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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

#171

Post by BoiledCabbage »

chillacy wrote: post #166
greglindahl wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 min…

> It would be like an argument between a staunch introvert and extravert arguing over whether or not socializing is exhilarating or draining

Except unlike that case, there can be studies to measure impact of environment on people's success outcomes. And there have been. It's a valuable topic to discuss, with accurate date - not repeating the same bootstrap fallacies that simplify the world for people's comfort.

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

#172

Post by BoiledCabbage »

Banthum wrote: post #150
taurath wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a bit like arguing causality and determinism, but how does a person come to make bad choices, if the path before them, their past experience, and their current environment does not precipitate them to make that choice? One would have to go deep into philosophy, but still will find competing answers - when does the decision become "morally" wrong, or become the fault of the person?

I feel this is irrelevant for this discussion, because none of what I or anyone else is arguing is that "it's their fault they're poor so screw them" as so many people here seem to want to conclude. All I said was: Some people have bad work ethic. This means people they decide to not work when they should work, which causes them to end up in poverty. Therefore, to reduce poverty, part of our strategy should be doing…

It's incredible that for someone stressing work-ethic and the implicit "responsibility" associated with them, you won't even take responsibility for your own words.

In multiple child comments you've now claimed things like what you say here:

> All I said was: Some people have bad work ethic

No, that's not "All you said". The proof is right there in your original comment. You actually said

> a huge proportion of poverty stems from bad work ethic.

and

> Work ethic is a huge part of the problem,

And the point people keep making to you is that this is false. And I can't speak for others, but the reason why it bothers me so much to see people repeating it is because so frequently the people I've seen who are the loudest at saying it and repeat it the most, often have just as bad and often worse "moral failings".

I don't know you, and I won't judge you from what you've posted here - however I do have to say that the fact you keep attempting to shirk from and minimize away from your own comments isn't exactly breaking that trend to my eyes.

Society is complex - and the claim that the reason the poor are poor is mainly/mostly/primarily due to moral failings is flat out false.

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

#173

Post by Ntrails »

dazc wrote: post #168
dx034 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

As someone who worked in Kitchens/Hotels/Restaurants from about the age of 14 to my mid 20s - I have never not been able to find people hiring KPs etc in an area. Low skill low paid work always seemed to be available.

Note, I was usually in _relatively_ affluent parts (the south) of the country. However after that I've always felt that should things go tits up I could always go back to 50+ hours a week on min wage...

Worth noting, even if I could do that I sure as hell wouldn't have the motivation to job hunt in my downtime.

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

#174

Post by jononor »

bbarn wrote: post #159
Mz wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think it's reasonable to blame homelessness on housing costs. The people that can afford a 500 dollar a month rent are not the ones on the street because it went up to 600 dollars a month. It's the people that can't afford a 100 dollar a month rent that are homeless.

Most homeless people had a home at some point. They were scraping by for a while. But if there is nothing left after paying rent+food, then you incredibly vulnerable. Something will happen that you need some buffer cash for. An spare 100 a month can make all the difference in such situations.

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

#175

Post by hasenj »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #170
hasenj wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Thank you for your disagreement. I would like to point out that your disagreement does not in any remote way make my statement any less (or any more) factual.

I don't know why you assume the claim is unsubstantiated. I think it makes a lot of sense that people with lower IQs will have a lot of trouble in life.

Maybe it's not due to bad work ethic but merely due to them not having the cognitive ability to function properly in society in such a way that allows for the positive exchange of value.

I maintain that people with low IQ have this problem that makes it incredibly difficult for them to climb out of poverty, and I think this claim is very much substantiated, but I am not a scientist so I cannot back this up, but I have heard it on multiple occasions from people who I consider authorities on the subject.

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

#176

Post by taway_1212 »

rayiner wrote: post #65
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. 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…

> perfectly acceptable to make fun of people with 70 I have pretty high IQ and a mediocre at best work ethic. I don't think these things are linked.

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

#177

Post by taway_1212 »

Mz wrote: post #90
peterwwillis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you should have been downvoted because you appear to be trying to find out why this person doesn't have a home. I am not the poster, but here's an example of a plausible answer. (Apologies for the lengthy post) You have $50K in collections debt, no insurance, no credit, no bank. Any money you have, you carry with you. Getting paid is a pain in the ass, because even though you could conceivably receive m…

That's a decent picture of how complicated it can be, though not entirely accurate. For example, some homeless people do have cars and sleep in them. (I do not, but some do.) Being homeless does not necessarily mean being carless. I actually spend several hours a day at a library with wonderful and supportive staff who do not hassle me. I do resume work online( http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/ ) and I work fo…

> This is in spite of having six years of college and enough mojo to garner more than 19k karma on HN in spite of my gender. As far as I know, no other woman has karma in the 5 figures. They are all below 10k.

Having a high score on an Internet forum has zero value for someone who wants to purchase a service from you, I don't see how this is relevant.

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

#178

Post by foldr »

oh_sigh wrote: post #93
glogla wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, no. In the US, it's mostly about your family, although there are exceptions of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the... > The correlation between parents' income and their children's income in the United States is estimated between .4 and .6. > If a parent's income had no effect on a child's opportunity for future upward mobility, approximately 20% of poor children who start…

That is a correlation, not causal. Maybe (just throwing something out there) poor parent's children continue to be poor because the poor parents can't teach their children the appropriate life skills to save and earn enough money?

But that would be a causal influence.

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

#179

Post by nxsynonym »

jeffdavis wrote: post #135
nxsynonym wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to say - I'd like to imagine the addiction and mental illness would be much less prevalent. Also the book I mentioned talks about personal value and self worth in a Tribe setting - sharing and providing for others, keeping the tribe healthy as a whole, was the main driving factor versus personal wealth and possessions. The biggest Tribal infractions were failing to fight for the tribe (cowardice, not protec…

That sounds like romanticism/nostalgia, and probably ignores a lot of bad stuff that happened. If you want another take on more primitive cultures, read "The Better Angels of our Nature" by Steven Pinker. You probably won't want to return to that kind of lawlessness. That being said, I think we probably have a lot to learn and may have made some wrong turns. For instance, people are probably happier having more close…

"Tribes" doesn't gloss over the brutality that existed in tribal groups, but it does remind the reader that the same brutality and savageness exists in "civilized" societies (the Spanish Inquisition being one example).

Your house example is spot on. As society - specifically Western European and American - put an emphasis on private suburban living and personal wealth, people started feeling more disconnected and happiness levels dropped.

Of course tribal life was not perfect, or the world wouldn't have evolved past it for the most part. Violence towards other tribes and groups was profound and extreme, but this may have actually contributed to overall happiness levels instead of detracting. One last "Tribes" point - people who are living through a common goal in extreme circumstances (war, natural disaster, disease, etc) are better towards each other and experience lower suicide rates than in times of peace.

Thanks for the rec - will add to reading list.

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

#180

Post by candu »

Banthum wrote: post #50
bmpafa wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a critical point, thanks for making it. The mythology that all failure is a function of bad work ethic, etc., is a huge barrier to meaningful progress on poverty alleviation. Anyone interested in reading more on this topic, I rec. this book. It's about people who are near-homeless, not fully homeless, but it's one of the best things I've read on the topic. The author lived with the subjects for several years…

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…

[citation needed]
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