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What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

jonbischke.com

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Re: What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

#121

Post by pessimizer »

philwelch wrote: post #115
pessimizer wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society has been re-engineered any number of times, to good and bad effect. If you think that how it is where you are right now is how it is, has been, and always will be everywhere, you're wrong. Society is made of people, including visionaries and others who are captivated by their visions and have the ability to implement them. Contemplating human society is not the same as contemplating the stars.

Society isn't engineered, it evolves. If you try to engineer society it'll never come out quite the same way you intended; there are always unintended consequences because people are so messy and complicated. Primary example: society is continually engineered to eliminate poverty, and yet poverty persists.

Society evolves. Society is often engineered. The attempts often turn out badly, or well. Many societies are engineered to reduce poverty, and many societies have.

Re: What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

#122

Post by ellyagg »

iamelgringo wrote: post #68
solson wrote: post #35

Having been poor (not 3rd world poor, poor by American standards) I found the most difficult thing is leaving the poverty stricken network. You don't feel like you've made it until you reject the entire mindset. Until then, you feel like you've sold out. My mother still makes me feel guilty and shames me every time I see her. Until you've had a parent who shames you for doing better than they did, you'll never unders…

May I respectfully suggest that there are very different kinds of poverty, and that not all kinds of poverty are due to cultural choices. I came to the conclusion many years ago that in America poverty is a contagious mindset, nothing more. You are making very, very broad generalizations and stereotyping an entire socio-economic category of people. My parents grew up in rural Minnesota in absolute poverty. My father…

IQ is an extremely important factor in success, but studies show that students obtain better outcomes if they think hard work is the most important factor.

Social and systemic factors play an extremely important role in an individual's momentary poverty, but I'd bet a lot that those who believe otherwise are far more likely to overcome it. Mainly, the folks I've known personally who blame their bad situations on social and systemic factors were losers.

Re: What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

#123

Post by run4yourlives »

afterburner wrote: post #119
run4yourlives wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

advocating the preservation of the elite by gating access to it This statement assumes that there is a fixed amount of wealth that must be protected; it's prevalent in socialist thinking, as well as in the thinking of the poor (it's part of the contagion). It's also 100% incorrect. The creation of wealth is not a zero-sum game.

You are making assumptions about my thinking on this subject. All I'm saying is that the parent commenter is advocating gating access, so as not to "ruin Harvard". Maybe he believes there's a fixed amount of wealth.

My point (and the op's) is that there isn't a single network that needs to be accessed, there is a single network that needs to be disengaged from.

It's making the opposite point than the article does: You don't improve the lot of the poor by introducing them to some master network of elites, you improve it by removing them from the network that reinforces the bad behaviour.

Re: What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

#124

Post by ShabbyDoo »

solson wrote: post #35

Having been poor (not 3rd world poor, poor by American standards) I found the most difficult thing is leaving the poverty stricken network. You don't feel like you've made it until you reject the entire mindset. Until then, you feel like you've sold out. My mother still makes me feel guilty and shames me every time I see her. Until you've had a parent who shames you for doing better than they did, you'll never unders…

I just got done reading this. It's admittedly not a scholarly work -- it's a set of interviews which paint a narrative about how it feels to move from the working class to the upper-middle class in America. Your statement about being shamed for doing better than your parents represents one of the book's themes.

http://www.amazon.com/Limbo-Blue-Collar-Roots-White-Collar-D...

I am an oddity. Although I grew up in a blue collar town and my dad was a factory worker/janitor, all four of my grandparents had college degrees. So, I identified with the book's stories in odd ways -- sometimes understanding the working class guy and sometimes understanding the upper middle class one.

[BTW, someone here on HN recommended this book. To that person, thanks!]

Re: What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

#125

Post by izendejas »

izendejas wrote: post #14

I come from an officially poor background, but it wasn't until I started learning about my girlfriend's family back in her native, third-world country that I really got a sense for what third-world poverty is: - Constant verbal, physical, sometimes sexual abuse--the stuff that really traumatizes people into doing these same things across generations. This isn't the stuff you learn about in the news because, sadly, to…

Too late, but I'm too self-conscious not to apologize for not proofreading. By the time I noticed the mistakes, I was caught in HN's anti-procrastination mode.

Re: What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

#126

Post by mindcrime »

peterhunt wrote: post #104
solson wrote: post #35

Having been poor (not 3rd world poor, poor by American standards) I found the most difficult thing is leaving the poverty stricken network. You don't feel like you've made it until you reject the entire mindset. Until then, you feel like you've sold out. My mother still makes me feel guilty and shames me every time I see her. Until you've had a parent who shames you for doing better than they did, you'll never unders…

When I was like 12 or 13, my dad (an attorney) was doing some patent work for an MIT grad student who later went on to be a professor of CS. I was interested in computers at the time and trying to teach myself, and as a favor, my dad asked him to show me a few things. He ended up teaching me Scheme, getting me to commit to an open-source 3D engine and work on computer vision stuff over the course of my early high sch…

Maybe there are some problems with the mindset of the poor, but I think that part of the problem is that I am probably going to find this kid through my own middle-class network and continue to perpetuate a culture of mentorship that is often inaccessible to the poor.

So don't... make it a point to consciously seek out a way to connect with someone who wouldn't usually have a chance to work with someone like you. Find the poorest neighborhood near where you live, find out what high-school is there, call the principal and see if there's some way you can engage with them to do some kind of mentoring or whatever. Of course that's just an example, but hopefully you get the drift: if this point matters to you, do something specific to break that cycle and help someone poor.

Re: What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

#127

Post by stcredzero »

Psyonic wrote: post #106
stcredzero wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People will defend their self-inflicted misery. This is a big part of the dynamic of alcoholism, drug addiction, bad relationships, and stupid dogmatic ideologies. I bet it plays into working life and the various "geek scenes".

Of course it does. The "geek's" stereotypical problems with women is a prison of his own design. Same with all sorts of health and diet issues.

I just lost 14 pounds. However, the instincts around body homeostasis are very, very strong. I don't think it's reasonable to presume that it's all self sabotage.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/ab/akrasia_and_shangrila/

Re: What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

#128

Post by chernevik »

entangld wrote: post #66
chernevik wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Networks expand returns on ability. They allow people to find better places for their skills, better access to employees and capital and expertise. But they do very little for people who lack ability in the first place. An "in" with a hedge fund or VC or a big law firm won't get anyone anywhere without the ability to deliver the goods. Networks work by filtering. That country club golf partner doesn't think to mentio…

I think you're logic is a little too strict. Beginner positions, almost by definition, are lower responsibility and offer some leeway. Networks may expand returns on ability, but they can only guess at the real ability of a new person. Resumes anyone? Many startups right now say they are looking for "cultural fit" first and foremost, so even ability has limits. It would be convenient to assume that there are so many…

" a little too strict" -- I'm trying to be more concise, but my precision hasn't caught up yet.

First, my point was that people don't succeed simply on network entry. I hope this is understood but I don't see it much reflected in the comments.

Second, the point of networks is to reduce the guesswork. The network knows if Joe carried his college workgroups but sucked at tests, or if he aces tests but flakes out. It knows how his sense of commitments and responsibilities matches up against network norms. A lot of people "in the Harvard network" have been _rejected_ by that network b/c it knows them and doesn't like what it sees.

Re: What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

#129

Post by schnaars »

solson wrote: post #35

Having been poor (not 3rd world poor, poor by American standards) I found the most difficult thing is leaving the poverty stricken network. You don't feel like you've made it until you reject the entire mindset. Until then, you feel like you've sold out. My mother still makes me feel guilty and shames me every time I see her. Until you've had a parent who shames you for doing better than they did, you'll never unders…

That's crazy! I thought that it was just my parents that did that. This past April, my dad told me that I didn't pay enough in taxes and that I should paying much more. Thanks, Dad!

I remember reading a quote from Bono where he talked about the crab mentality of his home town (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality). One of the reasons I avoid Facebook is that it is just an easier way for that network and the poison thinking that you mentioned to flourish.

Re: What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

#130

Post by wan23 »

Dove wrote: post #103
krschultz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 'nothing' == 'buying a lawn mower, a truck, a trailer, and a weed wacker' then you'd be correct. Although I'm not sure which part of the the Bronx you think I should setup my mowing business in because the last time I checked, there isn't any grass.

Think metaphorically. Around you are people with money who have to do odd jobs they don't like. If you're willing to do that work, they will pay you for it. It doesn't have to be skilled. Think shoveling dog poop http://www.azcentral.com/ent/pop/articles/0420doody0420.html . If you can't find an equivalent where you live, you either live in a paradise where no one has annoying chores, or you aren't looking very hard.

I think kind of by definition poor people don't have much money to spend on luxuries like having someone scoop their dogs' poop. Though, where I grew up there were lots of people with money who had odd jobs that they didn't like doing themselves. You could be a drug dealer, the muscle, a lookout etc. But it's not like people don't know this, they just don't want to be arrested or worse.
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