Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in Relatively Awesome

Re: Relatively Awesome

kevin quinn — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:41:25 -0000

If you believe that the top of the corporate hierarchy is filled with people living joylesss existences and the bottom is occupied by free-spirited Wesleyan graduates, you've been at Cato too long!

Re: Relatively Awesome

Will Wilkinson — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:07:03 -0000

You suppose a graduate of Wesleyan (#10 USNWR liberal arts college)is supposed to represent "the poor and powerless?" Or does my tin ear prevent me from grasping your subtle joke.

Re: Relatively Awesome

kevin quinn — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 14:02:52 -0000

This is *The onion*, people. This is a spoof of the idea that the poor and powerless are really rich in what money can't buy - a perennial plank in the apologia for obscene inequality. Have you all ears of tin?

Re: Relatively Awesome

kevin quinn — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 14:02:51 -0000

Re: Relatively Awesome

david — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 11:12:31 -0000

While I don't 100% agree with Rick, I think it pays
to consider that while Braxton is happy now, it is
not certain that his current choices will allow him
to be happy for another 10 years or 20 years. What
should we optimize: happiness right NOW, or happiness
over lifespan? I have no answer, it's just a question.
Second comment is that Braxton may very well have
considerable parental monetary support. It's hard to
say, but we cannot say with any certainty that this
anecdotal article reveals much. He may be free-riding
in more ways than one.

Re: Relatively Awesome

josh — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:39:12 -0000

Matt,

I suppose Russianpoets are for Russian people, but probably not for Haitian people. They only get obscure Haitian poets.

Re: Relatively Awesome

Matt — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:35:28 -0000

But isn't part of the joke that Braxton isn't really rich (monetarily), and that he's chosen a different way of life than pursuing the "fucking brass ring"? Is your point that he can only make - or have that choice - in a land of plenty? I'm not completely sure I buy that. (Aren't obscure Russian poets also for obscure (poor) Russian people?)

Re: Relatively Awesome

Will Wilkinson — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:46:17 -0000

Rick, See my reply to Ezra just posted. Nearly nihilist? That people are able to make choices about the kind of life they want and take responsibility for it? You're being silly.

Re: Relatively Awesome

Will Wilkinson — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:39:56 -0000

Matt, Yeah. We're free-riders. In good societies, the cost of internalizing all the benefits from production are prohibitive, so everyone gets a ton of stuff for free. Free-rider is often used pejoratively, but I mean it here as a good thing.

Re: Relatively Awesome

Rick Perlstein — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:53:28 -0000

All well and good. Until Braxton wants to have a child, let alone move into the kind of neighborhood with good enough schools for his son or daughter to qualify for a liberal arts degree (see Robert Frank). If Braxton is among the tiny fraction of Americans whose wellbeing can be vouchsafed living like a graduate student well into middle age - I'm part of that fraction myself - fine. Otherwise, this post is radically glib, quite nearly nihilist.

Re: Relatively Awesome

Matt — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:35:57 -0000

Sure, overall abundance is important, but if the free-riding charge is correct, then aren't you and me free-riders, too? (Or is the point that anyone who takes a job and then doesn't work hard - to some sufficient degree - is free-riding on the labor of others?)