A homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews • Hacker News Board

Re: A homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews

#71

Post by Banthum » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 9:03 PM UTC

mjevans wrote: post #54

Banthum wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt anyone thinks all failure is a result of bad work ethic. Of course much is due to mental illness, disability, etc. But a huge proportion of poverty stems from bad work ethic. Some of the places in the USA with the highest underemployment are also places where employers are offering decent unskilled jobs and can't find enough workers. The worker gets hired, shows up for a few days, and then starts just not com…

It would be interesting if social research looked in to /why/ that was the case. Is there some ongoing problem disrupting these people's lives? Other family or social obligations that interfere with the hours the employer desires? Maybe a different shift (working hours during the day/night) would be better aligned with their biorhythms; it might require placement in a different job. I for one, know that I don't funct…

I'm sure there are extenuating circumstances in many cases, yes.

Why is it so unacceptable to think that they are simply humans, like you and me, with agency and power over their own choices, with responsibility for the outcomes of their choices, who are simply choosing to do a thing that you and I believe to be a really bad choices?

A pattern of such choices is labeled "bad work ethic" but at the end of the day, bad work ethic is just a long series of individual choices to do something besides working.

Re: A homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews

#72

Post by gnaritas » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 9:04 PM UTC

chillacy wrote: post #55

Banthum wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt anyone thinks all failure is a result of bad work ethic. Of course much is due to mental illness, disability, etc. But a huge proportion of poverty stems from bad work ethic. Some of the places in the USA with the highest underemployment are also places where employers are offering decent unskilled jobs and can't find enough workers. The worker gets hired, shows up for a few days, and then starts just not com…

It's a shame this is getting downvoted because it's not really inflammatory or even untrue. I think it's fair to say that this topic is complex enough that both this comment and the parent comment are true (which is that poverty is a function of both factors that can be controlled and factors that cannot be controlled).

> It's a shame this is getting downvoted because it's not really inflammatory or even untrue.

Actually it's both inflammatory and untrue; spoken by someone who's obviously never been poor or known many poor people. Being poor is not a choice nor due to people simply being lazy, regardless of any anecdotes you might come up with. Anecdotes have no place in such conversations about systemic issues.

Re: A homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews

#73

Post by enraged_camel » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 9:05 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #60

chillacy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame this is getting downvoted because it's not really inflammatory or even untrue. I think it's fair to say that this topic is complex enough that both this comment and the parent comment are true (which is that poverty is a function of both factors that can be controlled and factors that cannot be controlled).

"A huge proportion of poverty stems from bad work ethic" is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence.

Yeah. Specifically, if someone is confident enough to attach a qualifier to a numeric descriptor (i.e. "proportion"), they should demonstrate that they also have the quantities to support that qualifier.

Re: A homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews

#74

Post by Banthum » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 9:05 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #69

Banthum wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt anyone thinks all failure is a result of bad work ethic. Of course much is due to mental illness, disability, etc. But a huge proportion of poverty stems from bad work ethic. Some of the places in the USA with the highest underemployment are also places where employers are offering decent unskilled jobs and can't find enough workers. The worker gets hired, shows up for a few days, and then starts just not com…

>>But a huge proportion of poverty stems from bad work ethic. What proportion exactly? How do you know it's "huge"? I mean, what you describe definitely happens to some extent, but I'm curious as to how you reached the conclusion that it's really common. Because I have counter-anecdotes. The most common scenario I personally witness is that an unemployed person finally lands a job, and they work their asses off to ma…

There's a good statistical analysis of the declining work ethic in some classes of white Americans in Charles Murray's book Coming Apart.

I recommend the book. It's not directly about this mainly, but the work ethic decline is statistically identifiable and localizable to a specific class of white American (who are also a class that people like you and I have essentially zero personal contact with).

Re: A homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews

#75

Post by gnaritas » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 9:05 PM UTC

Banthum wrote: post #71

mjevans wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be interesting if social research looked in to /why/ that was the case. Is there some ongoing problem disrupting these people's lives? Other family or social obligations that interfere with the hours the employer desires? Maybe a different shift (working hours during the day/night) would be better aligned with their biorhythms; it might require placement in a different job. I for one, know that I don't funct…

I'm sure there are extenuating circumstances in many cases, yes. Why is it so unacceptable to think that they are simply humans, like you and me, with agency and power over their own choices, with responsibility for the outcomes of their choices, who are simply choosing to do a thing that you and I believe to be a really bad choices? A pattern of such choices is labeled "bad work ethic" but at the end of the day, bad…

It's not unacceptable, it's just incorrect and frankly vile.

Re: A homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews

#76

Post by Banthum » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 9:07 PM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #72

chillacy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame this is getting downvoted because it's not really inflammatory or even untrue. I think it's fair to say that this topic is complex enough that both this comment and the parent comment are true (which is that poverty is a function of both factors that can be controlled and factors that cannot be controlled).

> It's a shame this is getting downvoted because it's not really inflammatory or even untrue. Actually it's both inflammatory and untrue; spoken by someone who's obviously never been poor or known many poor people. Being poor is not a choice nor due to people simply being lazy, regardless of any anecdotes you might come up with. Anecdotes have no place in such conversations about systemic issues.

Never? Not ever? Not even 1% of the poor? Not even one person?

The absolutism of your statements makes it clear that you are convinced morally of your arguments, not factually. You believe intensively in what you're saying because you think it's good, not because you've got an airtight case that it's universally factually correct.

Don't let your moral convictions bleed into your understanding of the world; it makes you an ideological zombie who can't handle statistical nuances or proportionality arguments.

Re: A homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews

#77

Post by gnaritas » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 9:08 PM UTC

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #6

BluishLight wrote: post #3

Sometimes it seems to me that histories like this put the weight of leaving poverty in the individuals himselves rather than the government social services, enforcing the myth that poor people is people that chooses to.

You don't think personal change represents any elevation from poverty? I think we certainly agree it can play a major role into poverty descent.

You live in a class based society, poor people are poor because they were generally born into it and denied the privileged of the education necessary to escape it. Stop victim blaming.

Re: A homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews

#78

Post by Mz » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 9:08 PM UTC

mjevans wrote: post #54

Banthum wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt anyone thinks all failure is a result of bad work ethic. Of course much is due to mental illness, disability, etc. But a huge proportion of poverty stems from bad work ethic. Some of the places in the USA with the highest underemployment are also places where employers are offering decent unskilled jobs and can't find enough workers. The worker gets hired, shows up for a few days, and then starts just not com…

It would be interesting if social research looked in to /why/ that was the case. Is there some ongoing problem disrupting these people's lives? Other family or social obligations that interfere with the hours the employer desires? Maybe a different shift (working hours during the day/night) would be better aligned with their biorhythms; it might require placement in a different job. I for one, know that I don't funct…

There is substantial research. Years ago, I had a class on Homelessness and Public Policy through SFSU. In a nutshell:

1. Most homeless people have one or more intractable personal problems, such as a medical problem, mental health issue or learning disability.

2. They end up homeless when their intractable personal problems finally cause them to run out of all resources and options and causes their social safety net to fray and come undone. When no one will let you sleep on their couch one more time while job hunting again, etc.

3. There is a huge and deepening affordable housing shortage in the U.S. This goes back decades. Homelessness is a growing trend nationwide because a growing percentage of the population simply cannot afford housing. It is too expensive. Addressing this piece would go a long way towards easing the burden on people with other unsolvable problems. But there is no real will to do so.

Re: A homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews

#79

Post by Diederich » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 9:09 PM UTC

logicallee wrote: post #47

Mz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

someone who has the intelligence and work ethic to do this probably wasn't going to be homeless for long. And capacity. Many people on the street have serious health problems or other obstacles to productivity. I lack neither intelligence nor a work ethic, but I do have health problems. I have been homeless 5.5 years, though I blog, do freelance work, etc. Edit: You also need opportunity. Being homeless can be a huge…

>I have been homeless 5.5 years This is a huge personal revelation. I have happened to be in touch with the parent poster via HN and they are simply an intelligent, thoughtful, person with important and good opinions on whatever topics they write about. I hope you resolve your issues with housing soon. As you write, you have a lot of capacity for high-level work.

Posted on her behalf:

https://www.patreon.com/MicheleinCalifornia

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/

Re: A homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews

#80

Post by Banthum » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 9:11 PM UTC

dwaltrip wrote: post #64

chillacy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame this is getting downvoted because it's not really inflammatory or even untrue. I think it's fair to say that this topic is complex enough that both this comment and the parent comment are true (which is that poverty is a function of both factors that can be controlled and factors that cannot be controlled).

I just had a thought that much of the difficulty lies in the murky zone between the following views: 1) "This person is struggling, and part of the problem is their work ethic and poor executive functioning." and 2) "This is a moral failing and thus we can't help them too much, as they will take advantage of it." I think some people automatically associate the second idea with people who express the first, when in re…

Eh, more like:

3) "This person is struggling, we can't help them in ways that are too paternalistic or agency-denying, because that will ultimately just end up harming them".

E.g. You wouldn't tell your child that his economic outcomes are completely unconnected to his own choices or work ethic.

If a kid has trouble at a task, we don't just tell them that the task is stacked against them and that they can do nothing to alleviate their failure. Telling a kid that over and over would border on child abuse.

Yet some people seem to think that telling the poor this overall - that they have no control, that their choices mean nothing, that the locus of control is 100% external to them - is somehow good. It's bizarre.