In order to accumulate resources, one must use the resources available wisely, consuming just a portion and investing the rest to produce more resources.
Individuals and societies that don't do this grow poorer.
Why do you think people are poor?
81–90 of 292 posts
Re: Why do you think people are poor?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's possible to go to an excellent school and fail to learn anything if you don't want to, especially if you have been culturally conditioned to hate school. At least a good school does provide the opportunity, from stories I've heard from people who have worked at or attended bad schools it would be an environment where it would be basically impossible to learn anything even if you wanted to.
At least a good school does provide the opportunity, from stories I've heard from people who have worked at or attended bad schools it would be an environment where it would be basically impossible to learn anything even if you wanted to. OK, this is just one anecdote, but... I grew up in a fairly rural, poor part of North Carolina, went to generic, poor to below average public schools, came from a dirt-poor family t…
Rural schools can have one advantage - everyone goes to them. In big cities, schools are a lot more stratified - no-one goes to a poor (black / latino) school unless they are poor.
You could look at the richer kids, do what they did (read books, learn stuff), and succeed. In a ghetto school, the only rich kids are drug dealers.
Re: Why do you think people are poor?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
The argument has never been that it is impossible to rise from poverty. The argument is that it is demonstrably massively unlikely.
The argument has never been that it is impossible to rise from poverty. The argument is that it is demonstrably massively unlikely. So the question then, as I see it, is "how do we make it more likely?" I mean, if I can overcome all sorts of obstacles that are frequently cited as reasons people remain in poverty, and I am not anybody particularly special, then why shouldn't anybody else be able to? What separates a k…
Based on your story it seems you were lucky enough to have a stable family who gave you what support they could to pursue independent study/tinkering outside of school.
I am in the UK so it may be somewhat different here but I certainly know people with similar stories to yours over here.
However there are plenty of families over here who live in poverty where either both parents are unemployed , or dad is a drug dealer and mum is a prostitute. In many of these cases the children are simply not encouraged to learn anything, never provided with books (the parents might not even be able to read themselves).
There is often a bias in these communities against anybody who is seen to be working hard to learn anything educational and this is carried into school.
Re: Why do you think people are poor?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something which can be acted upon, meaningfully. Knowing that a tidal wave is headed your way when you've got safe ground that's reachable, is actionable. You can take action to change the outcome. Knowing that, say, that within the next century the sun would go nova, or a local star would go supernova, for all practical intents, is not actionable in any manner that action could be taken which would preserve civiliza…
I know what the word actionable means. I don't know what he is asking about. Is my suggestion to read the book actionable? Yes, I think so. Is the info in the book actionable? Yes, I think so, on several fronts. But I don't know what action he wants me talking to him about.
No fears, my bad.
Re: Why do you think people are poor?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
umm.. no evolution does not encourage diversity. "encourage" implies that there is some sort of hierarchy or level in terms of evolution, and there isn't.
These sorts of points are silly, and wrong. If the general tendency of life under evolutionary processes is "diversity", through whatever natural processes are at play, then its reasonable to say in common language that "evolution encourages diversity". Personally, I disagree that evolution encourages diversity. It seems to me that diversity occurs in spite of it, as a result of our ever changing, dynamic, earth.
Yes, it seems evolution 'encourages' homogenization. Natural selection acts as a filter reducing genetic variation in a given environmental setting.
Re: Why do you think people are poor?
#86Life is a series of scenarios, each leaving the person slightly better equipped to deal with future scenarios or slightly worse equipped. Small disadvantages multiply, as to small advantages.
And so we get a lognormal distribution where small positive differences (arguably ultimately due to luck; genes, environment, continent, family network etc) combine to give enourmous advantages.
That said, regardless of your starting point it pays to try to position yourself to gain as many positive points as you can - with luck you can ride that same multiplicative unfairness to achieve better than linear progress.
Re: Why do you think people are poor?
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's possible to go to an excellent school and fail to learn anything if you don't want to, especially if you have been culturally conditioned to hate school. At least a good school does provide the opportunity, from stories I've heard from people who have worked at or attended bad schools it would be an environment where it would be basically impossible to learn anything even if you wanted to.
At least a good school does provide the opportunity, from stories I've heard from people who have worked at or attended bad schools it would be an environment where it would be basically impossible to learn anything even if you wanted to. OK, this is just one anecdote, but... I grew up in a fairly rural, poor part of North Carolina, went to generic, poor to below average public schools, came from a dirt-poor family t…
I'm curious what your parents taught you about personal responsibility. My theory is it's less about whether you grow up in poverty as it is about growing up being taught you're a victim, that everything bad in your life is the result of other people hating you or taking what should be yours, etc. If you feel everything that you have or don't have is the result of things other people are giving you or taking from you, you learn that you are not in control of your destiny.
However the reality is that almost nobody in the world or evn your town even knows you exist, much less is actively working to keep you down. If you grow up being told that life is (largely) what you make it, you will tend to do what it takes to achieve what you want, rather than remaining mired in self-pity and victimhood.
Re: Why do you think people are poor?
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's possible to go to an excellent school and fail to learn anything if you don't want to, especially if you have been culturally conditioned to hate school. At least a good school does provide the opportunity, from stories I've heard from people who have worked at or attended bad schools it would be an environment where it would be basically impossible to learn anything even if you wanted to.
At least a good school does provide the opportunity, from stories I've heard from people who have worked at or attended bad schools it would be an environment where it would be basically impossible to learn anything even if you wanted to. OK, this is just one anecdote, but... I grew up in a fairly rural, poor part of North Carolina, went to generic, poor to below average public schools, came from a dirt-poor family t…
You have done extremely well, but you're forgetting that most successful rich people, those born to the right parents and in the right neighborhoods, are boring as %!#&, and many of them are not only unmotivated to learn, but quite stupid as well. So it's only the poor who have to really want it. The rich are simply born with it. So economic success is still very much hereditary (though you don't inherit it with your genes).
Re: Why do you think people are poor?
#89Life is a series of scenarios, each leaving the person slightly better equipped to deal with future scenarios or slightly worse equipped. Small disadvantages multiply, as to small advantages.
And so we get a lognormal distribution where small positive differences (arguably ultimately due to luck; genes, environment, continent, family network etc) combine to give enourmous advantages. That said, regardless of your starting point it pays to try to position yourself to gain as many positive points as you can - with luck you can ride that same multiplicative unfairness to achieve better than linear progress.
Power law (Pareto distribution), not lognormal.
But you're partly right. Simulate random exchanges at random prices and the wealth distribution will come out Pareto.
However, we cannot conclude that because [a] random exchanges lead to a power-law dist and [b] we observe a power-law in reality, that [c] the real wealth distribution is tantamount to random.
Re: Why do you think people are poor?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
The argument has never been that it is impossible to rise from poverty. The argument is that it is demonstrably massively unlikely.
The argument has never been that it is impossible to rise from poverty. The argument is that it is demonstrably massively unlikely. So the question then, as I see it, is "how do we make it more likely?" I mean, if I can overcome all sorts of obstacles that are frequently cited as reasons people remain in poverty, and I am not anybody particularly special, then why shouldn't anybody else be able to? What separates a k…
"intrinsic motivation"
Well, I came from a fairly modest background in rural Scotland (mind you, not what anyone would call "poor") and one thing that has always been very obvious to me is that my motivation was not intrinsic - my parents, siblings (all of who have done pretty well), teachers and school friends were very positive and encouraging.
Looking back on it I find it remarkable at how positive my school friends were towards me having an obvious route out of the community through academic success - they had hard lives of working in deep-sea fishing, offshore oil or farming to look forward to. I never encountered any resentment or bitterness - people seemed genuinely pleased that I was going to go to university.
However, it was relatively late in life (30s) that I actually realised that this kind of supportive background is not the norm and many people, especially from modest backgrounds, face actual hostility and discouragement from when they try to "get out of their box". As my wife, who although she is now a succesful lawyer, came from a background where academic success was not encouraged has commented to me - success was easy for me because it was expected of me from an early age.
Sadly, for many people nobody expects them to succeed and so therefore they don't. For me this is one of the real tragedies of our society.