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Die young, live fast: The evolution of an underclass

newscientist.com

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Re: Die young, live fast: The evolution of an underclass

#31

Post by nostrademons »

todayiamme wrote: post #21
brondaire wrote: post #11

Anytime an article hits Hacker News such as this; that is, with explicit references to class and socioeconomic status, I cringe as I read the comments. The comments are both predictable, and utterly devastating. Psychology is largely at play here, since both the Fundamental attribution error ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error ) and cognitive dissonance ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitiv…

It's not their fault. Most people simply don't know what bottomless despair is like. Even fewer know what it's like to have no resources whatsoever to deal with it. I sometimes still cry and question why I wasn't born normal like others. It doesn't matter what I know and understand. It doesn't matter what I tell myself. I still feel that stab. I couldn't have imagined what this felt like until I had to go through it,…

"The very idea that such behavior is driven by genetic impulses is something that shows a flawed understanding of the entire concept at some stage by the writer."

The article isn't saying that poverty is caused by genes, it's saying that the the behavior of having more children earlier when poor is caused by genes. Which is exactly the same sort of "coder" analogy that Richard Dawkins points out. It then says that this behavior then tends to "trap" individuals into this particular behavior, as any deviation from it results in fewer offspring surviving. In the game theory world, this is an evolutionarily stable strategy.

There are lots of instances where genes encode behaviors that are conditionally expressed by the environment, eg. the phenomenon where most mammals tend to have more girl babies then boys when times are bad, and vice versa when times are good.

Re: Die young, live fast: The evolution of an underclass

#32

Post by [deleted] »

brondaire wrote: post #11

Anytime an article hits Hacker News such as this; that is, with explicit references to class and socioeconomic status, I cringe as I read the comments. The comments are both predictable, and utterly devastating. Psychology is largely at play here, since both the Fundamental attribution error ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error ) and cognitive dissonance ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitiv…

[deleted]

Re: Die young, live fast: The evolution of an underclass

#33

Post by todayiamme »

nostrademons wrote: post #31
todayiamme wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not their fault. Most people simply don't know what bottomless despair is like. Even fewer know what it's like to have no resources whatsoever to deal with it. I sometimes still cry and question why I wasn't born normal like others. It doesn't matter what I know and understand. It doesn't matter what I tell myself. I still feel that stab. I couldn't have imagined what this felt like until I had to go through it,…

"The very idea that such behavior is driven by genetic impulses is something that shows a flawed understanding of the entire concept at some stage by the writer." The article isn't saying that poverty is caused by genes, it's saying that the the behavior of having more children earlier when poor is caused by genes. Which is exactly the same sort of "coder" analogy that Richard Dawkins points out. It then says that th…

I am so sorry that I couldn't get my point across effectively. What I was trying to say was that the idea that such behavior tends to trap people into poverty is a derivative of our genetic code is extremely deterministic.

Of course, you're right, but you forget that these are people capable of making a conscious choice. They are people who if given the right resources and understanding can choose otherwise. Perhaps we have a higher tendency of making such choices due to our genetic makeup, but that's what it exactly is a tendency. It is not an absolute, and my problem isn't the fact that this happens.

It is the fact that this does happen and that despite the fact those people can choose whenever someone meets them they will label them under something like this. We talk about them as mammals and subjects. This is a good thing when you're trying to get down to the facts, but we need to remember this; they are people, human beings with feelings, desires, dreams, aspirations, hopes and pain. If we want to help them we should respect them not label them.

[Edit: Made a few changes to make it more clear]

Re: Die young, live fast: The evolution of an underclass

#34

Post by yummyfajitas »

starkfist wrote: post #29
yummyfajitas wrote: post #7

The article is seriously flawed, because it completely discounts the possibility that the fast lifestyle is the cause of the pathologies of the poor. It mentions the oft-cited statistic that 2000 calories of junk food is cheaper than 2000 calories of vegetables. The fact is true, but irrelevant; if you are overweight or obese (as most of the poor are), you can reduce your caloric intake and increase food quality for…

63% of all adult Americans are overweight or obese, graduate students included. In poor areas it is hard to swap bad calories for good, because there is no place to get good food cheaply. I don't know about Jersey City, but in Queens there are plenty of "ghetto" Indian people (for lack of a better phrase.)

Major statistical fallacy. You can't take the average across a group and then assert that subgroups display the same average.

I don't have statistics for grad students (only personal observations), but I do have statistics showing that obesity goes up with poverty. For instance:

http://www.prb.org/articles/2010/usobesity.aspx

Re: Die young, live fast: The evolution of an underclass

#35

Post by starkfist »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #34
starkfist wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

63% of all adult Americans are overweight or obese, graduate students included. In poor areas it is hard to swap bad calories for good, because there is no place to get good food cheaply. I don't know about Jersey City, but in Queens there are plenty of "ghetto" Indian people (for lack of a better phrase.)

Major statistical fallacy. You can't take the average across a group and then assert that subgroups display the same average. I don't have statistics for grad students (only personal observations), but I do have statistics showing that obesity goes up with poverty. For instance: http://www.prb.org/articles/2010/usobesity.aspx

Sure, whatever. I guess it depends on the graduate program. Computer scientist PhDs are generally fat. Kinesiology grad students are usually fit. Everyone else is somewhere in between. I am not providing a link, because I don't care.

Re: Die young, live fast: The evolution of an underclass

#36

Post by nmftt »

frossie wrote: post #25
todayiamme wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not their fault. Most people simply don't know what bottomless despair is like. Even fewer know what it's like to have no resources whatsoever to deal with it. I sometimes still cry and question why I wasn't born normal like others. It doesn't matter what I know and understand. It doesn't matter what I tell myself. I still feel that stab. I couldn't have imagined what this felt like until I had to go through it,…

While I do respect your larger point... The reason why they don't have pretty often is because they can't afford abortions. A lot of the research in that article was done in the UK, where cost is not really a factor. Abortions are covered by the national heath service. Also, there are no parental notification rules or any similar barriers that make it so hard in the US. Contraception is also free, and so I don't thin…

I don't think the reason teenagers don't use contraception is because they want to get pregnant, but because they don't clearly see the implications. I know abortions are emotionally hard and if you don't see yourself having a future to protect it's harder to make that decision. Still as far as I know abortions are very accepted in Europe and it probably more likely that you have an abortion if your parents know you're pregnant. Especially if you have successful parents that can see the implications of having a child at an early age, which many underprivileged teenagers don't have.

Re: Die young, live fast: The evolution of an underclass

#37

Post by yungchin »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #22
_delirium wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that's what I thought I was arguing, since kids inheriting behaviors from their parents is one kind of environmental factor. I'm not sure I'd call it a "personal choice", given that one doesn't choose one's parents, and doesn't fully choose what aspects of one's environment to be influenced by. There's lots of room for personal choices, of course, but I think they all happen against a strong background of e…

You can call it an environmental effect, if you wish, but it isn't the sort of environmental effect the article is talking about. The article claims that 'this kind of "delinquent" behaviour is a sensible response to the circumstances of a life constrained by poverty' , not that poor people are repeating the same bad choices as their parents. The article claims that " Once you are in a situation where the expected he…

The better choices that you could make are only obvious if you can see the whole landscape of possibilities available to you. If you don't have that bird's eye view, and can only see your local optimum (which is centred on having children early and not minding your health too much), how do you know which way to go to find a better optimum?

And even then, if our generous state education gave you the wisdom to see which way to go, would you be able to overcome the barriers between this optimum and the next?

That's my redux of the article: there's a local optimum sucking you back in. And at least locally, your behaviour would be sensible behaviour. Your other point, that this (globally) unwise behaviour only amplifies your problems, may well be correct. That will make the well you're stuck in only deeper.

Re: Die young, live fast: The evolution of an underclass

#38

Post by henrikschroder »

dkarl wrote: post #23

The article seems to confirm the idea that we can't improve the life of the underclass, we can only shrink the underclass by moving people out of it. Unfortunately, not many people who are magically plucked out of their culture and society (via scholarships or employment) can bear to alienate themselves from their roots forever, so that isn't a solution, either. Even if we consistently skim off the exceptional indivi…

Belonging to the working class or underclass means not only that you lack the money and resources of the classes above you, it also means that you have a completely different outlook on life. What you suggest would take generations before you get any real results.

Re: Die young, live fast: The evolution of an underclass

#39

Post by henrikschroder »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #28
SandB0x wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know where you're coming from, but I think that's a little judgemental. Most people are either affected by or extremely concerned about poverty and welfare - I don't quite follow how cognitive dissonance comes into it. Maybe people don't think of responding to this, a large scale study, with personal anecdotes. There are plenty of amazing posts on HN in response to other stories. Surely it's valuable to understand…

He isn't suggesting people are not concerned by poverty. He is attempting to shut down debate by suggesting that anyone who hasn't actually experienced the phenomenon under discussion is incapable of reasoning about it and is probably irrational. One could make similar statements about any topic: Anytime an article hits Hacker News such as this; that is, with explicit references to astronomy and outer space, I cringe…

He is attempting to shut down debate by suggesting that anyone who hasn't actually experienced the phenomenon under discussion is incapable of reasoning about it and is probably irrational.

In my experience, people who are born and raised upper middle class have absolutely no understanding of the different social classes, or what makes people belong to one and not the other. That makes for pretty irrational arguments. :-)

That said, I agree with you on the whole "shutting down debate", it's rather boring.

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