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How poverty changes your mindset

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Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#71

Post by ashelmire »

tamrix wrote: post #49
redm wrote: post #15

I'm sure how people deal with stress and difficult situations varies from person to person. My personal story and 2-cents: When I was 17 I went through a period of near destitute. I was living on my own, my father had passed away, and I had dropped out of school. Yet, I found myself with some very good jobs, such as GE Capital, a big Oil and Gas companies IT department, etc. Regardless of the opportunity, my arroganc…

I think comments like these are more likely propaganda than real experiences. They keep feeding you the lie that you're going to be successful if you keep believing in the system. When we all know statistically America is worse than ever before. You read the parent comment and think the poor and just lazy and all your have to do is work yourself a slave and suck corporate dick. But it's never a top comment adding tha…

You've heard the saying, give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime?

It's kind of like that. I coasted through most of my 20s, wasted a lot of time. I decided some years ago that I wanted to work as a dev, so I studied for a couple years and made it happen. But I have a large number of friends from early 20s to 40 (many of whom come from middle or upper-middle class families) that are perfectly happy coasting through life - they work in restaurants, bike shops, strip clubs, or take bouts of unemployment while on food stamps, etc. These are the urban equivalent of the trope of coal miners that refuse to learn new skills. Why are they like this? Because they are comfortable. You can live and be perfectly happily in a major city on 25k/year, living with roommates and on/off government assistance (though you'll never save money or advance). I'd raise the minimum wage significantly to help battle some of this (food stamps or housing assistance for people that work is corporate welfare in my eyes). But much change must come from within, and we have to find a way to motivate people.

So yes, help the poor - by providing education, healthcare, and time and opportunity to learn new skills when they are unemployed. But everything should be designed to encourage people to learn and contribute productively to society. No, it's not easy to make money, no, it's REALLY not easy to become comfortable, and yes, it's really, really difficult to become wealthy for 99% of people. But it's everyone's responsibility to try to contribute to society and we owe it to ourselves to strive for more.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#72

Post by NegativeLatency »

adrr wrote: post #67
redm wrote: post #15

I'm sure how people deal with stress and difficult situations varies from person to person. My personal story and 2-cents: When I was 17 I went through a period of near destitute. I was living on my own, my father had passed away, and I had dropped out of school. Yet, I found myself with some very good jobs, such as GE Capital, a big Oil and Gas companies IT department, etc. Regardless of the opportunity, my arroganc…

100% of society can't be brought out of poverty. Here's an example: If we motivated everyone to get a college education, we would have people flipping burgers who are college educated making min wage and living in poverty while struggling to put food on the table.

Not everyone needs college, there are trade schools and the like that can help you get a better job.

Why can’t minimum wage be raised to provide a better standard of living?

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#73

Post by MrLeap »

autokad wrote: post #48
redm wrote: post #15

I'm sure how people deal with stress and difficult situations varies from person to person. My personal story and 2-cents: When I was 17 I went through a period of near destitute. I was living on my own, my father had passed away, and I had dropped out of school. Yet, I found myself with some very good jobs, such as GE Capital, a big Oil and Gas companies IT department, etc. Regardless of the opportunity, my arroganc…

i grew up poor, and it was frustrating to see the stupid mistakes my family and people around me would make over, and over, and over. then people like the researchers in this article say infuriating things like 'their bad decisions are just because they are cognitively tired, and actually many of them could be even considered shrewd!" being cognitively tired does play a role, but more so because they are cognitively…

Also grew up poor, and seen people of all income levels be cognitively lazy. I felt like I really started to get the way success works when I saw successful people waste money. I saw individuals make flippant decisions to throw away 50,000$ on software that their organization will never use. MSDN licenses for 100 people that can't and never will code. I've seen a salary man whose job it was to install software on tablets one day a year, the rest of the year he watched Netflix.

I'm aghast when I see well off people just burn money. There is an entire population of people who find success via a different road than intelligence or intrinsic value.

I've seen things that would make your blood boil.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#74

Post by ashelmire »

adrr wrote: post #67
redm wrote: post #15

I'm sure how people deal with stress and difficult situations varies from person to person. My personal story and 2-cents: When I was 17 I went through a period of near destitute. I was living on my own, my father had passed away, and I had dropped out of school. Yet, I found myself with some very good jobs, such as GE Capital, a big Oil and Gas companies IT department, etc. Regardless of the opportunity, my arroganc…

100% of society can't be brought out of poverty. Here's an example: If we motivated everyone to get a college education, we would have people flipping burgers who are college educated making min wage and living in poverty while struggling to put food on the table.

We're not going to have humans flipping burgers in a few years. A lot of these low-wage, low-skill jobs are finally on the brink of being automated. There will be new opportunities to replace them, as there always are. I'm pretty optimistic about the future of the economy - we have a huge number of skill-demanding fields that are growing, and many of them are facing real difficulty, which is exactly what creates demand.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#75

Post by NegativeLatency »

eanzenberg wrote: post #60
tamrix wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think comments like these are more likely propaganda than real experiences. They keep feeding you the lie that you're going to be successful if you keep believing in the system. When we all know statistically America is worse than ever before. You read the parent comment and think the poor and just lazy and all your have to do is work yourself a slave and suck corporate dick. But it's never a top comment adding tha…

How is America statistically worse than before? Compared to when?

Compared to a time when minimum wage provided a decent standard of living.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#76

Post by sparkie »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #72
adrr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% of society can't be brought out of poverty. Here's an example: If we motivated everyone to get a college education, we would have people flipping burgers who are college educated making min wage and living in poverty while struggling to put food on the table.

Not everyone needs college, there are trade schools and the like that can help you get a better job. Why can’t minimum wage be raised to provide a better standard of living?

Because when you raise minimum wage, that means employers of the minimum wage earners need to push up their prices so that they're still making the same profits. (Actually, the same is not good enough, the profits need to exceed the previous years). The price of everything ends up inflating and minimum wage earners end up getting less for their money, despite having "more of it".

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#77

Post by psyc »

kraig911 wrote: post #69

I hate seeing people's comments on stories around this topic. I grew up in poverty and food stamps from time to time. My dad was a roughneck and when the oil bust happened in the 80's there was a time we lived out of our car -- my whole family. here was literally nothing to do in the oil patch during that bust. There was literally no work. But people don't understand true hopelessness. My dad did everything he could…

I grew up in poverty in the US as well, and I agree there’s a heartless tendency for people not to acknowledge it’s real. The tired comment I see most frequently is something like “nobody in the US is poor because everyone has plumbing, refrigerators, and TVs.” First, no, everyone does not. Many people are homeless. Second, it’s very narrow to focus on objective material factors, because that discounts the toll of the nightmarish stress the poor live with constantly, even the ones who have an apartment and a television.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#78

Post by Consultant32452 »

adrr wrote: post #67
redm wrote: post #15

I'm sure how people deal with stress and difficult situations varies from person to person. My personal story and 2-cents: When I was 17 I went through a period of near destitute. I was living on my own, my father had passed away, and I had dropped out of school. Yet, I found myself with some very good jobs, such as GE Capital, a big Oil and Gas companies IT department, etc. Regardless of the opportunity, my arroganc…

100% of society can't be brought out of poverty. Here's an example: If we motivated everyone to get a college education, we would have people flipping burgers who are college educated making min wage and living in poverty while struggling to put food on the table.

You're being too generous because you're only considering 1st worlders. 71% of the world's population lives on less than $10/day. If we're going to try to flatten out quality of life among everyone then impoverished Americans are going to take a lifestyle cut.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#79

Post by jacquesm »

tamrix wrote: post #49
redm wrote: post #15

I'm sure how people deal with stress and difficult situations varies from person to person. My personal story and 2-cents: When I was 17 I went through a period of near destitute. I was living on my own, my father had passed away, and I had dropped out of school. Yet, I found myself with some very good jobs, such as GE Capital, a big Oil and Gas companies IT department, etc. Regardless of the opportunity, my arroganc…

I think comments like these are more likely propaganda than real experiences. They keep feeding you the lie that you're going to be successful if you keep believing in the system. When we all know statistically America is worse than ever before. You read the parent comment and think the poor and just lazy and all your have to do is work yourself a slave and suck corporate dick. But it's never a top comment adding tha…

> I think comments like these are more likely propaganda than real experiences.

That's a pretty bad thing to say without knowing for sure.

Re: How poverty changes your mindset

#80

Post by MisterBastahrd »

redm wrote: post #15

I'm sure how people deal with stress and difficult situations varies from person to person. My personal story and 2-cents: When I was 17 I went through a period of near destitute. I was living on my own, my father had passed away, and I had dropped out of school. Yet, I found myself with some very good jobs, such as GE Capital, a big Oil and Gas companies IT department, etc. Regardless of the opportunity, my arroganc…

You were temporarily embarrassed and broke for a little while.

That isn't poverty.

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