# How Much does the "Underclass" (USA) Reduce the GNP? \[Edited title\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 1, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950 "2009-11-01T16:38:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/41 "2009-11-05T16:39:11Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Plus, a person’s contributions to GDP is just one aspect of life. A poor person who is a great parent and good citizen is better than an upper middle class person who is a total asshole. That’s the problem of judging people solely by their paid work on the free market, as if that’s the only value a person can contribute that means anything. Priests take vows of poverty. Are they “underclass” as well because they don’t contribute their “share”? Stay at home mothers do valuable work as well, but it’s not counted as part of the GDP. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/42 "2009-11-05T17:12:02Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > That’s the problem of judging people solely by their paid work on the free market, as if that’s the only value a person can contribute that means anything. > > Priests take vows of poverty. Are they “underclass” as well because they don’t contribute their “share”? > > Stay at home mothers do valuable work as well, but it’s not counted as part of the GDP. That is why my suggestion eliminates trying to define an underclass - it is a futile exercise - and just defines an aggregate statistic. And yes, home mothers do contribute to the GDP, which is a measure of the circulation of money. If they spend money, then it gets counted, same as anyone else, with or without a job. Kids even 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/43 "2009-11-05T17:28:37Z")
An individual’s take home pay does NOT accurately reflect their economic contribution. For an employer to make a profit, an employee must be able to generate more value than he is paid for. Say that I work for 8 dollars an hour, and I generate 12 dollars an hour in productivity. The company keeps that extra 4 dollars for itself. The Heritage folks don’t count that profit that the company is skimming off the top as a contribution that the employee made. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/44 "2009-11-05T20:07:51Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > Well, more than a few thousand anyway. In the Bay Area alone, you have maybe on the order of a million. Plus most of the rest of the Bay Area population that is primarily engaged in support industries for that part of the population. > > But my background is definitely there - improve efficiency relentlessly. By the end of dot-com era I was starting to think in these terms - Is it possible we have become or could become so efficient that we could in fact carry more, not less, non-workers? What do you know about jobs in biochemistry, biology and chemistry in the bay area? I am considering moving to the area. As it stands, something like 45% of the population is in the workforce. The recession (which has cost about 8 million jobs) dropped the employment rate for adults from about 62% down to 59%. Which makes it sound smaller when you think of it that way. Anyway, my point is this. We are a nation where most people do not work from ages 0 up until around 16-22. When a person becomes an adult, maybe 20-40% are not in the workforce. Then people retire in their 60s. So as it stands roughly 40-50% of the nation is employed, the other half is not (either they are too young, too old or they are part of the minority of adults who are not employed either because they are disabled, help raise children at home or another reason). But despite that, we have a very high standard of living. So we have already advanced to the point where less than 1/2 of the population working 40 hours a week manages to provide a relatively high standard of living to everyone. > [@not\_alice](#): > > It is a fair question - it is possible to imagine market based distributions of _wealth_ that would allow the non workers _liquid cash_ to have a nice life in some scenarios. > > OTOH, any efficiencies we have will also be available to China, India, et al and are not really a source of competitive advantage, not for long anyway. > > Those technologies when distributed among society will result in billions in productivity gains from the work of these few thousand people. China has recently cornered the global market in rare earth metals. They have been working at it for years and the recession (where nations and companies were selling mines while China has extra cash to spend) helped them cement the monopoly. [http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/08/china-all-your-rare-earth-metals-belong-to-us/](http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/08/china-all-your-rare-earth-metals-belong-to-us/) Rare earth metals are necessary to build alternative energy and information technology devices. The claim is that China is going to start cutting exports of rare earth metals to foreign countries. This will result in several effects on the global economy. 1. Businesses that want to avoid the shortage of rare earth metals (since China may cut exports) will set up shop in China, where there is no limit on usage. So businesses will be forced to go to China. 2. Chinese businesses will get a head start as they will have the raw materials to build the newest forms of 21st century energy and IT devices we will all use. Other nations will not have the raw material to make these devices (unless they move to China). So they will have a competitive advantage. So competitive advantages can exist that do not spread across all nations. Cell phones have spread everywhere. But China’s monopoly on rare earth metals will likely pay off for decades. > [@not\_alice](#): > > I’d go a little further than that - you are not just along for the ride, but in a real sense most of you are working to support what you call the productive ones. That is necessary and valuable - in a sense, it is grease the wheel needs to spin. I don’t discount the value in that. Most of ‘you’? :p. I agree that you need people to keep society moving. If it weren’t for the consumer class (of which I am a part) there would be no market for the rapid advances in communication, transportation, engineering or medicine that we are seeing. > [@not\_alice](#): > > That is fantasy stuff. While laudable, at best that misses the point here - it only makes them “non-criminals”, it does nothing towards getting them or their descendents to add to the statistic at hand. > > Great. All for it. Heck I sleep every night with such a psychologist :). But unless you can measure, you can’t manage. What are you proposing to measure, and how does it reflect the overall economy, especially in a way you can compare across competitive nations? When Cory Booker took over in Newark NJ one of the things he did to combat crime was to use advanced IT to better track violent crime to aid prosecutions and arrests. The violent crime rate has dropped about 30% [http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2008/tc20080822\_240216.htm](http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2008/tc20080822_240216.htm) But it was likely a handful of people who created and perfected that technology. And a major reason he did it was to make Newark more business friendly, which would increase GDP. > [@not\_alice](#): > > Sure, in my world. I don’t know the optimal value for the statistic, but I can tell you from my experience as a mid-upper level manager at several high flying dot coms (not ones that then crashed and disappeared btw), I really appreciate the value added by the businesses that supported us with food, hotel, transportation, cleaning, nany sitting, car washing, and who all knows what else where people were poorly paid. > > Unofficially we spread the wealth as best we could to reflect the value added - paid lavish prices for food and services, tipped well, even tossed stocks and options when possible to service providers. Heck I think my chiropractor made out better than anyone picking up stocks and tips from his startup clients like me. > > I think a better system could be devised for that. I really do. Not everyone can do the work we were doing, but the 11K guys and gals as you call them are often providing real value to those of us who do. > > So I say, yeah count them, count everyone. We don’t need to define hard edges on these sections of the distribution, just count everyone, much easier. Take the GDP and the population and divide. That’s all you need I think. > > That is the point of my statistic. You don’t have to label individuals, or even sections of the distribution, only desired results in an aggregate statistic that is easy to calculate and track. That statistic over time I think will give you a sense not only of relative competitiveness, but the carrying level of the economy. The average American produces around $65,000 a year in wealth. Which is far better than the average American in 1801, who probably produced $1,000 in wealth. The reason we produce more wealth now is because of that small % on the far right of the distribution curve who invented the new technologies that make us more productive. Higher per capita GDP might actually shrink the workforce, offsetting whatever benefits are gained from higher productivity. Before the industrial revolution (as far as I know) almost everyone worked. Children, adults and the elderly. Now we have a system where children and the elderly, as well as a sizeable minority of adults do not work in jobs which create wealth. Higher per capita GDP caused by higher productivity might just accelerate that trend (which is fine by me) since not everyone will be looking for a higher standard of living but will instead want more flexibility, time off and leisure. I don’t agree that higher per capita GDP should be the goal though. More advances in STEM fields, social progress, sustainability, increased efficiency in our goods and services (cheaper and higher quality energy, consumer electronics, health care, etc) and a higher quality of life should be our goal as a society. Plus we are reaching a point where the planet’s capacity to provide raw materials to support our lifestyles is reaching its peak. Levels of oil, metals and possibly agriculture are reaching a point where w/o advances in extraction, recycling or alternatives we will not be able to see continued growth in standards of living. So that would have to be factored in too. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/45 "2009-11-05T20:36:51Z")
There are commercially viable deposits of gadolinite, the principal lanthanide ore, in Colorado along the Front Range from near Boulder to near Colorado Springs and west near Buena Vista and Salida, along Route 93 in the vicinity of Kingman, AZ, and at the Moneta Mine southeast of Roanoke, VA. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/46 "2009-11-05T21:00:29Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > What do you know about jobs in biochemistry, biology and chemistry in the bay area? I am considering moving to the area. Worth looking into if you have the right skills. Not my area, so not sure. Used to work doing software for a company that was a market leader in what I called “molecular databases”, plenty of chemist there in all sorts of roles. But it is a center of biotech startups, not so much operations. I am not currently in the Bay Area though, I am in the Central Valley. [QUOTE] So as it stands roughly 40-50% of the nation is employed, the other half is not (either they are too young, too old or they are part of the minority of adults who are not employed either because they are disabled, help raise children at home or another reason). But despite that, we have a very high standard of living. So we have already advanced to the point where less than 1/2 of the population working 40 hours a week manages to provide a relatively high standard of living to everyone. Yup. The aggregate statistic will account for all of that, and allow you to make decisions relative to other countries. (and they you!) > [@](#): > > But it was likely a handful of people who created and perfected that technology. And a major reason he did it was to make Newark more business friendly, which would increase GDP. No, it was a lot of people involved - deisigning, specifying, analyzing, training emplyees far and wide, repeateing all that, disseminating, purchasing, operating…and that is jsut the people on the payroll at Newark - they had to buy the software and hardware and networks and who all knows what else…lots of people had their hand and keep their hand in the overall effort. that doesn’t even account for the effort from vendors and potential vendors and partners and who all knows what else going into supporting the creation, distribution, and use of the data. > [@](#): > > The reason we produce more wealth now is because of that small % on the far right of the distribution curve who invented the new technologies that make us more productive. I find it unlikely that you could support your claim that “a small number” is responsible for anything. The high school girl folding shirts at the Gap in the local mall is contributing, by design. Who in the workforce is not at that level even? From there to the right in your graph, is not “a small number”. To the left might be, but to me, that taxi guy waiting at the airport so I can get somewhere efficiently, he is contributing… > [@](#): > > Higher per capita GDP might actually shrink the workforce, Yes it might. That is exactly what I was wondering as dot-com was peaking: Could we build so much efficiency into the system that there would be wealth enough for all? It is a fair question in the abstract - what would such a system look like if we wanted to have it? to answer in the abstract, you have to have an aggregate statistic, so… > [@](#): > > offsetting whatever benefits are gained from higher productivity . That is not a given, once you separate wealth creation from labor. I spent a pretty fair amount of time researching marketplace economics for non-tangible goods. In the real world, we are just starting to see how that works and scales, but it has the potential to redefine labor for large swaths of us if it hasn’t already. > [@](#): > > Before the industrial revolution (as far as I know) almost everyone worked. Children, adults and the elderly. Now we have a system where children and the elderly, as well as a sizeable minority of adults do not work in jobs which create wealth. But it is not so much if they work or not, as if they have money to spend, to circulate, and can make distinctions and choices about how to allocate their resources. No matter how much or little you have, you are always faced with choices among competing demands for your resources. And from navigating those choices successfully, great companies and wealth is created. In the Bay Area, one common way to spread that wealth is by allocating it via stock options to those who help create it - not just the few as you say, but the many. Again, by the end of dot-com, it was being asked in some circles how far and wide could that wealth be spread, and still have it be tied in some sense to capital at risk and hence to a marketplace value. This remains a fair question too. Stock ownership is abstract, and need not be tied to actual labor in order to get it. But in a proper marketplace, it is certainly liquid enough, right? That is but one sort of abstraction that is or could be tied to wealth independent of labor. > [@](#): > > Higher per capita GDP caused by higher productivity might just accelerate that trend (which is fine by me) since not everyone will be looking for a higher standard of living but will instead want more flexibility, time off and leisure. Exactly. That is why the aggregate statistic is valuable. The micro level details don’t really matter when seeking a broader trend or comparison. > [@](#): > > I don’t agree that higher per capita GDP should be the goal though. More advances in STEM fields, social progress, sustainability, increased efficiency in our goods and services (cheaper and higher quality energy, consumer electronics, health care, etc) and a higher quality of life should be our goal as a society. Well, I agree with that last part (gambling on the unknown acronym “STEM” though 🙂 ). My statistic is meant as a proxy for just that. I don’t know how to measure “quality of life” in terms of “consumer electronics” that is applicable around the world, and across times. But my statistic captures all that, and then can be analyzed to see what the actual components are that are significant statistically I suppose. In that sort of micro analysis day to day policy is derived on how to “optimize” the statistic. Note I never said the goal was to maximize it, only to optimize it. It is a matter of policy decision for all of us to decide what “optimize” means. I am just trying to give us something in common to talk about, that we can and already do measure. > [@](#): > > Plus we are reaching a point where the planet’s capacity to provide raw materials to support our lifestyles is reaching its peak. So we will change. But when we do, mys aggregate statistic will still exist, and when looked at with contemporaneous comparisons with others in the world, it will still be of equal value. > [@](#): > > Levels of oil, metals and possibly agriculture are reaching a point where w/o advances in extraction, recycling or alternatives Funny you should mention agriculture. I live in the 2nd most productive ag county in the country, probably in the world right now. It is also among the poorest areas in the entire US, least educated, high crime, high despair, in the top 10 or so unemployment areas in the US (most of the others are neighbors) etc. This is Grapes of Wrath country, still. Seriously. What is wrong with the picture here? We have the most efficient farming in the world. What is keeping the locals, who have been here up to 100 years or so, from enjoying, quite literally, the fruits of their labors? A problem I am thinking about, with some radical ideas and brainstorming I brought from the Bay Area. Are we over-efficient? Maybe in some sense. But then what? Cut capacity? Find new markets? This is routine in other industries, why not here? I have some thoughts on that, but it is getting too far afield for this thread. > [@](#): > > we will not be able to see continued growth in standards of living. So that would have to be factored in too. I don’t think you can measure “standard of living” in advance because it is dependent on invention and adoption of technology of the future, all of which is unknowable. And like you said, to some better living might mean a slower pace, some faster, (e.g. Flintstones vs. Jetsons). Most just live in the era they are born in and don’t worry about it. Few work with the explicit goal of “creating a better standard of living”, we just work, and the standard of living is the aggregate of present and past work we all did, that’s all it is. How we choose to invest to work is a policy decision again, to decide what is good better best. My statistic is merely a tool to assist in those decsiions, decisions that are sorely lacking in tools right now. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/47 "2009-11-06T06:54:30Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > > [@ambushed](#): > > > > The research demonstrates that authoritarian leaders consciously or unconsciously manufacture factitious but “authoritative-sounding” assertions and social memes (as with Reagan’s “welfare queen” hate meme) for blatantly self-serving reasons, such as to artificially divide and polarize the electorate by deliberately framing issues in an excessively vitriolic and inflammatory fashion. Nothing brings out the voters to the polls like hate! > > These days, few but the wealthy recognize class war for what it is … divide and conquer. Nice posts. I thank you, **adhay** ; it’s always nice to get positive feedback. I quite agree with you concerning **Wesley Clark** ’s posts as well. It’s very easy to imagine that he actually _ **is** _ the wise former general himself. I spent quite some time reading and thinking through the research on the key importance of authoritarianism in the conservative worldview (a viewpoint that had been considered by many to be passé and of diminishing importance until new research had come to light) over the last months, and I took care to express myself in an intellectually honest manner. The scientifically validated fact that a genetic predisposition for literal _fear_ of the unusual or non-traditional and the often-misunderstood emotional discomfort this fear or even moral panic this brings out in conservatives I, for one, found to be quite surprising. Everyone knew that conservatism was centered on maintaining the status quo, but the _why_ of it had been a mystery (at least to me). I had no idea that it actually had a biological basis! Fairly often this is even reflected in childhood aversions or squeamishness toward unusual foods and “icky” sounds and sights along with a much lower tolerance of apparent “contamination”, even just _near_-contamination. Is it any wonder that such people would find the poor, the unorthodox, and things like interracial or gay marriage so profoundly revolting? No matter how irrational such views are? Anyway, one thing I’ve never understood is how often my posts just sit there in the middle of a thread with no reference or comments whatsoever, as if “they’re almost impossible to see.” I’ve never been able to figure out what I’m doing wrong… 😕 - - ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/48 "2009-11-06T08:08:42Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > The scientifically validated fact that a genetic predisposition for literal _fear_ of the unusual or non-traditional and the often-misunderstood emotional discomfort this fear or even moral panic this brings out in conservatives I, for one, found to be quite surprising. I aint no conservative, but I have a problem with that. Are you sure you are not getting ahead of yourself? The scientific method (which is all science really is) is not there to “validate facts”. It is there to offer explanations and predictions based on empirical evidence. If new evidence comes in, it is quick to toss the prior explanation and predictions. So can you explain further, with cites, this “facts” of which you speak? Moreover, can you explain how the research covers alternative approaches to the same areas, such as Dawkins’ and Blackmore’s and other’s memetics? > [@](#): > > Everyone knew that conservatism was centered on maintaining the status quo, I don’t know that and trust me, I have been locked in nearly hand to hand combat, one on one, with conservatives for the last year or so. It never occurred to me that their approach is to maintain the status quo, because it isn’t. It is to apply a set of principles they feel strongly (and usually wrongly 🙂 ) about as best they can. Same as anyone else. They don’t expect tomorrow to be like today, and they generally accept that today is not the same as yesterday. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/49 "2009-11-06T08:18:21Z")
Speaking of class warfare, I’ve always found the following useful in enlightening – or at least confounding – conservatives, like my brothers, who always cry _“That’s just class warfare!”_ when I talk of returning our nation to a genuinely progressive tax system… Here’s what even conservative semi-demagogue Ben Stein wrote in the New York Times in 2006: [In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning?](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print) (you might need a free online subscription to read it). NOT long ago, I had the pleasure of a lengthy meeting with one of the smartest men on the planet, Warren E. Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, in his unpretentious offices in Omaha. We talked of many things that, I hope, will inspire me for years to come. But one of the main subjects was taxes. Mr. Buffett, who probably does not feel sick when he sees his MasterCard bill in his mailbox the way I do, is at least as exercised about the tax system as I am. Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, _ **but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.** _ Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all. **It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, _far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office._** Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. _ **“How can this be fair?”** _ he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. _ **“How can this be right?”** _ Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of **fomenting class warfare.** **“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s _my_ class, _the rich class_, that’s making war, and _we’re winning_.”** And that was back in 2006! But with today’s [Idiot Conservatives](http://www.amazon.com/Idiot-America-Stupidity-Became-Virtue/dp/0767926145/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257332505&sr=8-5) screaming **“Obama’s a Socialist!”** even though they have no idea what the word “socialist” means (I suspect they repeat it phonetically), Obama doesn’t even _dare_ seriously suggest letting Bush’s tax cuts expire! (And shame on him for such chicken-shittery! I just hope that once health-care reform with “Medicare Part E” (the alternative name for the public option some boosters are using) has been passed, he’ll find more backbone…) - - ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/50 "2009-11-06T09:15:40Z")
Whatever shall we do with all of these useless people? ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/51 "2009-11-06T13:06:06Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > > [@ambushed](#): > > > > The scientifically validated fact that a genetic predisposition for literal _fear_ of the unusual or non-traditional and the often-misunderstood emotional discomfort this fear or even moral panic this brings out in conservatives I, for one, found to be quite surprising. > > I aint no conservative, but I have a problem with that. > > Are you sure you are not getting ahead of yourself? > > The scientific method (which is all science really is) is not there to “validate facts”. It is there to offer explanations and predictions based on empirical evidence. The so-called “scientific method” is very nearly entirely mythical. To paraphrase the title of Jerry Fodor’s book refuting evolutionary psychologists’ “massive modularity” thesis (such as that held by Pinker and Tooby, et al.): **“Science doesn’t work that way”**. The “scientific method” is something we learn about in elementary and high school that presents a fabricated facade of a formal “method” of hypotheses and experimentation and so on that has no meaningful equivalent in the real world of science. It’s mere rote, liturgical nonsense. There’s a popular writer (at least on the Web) who has made something of a career of debunking the bullshit we are taught in science and other primary and secondary school classes, and if I could remember his name or web site (it’s not Ben Goldacre’s excellent site “Bad Science”), I’d steer you there. The closest I can come up with – and fortunately it’s fairly good – is: [Alistair B. Fraser’s _Bad Science_](http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/BadScience.html). As for my choice of “validated” / “validation” as synonyms for a key product of empirical scientific research, it’s perfectly suitable terminology. Think of it in light of the semantic opposite of “falsified”. Note, please, that I did _not_ use the term **“prove”!** If I had, you would have had a point, but I have been quite careful not to use it since high school to refer to anything in the real, empirical world. “Proof” is a concept the validity of which is strictly confined to purely formal abstract systems such as mathematics and logic. Let me assure you that none of the points you raise regarding science and its tentative nature are at all news to me; I have been well aware of these issues for roughly 35 years. And science could never _“offer explanations and predictions based on empirical evidence”_ without “validating” hypotheses (another synonym for validate is “confirm”). Come now! > [@not\_alice](#): > > If new evidence comes in, it is quick to toss the prior explanation and predictions. Well, yes, but more often, no. First, to demonstrate that none of this is news to me, allow me to point you to a fragment of one of several posts of mine in the recent Pit thread: [_If you are a male who thinks rape is about sex, not power_](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=535310) > [@If you are a male who thinks rape is about sex, not power](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-are-a-male-who-thinks-rape-is-about-sex-not-power/513212/380): > > … **and the essential tentativeness of all good science must never be denied.** On the other hand, scientific theories and facts which have been repeatedly validated using multiple lines of evidence have _earned_ and thus _deserve_ a good bit of scientific “inertia” against their upstart competitors. Otherwise, perhaps we might have seen Darwinist evolution by natural selection being pushed out of the way – even in the West – to make room for Lysenkoism temporarily until that was falsified, or, more recently, pushed out of the way to make room for Intelligent Design until _that_ was debunked (unlike Lysenkoism, ID can’t really be falsified, which is one of the strongest arguments against it). So turning over “prior explanation and predictions” _quickly_ is justifiably rare in real science, something which is very often quite wise and appropriate. (One major exception being the still _ludicrously_ popular (among the naive, among non-scientists, and among anti-science postmodernists, anyway) Kuhnian “paradigm shift” crap laid out in Kuhn’s SSR thesis circa the 60’s, which should have died an ignoble death long ago. I first encountered one of my favorite thinkers, Jerry Fodor, when he shoved one of the biggest and sharpest intellectual knives into its belly many years ago, so at least I managed to take away _something_ of value from that fiasco…) > [@not\_alice](#): > > So can you explain further, with cites, this “facts” of which you speak? Well, it’s a lot of work because I have to scan in so much and OmniPage’s and ABBYY’s OCR results are mixed when scanning books, _but_ you’ve made a highly reasonable request given the surprising nature of this research, so I will definitely comply. I ask only that you give me some time to scan in what I need to provide you. > [@not\_alice](#): > > Moreover, can you explain how the research covers alternative approaches to the same areas, such as Dawkins’ and Blackmore’s and other’s memetics? There’s a considerable difference between those two scientists’ definitions of the term “meme”. Dawkins coined the term in _by far_ his most important and compelling (in my view, anyway) book, _The Selfish Gene_, to refer to a strictly _conceptual_ analog to the transmission of information via genes, but within the human social domain. As such, memes had no literal existence in the real world. “Meme” was just a word, a shorthand way of referring to information spread in the social sphere. Whereas Blackmore – for whom I have enormous respect and admiration in other areas – insisted long after Dawkins crafted his neologism that memes are something literally _real_ in some obscure sense; an interpretation that is quite opaque to Dawkins (and myself, among a great many others). I strongly side with Dawkins on this, so since I contend along with him that the terms “meme” and “memetics” refer to ordinary kinds of societal information transfer, I hold that the word “meme” is but a Dawkins-type “meme” for those processes. Finally, I don’t think that Hetherington and Weiler ever even used the word “meme” in their book! That was _my_ word choice, not theirs. > [@not\_alice](#): > > > [@ambushed](#): > > > > Everyone knew that conservatism was centered on maintaining the status quo… > > I don’t know that and trust me, I have been locked in nearly hand to hand combat, one on one, with conservatives for the last year or so. It never occurred to me that their approach is to maintain the status quo, because it isn’t. I think we’re miscommunicating, and consequently this element is a mere verbal dispute. Note my use of the phrase “centered on”, which implies there are other aspects and other dynamics involved. My teachers instructed me that conservatism is indeed properly defined as being “centered on” maintaining the status quo, but added that conservatives differ on what they specifically _meant_ by “the status quo”. Consider: Some of my uncles have considered themselves clear and strong conservatives only since they returned after fighting World War II. They saw conservatism as the socio-political drive to maintain the status quo of the 1950’s, the only time during which they considered America to be properly structured, with women and minorities out of competition with them in the workforce and in society at large. They held that patriotism was what _I_ would today call Hannitiean jingoism, and they simply _adored_ Joe McCarthy and his sub-literate contempt for “card-carrying Communists in the State Department” and for “faggots” and “niggers”. In other words, just because those uncles of mine _failed_ to stop the clock and actually _maintain_ the status quo of the 1950’s in reality, it doesn’t mean that their conservatism isn’t still centered on the goal of maintaining the status quo. It’s just that, to _them_, the status quo they want to maintain is the status quo of more than half a century ago. Similarly, the status quo that religious conservatives wish to maintain never actually existed, but that doesn’t stop them from wanting to restore and _then_ maintain that imaginary status quo. > [@not\_alice](#): > > It is to apply a set of principles they feel strongly (and usually wrongly 🙂 ) about as best they can. Same as anyone else. Again, I do not agree with your terminology. They are called, and they call _themselves_, **conservatives** , precisely because they wish to _ **conserve** _ something, whether an individual conservative is able to elucidate what that is or not. Consider this formal, number 1 definition of the term: [**conservatism**](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conservatism): > [@The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language](#): > > **con·ser·va·tism** (kən-sûr’və-tĭz’əm) n. > > 1. The inclination, especially in politics, to **maintain** the existing or traditional order. In closing, let me say this: My goal is to provide the information you’ve requested by approximately this time tomorrow. I may well choose to create a new GD thread for this branch of the discussion, and if I do, I will post a link here in this thread pointing to it. **However** , I will find it quite difficult to maintain an interest in debating you on such topics if I’m going to have to fight to defend every inch of my word choices! I grow weary of engaging in very many mere verbal disputes. And, with respect, I honestly feel that I have a stronger and deeper knowledge and familiarity with science and with language, so can we agree to focus considerably _more_ on the topic and considerably _less_ on the manner in which I express myself, please? I would appreciate your forbearance in this regard. - - ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/52 "2009-11-09T08:12:35Z")
**not\_alice** , I haven’t forgotten about you or my promise. I’ve been busy, and I’m having more trouble with my scanning than I’d hoped. I own four OCR programs: ABBYY, OmniPage 16, the built-in OCR that comes with MS Office 2007, and VueScan. VueScan is primarily for scanning photographs and the like rather than OCR, and I used to use it only to scan documents as TIFF files to use as input to the other tools. But it seems that VueScan, though it’s the cheapest of the four by far, actually performs OCR better than the others! It’s just not quite as easy as the others, so I need more time… - - ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/53 "2009-11-09T10:49:41Z")
I hope you are deducting all the money made by home and business security firms, insurance companies, anti-virus software makers and everyone else who has benefitted from the existence of criminals, from the overall cost? ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/54 "2009-11-09T11:59:24Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > If they spend money, then it gets counted, same as anyone else, with or without a job. Kids even 🙂 And “criminals” tend to spend more than your average 9 to 5er. If they all went “straight” tomorrow, then you’d see a recession. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/55 "2009-11-09T16:19:13Z")
> [@](#): > > However, I will find it quite difficult to maintain an interest in debating you on such topics if I’m going to have to fight to defend every inch of my word choices! I grow weary of engaging in very many mere verbal disputes. And, with respect, I honestly feel that I have a stronger and deeper knowledge and familiarity with science and with language, so can we agree to focus considerably more on the topic and considerably less on the manner in which I express myself, please? I would appreciate your forbearance in this regard. That is just insulting and patronizing and damn near pit-worthy, and I don’;t think I have ever started a pit thread. I gotta run today, but in general I think you are too quick to dismiss legitimate dissent, which is in fact part of the scientific method. You already seem clear that you separate “mathematics and logic” from the scientific method, and from science itself, so I would say the quoted self-opinion strikes me at first glance as more than a little high-an-mighty. So I await your documents with bated breath… And with that attitude, you can be sure you will be called on your use of definitions when they are outside the common understanding of them. Why would you expect otherwise? ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950/56 "2009-11-10T15:16:17Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > > [@ambushed](#): > > > > **However** , I will find it quite difficult to maintain an interest in debating you on such topics if I’m going to have to fight to defend every inch of my word choices! I grow weary of engaging in very many mere verbal disputes. And, with respect, I honestly feel that I have a stronger and deeper knowledge and familiarity with science and with language, so can we agree to focus considerably _more_ on the topic and considerably _less_ on the manner in which I express myself, please? I would appreciate your forbearance in this regard. > > That is just insulting and patronizing and damn near pit-worthy… OhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPlease, _don’t throw me in the Briar Pit!_ Why, don’t you _realize_ that we wouldn’t have to conform to GD rules there? Whatever might happen if we were allowed to express ourselves more freely? Perish the thought! > [@not\_alice](#): > > and I don’;t think I have ever started a pit thread. I couldn’t persuade you to break with that little tradition of yours, could I? I’m confident it would not end up like, say, that thread you started in ATMB about disappearing threads… **Wait** , _what am I saying?_ \* \* Wicked, wicked, _wicked_ Zoot…, er, **ambushed!** I mustn’t even _contemplate_ such a naughty thing. I deserve a good spanking, oh yes I do! You’ve performed much good work defending the rights of the gay community, **not\_alice** , but, alas, unlike myself, you’re apparently not gay yourself or I’d ask if you wished to do the honors… > [@not\_alice](#): > > I gotta run today, but in general I think you are too quick to dismiss legitimate dissent, which is in fact part of the scientific method. You already seem clear that you separate “mathematics and logic” from the scientific method, and from science itself, so I would say the quoted self-opinion strikes me at first glance as more than a little high-an-mighty. Regarding “mathematics and logic”, allow me to employ some basic Kantian and Humian epistemological distinctions, **not\_alice**. _Analytical_ knowledge is defined as that in which no empirical observations whatsoever can either validate or refute a proposition, in that the entire universe of implications and consequences are already fully implicit in their formal definitions. No real-world discoveries are possible with analytic knowledge because such knowledge is entirely _a priori_; that is, they are true or false completely independent of experience. _Synthetic_ knowledge, on the other hand, is instead _a posteriori_; i.e., synthetic knowledge cannot exist in the absence of empirical, observational experience. Science falls exclusively into the synthetic epistemological camp, while formal systems such as mathematics and logic are instead exclusively analytic. For example, the knowledge of the atomic weight of an element cannot be determined without actual experience, and thus it is synthetic knowledge because the implications and consequences cannot be determined _a priori_. Formal systems such as mathematics and logic are completely and utterly immune or indifferent to empirical observations because all truths are already fully implicit in their definitions. For what kind of empirical observations can confirm or disconfirm the statement: “The internal angles of a Euclidean triangle always sum up to 180 degrees”? The scientific “discovery” of a Euclidean triangle where the internal angles sum up to 47 degrees? Obviously _not_, of course, for the 180 degree implication _inevitably_ and _inescapably_ follows from the very _definition_ of Euclidean geometry! So science is West and mathematics and logic and geometry will always be East, and never the twain… Of course, that doesn’t mean that science cannot _utilize_ mathematics and logic and various formal geometries in its empirical research, it’s just that these must be combined, or _synthesized_, with empirical observations to become synthetic knowledge. Look, **not\_alice** , I examined your reading list and could find no reference there even to _basic_ books on general science, let alone creditable works on the philosophy of science, scientific epistemology, scientific skepticism, or even the _basics_ of Western philosophy. You may well have learned some Eastern philosophy given your Japanese language skills, but that cuts no ice as regard modern science and its intellectual foundations. Your list includes no Ayer, no Pierce, no Dewey, no Nagel, no Carnap, no Russell/Whitehead, no Popper, no Quine, and not even to those new age buffoons Kuhn and Rorty and the rest of the postmodernist crackpots. Why not at least a little Carl Sagan or Paul Kurtz or Mario Bunge or E.O Wilson or Martin Gardner or Richard Dawkins or Isaac Asimov or Richard Feynman or Stephen Hawking even just Mr. Wizard, for Bob’s sake? The gaps in your reading list on science and philosophy are, shall we say, _not_ insignificant. Books on marketing, digital cartooning, the _7 Habits of Highly Effective People_, filmmaking, and a short-film assistant producer credit – while fine and interesting – do not seem to me to reflect the intellectual interests of someone striving to at least _try_ to fathom the nature and limits of human knowledge and how it may justifiably be acquired, challenged, defended, and expressed. But I may, of course, be mistaken about that. Yet, one dictum of conservative authoritarianism that your complaints against my word choices and your defense of various pseudo-definitions are in concordance with is that worldview’s dislike of “elitist” (read: “factually informed”) knowledge and education and expertise. While I’m most emphatically no expert( **!** ) on the philosophy of science, I’ve spent more than 30 years in a genuine effort to accumulate at least enough background knowledge and familiarity with the subject matter to enable me to speak intelligently when discussing these issues and concepts. It is my cautiously considered opinion that your arguments and assertions are not _quite_ so well grounded… But I may, of course, be mistaken about that. If you consider that opinion to be Pit-worthy, I assure you I would look forward to a robust exchange of views there. But you may wish to first consider the following… You belittled my choice of the term “scientific validation”, as if no scientific or philosophical grounds for the term or concept reflected the dominant _rule_, rather than the _exception_, in science. If that were so, I’d at least be in very good company, along with: • Philosopher of science Carl Hempel, who wrote of “the standards of scientific validation” needing to be objective, • Philosopher of science Howard Sankey, who discoursed on the context under which a claim “receives scientific validation”, • Computer scientist Dennis Stevenson (a profession both of us, **not\_alice** , are/were practicing and proficient in (see [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11753870&postcount=33%5B/url) for example) discussing how the Michelson-Morley experiment provides “a logical foundation for scientific validation”, • Computer scientist Edward Dougherty writing that the "fundamental requirement of a scientific validation procedure is that it must be predictive."I could go on, but I refuse to further document the scientific validity of the concept of scientific validation to an apparent neophyte in the topic. Also consider how you so unwisely asserted some kind of superior knowledge of conservatism, its roots, and its definition based on nothing more than that you’ve debated some of them! Your book list included no works on conservatism or political science, and, as I previously pointed out, your pseudo-definition is even contradicted by the _dictionary_, for cryin’ out loud! > [@not\_alice](#): > > So I await your documents with bated breath… Well, here are a few Web links to get you started… [_Are Needs to Manage Uncertainty and Threat Associated With Political Conservatism or Ideological Extremity?_](http://psp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/7/989) [_Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition_](http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~hannahk/bulletin.pdf) (note: very long PDF document) [Easily grossed out? You’re more likely a conservative, says Cornell psychologist](http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/June09/pizarro.disgust.lg.doc.html) Let me know when you’ve gotten up to speed on the philosophy of science and have read and digested the three links above… > [@not\_alice](#): > > And with that attitude, you can be sure you will be called on your use of definitions when they are outside the common understanding of them. Why would you expect otherwise? “Common” understanding is precisely what’s at fault here. In my experience, the “common understanding” of things is overwhelmingly misguided, misinformed, or just plain false. My guess is that further discussion of these matters with you will likely prove extremely costly in regards to my level of time and effort and will ultimately prove futile. But I may, of course, be mistaken about that. - - [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-underclass-usa-reduce-the-gnp-edited-title/515950.md?page=2)