How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive • Hacker News Board

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#101

Post by ctdonath » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 1:08 AM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #29

nextos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last year has been a period in which I've gone from wanting to take part in society, work on big problems like climate change, sacrifice for the greater good, donate my time and money [...] This might be the biggest problem human race has to solve. How to encourage and reward good behavior for the greater good. Economists would say it's a problem on how to price in externalities. It doesn't matter. I see it eve…

Amusingly, without realising it, your post specifically hits on the reason I'm done with society. It's individualism for me now. Me, my friends, the neighbours. Everyone else, figure it out, I'm not your pawn.

Hence the American Revolution and subsequent Constitution: enough government to keep the basics together, otherwise do whatever you want. ...and occasional civil wars (small and large) reminding leaders to keep it that way.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#102

Post by sokoloff » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 1:08 AM UTC

diob wrote: post #30

esotericn wrote: post #10

This is going to sound egotistical, but it's not intended that way, just the experience of your average prole. The times that I have been the most successful, most motivated, most driven, most productive, and most useful, in study, career, relationships, and life, have tracked exactly with periods in which I've gotten out what I've put in. When I started my career and a company took a chance on me - we absolutely kil…

I'm still early in my career (around 32, 8 years in), and I can heavily relate to what you said at the beginning. The company I work for recently got acquired and the entire culture changed to one of "fuck the engineers, only contracts matter, engineers are just butts in seats, the more the better (quality not required)". My boss is constantly turned down when he tries to advocate for me, or say that I deserve a slig…

Get out. Now. It won't get better no matter who promises what. If you have one more major vesting date nearby, maybe arrange your departure around that.

I left one place where there was literally a line of 6 of us who all resigned one after the other the afternoon when our annual vesting hit our accounts in the morning. I can't imagine the day that Director had hearing the same story from all 6 of us back-to-back.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#103

Post by hezag » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 1:09 AM UTC

ericmcer wrote: post #52

nextos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last year has been a period in which I've gone from wanting to take part in society, work on big problems like climate change, sacrifice for the greater good, donate my time and money [...] This might be the biggest problem human race has to solve. How to encourage and reward good behavior for the greater good. Economists would say it's a problem on how to price in externalities. It doesn't matter. I see it eve…

Well I mean, economic systems that attempt to leverage human benevolence have all failed. Capitalism at its root leverages our base qualities (greed, fear, desire, etc.) to motivate members to be productive. It has been the most successful system thus far, despite its many, many faults.

These attempts haven't failed because they are intrinsically worse, but because they were systematically threatened and sabotaged by the greed-driven players.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#104

Post by eyelidlessness » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 1:09 AM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #99

eyelidlessness wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the thing you’re missing, probably because of whatever motivated you to use “prole” without irony, is you’re not a prole and don’t experience the economic impact of being inherently undervalued. People who never experience compensation resembling what they “put in” and are constantly navigating burnout. It’s not egotistical it’s just a matter of perspective. Most people don’t get to decide or don’t have enoug…

You are absolutely right on every point. There was a time, when I was. And I've been blindingly lucky to crawl, bit by bit, out of that. But I still identify with that, because precisely the same societal decisions that fuck me, are the ones that fuck them too. I owe them something. They're still struggling. I don't owe the rest of society anything at all.

I suspected that was in the mix and wanted to leave space for you to say so. I’ve been on this track too. This is why my approach is to extract as much value out of my privilege as I can and funnel as much of that as I can to my people who don’t share that privilege.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#105

Post by chordalkeyboard » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 1:10 AM UTC

djrobstep wrote: post #61

fatsdomino001 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system.

Keep in mind capitalism systematically creates poverty by depriving income to the ~50% of the population that are not full time workers (children, elderly, sick, disabled, unemployed, students, etc).

> capitalism systematically creates poverty by depriving income to the ~50% of the population that are not full time workers

What income are they depriving them from? If they aren’t working, how could anyone deprive them of an income that doesn’t exist?

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#106

Post by ajmadesc » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 1:10 AM UTC

ericmcer wrote: post #52

nextos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last year has been a period in which I've gone from wanting to take part in society, work on big problems like climate change, sacrifice for the greater good, donate my time and money [...] This might be the biggest problem human race has to solve. How to encourage and reward good behavior for the greater good. Economists would say it's a problem on how to price in externalities. It doesn't matter. I see it eve…

Well I mean, economic systems that attempt to leverage human benevolence have all failed. Capitalism at its root leverages our base qualities (greed, fear, desire, etc.) to motivate members to be productive. It has been the most successful system thus far, despite its many, many faults.

Don't understand why this is down voted, it's being one paycheck away from poverty that keep 70% of Americans from telling off their bosses

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#107

Post by pdimitar » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 1:11 AM UTC

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #93

foogazi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shit happens, why are you still there?

When you are working for a good company that values you, and embedded in a good team that also values you, there is a bonding that occurs that goes deeper than your average commercial exchange. If you have never been in this position, you may not understand the emotional difficulties involved in watching such a place slowly burn to the ground. Old timers usually still feel loyalty to those of their coworkers who are…

I can't find a single thing to disagree on in your excellent comment but there's one more nuance:

"When is the time to let go?"

This goes for all areas of life: intimate relationships / marriages, employment, being part of a hobby club that's not the same anymore, local community help (donations, voluntary labor etc.).

We the people are extremely bad judges of when is the right time to leave -- and 99% of the time we leave way too late. Usually after getting some deep emotional scars as a bonus.

In hindsight (which as they say is 20/20) every time in my life after I left any kind of interaction between me and other people / companies, it was well after I should have. But only in retrospect.

I gradually learned to recognize the signs and started to escalate problems early. And if they aren't addressed, leave early.

Life is too short to keep a death grip on things that are poisoning you. It seems every one of us learns this lesson very late in life.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#108

Post by chillfox » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 1:11 AM UTC

devdas wrote: post #90

kevin__ wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a large part of the problem with conservative policy positions (at least in the US) is that they're mostly unchanged from 30-40 years ago. Despite mountains of evidence on things like work requirements for government benefits, multiplier effects of stimulus spending vs tax cuts, benefits of expanding healthcare coverage, and many more, the conservative positions remain the same. I would guess this is likely b…

Isn't that exactly the meaning of conservative? They want to preserve the status quo of that time.

Yep, it sure matches if you actually pay attention to their actions.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#109

Post by sokoloff » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 1:11 AM UTC

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #93

foogazi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shit happens, why are you still there?

When you are working for a good company that values you, and embedded in a good team that also values you, there is a bonding that occurs that goes deeper than your average commercial exchange. If you have never been in this position, you may not understand the emotional difficulties involved in watching such a place slowly burn to the ground. Old timers usually still feel loyalty to those of their coworkers who are…

If poster's boss is advocating for them (or reporting that they are) without any effect, it's a fairly hollow gesture.

If you respect me as an engineer, you do what needs to be done to address my genuine and valid concerns. If you can't, I can still like you as person, but you've ceased to be an effective leader. (I hold myself to that same standard with the teams I lead as well. I'm only as good as 9 parts what I deliver and 1 part what I wish I could deliver.)

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#110

Post by chordalkeyboard » Mon, Feb 15, 2021, 1:12 AM UTC

DC1350 wrote: post #22

adamnemecek wrote: post #9

The US doesn’t care about productivity but more about maintaining some sort of class system. It took me a while to realize this. Also a surprising number of people in the US believe that poverty is a moral failure of some sort. I never actually understood this.

> I never actually understood this. If you grow up middle class or better then it’s pretty much impossible to make good decisions and end up poor. The incorrect “moral failure” mindset comes from projecting this belief onto people who grew up in poverty and never had a chance.

> If you grow up middle class or better then it’s pretty much impossible to make good decisions and end up poor.

That seems like a tautology. “Didn’t end up poor? Of course you didn’t, you made all good decisions. Ended up poor? Must have been those dumbass decisions you made.”