Capitalism

[PLAYER57832]

Not everyone can be the best ever, but music is not some magical field which only the chosen few could possibly hope to be fluent in.

Composition is much more difficult (for most people at least) than performance. With that said, 1,000 hours dedicated to either one, if the time is spent constructively, will yield results for almost anyone.

You never met my brother!

Seriously... I just disagree.

[Snorri1234]

A teacher is a very valuable thing in terms of being able to point out flaws. With that said, it is not impossible for a person to improve by themselves.

Not impossible and everyone can do it are two very different things.

Snorri, if you want to try this, choose anything that you would like to be good at and have no experience in. Practice whatever that thing is and keep a log. After 1,000 hours try to judge the progress you've made. This experiment should take you a year.

Why would I?

A friend of mine actually did this, he probably got more than 1,000 hours in the year he focused solely on practicing. Know what happenend? He got rejected by the arts-academy for not being good enough.

This idea that all of the great athletes and musicians have some kind of innate ability that most people don't doesn't make sense. The odds that the people with the highest innate ability would happen to be the ones who choose to pursue those fields is very low. In other words, the odds that the people who have the greatest ability to be, say, football players would all choose to be football players is extremely low. Despite this there are a lot of people who have highly developed skills who play football.

Actually, I'd say the people who have the greatest ability to play football are quite often choosing to be football players.

1. When people find out they're good at something they happen to like it, and with football being so widely known the odds of people being good at football choosing to play football are pretty decent.
2. There are millions of people who dreamed about becoming football players and tried hard but didn't become them. If you ask any number of kids what they want to become most of them will say football-players (at least over here) yet out of every hundred maybe one will actually become one.

Now, I'm not saying practice doesn't work. Without it you won't achieve anything. But to become truly great you do have to be better at it than everybody else and that doesn't just depend on how much you practice.

It is the development of these skills which is most important, not innate ability. These people are where they are because they worked their butts off and if we're talking about American football probably because they took steroids but not because they were genetically inclined.

They are there because they worked their butts off and were genetically inclined. However, it's ofcourse not a simple matter of having it or not, talent can be small or big.

Some people may have greater innate ability in certain fields but in general this is not something which cannot be overcome by thousands of hours of practice.

Except that when you have two people who pratice thousands of hours and one has a greater innate ability that person will always be better.

[mpjh]

Player, I appreciate your efforts. My nephew was in a public school in Louisiana. It was horrific how they channeled him toward football and away from academics. I started tutoring him, by phone and computer hookup, about 4 years ago. I have worked with him all through High School, and he is in his second year of college. It is a real struggle, but it can be done.

Here are some things we did that I think were smart (aside from the diligent tutoring):

We got him to New York City where he has public transportation (getting rid of the car expense was really a big step.)

He got into CUNY (City University of New York) which is a decent school

We stopped claiming him on his father's income tax so he could get residency

He got a drivers license and registered to vote in New York, thus he got state residency for tuition purposes

We took out a loan for the first year

He got a good job with the student housing authority ($500 a month plus room)

He is making it with virtually no financial support from me and his father

It can be done, and you would be surprised how inexpensively you can live in a city like New York, Chicago, or San Francisco, if you are young and determined. I picked those cities because they have public transportation, and you can get by with a bike and good shoes, and I have lived in all of them so I speak from experience.

[PLAYER57832]

There is no such thing as talent. It is just a word people use to describe success that they haven't achieved.

Sorry... my husband used to think that was true.. then he saw me try to throw a ball. I can do many, many things, but NOT play catch with anyone over 3. (and in this area.. not even some 3 year olds! )

Other examples ... a lot of people are plain tone deaf. Many, many are not strictly tone deaf, but simply cannot sing well, no matter the practice. I have one brother who taught himself to play 3 instruments ..and more than just competently. I have another who practiced, took lessons ... and cannot do "chop sticks". I lie a bit in between. I probably could have played well... but never did put in the time it required.

I just picked 2, from my family, but there are all sorts of examples to be named.

[Snorri1234]

Not everyone can be the best ever, but music is not some magical field which only the chosen few could possibly hope to be fluent in.

Sure. But making a living of of music is quite difficult. Most people could learn to play and peform to some standard but you need to be actually good at it to achieve something.

Composition is much more difficult (for most people at least) than performance. With that said, 1,000 hours dedicated to either one, if the time is spent constructively, will yield results for almost anyone.

What do you mean by results?

[PLAYER57832]

It can be done, and you would be surprised how inexpensively you can live in a city like New York, Chicago, or San Francisco, if you are young and determined. I picked those cities because they have public transportation, and you can get by with a bike and good shoes, and I have lived in all of them so I speak from experience.

Thank you. Those are good ideas. Right now, my oldest son is 8, my youngest just 2, so it is a bit early to despair, other than in my "dark" moments.

With the oldest, I can teach him anything... but he has to want to learn and we are battling ADHD/medication adjustments and .... for him, there just does not seem to be one, clear, answer.

As for the city... My brother went to Diablo, in the (SF) Bay Area (as well as other places). My folks used to live near there. (I lived around and about all over CA) I have friends in New York. Yes, a single person willing to be a bit "bohemian" can get by in a city .. and yes, sometimes even more cheaply than elsewhere. Then again, my friend used to "commute" by bike 15 miles.

[PLAYER57832]

Actually, I'd say the people who have the greatest ability to play football are quite often choosing to be football players.

1. When people find out they're good at something they happen to like it, and with football being so widely known the odds of people being good at football choosing to play football are pretty decent.
2. There are millions of people who dreamed about becoming football players and tried hard but didn't become them. If you ask any number of kids what they want to become most of them will say football-players (at least over here) yet out of every hundred maybe one will actually become one.

These things are true, but how can you excel at football if you are never exposed. And, what good does it do to be good at football if football players are not payed well?

My late father-in-law could have played for a professional team (he was offered a place), but players back then were not making millions and he had to support his family. He worked in a factory all his life. (I refer to American style football, but the analogy is the same for Soccer ... aka european football.)

That is the other side to capitalism. The things that are valued are not necessarily the things that are beneficial. And things that are beneficial to society as a whole are not necessarily valued.

[Snorri1234]

These things are true, but how can you excel at football if you are never exposed.

You can't. But luckily most people are exposed to football, though maybe not so much to american football.

But that's a problem with everything. How can you become an author if you're illiterate? How can you become a math-genius if you've never been exposed to numbers?

[PLAYER57832]

These things are true, but how can you excel at football if you are never exposed.

You can't. But luckily most people are exposed to football, though maybe not so much to american football.

But that's a problem with everything. How can you become an author if you're illiterate? How can you become a math-genius if you've never been exposed to numbers?

Exactly .. and though I know I am arguing "your" side here, that is why education is one of the fundamentals necessary for any sort of capitalism to exist in the real world... and one reason why PURE capitalism cannot succeed.

[mpjh]

I say, that is why cooperation is essential. Our ability as humans to use both cooperation and competition is what will propel us forward if we are to survive. A system, such as capitalism, that exhaults solely individualism will fail us.

[hippy burner]

IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE WAY ITS SET UP, THEN WHY DON'T YOU GET THE HELL OUT AND CHOOSE A DIFFERENT SOCIETY TO LIVE IN?

Aha, try answering that one.

Well, It's quite simple.

These champagne sociailists' points of view are quite simply the decadent, bourgeious musings of addled teenage-rebels. Only within a free, civilised society such as the UK/USA/Canada/australia - or quite simply the western capitalist world, would these opinons be tolerated as a part of their 'human rights' - whereas if they were born within a country that enacts their utopian socialist paradise, they would of course have no basic human rights, free speech, and live in total misery.

Of course - they do not wish to live in these types of countries, simply because their bellies are full in this country, and they are allowed their insignificant, niave, 6th-form opinons. They love to empathise with the 'class stuggles' from the comfort of their armchair, scoffing at the prospect the could enact that in this country.

To summarise - if these teenage communist rebels had the slightest whiff of hardship that is inevitable with any communist revolution, they'd go crying back to their mummies and daddies :

'oooh not weally, i never, meant it, pwease dont make me go into the field and pick potatoes!! I want to play my PS3!! WAAAAAH WAAAAH'

Quality.

[Gillipig]

I hate necro bumping! (I don't mean "hate" more like "find it very annoying" but how could I write that without sounding like I'm from the 19th century ?)

[BigBallinStalin]

Do you prefer the world of Adam Smith or the world of Karl Marx? Prof. Robert Lawson tells the story of his numerous discussions about this very question with his friends in college. Even after years of theoretical discussion with his friends, a conclusion was never reached between them. Prof. Robert Lawson now works on the Economic Freedom of the World project, which is an empirical study that attempts to answer this same question. In order to do this, the study compares data related to economic freedom and quality of life. It finds that countries with institutions resembling those advocated by Adam Smith tend to provide the highest quality of life to its citizens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcXtYXUCOMY&feature=share

It's one-hour, but you'll be smarter than 95% of the world after watching it.

[PLAYER57832]

Do you prefer the world of Adam Smith or the world of Karl Marx? Prof. Robert Lawson tells the story of his numerous discussions about this very question with his friends in college. Even after years of theoretical discussion with his friends, a conclusion was never reached between them. Prof. Robert Lawson now works on the Economic Freedom of the World project, which is an empirical study that attempts to answer this same question. In order to do this, the study compares data related to economic freedom and quality of life. It finds that countries with institutions resembling those advocated by Adam Smith tend to provide the highest quality of life to its citizens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcXtYXUCOMY&feature=share

It's one-hour, but you'll be smarter than 95% of the world after watching it.

The key is all things in moderation. Our country is no longer moderate.

[BigBallinStalin]

Do you prefer the world of Adam Smith or the world of Karl Marx? Prof. Robert Lawson tells the story of his numerous discussions about this very question with his friends in college. Even after years of theoretical discussion with his friends, a conclusion was never reached between them. Prof. Robert Lawson now works on the Economic Freedom of the World project, which is an empirical study that attempts to answer this same question. In order to do this, the study compares data related to economic freedom and quality of life. It finds that countries with institutions resembling those advocated by Adam Smith tend to provide the highest quality of life to its citizens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcXtYXUCOMY&feature=share

It's one-hour, but you'll be smarter than 95% of the world after watching it.

The key is all things in moderation. Our country is no longer moderate.

The US government domestically has become slightly more left-wing over the past few years, while becoming very interventionist over the past 10--regarding foreign policy.

[Gillipig]

Do you prefer the world of Adam Smith or the world of Karl Marx? Prof. Robert Lawson tells the story of his numerous discussions about this very question with his friends in college. Even after years of theoretical discussion with his friends, a conclusion was never reached between them. Prof. Robert Lawson now works on the Economic Freedom of the World project, which is an empirical study that attempts to answer this same question. In order to do this, the study compares data related to economic freedom and quality of life. It finds that countries with institutions resembling those advocated by Adam Smith tend to provide the highest quality of life to its citizens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcXtYXUCOMY&feature=share

It's one-hour, but you'll be smarter than 95% of the world after watching it.

I already am.