Does money make you mean?

[Benko]

'We ran a study conducted on UC berkeley campus"

So the population of the UC Berkeley campus is representative of the population in general?? 

So how 18-22 years old act is representative of the population in general?

[dualstow]

Before I watch the video, I just want to say this:

People who don't have much money seem to be extremely generous with it. With other people's money, that is.

[dragoncar]

I hate TED talks cause nobody ever posts an executive summary.  At least now they have easily accessible transcripts.

[Benko]

I see that point, but I would use it in a different way: If a bunch of hippie commies from Berkeley turn into elitist overlords when given a few monetary advantages, what does that predict for the rest of society? 

Firstly the terms hippy/commies accurately refers mostly to people in 50s and older.  I don't believe that those terms are representative of most people in college today.

"what does that predict for the rest of society? "
Implicit in that question is that assumption that the people of Berkeley are as good as or better than the rest of the population.  WHy do you assume that?

[Tyler]

So let me get this straight -- this is a wealthy professor speaking to a wealthy TED talks crowd in the wealthiest county in the country about a study of wealthy entitled kids in an outrageously wealthy city about how money makes you mean.

Funny how none of these people ever have any sense of self awareness.

[Benko]

I see that point, but I would use it in a different way: If a bunch of hippie commies from Berkeley turn into elitist overlords when given a few monetary advantages, what does that predict for the rest of society? 

Firstly the terms hippy/commies accurately refers mostly to people in 50s and older.  I don't believe that those terms are representative of most people in college today.

"what does that predict for the rest of society? "
Implicit in that question is that assumption that the people of Berkeley are as good as or better than the rest of the population.  WHy do you assume that?

I didn't intend to imply that people from Berkeley are superior to the rest of the population.  My view of the campus is that it's a very left-wing place, less focused on making money than other more mainstream campuses.  I'm no expert on the place though, so I'll quit trying to describe it.

My bad for inferring things which you did not mean.  I'll just say then then for any study the results of the study don't necessarily generalize to other populations.

[Benko]

I'd have to see details of the rest of the studies but it occurs to me that I would be concerned that you are not seeing unbiased presentations of data, but merely more brainwashing because e.g. "everyone knows rich people are evil.".

THere are also whopping confounding variables.

Personally I'd love for someone to conduct a study:  send out a questionnaire asking how they are treated by their employers to 100 or 1000 people each who work for:

A.  Rich liberals
B.  Rich conservatives. 

[ns2]

I lasted about 30 seconds as my instincts told me I was about to get a heavy dose of Marxist ideology. I went back and gave it another chance,  however, clicking to the end to get the summary and at least he wasn't calling for a massive redistribution of wealth at the point of a gun - just kinder and gentler re-education camps like they have at UC Berkely, I guess.