It would be interesting to compare this to former communist countries. Personally I live in a modernized “commie block” style building in one such country (as a foreigner) and I very much appreciate the fact that residents come from a wide variety of social classes. There is certainly still a class system here, but it definitely is orders of magnitude less embedded than in Britain.

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dash2 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

Wish granted: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2025/05/18/202...

	▲	keiferski 8 days ago \| parent [-]
		Well it’s in Estonia but isn’t really what I meant, as it’s comparing urban and rural, as far as I can tell. I am interested in the idea that urban design which brings social classes together (in cities) has some (or doesn’t) effect on genetic distribution. Maybe it does, or maybe the intellectuals end up pairing up with intellectuals anyway.

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arethuza 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The way I look at is: almost nobody claims to be working class, there are so few actual upper class people so we are all middle class!

NB Class traditionally in the UK is not mainly about money...

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keiferski 8 days ago | parent [-]

I think this is a middle class viewpoint, actually. The actual working class people I know are not really that concerned with presenting themselves as middle class, unless they were raised middle class and don’t want to appear as having fallen into the lower class.

	▲	arethuza 8 days ago \| parent [-]
		Oh yes - I wasn't being entirely serious - and of course the upper classes don't care about any of it!

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notahacker 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The modernized "commie block" sounds like the average London street, except with fewer nationalities represented. The extent of the class system in the UK gets exaggerated. We had some very serious people care about it a lot in the not too distant past, but as others have pointed out nominal social class isn't actually coupled that closely to incomes nowadays, and ethnic and regional identities and are also typically stronger and associated with at least as much stereotyping, and it's not like many other countries don't have similar stereotypes based on occupations/accents/tastes/incomes that map neatly to 'social class' whether they use that term or not.

Looks like the urban/rural divide in incomes and politics is actually stronger in quite a few ex-communist countries. Agree it would be interesting to see to what extent that's represented genetically, though I guess the picture is complicated by the amount of ethnolinguistic minorities eastern Europe has.

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keiferski 7 days ago | parent [-]

I don’t think the average London street has nearly as much income diversity as the average commie block I’m referencing. Somewhere like Chelsea is definitely not a mixed income area, whereas the equivalent area in the post-communist state is.

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notahacker 7 days ago | parent [-]

I don't think Chelsea is remotely representative of "the average London street", and the more representative London street absolutely does have people on below "living wage" renting by the room (or sometimes sharing rooms) on the same street as people owning £1m houses outright.

	▲	keiferski 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Fair enough but I think there’s a distinct difference between a well-off home owner and a renter living on the same street vs. a broad mix of social classes all living in basically the same size apartments in the same building. I talk to my building neighbors all the time, but rarely the people in the building across the street.