[earthscienceman]

You see, the thing is, it's deeply classist. It's also misplaced outrage. The poors have been doing this for millenia and we still have a society that progresses rapidly and much of the heavy lifting that moves us forward is done by folks you and others here are denigrating. If they believe the things you disparage it's because the governments and systems that the "smart" and wealthy have created have utterly failed at getting those people educated and involved.

Using your education to feel better than others doesn't serve us to advance as a society. I suggest that if you're as smart as you think you are then you find a way to frame the issue such that you're lifting up those people and not punching down.

[mason55]

> If they believe the things you disparage it's because the governments and systems that the "smart" and wealthy have created have utterly failed at getting those people educated and involved.

I think the issue is that there are two groups of smart & wealthy people.

There's a mid-level of people who are happy to have more than they need and don't have the Machiavellian drive to extract every last ounce of money and power.

And there's an upper-level who are fine exploiting anyone and everything.

There are of course altruistic people who are extremely wealthy. But sort of by definition, the middle-level is never going to have the drive & energy to fight that upper-level, who's willing to do anything.

I guess my point is that there are two groups of smart & wealthy people, and the ones complaining about the lower class being exploited are not the ones who are doing the exploiting. It's a classic setup where the upper class keeps the middle class happy enough to not make it worth the middle class joining the lower class in revolution. And they aim the ire of the lower class at the middle class while they exploit the lower class.

[pixl97]

I'm pretty sure it was Mondays episode of the Daily Show that covered this pretty well in the intro. There are a lot of different groups out there, but the rich and greedy group does seem to lock up a huge amount of resources and propaganda.

[parpfish]

yeah, the classism in the "poor/uneducated people are having too many kids!" always has this assumption that class and values are perfectly presevred across generations and ignores the social mobility and the fact that children are capable of making their own path and not just following in their footsteps.

children raised in big families by uneducated, closed-minded parents often rebel against their parents and espouse different views. just look at any subreddit that has youths are complaining about the backwards views of the parents/uncles/grand-parents -- i know it's not a representative sample, but children challenging their elders views is not an anomaly.

on the flipside, there's the trope of only children raised being raised by high-class, open-minded families turning into spoiled, selfish brats.

[vel0city]

Of the big households I've personally experienced that most would consider closed-minded parents might have a few of their kids complaining about the backwards views, but not necessarily the majority of the kids. I'd be interested in seeing some actual statistics other than assuming the people ranting on reddit about their families are the majority of that population.

The kids who agree with their closed-minded parents probably aren't going online to rant about it.

[parpfish]

yeah, that's why i said it wasn't a representative sample.

the subreddit threads don't prove that these views are a majority, just that they are a non-zero proportion.

[kelipso]

But then you say "children raised in big families by uneducated, closed-minded parents often rebel against their parents and espouse different views". So non-zero proportion becomes often...

[coffeebeqn]

The idiocracy thesis supposes that children will mirror their parents behavior and beliefs. As a former teenager and a parent that is very much not the likeliest outcome. It’s also on the wider society to lift all the kids to roughly a level playing field

[danbruc]

The poors have been doing this for millenia [...]

Why the poor? And is poor the correct label or is this just strongly correlated with the actual reason? In the past children were desirable as sources of additional income and for support at old age, is this still relevant? Otherwise it seems that you would want fewer children if you are poor because they obviously come with additional costs. Is it the cost of contraceptives or abortions instead of a deliberate choice? If it is not poverty directly but worse education because of poverty, how exactly would that work? How much education do you need to realize that additional children will cause additional costs? What other mechanisms are there? In the end it will probably be a mix of factors, but the phenomenon seems more complex than it looks like at first glance.