to normal people for a change might be a good idea…. And let everyone online implode in a frenzy of Twittered/commented/blogged sniping.

Equally, I do not waste energy tearing down the ‘good works’ of others. However, there is no universal truth as to what constitutes good work nor an ethical life. I abjectly refuse to consume animal products, including all by products such as dairy. Everywhere I look, I perceive injustice and suffering; every time I hear someone say how tender the meat of a 6 week old lamb is, I spark up inside. Ideally for me, all cattle farm businesses would be run into the ground, is this good or not? Even if people agree that something requires fixing, why should I not object if I believe the method being instigated is wrong, even if the intentions are good? Am I to stand by and watch the NHS be privatised to solve a critical funding problem, or am I to vote in a government who believes taxes should be raised to solve the problem? Is it ethical to set the tax rate at 40% for the wealthy and let others share their brilliance? (PS-can you explain to me why Davina McCall was paid £1,000,000 for one series of Big Brother UK? Is she really that intelligent, sociable etc.? I am so glad that Eric Clapton was a family friend, just imagine a world without her on TV!?!?!)

One thing I can agree on, and one thing I objectify hate, is lazy ‘good intentions’. Throwing spare change into a charity box is neither well intended nor well though out-such people have no right to pat themselves on the back. Yet this is exactly what TED does. The change that is left over from 4 days of fine wines for 1000 people eventually trickles over to Africa. But even that can be forgiven, after all, good ideas count for a lot more than simple donations (which I gather is the whole principle behind it as very little money seems to come form TED). Indeed, money can’t solve all problems and can actually even make a situation worse. However, what I objectively despise is the attitude that if you have deserve to be there, you will be there-as long as you can afford the entry fee. TED is quite simply a play club of the establishment. Behind it’s closed doors, non-elected, non-representative, self-congratulatory people decide what is best for the poor, for they cannot help themselves.

Of course, being retarded, boring, negative, socially unaware, selfish, dispassionate, unemotional and therefore poor (i.e. a non-TED), I guess I will never understand.

Jealousy is so sad and, I think, so British. I remember years ago when I was about 21 and a friend had written a play and got it staged. All of my British friends were seething with jealousy (none of them, by the way, had ever even written a play), my American friend and I were overjoyed for our friend.

I asked my American friend why he thought we weren’t jealous like all the Brits. He said, “It’s cos we think, ‘If she can get a play staged then so can I!’ and they think, ‘If she got a play staged then why can’t I? Bitch.’”

As I said, being jealous about people’s ‘wealth’ is misguided. Aim to be as amazing, brilliant, talented, positive and successful as them and ‘wealth’ will come. Don’t waste your energy being bitter that other people have money and you don’t. And certainly don’t waste your energy trying to tear down the good work that successful people do – who do you expect to benefit by doing that?!

As far as ‘helping Africa’ is concerned, I still stand by my assertion that education is the key to wealth. We learned long ago that ‘hand outs’ don’t work (hence why the UK’s post-war welfare state mindset has created generations of negative, bitter jealousy and laziness ‘If they can have it why can’t I?’). That is why AIMS is an excellent project. If you want to know the ins and outs of it, why not ask Neil Turok (read about who he is first)?

I suspect, James that once you’ve gone through your education and worked very hard to get your Masters which will give you a good chance at starting a decent career and you work hard in order to do well and you move up the ladder and you start earning decent money and you’re able to take a holiday once in a while and you find success and happiness in your life and career, you will start to wonder why some people think it’s appropriate for you to slog your guts out for decades in order to try and build a decent life for yourself, your family and others and then get told that you’re a cunt for doing so.

Misguided.

Interesting article here about why people give to charity.