Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

theconversation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 221 posts

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#111

Post by foldr »

hal9000xp wrote: post #71

As a person who was extremely poor by western standards (in 2002, I earned 10 USD per month in Uzbekistan) and who lived among poor people for 22 years, I can say that poverty is a personal choice, period. Here is my answer on Quora with more details: https://www.quora.com/Are-poor-people-lazy/answer/Eldar-Gayn... I copy this answer here: I born in Uzbekistan in relatively poor family. At age of 18 (2002 year), I sta…

>To me, it’s very unlikely to image highly curious person who are hungry to lean new stuff and still staying in poverty for years.

Google 'genius died in poverty'. You don't have to imagine it. It happens.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#112

Post by drchickensalad »

hal9000xp wrote: post #71

As a person who was extremely poor by western standards (in 2002, I earned 10 USD per month in Uzbekistan) and who lived among poor people for 22 years, I can say that poverty is a personal choice, period. Here is my answer on Quora with more details: https://www.quora.com/Are-poor-people-lazy/answer/Eldar-Gayn... I copy this answer here: I born in Uzbekistan in relatively poor family. At age of 18 (2002 year), I sta…

Why do you assume those with debt can afford to invest instead of get immediate payoff so they can survive?

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#113

Post by rayiner »

humanrebar wrote: post #105
rayiner wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was ranked 10th in a graduating class of 900 students and did well on the SATs except for the English section. Being born one or two standard deviations away from median on the intelligence scale is a whole lot of luck and privilege. > The problem is not money, but culture. Privilege has _nothing_ to do with it since tons of people in much much poorer countries with schools that have a lot fewer funds do a lot be…

> ...is a whole lot of luck and privilege. I really dislike the language of privilege in this context. I'm not sure what point it serves other to diminish someone else. Some people are smart. That's as much a part of them as their skin color or sexual identity. Should they feel apologetic about that? Also, as a counterpoint, I know brilliant people who wasted that talent on drugs and other things.

Not apologetic, but gracious and humble. It's like how you act about physical attractiveness if you're Chris Pine.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#114

Post by rayiner »

shaftoe wrote: post #109
rayiner wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What isn't luck? Bingo!

This is fatalism and societies that adopt this attitude fall into some nasty traps. For example, there's no point to solving problems because it's the will of God.

It's not fatalism. It's about recognizing that a more economically even society is warranted because people shouldn't get outsized credit (or be disproportionately punished) for things outside their control.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#115

Post by humanrebar »

rainbowmverse wrote: post #106
humanrebar wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." You might be right, but we need to honor people for taking care of the next generation by working hard, being clever, and making good decisions. And aristocracy aside, people who were "privileged" are generally children of people who make good decisions, take care of their kids, and typically love them. To act like that is…

How is being born to those parents not luck? I had to learn self-control, personal finance, investment, entrepreneurship, and so on by myself because no one taught me. I learned it very, very late and it's likely set me back decades. I had to be exposed to people who knew these things, and who were willing to teach me despite my upbringing. The fact that I'm where I am with growing savings, a small but growing music…

> I had to learn self-control, personal finance, investment, entrepreneurship, and so on...

Other people have to do this and other similar things. When they have kids and raise them successfully, is that luck? Or is it payoff for that effort carried into the next generation?

Some people are just lucky. Some are just privileged. But it's reductionist and just not good advice to say the whole world is random and decisions don't matter. Things, at a minimum, are a lot more complicated than that. And I think people and communities who do support their offspring deserve more credit than that. They're not just a gust of wind in the right direction one day.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#116

Post by humanrebar »

coldtea wrote: post #68
hueving wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physical effort has no (and should not have) a bearing on how much you are paid. Work smarter, not harder. A society doesn't advance if everyone spends all day digging ditches with spoons.

You'd be surprised how fast a society can collapse if it's left to wannabe Einsteins and Feynmans and Elon Musks and nobody is there to dig ditches, clean the garbage and work the assembly line. Or how better a society would be without tons of well paid white collar jobs (advertisers for one).

> nobody is there to dig ditches

Nobody shovels horse feces or lights lamps anymore.

Also, these problems (not enough ditch diggers) are solved by just paying people more for that kind of work. Culturally we think that managers up the chain deserve to get paid more and more, but if there's a shortage of people scrubbing toilets, maybe the person with clean fingernails merely cutting paychecks doesn't necessarily warrant a higher market rate.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#117

Post by [deleted] »

humanrebar wrote: post #115
rainbowmverse wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is being born to those parents not luck? I had to learn self-control, personal finance, investment, entrepreneurship, and so on by myself because no one taught me. I learned it very, very late and it's likely set me back decades. I had to be exposed to people who knew these things, and who were willing to teach me despite my upbringing. The fact that I'm where I am with growing savings, a small but growing music…

> I had to learn self-control, personal finance, investment, entrepreneurship, and so on... Other people have to do this and other similar things. When they have kids and raise them successfully, is that luck? Or is it payoff for that effort carried into the next generation? Some people are just lucky. Some are just privileged. But it's reductionist and just not good advice to say the whole world is random and decisi…

[deleted]

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#118

Post by okr »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #90
slackingoff2017 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may want to consider a move to a happier place, the Midwest is not doing well these days. I moved from an economically depressed city in the midwest to a southern tech boomtown a few years ago and the difference in mood is striking. Everyone is new here, everyone is making good money. Remember how it was right before the housing crisis or before the dotcom bubble burst? That's how it feels here. The Midwest is me…

> ...do yourself a favor and visit some reputable cities in the sun belt. On an individual level this might make sense, but if everyone does this, it just amplifies existing problems. In the city you're leaving, inequality would just grow worse, there would be a brain drain, and family support structures would weaken. In the city you're going to, housing costs would go up, and pockets of area would be insulated from…

Because its like riding a dead horse. I think, there are reasons, why areas go bad, and those reasons will not go away, unless people leave the s* holes. I do not see any obligation to stay, when its bad.

So i'd say, its reasonable to go abroad, to abandon home and make something of life, when you have a chance to do it. And later, if you still feel close to your home, you can return and create something that makes sense for you, with confidence and resources. The root causes, why areas went bad, may have died and there might be space and hunger to grow something new. That is at least my colorful narrative.

I work with many people from so considered poorer countries. They all miss their homes. But actually no one ever said, they want to go back and build something. :)

I think there is no obligation to stay at one place and make it work.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#119

Post by humanrebar »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #70
EdSharkey wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government regulations created the twisted non-market for healthcare that exists in the united states. Pretty please don't sign us up for more government. You know there are 7 big health care providers in my state building spectacular facilities as fast as they can, and they don't have to compete with each other? There's no competition. Every pleb goes dutifully to the assigned provider his employer sends him to. You…

Why do most people in the US seem to never look abroad when it comes to healthcare? The US healthcare system is probably the most privatized in the developed world. The systems in other developed countries (e.g. any European country) give more weight to the government, and have been shown by all sorts of metric to work much better. How can you still say "don't sign us up for more government"?

> Why do most people in the US seem to never look abroad when it comes to healthcare?

The Brits were just debating how much nurses should get paid. When government runs your organization, math and economics become subservient to politics.

> The US healthcare system is probably the most privatized in the developed world.

It has privatized profits, but the whole system is heavily regulated. Prices for things are certainly not set on open markets.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#120

Post by analog31 »

hueving wrote: post #37
analog31 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, I'm the first to admit that I've achieved my level of income by luck, and without hard work. I was lucky to have two educated parents, their wealth to fall back on, and an affluent, healthy environment to grow up in. My parents paid for my undergraduate education, and the government paid for my graduate degree. I "work" in a nice office, by playing with equations and gadgets, and talking to people. Mean…

Physical effort has no (and should not have) a bearing on how much you are paid. Work smarter, not harder. A society doesn't advance if everyone spends all day digging ditches with spoons.

Indeed, work is not measured in Joules, but in dollars. A dollar's worth of work is worth a dollar. In those terms, I perform more work than a ditch digger, with fewer Joules.

In my view, what needs to happen is, get rid of the promise that if you work hard, you'll get ahead. Instead, adopt a more realistic ethic in which success depends on a combination of wealth, education, and effort, with those factors listed in descending order of value. Also note that wealth is accompanied by political power.

Post reply on HN