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Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

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Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#41

Post by exolymph »

rtx wrote: post #28
charles-salvia wrote: post #23

I think a lot of the resentment felt by the rural American poor has to do with their perception that they are constantly ignored or overlooked, while similarly impoverished inner-city minorities are at least given some kind of institutional sympathy. It's hard to say how true this really is, or how much of it is simply further fuel for pre-existing racism, but apparently this perception is ubiquitous enough that it c…

Would you sympathise with someone who blames his problems on slavery?

The distinction is that slavery is actually bad — a human rights atrocity with centuries of fallout — whereas globalization is (according to the liberal worldview) good.

I mostly share the liberal worldview.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#42

Post by com2kid »

mmsimanga wrote: post #18

I was born in an African village, literally in a mud hut. I spent the first 9 years of my life in a village. The town I grew up in wasn't far from the village so I spent holidays in the village too. I now work in IT and try keep up with the latest frameworks. That is I am not concerned with starving to death and I have health insurance. If I compare my upbringing with my daughter's, there is nothing to compare. We wa…

> Here is the interesting thing, none of us ever had to see an occupational therapist to help us with our hand eye co-ordination. Falling out of a tree was enough incentive to figure it out on your own.

Survivorship bias. I have poor eyesight, no amount of practice would ever allow me to throw a spear and hit a wild animal. Heck with lots of occupational therapy as a kid, I can kinda-sorta catch a ball. On a good day.

I'll say that falling out of trees was a lot easier (even fun!) as a kid though. I do worry that the current generation doesn't have much unstructured play time.

> We walked around barefoot, unsupervised, climbed trees, ate wild fruit, made spears from wood and once you were four you had to take your two year old sibling with you and look after them.

Growing up working class in 80s and early 90s suburbia was awfully similar. Except we had to wear shoes when it got too hot, concrete is friendly to cars, not feet. :( But yeah, we ran around all summer day long without parents getting involved. The littler kids were looked after (dragged home for diaper changes though!), we road bikes all around, picked berries from the woods, got hatchets and chopped down small trees to make clearings in the woods.

Now days? I am not quite sure what childhood is like for the current generation. I know that I've see less and less groups of kids running around every year, and I haven't really seen any in the last few years, but maybe I'm just not looking in the right places.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#43

Post by throwanem »

charles-salvia wrote: post #23

I think a lot of the resentment felt by the rural American poor has to do with their perception that they are constantly ignored or overlooked, while similarly impoverished inner-city minorities are at least given some kind of institutional sympathy. It's hard to say how true this really is, or how much of it is simply further fuel for pre-existing racism, but apparently this perception is ubiquitous enough that it c…

Do you need to feel involved at an emotional level with the problems of your fellow citizens - problems which limit their ability to participate positively in our society to the gain of all - in order to consider it worthwhile that our government take those problems seriously? If so, why so?

I ask because this seems a very strange fashion in which to approach such a matter. On the one hand, you seem by your comment here very concerned with the possibility that one effect of these issues going unchecked is the election of a president with whom I presume you gravely disagree on almost every issue. On the other hand, your analysis of the issues themselves, and the value of efforts directed at mitigating or resolving them, seems entirely colored by the degree of emotional involvement you feel with the people who are most directly affected.

I don't understand this perspective at all, and I'm hoping you will take the time to explain what about it you find as sensible as your comment here strongly suggests you do.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#44

Post by mmsimanga »

jotux wrote: post #35
mmsimanga wrote: post #18

I was born in an African village, literally in a mud hut. I spent the first 9 years of my life in a village. The town I grew up in wasn't far from the village so I spent holidays in the village too. I now work in IT and try keep up with the latest frameworks. That is I am not concerned with starving to death and I have health insurance. If I compare my upbringing with my daughter's, there is nothing to compare. We wa…

Your story is really interesting. Can you talk about how you transitioned from your original village to where you are now? Do you still have connections back to where you were born? How does it affect the way you raise your daughter?

My parents were both teachers. When I was born, they were stationed in my dad's home village. We just lived with the whole family. It was village of cousins.

We moved to town which is 60km (40miles) away when my dad got a job working in a mine. From then I went to school in town and only spent holidays in the village. To this day we still own our own cows and our home still stands.

To answer your questions, yes more than half my relatives are still in the same village. We talking a village of 60 odd people. I organise a gathering every other Christmas, we slaughter a cow (apologies to the sensitive) and talk about the good old days.

Times have changed even in the village. Everyone has a cellphone even in the village :-).

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#45

Post by throwanem »

exolymph wrote: post #41
rtx wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you sympathise with someone who blames his problems on slavery?

The distinction is that slavery is actually bad — a human rights atrocity with centuries of fallout — whereas globalization is (according to the liberal worldview ) good. I mostly share the liberal worldview.

That's an interesting distinction. On its face it suggests that some human rights atrocities are more morally acceptable than others, but I can't imagine how such a reading might be accurate to fact.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#46

Post by chimeracoder »

thrownblown wrote: post #38
chimeracoder wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does Bangladesh have a systemic prescription opiate problem? If you want to talk about the impact of opiates on Bangladeshi poverty today, you should go back much further in history. Bengal opium, being much higher quality than the product found in China and Afghanistan, was the major impetus behind the British annexing the territory back in 1757. They used this monopoly to extract exorbitant taxes from Bengal, cau…

>Bangladesh doesn't have a synthetic opiate problem I feel that's the key here. That oxycontin was over prescribed for about a decade. We are talking people getting in a car wreck and waking up in a hospital addicted to opiates. I'm assuming we are in agreement that the pharmaceutical opiates are way more addictive than their illegal analogs. Snorting a pill is way less work than shooting up or "chasing the dragon" b…

> I'm assuming we are in agreement that the pharmaceutical opiates are way more addictive than their illegal analogs.

Actually, that's... a complicated question.

Pharmaceutical opiates are definitely more addictive than raw opium (that's like asking if eating white sugar is sweeter than cane sugar). But once you're comparing heroin available on the street to prescribed opiates, there are enough variables (variable quality of product, means of ingestion, the different situations under which a person chooses one over the other, etc.) that there isn't a straightforward answer.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#47

Post by jimmaswell »

gmarx wrote: post #29
mmsimanga wrote: post #18

I was born in an African village, literally in a mud hut. I spent the first 9 years of my life in a village. The town I grew up in wasn't far from the village so I spent holidays in the village too. I now work in IT and try keep up with the latest frameworks. That is I am not concerned with starving to death and I have health insurance. If I compare my upbringing with my daughter's, there is nothing to compare. We wa…

Funny (ironic?) thing is that each incremental advance in civilization may be a good thing in isolation and, given the choice between adding benefit X to their existing situation or not, most people would choose adding benefit X without hesitation. And yet, somehow the sum of hundreds of such benefits (secure food, healthcare, fire departments, internet) doesn't lead to a significant increase in average happiness. In…

The lack of increase in happiness sounds like simply hedonic adaptation.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#48

Post by infosample »

noobiemcfoob wrote: post #37
charles-salvia wrote: post #23

I think a lot of the resentment felt by the rural American poor has to do with their perception that they are constantly ignored or overlooked, while similarly impoverished inner-city minorities are at least given some kind of institutional sympathy. It's hard to say how true this really is, or how much of it is simply further fuel for pre-existing racism, but apparently this perception is ubiquitous enough that it c…

Much of the same can be said of impoverished inner city citizens. It's human nature to find external causes to your pains outside of your control. There's a double annoyance with inner city residents, though, in that many just expect the government to solve the problems, leaving them without motivation. Almost robbing them of it in some cases. Anyone working hard towards their dreams, no matter how large or small, wi…

It's hard to tell if you are making a counterargument to the parent or if you believe inner city residents[0] expect government to solve their problems, lack motivation, and don't work hard.

[0] Do the people you are referring to actually live in the inner city?

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#49

Post by charles-salvia »

rtx wrote: post #28
charles-salvia wrote: post #23

I think a lot of the resentment felt by the rural American poor has to do with their perception that they are constantly ignored or overlooked, while similarly impoverished inner-city minorities are at least given some kind of institutional sympathy. It's hard to say how true this really is, or how much of it is simply further fuel for pre-existing racism, but apparently this perception is ubiquitous enough that it c…

Would you sympathise with someone who blames his problems on slavery?

I would say it's counter-productive - but at least a direct causal line can be drawn between slavery and the current lower average socio-economic status of black people in the US. Whereas, there is absolutely no causal line between the current plight of poor white people and Mexican immigrants/Islamic terrorism.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#50

Post by Decade »

empath75 wrote: post #12

I noticed when traveling through Central America, that while extreme poverty is everywhere, homelessness seems to be quite rare (with the caveat that I didn't spend much time in the capital cities, so the situation there may be different). I think there are two reasons for it: 1) People don't seem to be as mobile, in general, and you'll find 3 generations of family living very close to each other quite often. I was h…

The creation of housing is something that’s bothering me right now. http://www.sfyimby.org

The people in the country consider us city-people to be wimps who can’t do anything to help ourselves. You need some shelter? Then build a shelter.

But in the city you can’t, because you need to get an architect’s sign-off and the unelected Planning Commission’s approval, and do endless studies about the environment and neighborhood character.

Some of the restrictions I feel are useful. Seismic regulations, because look at the difference between Christchurch, New Zealand and Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Electrical and fire, because just a couple months ago a block away a house caught on fire and I had no fear.

Some of the restrictions I feel are harmful. Zoning laws rooted in racism. Neighborhood preservation laws that do more long-term harm than they were trying to prevent. “Local control” that takes away power from the people and gives it to unelected bureaucrats.

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