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Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life (2013)

princeton.edu

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Re: Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life (2013)

#151

Post by addicted »

bequanna wrote: post #115
jimnotgym wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Poverty can also be a trap because... Actually there is contrary evidence. A study was carried out on the streets of London where they gave larger sums of cash no-strings-attached, and it showed that people in general took that money and used it to set themselves up in a job. One started a gardening business, for instance [0]. The idea that work is what people need is very Victorian, and reminds me of the tread-mil…

> If I can find a single days work I lose all of it. I can't speak to social programs outside of the US, but here, most of our programs (SNAP, Section-8, unemployment benefits) are on a sliding scale. This allows for benefits to somewhat decrease as earnings increase. That said, I anecdotally have noticed a couple things: 1. Many low income people actually aspire to be accepted into these programs, especially Section…

This is largely not true. Most housing assistance in most places is in bands. For example to receive low income housing you need to have income below a certain fixed level or else you’re not eligible at all.

Many other benefits are lost entirely if you get a job.

Re: Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life (2013)

#152

Post by wwweston »

dionidium wrote: post #149
amelius wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Poverty decreases IQ" studies are contentious and not well replicated. Why does it keep getting repeated in 2018? The reason might be common sense. The evolution of the human brain was possible for a great part because humans started to cook their food. Poverty reduces nutritional intake. Therefore the studies make sense. This means that (imho) somebody should prove the opposite to make this completely logical mem…

This isn't just wrong, it's fundamentally wrong. The burden is on those who wish to forward a positive claim. The meme won't go away because it nicely confirms a popular and comforting narrative.

What we're talking about here isn't "a popular and comforting narrative," it's a description of a plausible model involving mechanisms that are at least partially understood.

Once you're at that point, whether a challenge to that model or the model itself constitutes a claim that bears the greater burden of proof isn't as clear as it might be for any arbitrary claim.

Re: Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life (2013)

#153

Post by MadSudaca »

jernfrost wrote: post #37

I think this is why social democracy works so well for reducing poverty. When I compare poverty relief programs in the US with how it works in Scandinavian countries (I live in Norway) I notice a very big difference in how it is delivered. The US uses a large patchwork of a multitude of smaller means tested programs. You frequently read about how people are telling each other about what programs one can apply to and…

I would be very careful about applying anything Norway does to a wildly different, much larger country, while expecting similar positive results.

Re: Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life (2013)

#154

Post by dahart »

simonsarris wrote: post #127

"Poverty decreases IQ" studies are contentious and not well replicated. Why does it keep getting repeated in 2018? This Princeton article is from 2013 and talking about the paper, "Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function". Here is some December 2013 commentary doubting the paper: > Mani et al. (Research Articles, 30 August, p. 976) presented laboratory experiments that aimed to show that poverty-related worries impede cog…

> Why does it keep getting repeated in 2018?

What do you mean? Why shouldn’t it be discussed? Criticism of methodology doesn’t necessarily mean the conclusions are wrong or not worth exploring or validating. One critique doesn’t disprove the hypothesis, and it’s certainly possible the critique is flawed as well. It only took a second to Google Mani’s rebuttal to the critique: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6163/1169.5

Re: Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life (2013)

#155

Post by dd36 »

crdoconnor wrote: post #146
dd36 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bonds/loans are spent and have to be repaid with future revenue. A bond is a liability to the issuer not an asset. There is a transfer and it’s current rich from future rich.

>A bond is a liability to the issuer not an asset. From the issuer's (government) perspective it is a liability. From society's perspective it is both a liability and an asset .

If it’s used to invest then whatever is purchased is the offsetting asset. Sadly, it’s being used to fund current operations which has no offsetting asset. The offset is retained earnings. That can and needs to be fixed. It’s how state governments run and they do a lot of investing.

Re: Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life (2013)

#156

Post by maym86 »

weddpros wrote: post #10
maym86 wrote: post #2

All programmers here know how hard it is to get work done when you need to focus and are in a disruptive environment. It's much harder to get work done when you're dealing with a lot of overhead.

This is my concern with the article: maybe the impairment doesn't necessarily depend on scarcity/money... Maybe it's more a matter of bandwidth, in which case blaming Poverty only sounds quite ideological. 1- Does the bandwidth problem go away when you fix poverty (costly but easy to measure)? 2- Does the problem go away when you lessen perceived stress instead? (teach meditation/auto-hypnosis and measure if it helps…

"Learning to control it" ("it" being the stress of poverty) just sounds like another overhead you are expecting people to deal with that people in a more stable situation don't have to worry about.

Re: Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life (2013)

#157

Post by shagie »

maym86 wrote: post #2

All programmers here know how hard it is to get work done when you need to focus and are in a disruptive environment. It's much harder to get work done when you're dealing with a lot of overhead.

As a developer, our job is making decisions (about code / requirements). This is directly related to decision fatigue ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_fatigue ) - the "not wanting to think about other things when you get home.

If one has the resources to reduce the cognitive load of other decisions (eat out rather than have to do meal planning), well... that's the advantage of having a well paying job.

The flip side is where problems occur. When someone is dealing with other REALLY IMPORTANT decisions (pay rent? pay food? pay utilities? medical bills? - pick two or three), making other decisions for a white collar job becomes harder to get and harder to keep.

This then leads off into tangents of basic income, guaranteed housing, universal medical care, etc... All of those things reduce some of the difficulty of making those really important decisions.

Re: Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life (2013)

#158

Post by maym86 »

shagie wrote: post #157
maym86 wrote: post #2

All programmers here know how hard it is to get work done when you need to focus and are in a disruptive environment. It's much harder to get work done when you're dealing with a lot of overhead.

As a developer, our job is making decisions (about code / requirements). This is directly related to decision fatigue ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_fatigue ) - the "not wanting to think about other things when you get home. If one has the resources to reduce the cognitive load of other decisions (eat out rather than have to do meal planning), well... that's the advantage of having a well paying job. The fl…

Exactly my point. Thanks for adding more detail.

Re: Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life (2013)

#159

Post by jgalt212 »

simonsarris wrote: post #127

"Poverty decreases IQ" studies are contentious and not well replicated. Why does it keep getting repeated in 2018? This Princeton article is from 2013 and talking about the paper, "Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function". Here is some December 2013 commentary doubting the paper: > Mani et al. (Research Articles, 30 August, p. 976) presented laboratory experiments that aimed to show that poverty-related worries impede cog…

very few results in the social sciences replicate well.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/7/31/16021654/p-...

Re: Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life (2013)

#160

Post by amelius »

dionidium wrote: post #149
amelius wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Poverty decreases IQ" studies are contentious and not well replicated. Why does it keep getting repeated in 2018? The reason might be common sense. The evolution of the human brain was possible for a great part because humans started to cook their food. Poverty reduces nutritional intake. Therefore the studies make sense. This means that (imho) somebody should prove the opposite to make this completely logical mem…

This isn't just wrong, it's fundamentally wrong. The burden is on those who wish to forward a positive claim. The meme won't go away because it nicely confirms a popular and comforting narrative.

Analogy: somebody claims that gravity is 10% stronger in New York City. The popular and comforting meme is that gravity works just normally in NYC. Who needs to prove anything?
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