Jordan Peterson

[inthesomeday]

Are you in turn suggesting that family structure doesn't matter to outcomes? I can think of one good example: family structures that force children to be caretakers are strongly correlated with poorer outcomes for those children. It's one reason that mass incarceration has been a social catastrophe for black people in the United States.

I think that correlation has a pretty glaring confounding factor, for sure. A kid raised by bill gates alone probably has a better chance of ending up “successful” than a kid raised by the entirety of Poortown, Appalachia

 

[Farm Boy]

I think that correlation has a pretty glaring confounding factor, for sure. A kid raised by bill gates alone probably has a better chance of ending up “successful” than a kid raised by the entirety of Poortown, Appalachia

Oh for sure. A kid raised by rich parents is also more likely to have more than one of them, and raise theirs with more assistance. The residents of Poortown, Appalachia are not disadvantaged by currency alone.

 

[Lexicus]

I think that correlation has a pretty glaring confounding factor, for sure. A kid raised by bill gates alone probably has a better chance of ending up “successful” than a kid raised by the entirety of Poortown, Appalachia

Did you think that I meant "single-parent households" by "family structures that force children to be caregivers" or something? A family structure that's a two-parent home with a mommy and a daddy can be a family where the children are forced to be caregivers if both mommy and daddy are stuck working three jobs to keep the lights on.

 

[inthesomeday]

Agreed. Which gets to my central point: both family structure and the child’s success as an adult are, in my perspective, almost entirely separate effects from the same root, which is poverty. A child with a non-traditional family life but without poverty is almost definitely going to be fine in later life.

Basically, I’m just making sure nobody forgets that the entire premise that family structure has pretty much ANY effect on the destitution of black individuals and communities is effectively a denial of a genocide.

 

[Farm Boy]

I guess I'm getting counfounded by your use of the term non-traditional. Are we taking traditional to mean only stay at home mom, working dad, and offspring? Seems pretty limited for tradition, but then again, I'm only one generation removed from families swapping sons as farm hands(working experience, first independence, enough wage to eat and court a mate) and the farm hands help raise the younger kids etc etc etc. If I had to guess, one parent alone, likely mom, seems to be the only really unusual bit, that it would be so common, when it comes to tradition. Even adoption, in earlier times with high(er) young(er) mortality rates seems(to me) to be far more traditional than we think of as "standard" today.

The hard bit comes next. If children being raised by a parent alone are being disadvantaged, so much so in fact that you would use the term "genocide" to describe their not-unusual situation, what are all the causes for it? Incarceration is almost definitely part of it, but I don't think it's enough to describe all of it, particularly if we look at the data Boots linked in across ethnicities. What else is behind it so that we can correct it?

 

[inthesomeday]

The genocide is African slavery and the subsequent centuries of socioeconomic oppression and dehumanization of black people in America. It is literally 100% responsible for the destitution of black people here, there are literally no other factors and to claim there are is genocide denial.

 

[Farm Boy]

Might explain the rates, but the parenting correlation to better/worse outcomes is not limited to people of color in America. Those correlations do extend to the pasty residents of the doublewides in Tornado Valley, Nebraska. The genocide you reference is real, as you put it, and probably explains at least in significant part the disparity of the lines on the chart Bootstoots linked, but as an input it is farther "upstream" of the family situation, as Hygro would put it. These specific correlations happen later and seem to act as compounding factors.

 

[inthesomeday]

I agree there is an evident correlation but it is certainly nothing close to causation because they both come from the same, third factor, which is poverty. This is my point. I just want to make sure the discussion doesn’t move on to something like “Well, which precise family structures are best?” or “How do we enforce family structures so that this doesn’t keep happening?” Because, once again, the relationship is nowhere near causal. Just nobody forget that okay?

 

[Lexicus]

I agree there is an evident correlation but it is certainly nothing close to causation because they both come from the same, third factor, which is poverty. This is my point. I just want to make sure the discussion doesn’t move on to something like “Well, which precise family structures are best?” or “How do we enforce family structures so that this doesn’t keep happening?” Because, once again, the relationship is nowhere near causal. Just nobody forget that okay?

I think we should do our best as a society to produce families that are loving and fulfilling and properly nurturing. Beyond that I have no requirements. This discussion isn't easily reducible to poverty, though I don't deny that class has a big impact on outcomes. Poverty is a big, probably the biggest, impediment to families that are loving and fulfilling and properly nurturing.

 

[Farm Boy]

I'm not forgetting it, I'm challenging it. That does not mean I disagree with your premises regarding the longstanding victimization of persons of color.

1. Poverty causes the degradation of family structures, true.
2. More parents than one equals better average outcomes for child, true.
3. #2 applies to non povertous situations. It is simply more likely to occur when there is poverty. It's one of the things modern poverty tends to take.

Suggesting and encouraging* certain types of social structures, incentivizing them even, does not necessarily involve enforcing them. Enforcement comes with its own sets of ills and harms.

*Though, the more I think about it, I think "teaching" social structures might be more accurate, really. Some might be complicated enough that the teaching is hard enough to oftimes be more successful if hit heavily enough to be called "raising" or "rearing," instead.

 

[Berzerker]

Census data shows that in 1984, there were 99 black males for every 100 black females within the population.[64] 2003 census data shows there are 91 Black males for every 100 females.

Black male incarceration and higher mortality rates are often pointed to for these imbalanced sex ratios. Although black males make up 6% of the population, they make up 50% of those who are incarcerated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_family_structure

Democrats put Daddy in jail with their drug war and complain about police brutality, mass incarceration and racism.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_family_structure

Democrats put Daddy in jail with their drug war and complain about police brutality, mass incarceration and racism.

And Republicans send out their shills to blame everything on Democrats no matter how tenuous the charge or how idiotic it makes the shill look. What of it?

By the way, since when are Nixon and Reagan Democrats?

 

[Lexicus]

3. #2 applies to non povertous situations. It is simply more likely to occur when there is poverty. It's one of the things modern poverty tends to take.

It's more complicated than this. It's more likely to occur in poverty, sure, but it's also got a higher potential to be damaging when combined with poverty. I knew a girl on my swim team once upon a time who was raised by a single mother who was a psychiatrist and made mid-six figures a year. She was in all kinds of extracurricular programs and whatnot and ended up perfectly well-adjusted.

I agree there is an evident correlation but it is certainly nothing close to causation because they both come from the same, third factor, which is poverty. This is my point. I just want to make sure the discussion doesn’t move on to something like “Well, which precise family structures are best?” or “How do we enforce family structures so that this doesn’t keep happening?” Because, once again, the relationship is nowhere near causal. Just nobody forget that okay?

Like, here's an example. Say there's a war, and a shell kills a parent. The parent is dead, so we can say the problem is the war, sure, but the problem is also that the war has caused this absence of the parent, under such traumatic circumstances. Analogously, the absence of a father caused by incarceration, or violence, or just plain heart disease is a reflection of all of those problems affecting black people disproportionately, but it's also a problem on its own that affects black people disproportionately. And it's not because it's some deviation from an "ideal" family structure, it's simply because traumatic truncation - or just plain absence- of close relationships during childhood is bad for children. The more close, loving relationships they have the better.

By the way, since when are Nixon and Reagan Democrats?

Since when are BLM, socialists, communists, and anarchists Democrats?

 

[Truthy]

I mean that the economic incentive to marry has been eroded by state benefits to single mothers.

I think you should try spending maybe 4-6 hours on your own Scott Alexander-style "Welfare Incentives: More Than You Wanted To Know" and see what you turn up. I'd like to think that if you put an earnest effort into this you'll find that means-tested welfare creates some modest disincentives for lower-income women to get married, but this is fairly small compared to some other explanations. In other words, I'm very confident you're putting much more weight on this than you should be.

(Even if it matters a lot, I don't think you'll have much luck arguing that the solution is to roll back benefits instead of finding ways to just get rid of the disincentive)

 

[inthesomeday]

I think berzerker has been, once again, misinterpreted. Nixon and Reagan aren’t democrats, but they also don’t complain about racism. Leftists aren’t democrats, but they haven’t contributed to the drug war.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You guys are going too deep. That was just a simple jab at Berzerker's idiotic simplification about "the Democrats' drug war." Even I don't think that he is so stupid as to think Nixon and Reagan didn't claim credit for the drug war. Of course, he is just as likely to pretend that he is as to acknowledge that he isn't.

 

[Berzerker]

And Republicans send out their shills to blame everything on Democrats no matter how tenuous the charge or how idiotic it makes the shill look. What of it?

By the way, since when are Nixon and Reagan Democrats?

They signed and enforced drug laws written by Democrats... Mandatory minimum sentences were produced by Tip O'Neill's House of Representatives and Bill Clinton signed Newt's expansion of the drug war into law. Now why would Republicans send me out to condemn a policy they support? If there were Republicans here complaining about mass incarceration I'd be explaining to them the complicity of their party. Democrats have their fingerprints all over the murder weapon and you think thats a tenuous charge? They signed and dated their confessions.

Since when are BLM, socialists, communists, and anarchists Democrats?

Now identify the group on that list who've been writing our drug laws

I think you should try spending maybe 4-6 hours on your own Scott Alexander-style "Welfare Incentives: More Than You Wanted To Know" and see what you turn up. I'd like to think that if you put an earnest effort into this you'll find that means-tested welfare creates some modest disincentives for lower-income women to get married, but this is fairly small compared to some other explanations. In other words, I'm very confident you're putting much more weight on this than you should be.

(Even if it matters a lot, I don't think you'll have much luck arguing that the solution is to roll back benefits instead of finding ways to just get rid of the disincentive)

I dont know how it is now, but back in the 80s my friends were officially separated or unmarried so she could get aid for the 3 kids. He couldn't live there or she would lose the benefits, so he visited his kids but she raised them.

I think berzerker has been, once again, misinterpreted. Nixon and Reagan aren’t democrats, but they also don’t complain about racism. Leftists aren’t democrats, but they haven’t contributed to the drug war.

Thanks again... The worst thing that happened to black people (and the country) over the last few decades was the drug war. And that was a bi-partisan effort... I cited a new book ("Locking Up Our Own") about how bi-partisan, the author lays some of the blame at the feet of black leaders who jumped on the prohibition bandwagon.

 

[miaasma]

how did this thread even turn into debating the political groups responsible for writing drug laws in america

and why is the above poster jumping back and forth between condemning the drug war and playing the local trump apologist on a whim

 

[Broken_Erika]

I don't think it's even possible to have any form of conversation about anything without it turning into "DEMOCRATS RESPONSIBLE FOR DRUG WAR! HILLARY SINGLE-HANDEDLY PLANNED AND EXECUTED INVASION OF IRAQ AND ATE IRAQI CHILDREN AND US SOLDIERS FOR BREAKFAST! EMAILS! TRUMP DUN NO WRONG! BAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII"

 

[Timsup2nothin]

how did this thread even turn into debating the political groups responsible for writing drug laws in america

and why is the above poster jumping back and forth between condemning the drug war and playing the local trump apologist on a whim

It's just what he does. Call the drug war a Democrat operation, get "Reagan, patron saint of the GOP, stood at a podium and openly declared "war on drugs," ignore facts and keep on keepin' on. Then when someone comes along that won't take that bait he switches to some other piece of random nonsense. I'd say he's an acquired taste, but excrement by the sack just never becomes appealing.