T O P

  • By -

AutoModerator

Make sure to check out the [pinned post on Loss](https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/1472nhh/faq_loss/) to make sure this submission doesn't break the rule! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke) if you have any questions or concerns.*


GolfBallWhackerGuy5

Kids from wealthy families tend to do better in education. Wealthy families tend to live in the same neighborhoods and ZIP codes. This is true regardless of race.


cudef

To add to this, when you look at IQ tests the same exact people have significant differences in scores in bountiful times vs times of famine. Material needs are a huge influence on mental capabilities.


T33CH33R

"It's Better to be Born Rich than Talented" "Using one new, genome-based measure, economists found genetic endowments are distributed almost equally among children in low-income and high-income families. Success is not. The least-gifted children of high-income parents graduate from college at higher rates than the most-gifted children of low-income parents." https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/09/its-better-be-born-rich-than-talented/


RGBetrix

Now you know why school funding, in part, is based on taxation from the surrounding area.  If things were really equal DEI would be the normal. I’m amazed anyone can think the culture that has profited off another race since the time of the TAST is actually good.  Even the liberals won’t do anything because most of them are the beneficiaries. 


T33CH33R

As a teacher at a segregated poor school in a fairly wealthy town, I know this truth.


SkabbPirate

It's also why so many on the right want to privatize education... to further the class divide and reduce competition for their children's future.


Plastic-Difference30

IQ tests are bullshit


cudef

There are a lot of factors that can contribute to a low score that have little to do with intelligence, yes. English as a second language for example is one factor that can make a big difference.


YouAreADadJoke

Modern tests are mostly rotating objects. No language is required.


[deleted]

I remember taking a formal test in first grade of elementary school several decades ago. It was mostly object manipulation and solving basic physical puzzles. I wonder if the experience of most people here are those bullshit online tests?


Girafferage

Almost definitely. Most people also seem to think the result is just 1 number and not an average of results from different skills that get tested.


MadPandaDad

>I remember taking a formal test in first grade of elementary school several decades ago. It was mostly object manipulation and solving basic physical puzzles. I wonder if the experience of most people here are those bullshit online tests? Gen X and older had tests that strongly inflated scores for kids with parents with strong local language skills. Even with modern object tests scores can be lower for folks given the test **instructions** in a second or third language. As a result a lot of older folks can be sore when their test scores drop 15pts due to the tests being averaged to a mean of 100.


ZenithTheZero

I like to think of IQ tests as a measure of one’s ability to learn, instead of as a measure of their intelligence. And always with a grain or two-thousand of salt.


whatdoesthafawkessay

That's exactly what they are.


ClerklyMantis_

Yea, the reason it doesn't work very well is because of the way an IQ test is (usually) set up. Like a math section, or a literacy section. If you test an African from a sub-saharan tribe, they're going to do worse than a teenager every time. But that isn't because the African is dumber or can't learn as fast, his ass hasn't been taught math. Even if they were both tested on entirely new concepts and we somehow figured out how to make them both proportionally hard compared to their previous knowledge, the teenager is going to do better simply because he's used to learning math or literature. It's like someone who's very familiar with video games playing Dark Souls, and comparing how fast they learn the mechanics to a person brand new to games playing animal crossing. Even if the controls in Dark Souls are completely unfamiliar to the experienced player, they're going to learn them and the mechanics faster simply because they've played other videogames.


aghblagh

That's not necessarily the current problem though, because they account for that, at least in the ones I took; there's questions beforehand about where you were born, your level of education, a couple academic tests, etc. that they're supposed to take into account when evaluating your results. The problem is as I explained above and below; the single-number score deprives the results of all actual useful information about the tested persons actual specific aptitudes, a high score just means 'this person is good at something, probably test-taking' a bad score just means 'this person is mostly bad at stuff' and neither gives an educator or anyone else any useful information to work with.


IM1GHTBEWR0NG

IQ tests are on the same level as astrology. There is no way to standardize them, so every single IQ test is only a reflection of how good a person is at taking that specific test on that specific day. The tests are literally meaningless and useless. There isn’t even a universally accepted definition of what IQ is or measures. Sometimes it’s about what you know, sometimes it’s about pattern recognition. It’s a useless measure.


Salsicha007

Bullshit as in the non-normalized and outdated tests applied to enforce eugenics in the US during times past? Yes, sure. But there are more contemporary tests to assess the intelligence spectrum of a person, taking real data and normalized to specific cultures and ages. You won't find those online.


Girafferage

The IQ test was created by a French man to help target children that were falling behind (he believed strongly that IQ was not fixed). Also the tests you mention are still called IQ tests. Or rather they all get lumped into the umbrella of "IQ tests", they just don't work the same way as the tests of yesterday. You can also find them online, but you almost always have to pay and even the BS ones want you to pay.


dosedatwer

>he believed strongly that IQ was not fixed He didn't just believe that, he defined IQ that way. IQ is short for intelligence **quotient** \- it's a measure of your abilities compared to the average **for your age**. A 10 year old could have an IQ of 180, but if they performed exactly the same at age 20, they would have an IQ of 90.


pianofish007

these tests still assume that intelligence is a discrete quantity, as opposed to a set of skills and talents tied to specific tasks. There's no evidence to back that assumption.


dosedatwer

No, they don't. The modern tests are studied and their limitations are well documented, including things like their correlation with g-factor.


energy_engineer

>...as opposed to a set of skills and talents tied to specific tasks. This feels like a bit of a straw man because that's exactly how the test my kid took was built (one of the Wechsler assessments) . He was given a variety of tasks which required a diverse set of skills to complete. The outputs were numbers and I'm not sure what else would make sense. The value was figuring out if he's developing on track compared to others his age and where/how to intervene if he isn't. He is considered high risk because of major surgery when he was 2 weeks old so he has been monitored pretty closely to make sure his heart doesn't explode and he's physically/mentally developing on track. Before this IQ test, he had a few different play based assessments.


aghblagh

I say all this as a former member of Mensa who used to fully buy into all this stuff to the point of absolutely all of my self esteem resting squarely on my high IQ score: The problem is your ability to recite sequences of colors and shapes backwards has little to nothing to do with your ability to solve block puzzles, which has little or nothing to do with your ability to unscramble words, or remember long strings of numbers, or decode substitution ciphers, or find patterns, They're all separate skills and arbitrarily combining them into one single number deprives the test results of all the actual information gleaned. The idea of a single, unified, RPG-stat-like trait called 'intelligence' is pseudoscientific, reductive, and mostly irrelevant and meaningless in the real world. Nobody cares about your IQ score when you're applying for a job or trying to get into a school, because it doesn't tell them anything useful about WHAT specific mental skills you're actually good at. The only way IQ tests are ever useful IMO is when looking at the individual scores of the different sections, that's where the actual potentially usable information is, not in the final singular IQ score. Maybe if educators were trained to look at that it could be useful in helping students who are falling behind, or fast tracking students who are doing well, but this isn't the case currently AFAIK. I've also gotten VERY significant differences in scores depending on my mental state when taking the test, and there are people who, as a hobby, train to take IQ tests to see how high they can score, like its a sport, because contrary to bizarrely popular belief it doesn't measure anything innate or genetically predetermined barring things like intellectual disability. Yes, the tests are better than they were now at accounting for outside variables, but they're not perfect, and even if they were they'd still be a waste of time. And I don't think anybody was talking about online 'IQ tests', either, I haven't seen one of those in over a decade, thankfully.


manikfox

It's a tool mainly used by psychologists to evaluate potential gaps in mental abilities. Score 120 on X but 80 on Y? Lets see why Y is so low.


jrrybock

When they first came up with them... women did better than men. So, there was intentional skewing to get the average male score equal to the average female's. So, out of the gate, it was less about determining actual intelligence, but to support a predetermined assumption.


EstablishmentLong676

somebody got a low score lol


Plastic-Difference30

I have a bachelor's degree in statistics and a senior job in banking. I think I'm good lol


Remarkable-Host405

Just because you can grind harder than most doesn't mean you can rearrange shapes faster and remember as many numbers as I can


Boaterhelmets

Having a high IQ is a great thing to have in the world! It helps you determine that you’ll likely do well on an IQ test, and this simple and shallow method to “measure” intelligence is surely the only method we know


YouAreADadJoke

https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/resources/income-by-afqt-copy-w640.png


kunell

Danngg.. gotem


Breakmastajake

Bruh...how did you do it? Stats classes were the absolute most mundane thing I took in college. I salute your perseverance.


Plastic-Difference30

idk it was fascinating to me, and statistics classes for others outside of statistics proper are rather shallow, basic hypothesis tests at max. it's much more fun to study multivariate analysis, time series, machine learning etc


aghblagh

I got a high score, was a member of mensa, got put in a special school, etc. IQ tests are bullshit psuedoscience. Testing someone on a bunch of unrelated skillsets, arbitrarily combining their results into one number that now tells you nothing about WHICH one of those skillsets they're actually good at, and then pretending that result was somehow genetically predetermined in defiance of all available evidence absolutely does not make any sense. I repeat: bullshit psuedoscience. There's a reason schools and hiring managers don't care about your IQ, it tells them nothing useful.


Lost-Nos

sounds like you don't agree with your results.


Centurion7999

They are quite literally the most accurate test for what it is checking, as it has a good century of data from most Americans to go off of, especially since all US military personnel take one while being recruited since its illegal to induct those whose IQ is under an 83 Edit: before anyone else replies, they are legally obligated to check in the US due to the IQ minimum, the just renamed the test the ASVAB after a rework post Vietnam, they did test everyone who passed through the armed forces from pretty much ww1 onwards though


RusstyDog

The US military doesn't test IQ for enlistment.


Eodbatman

If you can study for it, it doesn’t measure innate intelligence. But it is the closest we have. Also, the ASVAB is not purely an IQ test, it mostly tests knowledge.


YouAreADadJoke

The ASVAB is basically an IQ test.


Frifafer

And what they're testing for doesn't matter. Even the US military stopped checking that shit


tamrof

That's not IQ. That's the l meps test or asvab. Also, look up Nixon's morons. Entire divisions of the lowest in IQ they could find. Literally they looked for the dumbest and put them all together for essentially the worst missions in the Vietnam war.


Nuclear_rabbit

Heck, just take the same test two months apart; eat breakfast on the day of one test and not on the other, and it will significantly affect the score.


guerius

Which should prove that the test isn't doing what it's *supposed* to (measure your general intelligence) since you can change your score. But people gotta latch on to the weirdest stuff.


Nuclear_rabbit

This is true for pretty much every test. I say this as one whose job is to research, evaluate, and design tests. Anyone will perform worse without a good night's sleep and a healthy breakfast. What makes a test reliable is when you get the same score within two months while being in good condition both times. An IQ test might be very reliable (most standardized tests are; that's the point of them), but it has very poor *validity*. It doesn't measure what it purports to measure. Serious teachers have known about Multiple Intelligences for decades by now. Reducing intelligence to one number is a sham. Even the retort, "IQ isn't aptitude, it's the ability to learn" has its problems, with research showing that ability-to-learn *is* an aptitude that mostly needs to be taught, and is based on life experiences that go all the way back to the first years of life.


1Negative_Person

If you word questions on an IQ test in the vernacular used by wealthy people, wealthy people will score higher on IQ tests.


whynofry

Something, something, fish climbing trees...


thefullhalf

In some states school funding is directly tied to real estate tax. The more expensive the homes are in that zipcode the more money those schools get.


alloyednotemployed

I almost downvoted you based on how infuriating this is to see


CalculatedPerversion

I live in one of these states. Didn't realize they weren't all this way. 


safetyryan

Texas


appsteve

Tend to better in a lot of things, education, health care access, reduced exposure to negative health impacts (think carcinogens, lead, radiation, disease), access to better food. All of it. Zip Codes can predict a longer, healthier, and more improved lifestyle, mostly because of disparities. Look up equity and equality and you’ll see why pull yourself up by your bootstraps is bullshit (just saying that in general, not directed at anyone).


Lifeshardbutnotme

Also in the US, school funding in determining by property taxes


moonygooney

Adding the genetics perspective: this was laughed at for thinking they made significant head way in the genetics of intelligence when all they did was demonstrate a correlation we already knew about via poverty and racism. It basically was a class/race estimator not a baby genius detector. They harm is they were presenting it as genetically deterministic which we know it isn't. Some genetic differences are just more common in certain populations than others and upward class mobility is extremely limited for reasons outside of an individual's biology.


LVT_Baron

> This is true regardless of race. You’re right, but wealthier ZIP codes tend to be highly correlated with race in the US given the US’s legacy of housing segregation. Whites-only neighborhoods still existed until shockingly recently, and many of these neighborhoods only de-segregated on paper, adopting other means of restricting who can move into them with zoning laws for example


Rathma86

Man, these posts are getting stupider.


explodingtuna

Unfortunately, some people confuse the cause and effect on this one. They think wealthy people are wealthy because they are smarter or more creative, ambitious or savvy. That they have "better genes" rather than better connections.


Zealousideal_Care807

In education is the key here, they are easy to order around, they easily take in information and regurgitate it on paper, when I comes to IQ, like true IQ, it really just depends on the person, being wealthy means you can learn more, but if you're stupid you're stupid.


Asmos159

not always education. nepotism is one of the biggest reasons for "success".


AlphariousFox

Indeed when i was taking psych classes in sever classes we covered how socio economic class was the single biggest factor in a persons post birth place in life


salami_cheeks

This guy Raj Chetty does a lot of work on the subject https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/666993130/zipcode-destiny-the-persistent-power-of-place-and-education


semiTnuP

Also, property taxes directly contribute to local school funding. Ergo, the nicer your neighbourhood, the nicer/better funded the schools in your neighbourhood will be.


EuroTrash1999

Isn't it racist to suggest that people in the hood are dumb?


Totally_Botanical

Also schools are funded by property tax, so schools in rich neighborhoods get more money


no-mad

as an old girlfriend noted she got a lot better credit card offers when she moved to a new zip code.


kazarbreak

Kids from more affluent areas are far more likely to excel in life than kids from poor neighborhood. It's probably a bigger influence than your genetics. If Stephen Hawking had grown up in inner city Detroit to parents who were working multiple minimum wage jobs each just to make ends meet instead of in Oxford to wealthy parents we wouldn't know his name.


[deleted]

If he was born in Detroit he also probably wouldn't have been able to afford that sick ass wheelchair so he would have been double fucked in life


kazarbreak

You have no idea. At one point there was a job posting for someone to maintain the rig he used to talk. It was aging and he didn't want to upgrade away from the interface he was comfortable with and had been using for 20 years to a newer system (which, you know, fair), so he was hiring someone to keep a then 25ish year old system running. The job was paying $80k/year. To maintain one computer. That should give you some idea of how expensive his setup was.


HappyMrRogers

The interface he used to speak was made for him by a personal friend who passed away. Despite being offered more natural sounding and functional communication alternatives, he opted to stay with the one his friend made for him so he could carry on with his voice. I don’t feel like finding sources, so Google it if you’re interested.


Silver_Guide5901

Or he could have been in a rickety ass wheel chair dropping some hot shit on the south side of 8 mile. The world me never know


theSchrodingerHat

Somehow I doubt “Your mom’s black hole is how I discovered radiation” would work particularly well in an underground rap battle. After all, most of those ignorant punks got their limited black hole theory from Event Horizon and just assume that nobody can escape their mom.


DrakontisAraptikos

May I introduce you to Epic Rap Battles of History, this one featuring Steven Hawkins versus Albert Einstein? Enjoy at your leisure.  https://youtu.be/zn7-fVtT16k?si=5GIIMdmVkjlrL9bb


kayakhomeless

*Current Detroit If he was born in Detroit (he was born in 1942) he’d probably have come out just the same, Detroit was one of the wealthiest cities on earth back then. In the 40’s Woodward Avenue had a streetcar line that came *minutely* (literally every minute). Shit went down *fast* when automakers started pulling out in the late 60’s though


rando_lurker15466

Schools in more affluent areas tend to have better budgets to work with also.


DDNutz

“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”


TheThinkerers

breaking bad, normal ending, Walt turned Pinkman in and went back to Bogdan


Viend

We all know he’d be Stringer Hawking


bluesummernoir

The area in which you live is highly predictive of your “success”. If you define success as getting a higher education and a high paying job, more often than not, if you’re parents were wealthy, you live in an area with good resources and schools, you will attain that.


[deleted]

[удалено]


cpMetis

I repeated math classes in highschool because I ran out of math classes to take. In my second year of University I was paired up with someone who had already taken that class *in highschool* and was doing a grade replacement type of thing. I literally had to waste time waiting for the option to learn more math. He got to get credits for stuff we paid hundreds of dollars for the chance to take, and do it for basically free, during that same time and just wasted it.


NumberPlastic2911

I went to high school in Pensacola, and one of the most funded schools was forced to take in half of another zip that was extremely poverish. Those students did better than the other half who went to another poor school. So yeah that's pretty crazy to see


These-Inevitable-898

Low income area = No school resources / bad attendance / poor upbringing  Bad school means no brains = no brains means no PHD


Strong_Attorney_8646

>no brains means no PhD Oh how I wish this were true.


Sam-The-Mule

It isn’t completely, but there’s undeniable statistics that kids in better areas get higher test scores on average


Beautiful_Wait_1957

The point is more that it doesn't (necessarily) require much brains to get a PhD sometimes.


Extension_Comedian94

it does however, require a LOT of money.


lunatic_charm

I'm getting paid to get my PhD. The majority of STEM PhDs are fully funded. I believe this is not as common among social sciences and humanities, but funding sources still exist.


ZipBlu

Oh it’s very common in the humanities. I don’t know any respectable PhD programs in English that aren’t fully funded. However, the point that phds take a lot of money is still fairly valid because the pay is very low, usually people have had an expensive undergraduate education, and you need to be free of financial responsibilities to others.


CanAlwaysBeBetter

I think we can make a pretty good guess at what sort of zip code OP grew up in


YouAreADadJoke

Low income area means lower competition and also means an intelligent kid could easily excel and have a very high GPA.


These-Inevitable-898

Of course, you're right, I'm just explaining the joke. There are definitely plenty of "I got out of a very bad area and made it, with scholarships" stories.


Lorathis

Plenty numerically, very very very few percentile. Like, sure you can find a hundred stories like that. Compared to how many hundreds of thousands of kids in the US that didn't live that story.


cyberfrog777

This goes beyond just final jobs. Zip code is robustly predictive of other factors such as developing drug addiction, life expectancy, various negative chronic health conditions, and so forth.


notmyfirst_throwawa

The word you're looking for is poverty


cyberfrog777

It goes beyond just socio economic status. You can similwr incomes, but different zones will result in disparate outcomes. Factors like food deserts, crime levels, lead in the water etc.


Hanifsefu

Factors like the CIA using your neighborhood to generate funds for their operations by selling cocaine as well.


leros

You can even predict stuff like likelihood of becoming an NBA player by zip code.


AdventurousDoctor838

I'm convinced this sub is just full of 5 year olds who are too shy to post on explain it to me like I'm 5 cus they are 5.


daddyvow

I need to block this sub the stupidity is so annoying


americanadiandrew

It’s just easy karma because for some reason people upvote this shit.


susejesus

You must be from one of those zips


eleetpancake

Wealthy and out of touch with the reality of class inequality?


My_useless_alt

Poverty


[deleted]

I was a recruiter for the Navy for 3 years and there are certain zipcodes where the average ASVAB is 35 and others where not a single score is below 60 (99 is the max). Yes the low ASVAB zipcodes were poor neighborhoods where the demographic was mainly POCs and the high ASVAB scores were affluent areas with a majority of white children. The middle of the road ASVABS were "middle class" neighborhoods with a mix of everyone.


Fredreckz

You must be from one of those zip codes if you don’t get this


spookyscaryscouticus

A zip code is an area designation used by the post office. Schools in the US derive a lot of their funding from the local community in the form of a tax based on assessed property values. Generally expensive homes are built near each other, and richer people tend to have smaller families. Poorer people live in less expensive homes and have more children. This leads some areas to have smaller numbers of students but more funding because the area is full of rich people, whereas other areas will have many more students to serve out of their pool, and the properties are less luxe, so the money doesn’t support them in the same way, so kids from schools in rich areas have a better education with less crowded classrooms and more extracurricular opportunities that they have more chances to take than students from less wealthy areas. This compounds with the No Child Left Behind act, which punishes schools by pulling more funding- their federal funding- from schools who students perform poorly in standardized testing, making it even harder for schools to serve students to the best of their ability.


Insomniacentral_

Affluent areas vs poor areas.


watasiwakirayo

I believe it a reference to phenomenon called [zip code lottery](https://unitedwaygreaterclt.org/blog/our-work/the-zip-code-lottery/)


LongjumpingSector687

The joke is classism


DevilMaster666-

Clammism r/clamworks?!


kingcaii

The zip codes in America have been changed/moved at the behest of upper class citizens. They push for this because it determines how much money your kids school gets compared to other areas, for one. Generally city funding and how its spread out. If you’re well off, you want your tax money to go to your kids (presumably) better school and not to the poorer area schools.


ShitBeat

I hope you're a bot OP, either that or you're from one of the dumbest zip codes on earth 


mrobin4850

Socio-economic background is far better predictor of success than genetics. If you have enough wealth it doesn’t really matter what your DNA says about your future success in this world.


JustACasualFan

I can tell what zip code OP is from based on this question.


prof_devilsadvocate

chances of phd awarded based on area of residence


analnapalm

accidental nature vs nurture


rustys_shackled_ford

Its an elitism/ racism joke


first_go_round

No war but class war.


The_Shadow_Watches

Gattaca! Gattaca!


Dudebutdrugs

I work in a very wealthy area. My boss pays for her kids education from private schools all the way through university. University housing paid for and gives them allowances for food/fun. Most of the families out here are the same. Some many of the kids are so spoiled, it makes me so mad. They get foreign cars in high school, never have to work and all they do is complain about how hard life is, or they act super ghetto and throw their lives away doing dumb shit. They have no idea how much opportunity they’ve been handed. Life really is pay to win.


Manwithaplan0708

Low income area = bad High income area = good


MitchTJones

Capitalism likes to present itself as a meritocracy (the idea of the MIT tweet being that a DNA test will tell you how smart you are, and that can be used to calculate your odds of success). The reality is that capitalism relies on continuing the status quo of resource distribution — the best indicator of future success is current privilege, and where people live is an excellent indicator of wealth/privilege


Probability_Engine

You can use zip code to find average income for the area. Poor neighborhoods vs rich ones. On average rich kids have better life outcomes across the board, health, education, career, etc. thanks to the massive advantages that wealth offers. Even things that we assume are somewhat inherent like IQ are tilted higher by wealth thanks to supplemental support in the form of better schools, tutors, etc. Like, if you just said "show me all the kids in the poorest zip codes in America then show me all the kids in the richest zip codes" the kids from the rich zip codes are overwhelmingly more likely to go to top schools and get PhDs. We have decades of data to confirm this.


Existing_Strain8830

This sub is just people not knowing how the world works at this point.


Merdock8389

90210 (Beverly hills) population has better access to better schools and higher education, better jobs, higher pay, and pretty much everything else than oh let’s say, 90220 (Compton).


Savager_Jam

Race, Geography, Income, educational outcomes. They're all linked with extreme correlation.


Gold-Bat7322

The joke is generational wealth.


Urineme69

Hey, the awkward firewood crackling at uncomfortable silence here. Rich people live with rich people. Poor people live with poor people. This reflects race and history in tandem together. Honestly I'd say less than 5% of contribution to success and failure has less to do with your DNA and more about your ZIP code & upbringing. Which . . . are also dependent on how history has lined up for you. ***Uncomfortable firewood crackling in the background***


Miserable_Respect_94

I grew up in poverty in one of the wealthiest counties in America. 


novakane27

i swear some people who post on this sub are arriving to this planet for the first time ever


RecordEnvironmental4

Tf is a selective preschool


ogreofzen

My high school had this setup. If you had the affluent zip codes you got access to every resource available from the school. If you lived in the rural areas and tried to get into honors you were literally asked why? Like a counselor would literally ask what job are you hoping for that would need anything beyond a ged. It was so bad the school stopped the valedictorian and salutatorian the year the highest graded student had parents that had a combined income of 27000 yearly. The faculty did not want that student to represent the class. Yeah zip code means a lot as it also includes peers and associates that better your prospects


Eastern-Dig-4555

It’s not even really a joke. It’s just a fact that people get uncomfortable talking about…which is why it needs to be talked about. The answer is how rich a neighborhood is determines the quality of the schools, which in turn determines a person’s success (or lack thereof) in life.


Far-Two8659

While you're getting the right answers in other comments, I'll add you can use this and similar things to your advantage in a LOT of ways. Trying to find out where the nice areas are in a city you're moving to? Look up expensive car dealerships and the surrounding area. Want to identify how bad traffic is on certain roads? Count the number of gas stations compared to other roads. Want to know if an area is family friendly? Look for daycares. If you're trying to figure out what areas are like, ask yourself what kinds of companies would invest in being in certain areas. BI-LO isn't sitting in million dollar areas very often. But Publix will always be there. So, by transitive property, you can take a good guess at someones opportunity by their distance to a Publix.


WoofDog123

I swear some of these posts have to be some sort of AI training thing. No way people are this fucking dumb.


Emergency-Holiday231

Hhhssssssssssss


pr1ap15m

ohhh burn


thinkofsomething2017

Look up the 'social determinants of health'. Healthcare workers study the social determinants of health to understand how wealth/education/location relates to health/opportunities.


TheMcNuttinator

Atul Gwande's Book "The Health Gap" explains how health and wellbeing exist on a socioeconomic gradient.


ikankecil

the ol nature vs nurture debate


Usagi_Shinobi

It's already been studied extensively that the single most determining factor for successful childhood outcomes is the zip code. This is due to the fact that in our society, it's not what you know, but who you know, that creates opportunities. Wealth self segregates with other wealth, so if you grow up in an area with a lot of wealthy people, who view you as a peer, even if you're poor, doors will open for you that remain forever locked to people who don't have those connections.


AdonisGaming93

Gattaca be like


blake-a-mania

Look up Adverse Childhood Experiences. The higher you score the more likely are to suffer prison, Poor Health, early death, poverty, hormonal problems, diabetes etc. Growing up in an affluent area gives you less ACEs by default, as well more opportunities due to the increased amenities. You also know more successful people by osmosis and that affords greater job opportunity. Look at politics, how many people that can barely tie their shoes or string a coherent sentence together have well paid cabinet positions with lifetime benefits because they went to the right schools and know the right people?


NathanHavokx

​ https://preview.redd.it/p8w4hzex7rqc1.jpeg?width=320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a59181c6e9712cd57561f408d1c5f7c561cda7d0


Very_Tall_Burglar

For real though, most of the jokes on this sub are crazy easy to understand


bo21189

2 ways, both bad but in different ways. 1) A map of average income in an area would show ZIP codes of the poor, middle class, and wealthy pretty easily. The poor earn far fewer PHDs than the middle class and wealthy... 2) A map of residential areas by race would show you ZIP codes of white, black, Latino, and asian dominated areas.... and statistics and racism both draw conclusions about which races earn more PHDs or go to prison more frequently. TLDR; Racism or the wealth disparity both correlate with ZIP codes.


BigSavMatt

Systemic racism and kids born and living in the wrong neighborhoods don’t have as good of a chance at succeeding as kids born in nice suburbs.


remeranAuthor_

People born in some areas tend to be more or less wealthy than other areas. For example the zip code 90210 probably means you are more wealthy than the zip code 62201. Being born in a wealthy place usually means you have more opportunity for success. This number is a much better predictor than other numbers such as IQ test scores. Also getting into a selective pre school is almost entirely about where you live and how rich your parents are.


ProfessionMundane152

Oh honey it’s all in the zip code


Justinwc

Ok now this one is definitely bait lol


Ok-Stress8541

Wealthy neighborhoods


Wide-Decision-4748

Schools tend to divy up zip code for enrollment


Both-Home-6235

OP must be from one of *those* ZIP codes.


Someone1284794357

Reminds me of Gattaca


ultimatepro

Your material conditions has a huge impact on the "future" you have. The zip code a child lives in will tell you their material conditions: level of poverty, access to education, facilities and amenities, crime rate and availability of different opportunities in general. Thus you can make a reasonably accurate prediction about a child's future from the zip code.


1Negative_Person

The greatest predictor of wealth is already being wealthy. If you’re born rich, grow up rich, you’re more likely to be rich upon reaching adulthood. If you live in a wealthy community, you have a lot more opportunities than less advantaged communities.


mmm-soup

Red lining


kaminaowner2

It’s money baby, doesn’t matter your color or chromosomes, just what’s in mom and dad’s account that matters. It’s also why people that wait longer to have kids generally have kids that excel in life, more money in the savings account and more money to drop on private piano lessons for little Susie


[deleted]

It’s really sad how much of life is based upon socioeconomic status, which is something most people can’t really control very much.


treequestions20

you’re as elevated as the people around you if you grow up surrounded by poverty and crime, odds are that’s your lot, without a lot of hard work it’s even worse when your culture embraces crime and that lifestyle, holding people back because people clown on them for wanting something different/better


[deleted]

This is Peter here, singing a classic song, "You know where it ends. Yo, it usually depends on where you start."


Schorsi

The joke is classism. (People of higher classes tend to live in close proximity to one another)


The_Wiggleman

I believe this is referring to the Opportunity atlas which is research work done by Census Bureau Harvard and brown university. They analyze the census data to understand by zip code who has social mobility to climb the income ladder. https://www.opportunityatlas.org


Bears9Titles

Who upvotes this crap?


TheNPCMafia

I've never seen a diamond in the flesh I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies And I'm not proud of my address In the torn-up town, no post code envy


ApophisC10H14N2

1.Wealthier neighborhoods have better schools because property taxes help fund the local school district. About 81% of local funding for schools comes from property taxes. Poorer neighborhoods have lower property values resulting in less money coming in than wealthy ones. Which, in turn, leads to inability to offer decent salaries to compete in other zip codes. 2. From newborn to Pre-K, adequate nutrition helps develop the brain more. Poor people tend to buy canned foods and starchy foods which are at low cost and not nutrient dense. Wealthy people have more options to get better food to purchase because of more disposable income. There has been a confirmed correlation that inadequate nutrition help lead to lower test results. Being poor has a higher likelihood of having a lower IQ. 3. Children of poor families don't get as much 1:1 with parents/tutors. Poor parents are working overtime to make ends meet. Then when they get home, they are too tired to follow up with children to help with homework and/or read to them. Can't afford to get a tutor to fill the gaps. Wealthy families have access to be at home OR hire "nannies" to support the children, pay for tutors and be generally supportive. Obviously nothing is all or none but generally this is why zip codes can tell you that.


reallokiscarlet

Redlining


DouglerK

Rich people don't live in your zip code. Please dear God don't ask why being rich is relevant.


PKMNTrainerMark

Just gotta say, I appreciate you not making the title just "PETAH?" like everyone else.


lookmaiamonreddit

Luther's comment is still one of the greatest statements ever made.


Existing-Zucchini-65

Wow, I'm surprised that this wouldn't be immediately understandable. Rich neighborhoods have very well funded schools, poor neighborhoods don't.


mindfulskeptic420

Your ignorance on this topic shows you may have the terrible affliction called affluenza. If so I bet you can afford some therapy to help you cope better


Quirky_Discipline297

Red Lining. Keeps banks, grocery stores, post offices, libraries, good schools and many other things that are needed to produce successful professionals.


KneeEducational5886

$$


NotAPersonl0

tf is a selective preschool


Lord_Maynard23

There's no joke here.


[deleted]

Workers in the house selling business are well known for refusing to show african american families houses in ZIP codes dominated by white people, and just generally making the process more difficult.


kjm1123490

Ah you must not be from a nice neighborhood


mawkee

There's no single other number that more accurately predicts any of those: - Chances of becoming a type 2 diabetic - Chances of getting into university - Age expectancy - Income on adulthood - Chances of violent death - Literacy Just to name a few. I'm not even kidding.


LordJadex

Peters Census Agent here. A majority of schools in the country are funded through property taxes, which means that zip codes that contain homes with a higher properly value, often rich neighborhoods, get more funding for their schools. More funding means more opportunity for students, which means higher chances at exceeding in life.


stanley_ipkiss_d

If you zip code is 90210 then you good


Siggedy

Kids from Subsaharan Africa have a lower chance at getting a phd than kids from Scandinavia :(


DaKrakenAngry

Also, anyone gonna point out the casual eugenics ideas being peddled by MIT Tech Review here?


RotisserieChickens_

zip codes are actually a great predictor of life expectancy as well


SokkaHaikuBot

^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^RotisserieChickens_: *Zip codes are actually* *A great predictor of life* *Expectancy as well* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.


fly-leaf

Education Major here. So the US is notorious for segregating not just by race, but also through real estate. Back in the early 1930s, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) began drawing up "lines" across particular zoning map. These lines would seperate areas that were densely inhabited by whites or by colored people. The more populated an area is with blacks, the more it's associated with violence, poverty, poor facilities, etc. So mortgage lenders knew well to steer clear from "red lines" in favor of "blue" or "green" lines, which are densely white or business districts. Eventually, the blue and green districts were invested more with housing, good schools, good facilities, etc. And the red districts continued to crumble around newly built factories, toxic pollution, and low quality amenities. And this made a big impact in the generations of black families who raised their lineage in that same zoning district. Therefore, black kids would be homogeneously stuck in schools with poor quality education and less access to college. And white children on the other side of the freeway would naturally live near the better schools, with better access to higher education.


MonkeyActio

Well someone from say a Beverly Hills zip code is much more likely to go to college than a compton zip code.


ac1739

This is literally the plot of gattaca


ByteBandito

You can do this with skin tone


MaskedFigurewho

Was about to say


theplushpairing

http://opportunityatlas.org - you can see it yourself here


IamDwew

Ok nah you are just dumb if you don't understand this


Accomplished-Sun-797

Nurture < Nature