On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't • Hacker News Board

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

#801

Post by ClumsyPilot » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 1:48 AM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #750

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The empty houses in UK and especially London is a well-known and researched problem, they are prime real estate where the owner decided that renting them out is not worth the trouble, they are just land-banking and waiting for their 'investment' to grow. Many (of those) owners don't even live in UK. We had a 'homeless' guy build his house in a forest, but ofcourse the government showed up to remove him. Many people w…

> 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…

Firstly, 12 years is the relevant time period, not 100 or 500 years ago.

Specifically in UK in-work poverty has been going up and up for the past ten years.

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

#802

Post by busterarm » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 1:50 AM UTC

u678u wrote: post #433

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…

> It's the kind of thing that casts a shadow over your whole life. Shadow really though? I'm super glad everything came through my own work, I'd hate if my parents gave me anything. I hate spending any money, to me that is just sensible though not a problem.

Shadow because it's a source of stress that doesn't really go away no matter how much your future circumstances change.

You'd have to rewire your whole way of looking at the world. That's some serious therapy.

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

#803

Post by irjustin » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 1:55 AM UTC

fastball wrote: post #170

irjustin wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context changes the meaning as you rightfully point out. Being a broke college student and being a broke adult are wildly different in almost every respect.

Not really. You could be pulling down $500k a year but have such a high spend rate that you frequently run out of money before your next paycheck.

Do you sincerely believe those situations are similar?

Exercise - you could pick Broke College Student, Broke Adult, Broke doctor/engineer/lawyer pulling 500k/yr.

Which one do you choose, repeatedly?

To me, there is almost no scenario where 500k/yr makes you actually broke where you do not have a level of control to rapidly change that situation. Cut your spending, if you have huge debts - get them refinanced, sell something. Aside from being in a debt to a person with a literal gun to your head, you have incredible amounts of flexibility to get out from having your water shut off like person who is truly broke.

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

#804

Post by dahfizz » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 1:56 AM UTC

ska wrote: post #641

dahfizz wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 of the 5 factors you list boil down to "OP made good decisions and worked hard". I'm not sure how that is a counter argument to "throwaway-0987 did it, and you can too! You just need to stop being so lazy". From their description, it doesn't sound like living with his Aunt was a tremendous boon either. I don't mean to argue against a social safety net (free college in this example was certainly a good thing). I jus…

> of hard work and good judgement. The common mistake here, which I think you mostly avoided but didn't make explicit, is to believe that if someone didn't make it they didn't work hard or have good judgment. It's also problematic how little good judgment we require of young people coming from most backgrounds, compared to underprivileged ones. There is also a common and mostly false trope that many/most poor people…

I agree with you, and I appreciate that you have extended a bit of generosity.

Currently, hard work is a prequisite. In order to achieve equility of opportunity, which would allow anyone to succeed, we need to provide for the "unlucky" scenarios people fall into. Access to childcare and education are two big things in particular that should be improved.

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

#805

Post by sorisos » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #792

sorisos wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I think we already have a culture that exaggerates this aspect. Tried-but-failed stories do not sell very well. Not everyone can be successful and pretending this is case makes people that feeling left out blame them self (or maybe immigrants). I am not advocating a "entirely random" view, just a more nuanced and perhaps more realistic one. Also, I do not think humans will ever stop struggling to achieve things in life, even if we had a society where success where attributed to pure luck.

(Perhaps we should define "success" in this conversation)

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

#806

Post by dv_dt » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 2:06 AM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #750

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The empty houses in UK and especially London is a well-known and researched problem, they are prime real estate where the owner decided that renting them out is not worth the trouble, they are just land-banking and waiting for their 'investment' to grow. Many (of those) owners don't even live in UK. We had a 'homeless' guy build his house in a forest, but ofcourse the government showed up to remove him. Many people w…

> 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…

In the US, even before the 2008 the percentage poverty rate was higher than the 1970's. It was about to come down lower than the 1970's just before the pandemic hit. After the pandemic I presume we will be back to worse than the 1970's rate. But the poverty rate measure has been flat or worse for 50 years.

However, even though the overall rates were returning to flat before the pandemic - the percent of people below 50% of the poverty line in the US has been historically higher by 50% than it has been in history since the beginning of the measure.

https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-un...

If you're an HN reader, you have to realize that for the most part you are in an incredibly fortunate bubble of being in a job that is in demand in a financially supported sector of our economy - it is not that way for many Americans (or many other citizens of other nations).

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

#807

Post by dahfizz » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

thebradbain wrote: post #791

dahfizz wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

I don't have any personal experiences with homeless people, but my understanding is that the vast majority of the homeless suffer from serious mental illness / addiction. I think that's a categorically different thing than those unwilling to improve themselves (which I do have personal experience with).

Being homeless would rob nearly every opportunity from you. I don't think it would be fair to dismiss those people as lazy, if all the hard work in the world wouldn't do them any good.

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

#808

Post by ClumsyPilot » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #794

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 whic…

It sounds like you are not aware of all the 'innovation' UK has explored in 16-18th century, where people had to pay for being in jail, were charged for being judged, we had debt prisons and people ran their business from them! Also we gave cocaine to kids when their teeth hurt.

These ideas are preposterous by modern standards, but people can and have come up with arrangements where a person works from jail without becoming a slave.

Can a 'free man' survive 'however he sees fit'?

You can't even walk around 'freely', some guy in Uk was trying to cross the country naked and spent 2 years in prison.

Build a house in the woods, plow the land, hunt without a license, and someone will show up to deal with you. Sing a song in the street? You are breaking copyright and some public nuisance or antisocial behaviour laws. You built something with your own hands and sold it? Might have broken some patents.

About the only thing a free man may do is work for a man freer than him. I appreciate we have a civilised society, but compared to free day of olde, it's a total straigh jacket.

So no, these situations are not equivalent but they are comparable enough that I don't buy the categorical moral judgement you are casting.

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

#809

Post by Bakary » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

aaroninsf wrote: post #481

throwaway-0987 wrote: post #174

Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…

> I won the lottery and you can too. Luck has no color. Maybe the Wish will help, or Intentionality. Prayer also popular. Against this never lose sight of the fact that since 1971 economic mobility in this country has eroded as comprehensively as has the social safety net as has access to high quality public education not to mention health care. Since 1971 wealth inequality has increased and we are now over the event…

You would be surprised how long this sort of thing can hold. To paraphrase a bit, societies can remain irrational longer than citizens can remain sane...

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

#810

Post by someguydave » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 2:23 AM UTC

lasfter wrote: post #637

xyzzyz wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your friend Steve comes to you to "borrow" $100 (that he'll never return), because he's short on rent, and he blew last of his cash on hookers and booze, it seems pretty reasonable and perfectly morally justified to either refuse outright, or condition your help on requirement that Steve gets a job, and quits his hookers and booze habit. Certainly, nobody would ever suggest that you have any obligation to enable…

Because some of the money also goes to Sally who genuinely needs help. I don't understand how you can be okay with people starving or working themselves to death to survive and provide for their families, just because others do things you disapprove of. You're also ignoring the fact that someone who is eligible for this kind of social security and spends it all on booze is probably unwell and needs treatment for addi…

“ The government is taking a big chunk of your money anyways” I think the idea is that if the government took less money, there would be more money in the hands of people to help take care of local misery.