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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?

#61

Post by mmsimanga »

jwhitlark wrote: post #58
gmarx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When humans come into conflict, and they always do, it's not happiness that decides the winner, it's power. The societies that exist today are the ones that survived, not the ones that are best for their constituents.

Agreed. Finding valuable minerals in a village is one sure way of ending the peaceful existence. Everything changes!

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

#62

Post by thrownblown »

chimeracoder wrote: post #46
thrownblown wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 qu…

>there isn't a straightforward answer.

We have to acknowledge the biological component of addiction, that some people are predisposed to certain addictions. There is a physical, chemical component that comes into play.

I, for example, smoked my first cigarette at 12 y/o. I continued to smoke cigarettes socially for the better part of the next decade, often buying my own packs of smokes. I never understood the "need" to smoke that many of my fellows expressed. I enjoyed the nicotine high, but never once felt it necessary to smoke tobacco to live a "normal" life. I stopped smoking one day after college and never felt the urge to smoke again. Even after long-term repeated exposure to nicotine I never developed a physical dependancy.

The "William Shatner seat" article posted yesterday sent me down a rabbit hole of Shatner talk shows (in "Aftermath" he interviews Bernie Goetz and it is amazing) ending on his "Raw Nerve" interview with Rush Limbaugh where Rush goes into great detail regarding his own painkiller habit. Contrasting how he speaks about opiates about how his body told him he needed pills like he needs food or water to my own personal experiences with opiates and nicotine only reinforces this belief that some people just have the right brain chemistry to get addicted.

My next thought is that the chemistry of the brain changes over time, under stress or when exposed to other chemicals. Ergo, at some point, people may be more prone to particular addictions than at other times.

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

#63

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#64

Post by kbenson »

redsummer wrote: post #32
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…

Benjamin Franklin on the appeal of the traditional Native American life: "When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian Ramble with them, there is no perswading him ever to return, and that this is not natural [to them] merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons of either sex…

Happiness is more closely linked to status (relative position and wealth) than absolute benefits[1][2]. In that respect, I imagine someone taken from the environment they understand and are accustomed to and put into a foreign one where they are likely a curiosity, and at best an outsider, would result in them longing for what they understood.

For the same reason, I imagine the poor in Benjamin Franklin's time might find a Native American lifestyle (if accepted by the group) to have some draw if exposed to it. I would by the same measure expect the middle and upper classes to find it less appealing.

1: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3315638...

2: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?um=1&ie=UTF-8&lr&cites=37...

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

#65

Post by thrownblown »

thrownblown wrote: post #20
thrownblown wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the downvotes. Rent is just theft based on the monopolization of land. Forcing the poor to pay to live in government approved ghettos is more extortion of their limited resources by those who monopolize the commons.

Downvote me too. It's ok. All property is theft.

Private property "rights" can only exist if the state violently enforces it.

Not just that, but all property claims are backed by threats of force, state or not. The universe doesn't anoint anyone Legitimate Property Owner, and if you can't convince others to leave you with your object of claim, then your claim has to be backed by force. Otherwise, it's just hot air.

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

#66

Post by [deleted] »

charles-salvia wrote: post #49
rtx wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#67

Post by magic_beans »

amalag wrote: post #11
xyzzy4 wrote: post #8

The poor in Bangladesh are at least allowed to have shelter in slums. Anywhere in the US it would be highly illegal and violate many regulations.

It is true, poor people in those places really don't need much. You can live, eat grow for almost nothing. People can have happy lives without much money.

It's even true in city outskirts (e.g. the homeless encampments around San Francisco, Skid Row in LA).

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

#68

Post by acchow »

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…

Incredible. Can you talk about how you learned programming and the obstacles you hit along the way? (financially, health, or actual educational obstacles). How did you get a programming job?

Also, as others have noted, there is survivorship bias in your experience. If you or one of your siblings were born with a disability or became disabled in some way from a sickness, the experience would probably be quite bad.

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

#69

Post by gamblor956 »

rayiner wrote: post #52
infosample wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Have you ever lived in the "inner city"?

Yes. I've also lived in rural America. While there are significant populations of lazy dolists in both, the population of do-nothings is much higher in rural America. Rural America really does believe that everyone has forgotten about them, and blame all their problems on other people while they happily do meth or get drunk all day in their trailers.

The thing is...they're right. Because they live so far from any place that matters, no one who matters thinks about their situation, so it's much more difficult to leave rural America than it is to leave the inner city.

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

#70

Post by mmsimanga »

nafizh wrote: post #56

I am a Bangladeshi who is now a grad student in US. Perhaps I can give a generalized peek view of the health system of Bangladesh. I feel much more safe being in Bangladesh if I were to have some urgent/serious health problems. There are public hospitals where doctors are always available. You go and buy a ticket which is very cheap(in the order of 1-2 dollars in BD currency) and you get to see a doctor. Sure, there…

Very interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing. In South Africa you get both private and public. Some public hospitals are very good. Particularly those attached to medical schools. However you have to be referred and your case prioritized if you have something wrong.

Private medical aids are big business. It gets more expensive by the year and the benefits seem to be less and less. Its a grudge purchase. How much money is in medical aid in SA, take a look at this story. The CEO of the biggest medical aid made enough to [buy a top notch property](https://therealdeal.com/2014/01/06/south-african-insurance-m...) in New York. Bear in mind exchange rate is 1US$ = 13ZAR

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