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

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

#161

Post by Drdrdrq »

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).

Off topic: this is UX problem with HN. Up-arrow means "I agree", while down-arrow means "this post is inappropriate". Most people simply want a button "I respectfully disagree" which is absent. As a consequence this also means that difference in opinion is discouraged because downvotes affect karma.

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

#162

Post by rrauenza »

thex10 wrote: post #107
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. Been burned by your underpaid workers' flakiness much? Citation, please. > In the end the wealthy and the poor both have to make changes to end poverty. It's a team effort. It's not up to a rich savior class to come and fix the dirty people from the outside. Is anyone saying this? My impression is that most poor people want jobs, and are begging political…

I apologize for citing something without citing something, but perhaps it will help someone else find it - there was a study or work program that found paying high poverty people every two weeks was too long a gap. Many workers wouldn't return to the jobs. When they went to a daily pay, the workers were much more likely to stay on the job long term.

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

#163

Post by dx034 »

hasenj wrote: post #153
rayiner wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But a huge proportion of poverty stems from bad work ethic. Is there a morally relevant distinction between mental illness and bad work ethic? There is a lot of research to suggest that things we associate with "bad work ethic" ( e.g. lack of impulse control) appear extremely early in childhood development and aren't things people necessarily have much control over. We need to stop moralizing things that people hav…

> But there is still a weird doughnut hole were it is perfectly acceptable to make fun of people with 70 I agree that what we call "bad work ethic" is just something that happens to people in that IQ range. Now the problem is, what are we supposed to do with these people? If I were to start a small business, I would probably like to avoid having such people work for me. The only entities that can afford to hire these…

Something like lack of impulse control can be learned to a certain degree. As can other things that are associated with bad work ethics.

A solution could be that the government offers help for people who struggle finding jobs. Training courses can help them finding (and most important, keeping) a job.

Some European countries already have courses like this and underemployment there seems lower than in the US. But crucially, free mental healthcare is an important part of this so that those who need help can get it.

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

#164

Post by dx034 »

rrauenza wrote: post #162
thex10 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But a huge proportion of poverty stems from bad work ethic. Been burned by your underpaid workers' flakiness much? Citation, please. > In the end the wealthy and the poor both have to make changes to end poverty. It's a team effort. It's not up to a rich savior class to come and fix the dirty people from the outside. Is anyone saying this? My impression is that most poor people want jobs, and are begging political…

I apologize for citing something without citing something, but perhaps it will help someone else find it - there was a study or work program that found paying high poverty people every two weeks was too long a gap. Many workers wouldn't return to the jobs. When they went to a daily pay, the workers were much more likely to stay on the job long term.

Yes but that's not bad work ethics. If you don't have any money and not even a bank account, two weeks between paychecks can be too long. If any unforeseen expense turns up, most of us can just pay by credit card and push it to the next pay check. If you can't do that, you have to find another job if the one you have only pays you in 10 days.

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

#165

Post by Frondo »

tptacek wrote: post #84
enraged_camel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't help that the unsupported extraordinary assertion here casts aspersions on people in poverty. It's one of those things you really want to be sure you're right about before saying. Hence: downvotes.

Yeah, that too. Bad work ethic, or work ethic that isn't compatible with the system they're submerged in?

If you want to frame it in terms of choices, what is it about the modern work world that is so intolerable that a person would willingly choose poverty, homelessness, etc., over work?

If so many people are "bad," how can you say the system is good and it's the people...

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

#166

Post by chillacy »

greglindahl wrote: post #128
Banthum wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The claim was "a huge proportion of poverty stems from bad work ethic". Not 1%. Not one person. Please stop moving the goalposts.

It's not the first disagreement on this site I've seen boil down to people's varying levels of belief of how much influence people have over their environment and vice versa. (I think reality is somewhere in between).

I haven't found the right word for it, but it seems to be loosely related to a personality attribute:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control

Which if true, would mean nobody's changing their mind. It would be like an argument between a staunch introvert and extravert arguing over whether or not socializing is exhilarating or draining.

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

#167

Post by pdm55 »

Jack Charles (Australian aboriginal actor) recently discussed his life. He is an avid reader, an actor, a drug addict, he slept in toilets at night, shared any money he earned or stole, was imprisoned 22 times, has been finally housed late in life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Charles_(actor) Don't know if you can view his story if you are not in Australia: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/anhs-brush-with-fame/ (Series 2, Episode 9)

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

#168

Post by dazc »

dx034 wrote: post #164
rrauenza wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize for citing something without citing something, but perhaps it will help someone else find it - there was a study or work program that found paying high poverty people every two weeks was too long a gap. Many workers wouldn't return to the jobs. When they went to a daily pay, the workers were much more likely to stay on the job long term.

Yes but that's not bad work ethics. If you don't have any money and not even a bank account, two weeks between paychecks can be too long. If any unforeseen expense turns up, most of us can just pay by credit card and push it to the next pay check. If you can't do that, you have to find another job if the one you have only pays you in 10 days.

In the UK payments are often made monthly. This is bad enough if you are short of cash but factor in a lot of jobs are now bogus self-employed gigs or agency work where you can also find yourself extending credit to a business that has less cash than you do. Resulting in underpayment or , sometimes, no payment at all.

A lot of folks in the UK have a view that if they lost their job they can just do 'any-job' until they find something else.

These 'any-jobs' either are not available in the way people think they are or they fall into the category outlined above.

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

#169

Post by NumberCruncher »

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.

>> the myth that poor people is people that chooses to [live in poverty]

Don't forget the myth that they could be mentally ill or just dumb having IQ below 70. Because bad things does not happen to good people.

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

#170

Post by BoiledCabbage »

hasenj wrote: post #153
rayiner wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But a huge proportion of poverty stems from bad work ethic. Is there a morally relevant distinction between mental illness and bad work ethic? There is a lot of research to suggest that things we associate with "bad work ethic" ( e.g. lack of impulse control) appear extremely early in childhood development and aren't things people necessarily have much control over. We need to stop moralizing things that people hav…

> But there is still a weird doughnut hole were it is perfectly acceptable to make fun of people with 70 I agree that what we call "bad work ethic" is just something that happens to people in that IQ range. Now the problem is, what are we supposed to do with these people? If I were to start a small business, I would probably like to avoid having such people work for me. The only entities that can afford to hire these…

> I agree that what we call "bad work ethic" is just something that happens to people in that IQ range.

I want to very clearly point out, that the fact that you agree doesn't in any remote way make the statement any more factual. This again is an unsubstantiated claim, presented with zero evidence.

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