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On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

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Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#791

Post by thebradbain »

dahfizz wrote: post #619
thebradbain wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strawman argument, because this is in no way representative of the many people who live in poverty, but I’ll address it because it doesn’t change my final opinion: Yes, because obviously what someone who won (and lost) millions of dollars needs is not money, but help and support. Not to mention, by the construction of your own strawman, if they’ve won such a jackpot they’ve probably also then paid millions…

I don't see how this is a strawman. My argument is an existence proof. There exists people who cannot be lifted out of poverty by giving them money. I can trivially prove my claim by giving examples of such people[1]. I never claimed that all or most people are like this. But its undeniable that some people are simply irresponsible / lazy. [1] https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/08/15/5-million-lotto-...

"Some people" is not "all people" and certainly not "almost all" people or even "most people".

I'm curious to know your position on those who are homeless -- as if mental illness, systemic neglect, and abuse combined with skyrocketing housing costs such that even otherwise-able people are just a few missed paychecks away from foreclosure) are incidental, and it's really a result of being "lazy".

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#792

Post by s1artibartfast »

sorisos wrote: post #786
chmod600 wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, thank you. An important element of my argument is to focus on what's in your control. It's not exclusively about immigrants. In fact, immigrants are less likely to be caught up in notions of fairness because they probably thought to themselves before they came something like "this is going to suck and be unfair, but it will be worth it for my children and grandchildren". So they just make the best of it and comp…

> If every time someone shares their success, the response is instantly about how privileged or lucky they are, then our culture is sick. We should listen to and support those stories. I would argue that a culture which attributes success in life to personal effort or choices is sick. This makes people blame themselves for not trying hard enough etc, when in reality there are more decisive factors such as who your pa…

For me, This is a very strange take.

Don't we want a culture where success in life is associated with personal choice and an economic environment which allows it to be true?

For now, it is at least a half truth where some individuals are successful because of their hard work and others due to luck.

In what world would we want a culture where success is viewed as entirely random? how would this be better?

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#793

Post by danaris »

criticaljudge wrote: post #521
danaris wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ireland has/had a whole literary genre of stories about miserable poverty-stricken childhoods. They paint a very vivid picture. If you compare it to poverty today, besides being less harsh, it's quite different. They had housing. It was basic, often insecure, but they did have housing. > Food was scarce. That's no longer the case. Stuff though... they had no stuff. No bed, no mugs, no shoes, no pencils. Getting the…

Well arguably they are not really poor, compared to those cases of poverty in the 19th century.

They're days to weeks away from starvation, in some cases begging in the streets to survive, in others working themselves literally to death to avoid that fate for themselves and their families, while suffering from a variety of physical and mental ailments that they are unable to afford treatment for and struggling to keep the heat, power, and on.

If that's not the face of "really poor" in the modern age, nothing is. Just because the details don't look exactly the same as those of 19th century Irish poverty does not mean it's "not real."

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#794

Post by dahfizz »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #745
dahfizz wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The state could put the same deal to the rapist as it does to everyone else: work if you want to eat. It does not. And you would be okay with that? You're advocating for actual slavery of inmates?

Not at all, I am just pointing out that the previous ethics argument does not seem to make sence

And my point is that you are making a false equivalence. The prisoner is not in the same position as a free person. If the government deprives a person of all of their freedom, and then tells them "work or die", that's slavery.

A free has has to eat, because of the nature of the universe, but he is free. He can choose his job, has recourses with his employers, etc.

Your statement implies that it's the government which gives everyone the deal "work or starve", but that's simply not the case. The free man is simply existing in the world, surviving as he sees fit. By taking away his capability to survive on his own, you have the ethical responsibility to feed him.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#795

Post by dahfizz »

DataWorker wrote: post #754
dahfizz wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By growing inequality and pushing people into poverty I am sick of hearing about poverty as a growing problem. It simply isn't. Median income, and the lowest income quintile, have grown steadily. The percent of Americans living in poverty has been declining. Median wealth is still lower than it was before the 2008 crisis, but it was growing strongly before and has grown strongly since the Great Recession. All trend…

Homelessness is obviously increasing though it’s difficult to measure with precision. Homelessness is worse than poverty and homeless aren’t even counted in official poverty calculations. The census can’t sample them.

As someone who doesn't live on the west coast and rarely interacts with homeless people, could you explain how this is "obvious" if there's no measure of it?

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#796

Post by selimthegrim »

robotmay wrote: post #777
selimthegrim wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a feature if you don't want people sticking their head in.

Haha I'm now quite disappointed the estate agent didn't try to advertise it as a safety feature. I did once see a house listed as having "conveniant access to the motorway for commuting". It was actually directly underneath a bridge of the motorway :|

Uh oh better not give that agent any ideas, I think they might know who to market it to then á la https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Tuttle_Causeway_sex_offe...

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#797

Post by dahfizz »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #768
dahfizz wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its hard for me to imagine being so full of envy that you would like to see the children of rich people stripped of everything they have. Equality means nothing if you achieve it by pulling everyone down to the lowest level. > 1 rich person saving his money so his 3 children never have to work is bad for the economy. "Your rights are bad for the economy, we are taking everything from you. Back to work, pleb".

> Its hard for me to imagine being so full of envy that you would like to see the children of rich people stripped of everything they have. I think you misread the sentiment. What a lot of us would like to see is a more meritocratic system, where children start off on more equal footing and either earn their wealth or not. But inherited works against that. It is difficult to listen to arguments against taxing the wea…

Right, but you're trying to achieve your meritocracy by pulling people down instead of helping people up. This isn't a footrace, and it's not a zero sum game. When you say something like "we need to take money away from rich kids so they have to work like everyone else", you're doing nothing but harm. You may feel the people you're harming have it coming, but that's still what you're doing.

The idea that we have to come up with a good reason _not_ to heavily tax people is backwards. The only reason you need is that people have rights. A man owns what is his and you have absolutely no right to it.

This is all beside the pont anyway. Increasing tax revenue will not solve any of the problems you are trying to solve. As I said elsewhere, you could tax 100% of every billionaire in this country, leaving them homeless, and you would not have collected enough money to fund the federal government for even one year. You could sell off your entire "aristocracy" and it wouldn't make a dent. The strategy of "just spend more money" does not work.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#798

Post by s1artibartfast »

deeeeplearning wrote: post #718
jawzz wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re blatantly misquoting the person you’re replying to.

In what way. You would call being 18th in income mobility "tremendous?" I wouldn't.

Why not?

For you, it seems that "tremendous" means best in class. Where is the cutoff, 1st, 3rd, top 10?

For others, being in the top 10 percent of 195+ countries is quite significant. For the average person in the rest of the world, being in the US would provide a significant and meaningful increase in their economic mobility.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#799

Post by dahfizz »

whimsicalism wrote: post #674
criticaljudge wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that children don't deserve the spoils of their parents is really crazy to me. Parents work so that they can give their children a better life. Heck, they even choose their partners to maximize odds for a better life for their offspring (wealth, good genes, and so on - it does not even depend on capitalism). To take that away from people is truly dehumanizing, but sounds like a typical socialist scheme (de…

So you are only deserving of a life free of poverty (even if you're lazy) if your parents happened to be rich? Yeah, I disagree. We're talking about on the order of tens of millions of dollars or more being passed from one parent to one child.

You're right. We should kick that kid out on the street, sell all his belongings, and write a check to ever american for a fat 10 cents. Problem solved.

> So you are only deserving of a life free of poverty (even if you're lazy) if your parents happened to be rich?

This is such a twisting of my words I am not even sure how to respond. Are you saying the only way out of poverty is to steal everything you want from the rich?

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#800

Post by busterarm »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #463
busterarm wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fellow former-poor here. It's the kind of thing that casts a shadow over your whole life. And in this industry, nobody is comfortable talking about it. Most of the people I work with graduated from school as guaranteed millionaires. I hear things get said by people that are so far from the orbit of my reality and I cringe. Reading the article was really eye opening for me because I hadn't thought of all of the life s…

>And in this industry, nobody is comfortable talking about it. If you make the assumption that HN is vaguely representative of the software industry and then looking at the reception that all the comments that stop short of saying "luck is the primary factor of success" are getting it seems pretty obvious why nobody talks about it.

I think you're exactly correct.
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