What would you do?

[Zag]

[Samadhi]

Ladies and gentlemen step right up and see the Magic Goalposts! Now you see them, now you don't.
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[Quailman]

To get back to the topic of what would you do, you can discuss noble causes all you want, but you don't necessarily have to devote your entire education and/or career to working for Greenpeace of Doctors Without Borders. I work in the entertainment industry (presenting touring Broadway shows), but I stay active with Boy Scouts and the Audubon Society. Hopefully I can have an influence on conservation through those efforts.

A while back I worked for a division of Citicorp that provided credit cards to customers of retail stores. While it seemed to benefit the store, the customer and us, the way we made the most money was by getting the customer to extend himself right to the limit of his ability to repay us. I was uncomfortable with that, so I left. after six short years

I've worked for a franchisee of Blockbuster, a group dental organization, and now a presenter of touring Broadway shows. None of these seem to help the greater good, but they don't detract from it either.

In hindsight, maybe I'd adjust my education to get in with the Nature Conservancy, or National Forest Service, but I think that as long as I do what I can to help the world be a better place, I'm okay with being a bean counter. So choose an occupation that interests you and try to fit your career and personal life towards improving the world. If you obsess about having a "singular moral imperative", you may find yourself on a Greenpeace ship harassing Japanese whalers wondering "What am I doing here?"

Zag's sister has it right, working for the MS Society, but there are a limited number of opportunities in that area. I recommend volunteering in your spare time, while working for an organization that either does help the world (like the MS Society) or at least doesn't make it any worse. Try to find one that recognizes the importance of its employees' volunteerism.

[RSA*]

[Lepton*]

Someone's got to back up Zag here, because he's spot on the money. He's talking about the kids of rich people, not the rich themselves. It's been clearly established that Bill Gates was never the kid of rich people (merely of well-off people, let's say). His own kids, however, are the offspring of a rich set of parents. Gates details in one of his books (I forget which) about the painstaking effort he, and especially his wife, went through in order to make sure that the kids are not typical rich twits. For example, he's leaving them each $10 million in his will: he figures it's enough for them to live well while doing a job they enjoy, but not enough to afford to be a life-long twit.

The school I teach at is for the upper-middle class of Mongolia, but I have a number of friends who teach at the upper-class school. Their kids are raised by chauffeurs, show up at school with $100 notes (daddy's allowance during his week away... it's a decent monthly wage here), and refuse to heed anyone. These are kids as young as 9 or 10; the teenagers are much worse. Could they make a positive change in the world? Not a chance, they've been sewn into the rockstar life from the moment their parents started to spoil them.

My choice is to work with the Bill Gateses -- the upper-middle class, who will have to work hard to effect significant positive change, but who have the starting blocks to manage it -- but I can understand why others might prefer to try to get through to the Paris Hiltons.

The topical question has dominated my thinking for a long time. When I was in middle school, I concluded that I would have to become a comedian by the following chain of thinking:
1. I could go into medicine, but quality of life is more important.
2. What makes peoples' lives fundamentally better?
3. Food and essentials, but happiness matters more than material wealth
4. How can I make people happy?
5. Comedy.

[Zag]

Thanks, Lepton.

In fact, I'm talking about the grandkids and later of the people who actually made the huge money. Very often the first generation of the family that grew up wealthy also grew up with a parent who was grounded in reality. It isn't until they raise their kids, and they remember how, not only did their father only get them ONE pony, he made them muck out the stalls, and that was smelly, so their kids aren't going to go through THAT trauma.

The first generation that grew up wealthy, then, THEY are the ones you want to get to as a teacher. That's all you need, a job just teaching them. Your students will be the JFK's of the world. And, those like Bobby Ziff, who is the one really wealthy person I've spent any significant time with. He's the one I said is not ridiculously spoiled and his father was the one to make all the money. (Bill Ziff of Ziff-Davis publishing.)

[Pablo]

[Lepton*]

Oh shut up, Pablo. I'm clearly talking in generalizations out of my ass

Some exceptions to my generalizations:
1. Kids whose parents take an active and meaningful role in the rearing process.
2. Kids who are pointedly not spoiled.
3. Kids who get a good education.

#3 was the whole point of the exercise, really.

[Hitchhiker*]

To make a difference on a smaller scale: Become a foster parent.

[Zag]

[Pablo]

[Zag]

The word "unlikely" implies a percentage. Do you speak English?

We were talking about teaching kids, so I didn't have to say it again. That is all that was ever under discussion. Try to keep from being senile, you old fart.

The data is from personal experience. You know, with actual humans. Something that must be foreign to you.

[Pablo]

So when you said this:

[Samadhi]

Zag: I don't buy it. How many wealthier than "upper middle class" children do you know? For some reason I don't think you know enough to support such a bigoted, close minded, etc statement as "a high percentage of children who grew up extraordinarily wealthy......are spoiled, rich kids."

Furthermore, even if you knew 10 or 20 you'd still be basing this on your own anecdotal experience, filtered through your own perception of wealthy people. Forgive me if I find your opinions in re wealth less than objective. To wit, the underlying notion here seems to be that wealth is such an overwhelming source of corruption that without good parents or teachers; children are almost certainly doomed to be shiftless assholes (unless they break the mold and become "good" rich like....Kennedy's or something =| ).

Quit hating.
_________________
And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[Zag]

You'll pardon me if I simply step out of this conversation. You've taken something I originally said as a joke and formed a picture of me as a hating, prejudiced jerk. In fact, it colors my perceptions of people I meet not at all. I feel I've received a lot more hate on this issue in this thread than I've ever doled out.

And, while I've never personally met any of the Kennedy clan, at least one person I know has. She, a self-admitted "spoiled rich brat," said that many of the Kennedys are among the worst.

You, in your prejudice about my opinions, assumed more about me, specifically, than I have ever assumed about any one individual, specifically, because of his wealthy (or not) upbringing. So I'll give you the same suggestion: Quit hating.

[Pablo]

[Quailman]

[Pablo]

[Samadhi]

In re joke: That's what I'm not buying.

[AZu*]

Shame Zag is leaving just as I managed to get on my horse (it is pretty high so it takes some time). Anyway who else can we find to abuse and insult based on the ludicrous assesment of a single phrase?

Personally I recommend ganging up on Quailman. His constant efforts to stop this thread from devolving into a farce have gotten quite annoying.

[Pablo]

I see what you mean.


And I couldn't agree more about Quailman. What a douchebag and a PIG he is.
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All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Lepton*]

That's a Mongolian-style ger, and it looks like the Gobi desert, but Mongolian horses are too small and stocky to create a viable offspring of the type depicted.

[Pablo]

[Lepton*]

Look at how dark blue the sky is at the upper right corner. By my estimation, that's less than 30 degrees from the horizon. So it's a desert that is significantly above sea level.

[Courk]

How does that work? Is the sky a light blue further up from the horizon closer to sea level or something?

[Pablo]

[Lepton*]

Higher altitude = less air above = darker clear sky