It isn't important to me what anyone is born with. What matter is what they choose to do with their gift. The gift could take the form of a rare talent, beauty, intellect, athleticism, natural grit/perseverance, or it can simply be an inherited trust fund. Trust fund kids are gifted, and so are a lot of other wealthy people. The world is better if people use their gifts in the best way.
Wisdom is about understanding what the best way is. People are not born wise even if people are born with gifts.
Thoughts?
I think in the context of what you are saying, it would depend on what the individual trust fund kid did with the money. If they become another Paris Hilton, they are not gifted, just selfish with a severe need to get attention. It is possible however, they could use their trust fund to do something productive. To help make the world a better place. I have heard of a few that did just that, but you hear more about the attention seekers.
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Paris Hilton runs businesses and has done some good things. I think her reputation based on what she did in her 20s should not follow her for life.
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Why should the rich and famous be treated differently than the common person. If we make mistakes, they follow us for the rest of our lives by preventing us from getting certain jobs, not being able to purchase a house and so many other ways to penalize us. Should they get preferential treatment simply because they have a trust fund? One of the big problems I see with our world is we idolize people based on nothing more than the amount of money they have. It doesn't matter how they got their money. Whether it was given to them or from taking advantage of slave wages being paid to desperate people in other countries. I rarely idolize anyone. But when I do, it is because of the work they have done to make the world a better place, not what they have done to make themselves richer.
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Interesting that we are usually more tolerant towards being intellectually gifted than being gifted with a trust fund.
We feel like having to work hard is a filter for desirable attributes like grit and determination. But intellectual giftedness makes you not have to work as hard at cognitive tasks.
Perhaps a reason we accord higher status to the intellectually gifted rather than the financially gifted is because we suspect they contribute more usefully to society.
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Who is "we"? I don't see higher status given to the intellectually gifted at all. Where did you get this data?
Plenty of people on Steemit are intellectually gifted but cannot even legally invest in a crowd fund because they aren't a sophisticated investor.
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Status is probably the wrong term to use for this (it can mean multiple things). The form of status given to intellectual accomplishment (or potential) is much more idealized than the form of status given to people whose parents were rich.
A person with lots of money has raw power and hence "dominance" type of status, but there is what could be called "prestige" from being known as a genius. Genius (including mental traits like charisma and skills like acting, music, arts, etc) is more often seen as in the category of earned traits like hard work. At least, that is my impression of the general consensus. Haven't tried to verify with in depth research or statistics, so beware the usual bubble effects etc. It could be US specific or subculture specific -- class means something different in India or the UK, for example.
Consider that the role of a trust fund kid (without being given additional information about the person apart from that description) is to spend money, whereas that of a genius is to contribute in unique ways (in fact, they are expected to to so in order to gain money).
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Most poor people I know would rather be rich than have a Phd. I don't know who you are around that would rather be the homeless person with multiple Phds.
People who are known to be geniuses in my experience just get exploited more. Same with people who are physically pretty or people who are athletes or people who can make good music. These people get exploited in various industries and while people on the outside looking in do want to be like them it is almost a credulous envy in a way.
A lot of artists, geniuses, die broke, homeless, without any true friends. A lot of famous people don't have any privacy ever. This isn't to say that people born wealthy don't have similar hardships too but the point I'm making is that people do look up to success but not everyone wants the prestige. In fact I would even argue that it's not so common to want the prestige in certain cultures which may explain why you see a lot of Nobel prize winners from some cultures more than others.
Yes winning a Nobel prize is prestigious and a lot of people want that. A lot of people also want to make millions of dollars. And I don't think more people want a Nobel prize than want to make millions.
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Well, that's not something I recall claiming. I concur that most people would prefer to live a comfortable or at least tolerable life instead of being homeless, to a degree that would override a lot of other considerations including obtaining a degree. I've dropped out of college to work a job personally, so I definitely see this.
As to preferring to be very rich instead of having a degree, a big part of the charm of being rich is that you can then afford to get a degree. Most people who are rich seem to get degrees. It boosts their social standing among other rich people and lets them select more fulfilling careers.
I also think people do sometimes prefer status over money, hence the oversaturation of the fiction market, and why people often pursue humanities/liberal arts degrees instead of profitable ones like STEM or business. The "starving artist" sterotype exemplifies this.
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You make good points. Although I do think people want both status and money a lot of the time. Yes I would say there are people who choose status over money and so choose high status low money career paths.
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The role of a trust fund kid is to be an investor in the future (spend money wisely).
By the way you are completely right about the perception of "earned traits". People who are born with the traits to be able to be conscientious are the sort of people who are perceived as "hard working" but this conscientiousness is also a born gift just like any other talent. It's not something people create from reading a lot of books but is a personality trait which means it's part talent at least in my opinion.
I don't see conscientious people as somehow having earned their trait any more than a tall or short person earned theirs, or a person with a short temper earned theirs, it's just a trait. What matters is how they choose to use it. Also hard work or conscientiousness is actually a very common trait, but to be truly gifted at it simply means it came natural. Perhaps people who aren't born with the natural gift to be able to focus and be conscientious are earning it even more if they manage to overcome their natural state to achieve goals.
But do I think earning something vs being a gift matters? At the end of the day you control certain resources and your traits either are used well to your benefit and to the benefit of others or they aren't. A person born with grit, conscientiousness, high ability to deal with stress, all gifts which fit into the beauty standard of the current culture where the "hard worker" is valued but it 's still a beauty standard of the current culture and not of all cultures during all times in history.
References
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Children are gifted no matter how they are they are special in their own ways
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I think it matters of the context
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Everyone is gifted but not everyone uses it the right way. :)
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I believe we are all born with certain gifts. Some of us are fortunate enough to be born in an environment which cultivates those gifts. Also, not all gifts are valued equally in this world. For example, the gifts of the most skilled football players are valued far more highly than the gifts of the most skilled lacrosse players.
I like the photo of the young Samuel Reshevsky playing simultaneous chess with those older masters. It is a pity he never won the world title.
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Each person's gifts are theirs to do with what they will. We can say what we like but each person makes that choice. I Know some that have been born with money and status that do nothing but sit online talking about "morts" and other words I have no desire to get the "real meaning" of..it is obviously meaning "no money person" in some way and I no longer interact with them as I find their words empty. They DID grow up with a silver spoon and also chose not to use any gifts to their maximum or even to a thimbleful. To me, that is a waste of life and also, a waste of the person who originally made all that money in the beginnings time and effort as well. There is one thing to note though. Consciousness/self awareness comes through grace, not a wallet and not even through what we know as "hard work"...and so, maybe we just have to wait for some to wake up. I am not one to judge...just commentary.
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You're using the terms "gifted" and "privileged" as though they're interchangeable.
In this context, a "gift" i.e. natural talent or ability, can't be inherited, while privilege, "having special rights, advantages, or immunities" almost always is.
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