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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

#31

Post by andrewfelix »

abstractnonsens wrote: post #28

Learning requires only access to education and a stable living environment... and then of course actually doing it. Internet has mostly taken care of access to education. That leaves only living conditions and motivation as precursors to success.

"Internet has mostly taken care of access to education." Having access to a library of information does not equate to access to education. Education is much more involved and complicated than throwing information at any individual. Especially for people who haven't had access to certain learning processes from an early age.

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

#33

Post by vacri »

abstractnonsens wrote: post #28

Learning requires only access to education and a stable living environment... and then of course actually doing it. Internet has mostly taken care of access to education. That leaves only living conditions and motivation as precursors to success.

You have to already know how to study and research to get decently educated from the internet.

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

#34

Post by nickolai »

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--…

That's a very intersting quote article you quote there. Just one thing : the article seems to claim that not caring to solve one's problems stems from the impossibility to solve them all in a forseeable future. Hence the problems create a "why bother ?" attitude, which in turn creates more problems. This pretty much nails the issue to me. But then the author goes on "The core of the problem has not been self-discipline or a lack of opportunity, my argument is that the cause of poverty has been poverty."

This is where I'm lost - isnt a "why bother?" attitute a textbook definition of lack of self-discipline?

I do agree with everything else in the article, especially with the idea of removing problems and roadblocks instead of simply throwing money at the issue.

So In my opinion there is a self discipline issue. Trouble is, the more you assist people in solving their problems, the more incline they will be to let their problems rot until you come and solve them again. The ultimate goal theere is to find a way to reliably restart the problem-solving circuit, once the people have been pulled back up to the surface.

AFAIK, no one has found a reliable way yet and unfortunately there is not much of a proposal in the article either.

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

#35

Post by fallous »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #30
abstractnonsens wrote: post #28

Learning requires only access to education and a stable living environment... and then of course actually doing it. Internet has mostly taken care of access to education. That leaves only living conditions and motivation as precursors to success.

Motivation for grade hunting is a tricky thing. I don't understand where people are supposed to take that. Boredom counter clicks like hell when near any education system featuring grades.

How does "education" equate to "grade system"? Are you mistaking credentials for education?

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

#36

Post by gradschool »

Is it off topic to wonder how the story of the badly behaved boy and his mother ended? Presumably with the police involved, they got separated and she was "protected" even more, albeit deprived of a livelihood. Maybe in another era, the consensus was that sex work was such a great job that legal penalties were needed to disincentivize it or there wouldn't be enough women left to be wives and housekeepers. In these more enlightened times, we consider it such a horrible job that anyone who would do it must be crazy or coerced, and needs to be shown that there are alternatives, but we retain the legal penalties in case we're not sure.

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

#37

Post by anateus »

ap22213 wrote: post #24

Having started at the (US) 99th percentile and having luckily risen to the 2nd percentile, I'll say that the most difficult part was learning 'the language' of the middle class. By language, I mean all the nuanced understandings, cultural concepts, non-verbal stuff that is impossible to gain without being in it. And, as an adult I'm still learning. One example that I've recently become frighteningly aware of is that…

In the interest of learning the middle, and upper middle class's vocabulary I respectfully make the correction that you probably meant that you went from the 1st percentile, to the 98th (of income, I believe you imply).

I've seen my parents make a climb in socioeconomic "position" similar to yours, and I've found that much as you found one of the fundamental things that separate the "classes" is awareness of taboos, and even more importantly, when taboos can be violated! My observations seem to indicate that the level of "taboo observance" is distributed in a bell curve over the incomes.

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

#38

Post by white_devil »

vacri wrote: post #17
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…

I believe his point was that it should be possible for to gradually improve their living conditions even despite their hardships.

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

#39

Post by darklajid »

burgerbrain wrote: post #15
andylei wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Just for reference, since you're now directly comparing two schools (yours and the one in the linked article) here, how would you characterize the similarities or differences between your school and one described as

"a primarily low-income, high-minority middle school serving sixth- through eighth-graders"?

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

#40

Post by [deleted] »

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--…

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