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Once poor, always poor?

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Re: Once poor, always poor?

#71

Post by nopenopenopeno »

duxup wrote: post #64
sh4un wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor people are used to being victims so it's hard to trust other people. When you look at it deeper, if these are poor minorities in a white mans world, no matter what there will never be trust. Hard to trust the same people who are oppressing you. Many policy maker are born well off, so it's hard to relate. When the social workers are driving in BMW's and talking to you like you're retarded... It's ongoing. I have…

> When the social workers are driving in BMW's and talking to you like you're retarded... Man what social workers get BMWs?

As it happens, My neighbor in my apartment building is literally a social worker who drives a BMW.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#72

Post by anamax »

duxup wrote: post #64
sh4un wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor people are used to being victims so it's hard to trust other people. When you look at it deeper, if these are poor minorities in a white mans world, no matter what there will never be trust. Hard to trust the same people who are oppressing you. Many policy maker are born well off, so it's hard to relate. When the social workers are driving in BMW's and talking to you like you're retarded... It's ongoing. I have…

> When the social workers are driving in BMW's and talking to you like you're retarded... Man what social workers get BMWs?

There are "tourists," well-off people who "slum" as social workers or on projects.

Managers can also do well.

And then there are the fraudsters.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#73

Post by DarylZero »

thjkgfgrrioppo wrote: post #16
throwaway55421 wrote: post #3

"It is a sad and little-known reality that poverty tends to persist between generations". Is it? To me it's intuitively obvious and I can't think of any real person who would disagree? I can't even conceive of a different way this could work. Reducing the correlation to zero would require basically removing money's functional utility.

Is money really the issue? In many places, everybody gets a free education, and even university is free. So everybody could simply become a doctor or a lawyer and expect an income above the poverty line - at least if money was the only issue.

If everyone could become a doctor then doctors would simply be poor.

Of course, the number of new doctors per year is capped, so not everyone can be a doctor.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#74

Post by DarylZero »

bobthepanda wrote: post #45
b9a2cab5 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that education (in terms of knowledge and skill acquisition) is zero sum is wrong. Educational equality starts with parents giving a shit about their kids' education. Why do you think Asians overachieve on every benchmark we have? Could it possibly be because there are cultural factors that motivate parents to care very strongly about their childrens' education? America spends the most in the world per capit…

...in technology. Unless we're seriously going to force everyone into tech jobs, we need an economic model that works for broadly most industries. As an example, nearly all starting first-year internships in law are unpaid. People who don't take those will be competing with those that did do them the next year.

Tech jobs are about capturing externally-created value with network structures... if everyone had a tech job then where's the external value come from?

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#75

Post by zhoujianfu »

josephcsible wrote: post #27
difosfor wrote: post #23

Given the generally accepted ideal of equality in the rich and educated world it strikes me as crazy that we continue to work hard to keep refugees out of our islands of wealth instead of structurally working on improving the chances of all people on earth. We seem to just turn a blind eye to this huge inequality or even increase and abuse it when it suits us. For example: Why don't we apply our minimum wage laws to…

Because we can't afford to do that, and if we tried, all that would happen is our own standard of living would go down the toilet.

Actually, I just read the chapter on open borders in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_for_Realists and he argues none of that is true. Open borders (more immigrants) actually increases wealth of the country letting them in, even refugees…

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#76

Post by WalterBright »

jethro_tell wrote: post #60
nine_k wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can buy a cheap laptop for the interviewing process, or borrow it. I personally did the latter, with a great success.

Meet, then take meeting with your family in the background and internet infrastructure that blows.

> with your family in the background

Many conferencing programs allow you to set the background. Use a photo of a bookshelf and you're good to go!

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#77

Post by WalterBright »

amcoastal wrote: post #41
b9a2cab5 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the fact that 70% of wealthy families lose their wealth within 3 generations gel with wealth being lost to other rich people? That doesn't logically make sense. If that was the case then there would slowly be ever fewer rich people who become ever richer. But if you look at the richest people in the world that isn't the case.

Because the rich that arent losing their wealth are getting richer at ridiculous rates? And where is that money coming from?

> where is that money coming from?

They're creating it. Wealth is not a zero-sum game.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#78

Post by ido »

nine_k wrote: post #63
jethro_tell wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meet, then take meeting with your family in the background and internet infrastructure that blows.

People usually understand circumstances like these. Also, if that interview is really important to you, talk to the family. Move your seat. Talk from a coworking space, or from a park or similar public place provided that you have a headset; I did talk form a park, worked well. To say nothing of these neat features of Zoom, Meet, etc that allow to put a virtual background, given enough CPU power.

Would you have coworking spaces and Wi-Fi in the park (or indeed a park) in non-major cities in Nigeria (the country the article is talking about)?

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#79

Post by colechristensen »

krapp wrote: post #39
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you're a teenage girl, depending on your culture, your family seems to be peer pressuring you to be a mother Ironically, societies that do not steer girls to parenthood are subject to extinction. I'm not saying it's good or bad. It's just the law of nature.

>Ironically, societies that do not steer girls to parenthood are subject to extinction. Which societies have gone extinct due to this?

Plenty of societies went extinct due to population decline, just not particularly recently.

Re: Once poor, always poor?

#80

Post by fhe »

duxup wrote: post #14

> Cultural norms can also encourage poverty cycles. I often wonder about these. Growing up I watched friends whose families had what you might describe as a cultural distrust of institutions, including schools, or even anyone who seemed to “think they’re better than us” (translation anyone who did well in school or a career). They constantly made self defeating choices and seemed destined to have the same problems/ p…

Have you seen people manage to breakout from the poverty cycle? I have lived long enough to actually see a handful of people doing just that, and I often wondered what made them different.

One trait I often observed is risk-taking. The ones that broke free from their upbringing always seemed to have high tolerance for risks. So maybe it's simply statistics -- if you have a group of people taking a lot of risks, some of them are bound to end up doing well (with a comparable subset end up doing worse).

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