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An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Gets Poverty Wrong

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Re: An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Gets Poverty Wrong

#11

Post by andylei »

_wp3r wrote: post #10

Although I agree that the original post was naive, I do not think that the misleading vividness and hasty generalization employed by Jefferson addresses the issue to which the OP was referring. There is massive hardship across all low income families but the use an outlier scenario does not negate the valid argument that having goals and knowing that there is a prize to win at the end of the race, is a strong motivat…

> misleading vividness

what?

> hasty generalization

there are no generalizations here. the article says that the author of the forbes article (as well as you), as a person or privilege, does not understand poverty and thus has no idea how to solve the problem. if anyone is making "hasty generalizations", its the author of the forbes article, who thinks that poor kids simply aren't trying hard enough.

> the use an outlier scenario

how do you know this is an outlier scenario?

> having goals and knowing that there is a prize to win at the end of the race, is a strong motivator

i doubt anyone would disagree with this statement, but it's irrelevant.

the original forbes article suggests that having goals and determination are sufficient for escaping poverty. this article makes the argument that even with goals and determination, escaping poverty is still extremely difficult; furthermore, the very condition of poverty undermines the ability to develop goals and determination.

Re: An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Gets Poverty Wrong

#12

Post by byrneseyeview »

This article alludes to the "bee sting" theory of poverty (see http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/30/... ).

That brings up an interesting question: in historical terms, the subject of this story is quite well-off; he's not always physically at risk, he has ready access to probably non-toxic food, he has shelter, etc. Over a long enough timeline, his life is pretty good. Even his home situation--mom is a prostitute, but he can't tell anyone lest the authorities separate them--is in all likelihood less common than it might have been centuries ago.

So if these conditions are so awful that we can't possibly expect people to improve without fixing said conditions, how do we explain historical economic growth. We're descended from people who had really miserable lives: sleep in a cave, hope you can hunt or gather enough food to stay alive, go to sleep hungry more often than not, risk death by infection every time you get a cut that's more than skin deep, and reproduce through what any modern person would call serial rape. Beings that were physiologically human (basically us, but probably lactose intolerant) had to deal with all of those circumstances, and managed to bequeath to the next generation some slightly less miserable circumstances.

It comes back to the anthropic principle: if misery is a strong disincentive for progress, how did we progress to the point that we have leisure time to discuss this?

(I've asked the same question on Quora here: http://www.quora.com/How-do-adherents-to-the-bee-sting-theor... . I am very interested in the answers.)

Re: An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Gets Poverty Wrong

#14

Post by vacri »

_wp3r wrote: post #10

Although I agree that the original post was naive, I do not think that the misleading vividness and hasty generalization employed by Jefferson addresses the issue to which the OP was referring. There is massive hardship across all low income families but the use an outlier scenario does not negate the valid argument that having goals and knowing that there is a prize to win at the end of the race, is a strong motivat…

One of the most frequently overlooked issues is that wealthy people know that there's even a better way to begin with. If you don't have a decent mentor, how do you even know that there are decent mentors available? The example of google scholar: we know it exists, but we're in an ecosystem that tells us these things - how do you get into that ecosystem?

I've been poor and still kind of am, but I've never known real poverty. I've seen real poverty in others and there's no way in hell I'd want to start from there. The biggest hurdle to escaping endemic poverty is even knowing that there's a way out in the first place.

Re: An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Gets Poverty Wrong

#15

Post by burgerbrain »

andylei wrote: post #11
_wp3r wrote: post #10

Although I agree that the original post was naive, I do not think that the misleading vividness and hasty generalization employed by Jefferson addresses the issue to which the OP was referring. There is massive hardship across all low income families but the use an outlier scenario does not negate the valid argument that having goals and knowing that there is a prize to win at the end of the race, is a strong motivat…

> misleading vividness what? > hasty generalization there are no generalizations here. the article says that the author of the forbes article (as well as you), as a person or privilege, does not understand poverty and thus has no idea how to solve the problem. if anyone is making "hasty generalizations", its the author of the forbes article, who thinks that poor kids simply aren't trying hard enough. > the use an out…

I think it is pretty safe to say that "acts out in school to get suspensions to stop your mother from being a prostitute" is an outlier.

I acted out in primary school. I did it because I was an asshole who didn't respect education. I suspect my peers were the same.

Re: An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Gets Poverty Wrong

#16

Post by fferen »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #12

This article alludes to the "bee sting" theory of poverty (see http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/30/... ). That brings up an interesting question: in historical terms, the subject of this story is quite well-off; he's not always physically at risk, he has ready access to probably non-toxic food, he has shelter, etc. Over a long enough timeline, his life is pretty good. Even his home situation--…

I think it comes down to being relatively worse off versus absolutely worse off. Although people today are not worse off absolutely, what normally counts when one determines problems in life is one's relative situation.

Re: An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Gets Poverty Wrong

#17

Post by vacri »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #12

This article alludes to the "bee sting" theory of poverty (see http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/30/... ). That brings up an interesting question: in historical terms, the subject of this story is quite well-off; he's not always physically at risk, he has ready access to probably non-toxic food, he has shelter, etc. Over a long enough timeline, his life is pretty good. Even his home situation--…

We're descended from people who had really miserable lives: sleep in a cave, hope you can hunt or gather enough food to stay alive, go to sleep hungry more often than not

This is pure conjecture.

risk death by infection every time you get a cut that's more than skin deep

Reasonable point, but nothing to hang your hat on - it's the same for many poor people today that have poor access to medicine

and reproduce through what any modern person would call serial rape.

And we're back to just making stuff up again to make it sound like people in poverty have it easy.

The poor black kid in the story doesn't have access to self-sufficiency that your hunter-gatherers had. Where are the animals he can hunt? Where is the food he can simply gather? He has markedly different restrictions on his life, but you're ignoring all that to try and paint him as wealthy compared to "ye olde ignorant savage"

Re: An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Gets Poverty Wrong

#18

Post by rictic »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #12

This article alludes to the "bee sting" theory of poverty (see http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/30/... ). That brings up an interesting question: in historical terms, the subject of this story is quite well-off; he's not always physically at risk, he has ready access to probably non-toxic food, he has shelter, etc. Over a long enough timeline, his life is pretty good. Even his home situation--…

I think your premise is flawed. As I understand the bee sting theory, it is not that self-improvement and community-improvement are halted by the effect, just that they are slowed.

Reversing your premise, if you were to take a population of ancestral humans and greatly reduce the stressors on the population (illness, malnutrition, war, etc.) then would you not expect that they would tend to improve their lives at a much faster rate then their contemporaries?

Ancient progress was agonizingly slow by modern standards. Perhaps the bee sting effect is part of the reason why.

Re: An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Gets Poverty Wrong

#19

Post by _wp3r »

andylei wrote: post #11
_wp3r wrote: post #10

Although I agree that the original post was naive, I do not think that the misleading vividness and hasty generalization employed by Jefferson addresses the issue to which the OP was referring. There is massive hardship across all low income families but the use an outlier scenario does not negate the valid argument that having goals and knowing that there is a prize to win at the end of the race, is a strong motivat…

> misleading vividness what? > hasty generalization there are no generalizations here. the article says that the author of the forbes article (as well as you), as a person or privilege, does not understand poverty and thus has no idea how to solve the problem. if anyone is making "hasty generalizations", its the author of the forbes article, who thinks that poor kids simply aren't trying hard enough. > the use an out…

Misleading vividness is the use of a dramatic event that is not in keeping with the majority of the population group.

Hasty generalization is much the same, by weighting the effect of an outlier in an effort to substantiate an argument or counter. I was not using that phrase in literal. It is a type of logical fallacy. I was simply observing that the use of an outlier argument does not negate the position of the OP.

I conceded that the original article was naive. Meaning that it did not provide enough scope to truly address the issue, but the importance of having vision in an environment that allows little is very important.

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