Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age • Hacker News Board

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#91

Post by swiley » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

anonuser123456 wrote: post #15

helpPeople wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, eating flour mixed with water is cheaper than vegetables. But I don't think people do that. Instead people wrongly think fast food is cheaper than home cooked food. Not sure your point of "no money for good food" Source- calories and protein and vitamins per dollar Edit- fast food is not necessarily faster. Carrots and protein shakes are faster than waiting in line for example.

>Instead people wrongly think fast food is cheaper than home cooked food. Fast food is cheaper than home cooked food when you factor in time & mental effort. Cooking at home requires skills that many people do not have.

I'm usually sympathetic to this but dumping ramen into a coffee pot doesn't require skills. Frying an egg does but not much, and you could just microwave them instead. etc.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#92

Post by anonuser123456 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #58

anonuser123456 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Instead people wrongly think fast food is cheaper than home cooked food. Fast food is cheaper than home cooked food when you factor in time & mental effort. Cooking at home requires skills that many people do not have.

Sorry, this is beyond my understanding. Morning porridge: pour water into oats. Microwave for 2 minutes. Dinner: pour water into rice. Boil for 10 minutes. Add a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. My 7yo does it. Do you seriously think there's a non-disabled adult incapable of pouring water in a bowl?

>Do you seriously think there's a non-disabled adult incapable of pouring water in a bowl?

I seriously think there are non-disabled adults that would never think to pour water into a bowl for oatmeal. That's the crux of my argument. The meta cognitive step to "change the status quo" appears to be beyond the capability of most people.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#93

Post by ken » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 3:19 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #47

RobertRoberts wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...the game is not rigged against those from poor backgrounds Rigged isn't a fair word, it's just reality. Also, as another commenter pointed out, there are people that are successful in a wide range of ways, money is just one of them. And those that had it easy early on often times don't do well later in life when things can get hard. Edit: I spent time on the streets as a teen (yes it affected me) but my siblings…

Rigged isn't a fair word, it's just reality. It's only reality because people accept it. If we stop accepting it the reality can be changed. For example, for several hundred years many people accepted slavery and believed owning people was justifiable. When enough people decided not to accept that reality it was changed fairly quickly.

Several thousand years, at the very least, and in some quarters it's still practiced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century

Practices can change, and it's nice to think that once we realized it was possible for "owning people" to not be a thing, we simply made it not a thing, but in fact mindsets can be the slowest to change.

Eradication of an evil social practice is not like invention of a science or technology. We invent the car or the computer, and 25 years later it's in every country on the planet. The Father of History mentions the ills of slavery, and 2500 years later we still haven't quite got this thing licked.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#94

Post by mywacaday » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

ck425 wrote: post #29

coldtea wrote: post #18

Cue the "I was from a poor family and I got into Stanford, everybody should be able to it" from people who don't understand how life, statistics, outliers, and relative effort required (for a middle/class rich kid playing in "easy mode" to succeed, versus a poor kid playing the "extra hard mode"). People who confuse what's possible but 10x more difficult for some income groups/backgrounds, to be the same as being equ…

This is an important point. I came from a less well off family in Scotland and when younger considered many of my peers to be lacking intelligence or ambition in life. Then a while ago I dated a girl also from that town and got an insight into just how lucky I was. It never occurred to her that she could possibly go to uni until the last month of school (despite being one of the most intelligent people I've ever met)…

Neither of my parents finished the Irish equivalent of High School but both appreciated the value of a third level education. Even after dropping out of my 1st course and going working in a factory my Dad reverse psyched me into starting again.

After my 1st job a colleague/friend that had left poached me to move with a 80% pay rise. Ten years later same thing happened with another colleague/friend.

It would be easy to see how I could still be on a manufacturing line, some of the people I worked with are still there. With out a bit of help from friends I would not be where I am today. Being extremely talented/a .1%er will get you far but having good role models and a bit of luck is almost as good.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#95

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 3:22 PM UTC

vertis wrote: post #16

I went through a few years of unstable income in my early twenties (circa 2000), it wasn't altogether bad, just very very sporadic. When I think back on those years I had all kinds of bad behaviours that were not rational. For example, not paying bills because something more urgent might come up. Not looking at balances because it was easier to not know. I would go from feeling rich one month because a freelance clie…

[deleted]

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#96

Post by toasterlovin » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 3:27 PM UTC

virgilp wrote: post #32

coldtea wrote: post #18

Cue the "I was from a poor family and I got into Stanford, everybody should be able to it" from people who don't understand how life, statistics, outliers, and relative effort required (for a middle/class rich kid playing in "easy mode" to succeed, versus a poor kid playing the "extra hard mode"). People who confuse what's possible but 10x more difficult for some income groups/backgrounds, to be the same as being equ…

I wonder if it's "fixable", though. I come from a lower-middle-class family, so does my wife; we're upper-middle-class now. Our kids are nowhere near as "driven" as we were... but, to the extent that we can, of course we're going to use all our resources to make them more successful than they "deserve". It's basic human nature, yes the game is rigged, because if you come from a family that is both stable & well-off,…

Your kids have a lot of life left to live. Probably life will throw some curveballs at them (it does for most of us). These curveballs will probably spur them to develop drive and motivation.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#97

Post by etagobla » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 3:45 PM UTC

ja3k wrote: post #3

The article acknowledges that the study does not show causation and it seems a little strange to think a causal arrow in this direction is more plausible than the other direction. It seems like people who do better at thinking and memory tasks should also do better at their jobs and interviews and therefore be less likely to experience an income drop. To speculate on income drop's effect on mental acumen one would wa…

All this tells me is the real percentage of people on this Math and Science Forum who don't read the article before making some politicized comment. It shocks me.

Actually, we could remedy most of these comments by thinking about the title for a couple seconds.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#98

Post by toomuchtodo » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 3:46 PM UTC

sharadov wrote: post #55

virgilp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it's "fixable", though. I come from a lower-middle-class family, so does my wife; we're upper-middle-class now. Our kids are nowhere near as "driven" as we were... but, to the extent that we can, of course we're going to use all our resources to make them more successful than they "deserve". It's basic human nature, yes the game is rigged, because if you come from a family that is both stable & well-off,…

I think about this as well. My parents struggled so that I could have a comfortable life. But I did see the struggle up-close, and am lucky to have inherited the work-ethic. I have a comfortable upper-middle-class life and think about how do you make sure that the kids inherit that. The answer is to keep the work ethic going - working hard. My dad is 70 and could have retired in any part of the world, 10 years back,…

Your Dad sounds awesome.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#99

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 3:47 PM UTC

etagobla wrote: post #97

ja3k wrote: post #3

The article acknowledges that the study does not show causation and it seems a little strange to think a causal arrow in this direction is more plausible than the other direction. It seems like people who do better at thinking and memory tasks should also do better at their jobs and interviews and therefore be less likely to experience an income drop. To speculate on income drop's effect on mental acumen one would wa…

All this tells me is the real percentage of people on this Math and Science Forum who don't read the article before making some politicized comment. It shocks me. Actually, we could remedy most of these comments by thinking about the title for a couple seconds.

> people on this Math and Science Forum

This is not a “Math and Science Forum”.

Re: Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age

#100

Post by scotty79 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

helpPeople wrote: post #67

scotty79 wrote: post #8

Poverty harms children. It's possible it harms young adults as well. The sooner we dismiss the notion that we need the poverty to motivate us to work and adopt some form of basic income, the better. It might be cheaper too than current system when you consider all the harm that poverty does to economy and workers.

What is defined as poverty? If you have internet and food, are you still in poverty?

I'd say if you have food, internet and roof over your head and can get treatment when you get sick you are not in poverty. There are some official definitions though.