For those who watched the movie, I found the ending interesting. I won't spoil it for everyone else, but Bong Joon-ho made his perspective unambiguous: he's not a believer in social mobility in Korea.
6 of the top 10 Forbes list in Korea are self-made; the other 4 inherited their wealth. In contrast, 10 out of top 10 are self-made in the US. There are better metrics to compare social mobility (this one was convenient!), but scanning down the Korea list, it's clear the tech boom provided opportunities for entrepreneurs to build wealth in Korea, but most of the wealth is still held by descendants of the big conglomerates (Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Lotte, etc.).
While Parasite is hit in the US, the perspective that it's impossible for basement dwellers to make it to nice mansions may be true in Korea, but it doesn't seem to be the case in the US.
I think social mobility from poverty to middle class is more relevant to most people than mobility from millionaire to billionaire class. According to The Global Social Mobility Report 2020 [1] South Korea has higher level of social mobility than United States.
As a metric, "social mobility" does not mean what most people intuit it means. Someone who, in real PPP terms from the same base, doubles their income may be wildly "socially mobile" in one country and not in the other, even though their absolute outcome is identical. This is because it is a function of income distribution which varies widely and is partly a function of country size.
Many people who are "socially mobile" in a country with compressed income ranges, like Denmark, will be objectively worse off economically (PPP) than many people who are not "socially mobile" in a country with wide income ranges, like the US. Income distributions need to be similar for social mobility comparisons.
Most people readily prefer a "non-socially mobile" increase in income if it is greater in absolute PPP terms than smaller "socially mobile" income increases. In these comparison cases, which are not uncommon, there is literally no benefit to being "socially mobile" in a country with compressed income ranges.
Bill Gates had rich parents, who bought a computer for his private school (ok maybe that's an urban legend, but Wikipedia says: When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers' Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the students.).
Lot's of people have rich parents (think, for example about the members of the House of Saud). How many of those raise to Bill Gates' level of excellence? He co-wrote a paper [1] as an undergraduate in a top mathematics journal. The algorithm he co-authored remained the best algorithm for its domain for 30 years.
As I
used to notice this reaction in myself, and I've been trying to avoid it, I find it interesting to reflect on psychological/social function of the "but he had rich parents" reaction that successful children of the well-off get. HNs guidelines ask us "[p]lease don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work", and I wonder if this also applies to Gates.
GP was pointing out that Gates wasn't entirely "self-made", as suggested by GGP. Gates in fact enjoyed opportunities that aren't available to the average American and is therefore not a particularly good example of social mobility. Pointing out that he enjoyed a degree of privilege doesn't diminish his achievements.
Gates probably at least 1000x-ed his parents wealth. By just about any measure that's being self-made, as the GGP correctly pointed out. If 1000x-ing doesn't count as self-made exactly what meaningful measure of self-madeness and social mobility do you propose?
degree of privilege doesn't diminish
Privilege is a vague term that has become a term of political abuse
and has ceased to be analytically useful, I recommend to avoid it. For example, does anyone who uses it bother to quantify privilege,
after all we all stand on the shoulders of giants? How is the modern use of the term privilege useful, given the vastly different outcomes of the children of the rich? As I said, not every child of upper middle class families become Gates/Zuck ...
My inner Nietzsche smells ressentiment here.
His parents had a few million dollars but he started microsoft off of a version of a very optimized version of basic he wrote. He amassed 80 billion dollars and became the richest person on earth. Paul Allen and Steve Balmer became multi billionaires as well. I don't even know that he used all his parents money to do that. How many people are able to start a company. It's the equivalent of putting in 1000 dollars and building a 100 million dollar company. Saying that isn't 'self made' is delusional.
Looking at billionaires who came from well-to-do middle class is not quite the same as looking at social mobility of the poor. I don't think any of the Forbes top 10 started out as Parasite-style basement dwellers. There's undoubtedly some exceptions, but in general poor in the US have very little social mobility. They get stuck in debt and shitty jobs.
Usually mobility doesn't happen in one generation but like 2-3. A poor person managed to get middle class or upper middle class and their children then are in prime position to make another jump.
If you just look at the Top 20% you can see how people drop into and out of it over generations.
So, garbage man to millionaire, is pretty rare if your grand father was a garbage man from Korea in the 70s your life now is probably comparable to most people from the US.
Korea is a highly hierarchical, relationship-driven society on top of the extreme competition. It's increasingly a place where you need the perfect marks + the right family background + some starting money to get anywhere.
In practice, it's almost impossible to really climb in society and unfortunately this situation is describing more and more the US as well...
> the perspective that it's impossible for basement dwellers to make it to nice mansions may be true in Korea, but it doesn't seem to be the case in the US.
None of the top 10 american billionaires came from the basement. They all came from wealthy or upper middle class families with professional parents.
> it's impossible for basement dwellers to make it to nice mansions
Did we watch the same movie? The contrast between two families depicted on screen, their woth ethic and simple human morals is so stark that it seems even more right-wing than I am. I don't believe that there's a social justice to be achieved in society as a whole, but as you watch the movie (especially the later part), I can't imagine how could you possibly sympathize with the poor family.
The director has mentioned that the rich family were also parasites, although you're right, maybe he didn't make their parasitic behavior explicit enough. Although some examples I noticed:
- They got rid of their loyal, long-serving, housekeeper instead of caring that she's sick/supporting her through it.
- They "forced" their helpers to show up on Sunday.
- When the driver (the poor dad) was reluctant to run around as a Native American, the rich dad showed anger and said "You're getting paid extra for this!".
On the topic of work ethic, I didn't really see the rich dad or the mom working hard, the mom doesn't even work! Just like many of us in this forum, the dad probably got lucky to end up in a high-paying position, luck doesn't mean work ethic!
> They got rid of their loyal, long-serving, housekeeper instead of caring that she's sick/supporting her through it.
From their point of view, she hid her very contagious and dangerous sickness from them and knowingly endangered them and their children with tuberculosis just to keep her job. What kind of loyalty is that?
> They "forced" their helpers to show up on Sunday.
I watched the movie in September, so I must admit, I don't remember that part really well, but then you're quote the phrase...
> "You're getting paid extra for this!".
...which means, they're paid overtime - so, while outright forcing someone to come out on a weekend is a bad thing to do, it's not even unpaid overtime (which is so common, unfortunately). And it's certainly not even in the same league as literal murder.
> On the topic of work ethic, I didn't really see the rich dad ... working hard
I think it's obvious he's not in the position where he has to work hard - it's working smart that counts.
> the mom doesn't even work!
That's dad's decision - he earned his money, and he decided (for better or for worse) that he wants to provide for his wife. Many (me included) would not take this decision even if we had the resources, but everyone has the freedom to do whatever with the money they earned.
> Just like many of us in this forum, the dad probably got lucky to end up in a high-paying position, luck doesn't mean work ethic!
I can't judge you personally, but I've seen many other talented software engineers and other tech workers come to the same conclusions after they've been in the bubble too long. They got accustomed to level of intelligence and abstract thinking of their social group and naturally assume that all the other people are basically the same. I don't think that they realize what the "outer world" and people who inhabit it are really like. (I grew up pretty poor in not a particuarly elite neighbourhood of Moscow during a decade-long economic and system crysis, and my opinion of the "proletariat" is based on a very intimate first-hand experience).
> You're probably a believer in the meritocracy
No, not quite - I'm not a believer in any kind of system or a systematic truth about this, not the meritoracy, nor the opposite.
Given the bulk of a median American household's wealth is tied to the equity of their primary residence, it would be interesting to see how these returns stack an investment in a single family residential home.
I imagine it would be difficult to parse out home improvements and so forth, but it would be a comparison that more people to could relate to given the average person doesn't buy T-bills and such.
2. Traffic isn't fungible. Reddit is one of the most viewed websites in the world (top 10?) and roughly yet makes as much money in a year as Facebook does in an hour.
>...deal point has been a new and unwelcome surprise to potential buyers of the company, many said. The remaining bidders only recently got details of search deals that Yahoo has struck.
Given $YHOO price hasn't moved materially this week, it seems likely that the market (including potential buyers) was aware of the Mozilla deal and priced it in.
Having worked at LG for 3 yrs, I'm skeptical this change will come easy. But 'cultural change' is almost always mandated from the top even at US tech startups. From Amazon to Zappos, culture is set by CEO.
Like most disruptive technologies, it's not quite clear why Bitcoin / blockchain are better than incumbents, namely credit cards / centralized databases.
At Purse, we use blockchain escrows to unlock value from Amazon gift card balances. This was previously impossible (gift card exchanges can't transact Amazon), and the liquidity premium powers the discount. Escrows and other complex transactions are difficult using traditional payment systems, and we believe that they can be applied more broadly to many other markets.
Ok, so if I understand you correctly, there are some people who have gift cards and want cash. They're willing to take a substantial hit to do that. And a quick Google search shows that there are plenty of people in that business. But your unique angle is that other exchanges can't handle Amazon cards. Could you say more about why, and how Bitcoin makes that different for you?
purse.io's UI emphasizes the discounts you can get, by having a slider from 0% - 50% when you put in your wishlist. They claim they're just matchmaking with a buyer really interested in Bitcoin, but really, there's no way that 50% discounts on Amazon would ever happen, unless it's money laundering or CC fraud. And even then, 20% is really skeptical.
FoldApp seems to just be subsidizing purchases with VC money for adoption. It doesn't seem to be going well.
So the UI allows users to set a discount rate, similar to the way you set a limit order on etrade or Name Your Price on Priceline. I can place an order to buy AAPL for $100 or bid to stay in a 5 star hotel for $10. Doesn't mean they will get filled.
But they will be filled. By people who are very eager to cash out of some stolen credit cards or need some dirty money in someone else's hands. And, bonus points, in a way that makes the transaction irreversible.
Or, more likely, someone will jump in front of that request for 50% and ask for 45%. Then 40%, then 30, then 20 and then 8%. It's a market.
I do agree, though, that those very high discounts should be a red flag, if they're for any serious money. Stuff for $5 with a 50% discount is no big deal if someone just wants ot be rid of a card and doesn't mind losing a couple bux, which they'd end up paying in fees buying BTC anyway.
German police searched a house and seized stuff for months in one case[1], Amazon reversed gift credit in another[2].
Obviously this is no proof that fraud is rampant, but I still lean toward thinking fraud is too likely for me to want to be involved with using purse.io, especially if I wanted a good deal (big discount = more likely it's a carder cashing out a stolen card.) If nothing else these stories show there's a small chance you might get burned pretty badly. Has anything significantly changed to remove or lessen the risk?
Restrictions on buyers (unverified users are limited, 6 levels), social verification, behavior analytics (sift science), among others. User was made whole, police dropped the case, and we introduced $10,0000 guarantee. Not an excuse, but we were a team of 2 when that transaction happened, and it was 3 months after we started while we were in an accelerator.
6 of the top 10 Forbes list in Korea are self-made; the other 4 inherited their wealth. In contrast, 10 out of top 10 are self-made in the US. There are better metrics to compare social mobility (this one was convenient!), but scanning down the Korea list, it's clear the tech boom provided opportunities for entrepreneurs to build wealth in Korea, but most of the wealth is still held by descendants of the big conglomerates (Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Lotte, etc.).
While Parasite is hit in the US, the perspective that it's impossible for basement dwellers to make it to nice mansions may be true in Korea, but it doesn't seem to be the case in the US.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/korea-billionaires/list/#tab:overall
[2] https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/#b6d49ad7e2ff