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

#121

Post by throwaway631673 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #106

malvosenior wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one of those people (I didn't go to Stanford, but I did move a few rungs up the socioeconomic ladder), I take issue with your point. It's not helpful. There is definitely a culture of anti-intellectualism and escapism among the poor in the US (my background). Sure, the rich kids have it easy and it's super easy to sit around feeling bad about that but in many, many cases people could better themselves with a modic…

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's not your place to tell other people how to live. If they want to spend their days watching football, instead of learning math or computers: it is their decision to make. A lot of those people won't care that you are more successful than them. They're content with just watching football: it's what they're choosing to do, after all.

I disagree. Yes, you should not tell other people how to live their lives.

But if these people who make poor choices and then look for handouts, from your tax dollars, then you have right to complain about their lifestyle.

I had to support my brothers for a long time. They just stayed with my parents, played video games all day, hung out with wrong crowd at night, and complained about lack of money. My parents would guilt me into giving my brothers some handout. And then they complained about capitalism.

And I would complain about them not working and not able to do thing I wanted to with my money but my parent always shamed me for being selfish.

After a lot of nagging and many time refusing to give handouts, they slowly got decent jobs and are doing pretty good. I just wish I had nagged earlier and stopped supporting their lifestyle with my money.

So based on my personal experiences, I don't agree that we should spend our tax dollars on helping poor but don't shame them about their unhealthy lifestyle.

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

#122

Post by C1sc0cat » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 4:44 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)…

That's interesting about 20 years a go one of my Female friends moved away to one of the poorer parts of the UK.

She has now moved back primarly because her v smart daughter saw her career as working on the check out in a supermarket as there are not many high paying jobs out in east Anglia.

Which is the problem of moving from SV to some where cheap you could be limiting your kids opportunities.

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

#123

Post by newen » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #106

malvosenior wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one of those people (I didn't go to Stanford, but I did move a few rungs up the socioeconomic ladder), I take issue with your point. It's not helpful. There is definitely a culture of anti-intellectualism and escapism among the poor in the US (my background). Sure, the rich kids have it easy and it's super easy to sit around feeling bad about that but in many, many cases people could better themselves with a modic…

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's not your place to tell other people how to live. If they want to spend their days watching football, instead of learning math or computers: it is their decision to make. A lot of those people won't care that you are more successful than them. They're content with just watching football: it's what they're choosing to do, after all.

It's their choice to spend their days watching football because there is a culture of anti-intellectualism. It's not as simple as it's their choice so don't criticize it.

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

#124

Post by Dirlewanger » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #89

gmadsen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you suggesting poor people are inherently less intelligent?

It's interesting how "poor people are often stupid" triggers an outrage, but "stupid people are often poor" is seen as a logical statement.

People don't want to face cold hard truths. IQ is not perfect by any means, but one of the best predictors of overall success in life. Yet when it's overlapped with socioeconomic standing, it suddenly becomes a racist measurement.

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

#125

Post by celticmusic » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

Dirlewanger wrote: post #105

celticmusic wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a crazy idea. Instead of spending all that time and effort invalidating the opinion of those who have successfully made it out of those circumstances, why don't you ask them how they did it and what they think can be done to help those who haven't? The problem with keyboard warriors is that it isn't actually action. It's akin to the studies showing that people who talk about what they're going to do get the sa…

More often than not, it's by complete chance. There's tons of people that grow up in shitty circumstances that "have potential", and not all of them are going to live up to it. The most likely avenue is that a mentor of some kind entered the person's life (teacher, Boys & Girl's Club, etc.) that supported/push them to aim higher. Then X years later, they will feel oddly smug and say "well, if I can do it, then anyone…

Let me draw an analogy to make this more clear.

You have a river that separates two climates. One is a barren desert, and the other is a lush forest. You have two villages on each side of this river, and they can see each other off in the distance. But the river is deep, wide, and treacherous.

So the lush village talks a lot about how lucky they are, how unlucky the other village is, and how they should recognize their luck in being born on the lush side of the river. And that's what they do.

How does this help the barren village?

It doesn't, and that's the point. The lush villagers feel as if they're morally good people because, after all, they recognize their luck!

But NONE of them take the ultimate responsibility and try build a bridge. They're content being morally good people who are lucky.

And then imagine one day a barren villager arrives in the lush village. And this villager starts talking about how they crossed the river, and others could too if they were willing to do what this particular villager did.

And the lush villagers start telling this person they're morally bad for believing others can do what they did. What about the disabled and the infirm? But really, the lush villagers just don't want to believe they could have taken the ultimate responsibility to build a bridge because it would lay bare the truth, that they're just as immoral as everyone else. That they COULD have solved the problem, or at the very least lessened the problem. But their goal was never to solve or make it better. Their goal was simply to live with themselves as the beneficiaries of that luck.

The only real difference between this analogy and what we're talking about here is that the solution isn't as clear cut.

What you basically said was "human beings who are taught the right things will be successful because they'll make better decisions in life". Which strongly implies it's not about chance because we as a society could take it upon ourselves to ensure as a society all of our young are taught the right things.

But rather than do that, people teach their children the right things, and then let themselves off the hook for all the other children by "recognizing" how unlucky they are. When they know, they KNOW, when no one is judging and they're being honest with themselves, they know they're just as large a part of the problem due to their own selfishness.

---

This problem will start getting better when these smug ass keyboard warriors stop recognizing shit and start taking action. When they stop being able to live with their own inaction and are instead pushed to action.

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

#126

Post by spaginal » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

bcrosby95 wrote: post #115

malvosenior wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one of those people (I didn't go to Stanford, but I did move a few rungs up the socioeconomic ladder), I take issue with your point. It's not helpful. There is definitely a culture of anti-intellectualism and escapism among the poor in the US (my background). Sure, the rich kids have it easy and it's super easy to sit around feeling bad about that but in many, many cases people could better themselves with a modic…

Sure. But I was a lazy entitled "upper middle class" kid. I have my job because my parents could afford to support my lazy ass for so long. So yeah, if you have the grit and drive you can help yourself out to a certain point. But some of us didn't need any grit and basically coasted through life. Why do I deserve this more than kids with less well off parents that fell somewhere between me and you - not a complete la…

Because your parents worked hard for your outcome, as theirs did for them.

It's the same thing that drives the success of societies and nations, each generation living on the bounty of the blood, sweat, and toil of those that came before. An outsider may view with envy at the position of the people in the society, but it doesn't diminish the rights of the people in that society to it just because they didn't make it. What happens is those societies that destroy, denigrate, or forget their history get complacent, lazy, and fail.

Your parents likely failed in properly educating you in the history of your family, their trials, their successes, and you lacked context for your position in life.

Deep dive into your family history, learn your ancestors, the shit they had to deal with, why you are where you are, and erase the self loathing class warfare mentality from your perspective.

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

#127

Post by ip26 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

Roark66 wrote: post #31

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…

>It took years to shed some of the residual behaviours, even after I started earning decent money. Despite having savings and reliable income I would still let bills run until they were overdue. You wouldn't believe how many "wealthy" people do the exact same thing including not paying their subcontractors etc. My dad used to do electric installations in new built homes. Usually the larger the house and the wealthier…

The key question is whether fees are levied. If you can drag your feet for 89 days and pay not one extra cent, then why wouldn't you?

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

#128

Post by ip26 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 4:57 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…

For example, not paying bills because something more urgent might come up

Nothing wrong with this behavior as long as you pay on the due date. Schedule automatic payments on the due date & you'll hang on to the cash as long as possible, and you also won't forget to make payments & incur fees.

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

#129

Post by JMTQp8lwXL » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

newen wrote: post #123

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's not your place to tell other people how to live. If they want to spend their days watching football, instead of learning math or computers: it is their decision to make. A lot of those people won't care that you are more successful than them. They're content with just watching football: it's what they're choosing to do, after all.

It's their choice to spend their days watching football because there is a culture of anti-intellectualism. It's not as simple as it's their choice so don't criticize it.

I disagree. If people fail to better themselves because they're surrounded anti-intellectuals, then nobody in the lower middle class would ever rise to upper middle; they would fail to challenge that culture. It's a personal choice to go with or against the prevailing culture.

I empathize with the fact, that for many people who do want to better themselves, they're often surrounded by people who don't want to. And that's a tough situation to be in -- that can drag you down. It's tough to persevere in certain situations.

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

#130

Post by watwut » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 4:58 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?

Buying ready to eat chicken every day and buying fast food is different how?