171–180 of 358 posts
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The culture of money can also be a taboo in politics. Money is a necessary tool and be well managed, but it should not be a priority.
>Money is a necessary tool and be well managed, but it should not be a priority. I have to disagree with you there. Money shouldn't be #1 priority, of course, but it's definitely up there. Allowing your kids to experience poverty because you're unwilling to provide for them is a form of negligence.
I just have the belief that civilization is a system that tames people into obedience. Very obedient/normed people who adheres to a culture or lifestyle habits, will often acquire a high social status because they can get access to the benefits of a group. You don't escape poverty through merit or effort, you just "belong" with people of a certain social status that identify with cultures and habits. That's how civil…
Belonging is helpful but effort and merit go a long way. It’s a multi factor problem. At my work, I’ve had to move people into new roles out of the company because while they ‘belonged’ socially… they were not up to the job…
> 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…
I'm one of those people living in poverty that distrusts school institutions. My main philosophical gripe is that it doesn't seem to really matter what your major is. "Oh, you got a bachelors in Biology? Well, I guess that's fine. Come work at my tech company in a way that is completely unrelated to Biology." In this particular situation, it seems like the only purpose of college is to create arbitrary classist hurdl…
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> You've established that education is a good investment. My friend often comes to me and says, "Hey, man, how come you don't invest your money in ?" Because I'm living in poverty. People who live in poverty don't have money to invest. > So why not find an affordable college? So I did a quick calculation. Affordable, meaning junior college and public state college, would come out to roughly $23k for a bachelor. Maybe…
"Because I'm living in poverty. People who live in poverty don't have money to invest." You have your time and energy to invest, and you can get an educational loan. " then work at your job for 5-10 years to pay that debt off" I don't think all of your money goes into paying off the debt during that time. "I'm philosophically opposed to getting a piece of paper for a job that I could do just as easily without a colle…
"Well if you don't need it and don't want it, obviously don't get that degree."
The concern is that, according to parent, and I believe parent, is that the system requires a useless piece of paper. The degree is more an economic hurdle than a proof of capacity. That merit is a social construct.
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Sweden does it. It takes about a 30-35% tax rate.[1] Nigeria is a poor country which still has a high birth rate. Outside of Africa, almost all countries are past that. Even China and India. [1] https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-sweden/
If it was only 30-35% to achieve this that would be great. Sweden has a ~55% marginal tax rate for everything over SEK 309,000 (approx 55k USD). 55k USD isn’t much in most US tech companies.
"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.
Most people, particularly in the west, believe that merit can be acquired, "just do it", "self made man", free will etc. Liberal economics are surrounded with those kinds of ideals that always explain that the poor deserve their status, that they only have themselves to blame.
Let's use the less emotionally charged example of the gym rat.
An individual who sets out with the goal and drive to become strong can be successful with high probability.
But not everyone will do that. Most will give up or just not even bother in the first place.
"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.
Being able to work to increase your own wealth isn't really controversial. In fact most Americans over-estimate the amount of economic mobility that we have, which is probably what the article is referring to. And rich families tend to have their wealth eroded in just 2-3 generations. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/generational-wealth%3A-why-d...
Let's use the less emotionally charged example of the gym rat.
An individual who sets out with the goal and drive to become substantially physically stronger can be successful with high probability.
But not everyone will do that. Most will give up or just not even bother in the first place. Lots of people don't even care, despite it being almost strictly superior.
It would be logically incorrect to use that fact in order to argue that muscle mass is likely to be unchangeable. It is changeable, it's just not the path of least resistance.
edit: or, to put it succinctly - prevalence is not probability
> 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…
No pain, no gain, but don't do things that may kill you, maim you or land you in prison for several years or make you homeless.
I am a moderate risk taker as well, but I had my share of failures and my instinct would never allow me to gamble everything at once. I always try to have some reserve/slack just in case.
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"Because I'm living in poverty. People who live in poverty don't have money to invest." You have your time and energy to invest, and you can get an educational loan. " then work at your job for 5-10 years to pay that debt off" I don't think all of your money goes into paying off the debt during that time. "I'm philosophically opposed to getting a piece of paper for a job that I could do just as easily without a colle…
You don't address the concern here "Well if you don't need it and don't want it, obviously don't get that degree." The concern is that, according to parent, and I believe parent, is that the system requires a useless piece of paper. The degree is more an economic hurdle than a proof of capacity. That merit is a social construct.
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> There are certainly a lot of useless majors. But that doesn't imply all of them are useless. It's not so much a critique of the majors but rather the professional requirements of the job listing. For jobs that don't have an innate technical (technical in the loosest sense of the term) requirement, they only want a certain class of person working there and college degrees are just how they do that. > I'm not in the…
> One rationale that I heard that seems reasonable at face value is since you can't give back your education, that's the justification for not being able to declare bankruptcy. It goes a little further than that. It doesn't really matter that you can't give back the education. It's that the loan is entirely unsecured - there's no collateral, but also the people who get student loans typically don't have any assets. S…