Why do you think people are poor? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#101

Post by Mz » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 11:24 PM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #99

Mz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gee, I kind of hate to say this, but my expensive genetic disorder is why I am deeply in debt and homeless. It is not due to lack of intelligence, ineptitude, etc. It is simply expensive to treat. So I have difficulty with the idea that our genes in no way impact this outcome. I was STAR student, a national scholarship winner, etc ad nauseum. In fact, I am in financial trouble because I figured out how to get well wh…

Interesting. I didn't mean to discount that possibility and my strong reaction to the GP's implication was in the opposite direction as my comment looks in retrospect. I think health issues are a huge cause of poverty for families that were uninsured or didn't have sufficient coverage and I could definitely understand that happening with congenital cases. I'm sorry I came across so un-understanding, I was reading the…

No, not at all. I just hate to say it because it does potentially reinforce social darwinism. The reality is that there is some evidence that genetic disorders also correlate to high iq. In other words, it is very likely that my mental ability to solve my problem is rooted in the genetic disorder I have. So I hate listing it as evidence which might empower bigotry and the like. I am different from other people. That has its good points and bad points. But it definitely is the crux of my financial problems.

Peace and have a great day (and an upvote).

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#102

Post by wdewind » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 11:30 PM UTC

codex wrote: post #40

tokenadult wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution encourages diversity. That's quite a general statement for the discussion here, which you then use to make a specific conclusion about the human behavioral issue under discussion in this thread. Could you kindly fill out the reasoning steps you are implicitly following with more citations to research on each factual assertion you are relying on? even though their standard of living is rising continually Thi…

It's pretty simple: Humans are diverse. Evolution created humans. Therefore, evolution created human diversity. "Encourages" is perhaps the wrong word--evolution really produces diversity because it responds to the diverse conditions of the earth. However, this is just background color, it doesn't change the argument. As long as humans are generically and epigenetically diverse there will be differences in fitness. I…

When you say "it's pretty simple: Humans are diverse" you are still making a pretty nebulous statement. What does diversity even mean there? On what basis are you resting your argument that evolution created human diversity, and is not in fact working against it? How do you compare genetic diversity to socioeconomic diversity in a way that is useful or sheds light on their actual relationship?

There is no question genetics play a role, the question is how big of a role do they play? You haven't gotten anywhere close to answering that.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#103

Post by gms7777 » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 11:31 PM UTC

clarky07 wrote: post #73

gms7777 wrote: post #11

I remember reading an article at one point about a study done on high school students. I can't remember exact details, but there was a program where students in areas with bad high schools could apply to be sent to better high schools. If I remember correctly, admission to the program wasn't merit based, but first-come, first-serve. The study compared the students who got into the program, and the students who applie…

This is part of Freakonomics ( http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden... ). Though you could have obviously seen it elsewhere. In the book, it was referring to lottery based admission to the better schools. The result was that it didn't matter whether the students won the lottery or not. They performed equally well (on whatever generic criteria you use to judge academic performance in hs, most l…

That may very well have been where I saw it. Thank you.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#104

Post by jshen » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 11:34 PM UTC

gms7777 wrote: post #11

I remember reading an article at one point about a study done on high school students. I can't remember exact details, but there was a program where students in areas with bad high schools could apply to be sent to better high schools. If I remember correctly, admission to the program wasn't merit based, but first-come, first-serve. The study compared the students who got into the program, and the students who applie…

"The ones applying were the ones who were motivated to learn"

Wasn't it their parents that were applying? Doesn't that change the conclusion you drew?

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#105

Post by Dn_Ab » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 11:46 PM UTC

crasshopper wrote: post #96

Dn_Ab wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I'm aware the debate of lognormal vs power law distribution on wealth is unsettled. EDIT: google search suggests power law tail - log normal bulk.

You are maybe thinking that it is difficult to identify powerlaws? (EDIT: s/identify/statistically verify/; s/powerlaws/TRUE powerlaws/) But look: http://globalrichlist.com/how.html The bulk is indeed powerlaw. Maybe you are thinking that a sufficiently winsorised US income distribution is lognormal.

To the contrary I think people are too eager to find scale free and power law phenomena.

There are several papers discussing log-normal bulk and then power law tail.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2002/feb/26/the-phy...

http://fmwww.bc.edu/ec-p/wp671.pdf and more

For what it's worth my initial statement was meant to hold beyond income and wealth and generalize to say achievement and productivity and so a lognormal assumption was fitting as the distribution to pick. It also chimed well with grandalf's statement on how advantages multiply.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#106

Post by Shivetya » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 11:47 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #72

gms7777 wrote: post #11

I remember reading an article at one point about a study done on high school students. I can't remember exact details, but there was a program where students in areas with bad high schools could apply to be sent to better high schools. If I remember correctly, admission to the program wasn't merit based, but first-come, first-serve. The study compared the students who got into the program, and the students who applie…

Why is it, then, that despite the school someone goes to not mattering in outcomes once you control for external factors, rich people still disproportionately prefer to send their kids to private schools, and are willing to pay 20-30k per year over a decade to do so? I could totally believe that it's totally irrational on the rich parents' part: kids and health are places where people lose much sense of rationality a…

because a private school would not have confined my friend's child to special education because she spoke Spanish in class one day to a friend.

Perhaps rich people are getting the result they believe they are supposed to receive? As in, their behavior is modified in minor ways they do not perceive but all towards the goal of increasing the success of the children they enroll?

It really comes down to parents. Children are not autonomous for the early formative years and how the parents treat them, from setting their morals and encouraging good behavior sets the course for most of their life barring abrupt unforeseen external forces.

I have only one issue with private schools, I do not believe any politician should be allowed to send their children to one.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#107

Post by Produce » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 11:49 PM UTC

She's completely correct that it's the culture of the rich which make them rich.

What she's completely wrong about is that it's their morality that makes it so.

We, the rich, the middle and upper classes, are the ones who fund prisons, we are the ones who do not share our food with our neighbors, we are the ones who refuse to mix with them and share our culture.

It's like Terrence McKenna said - "Culture is not your friend". Culture is a tribal way of life - it's a gang sign, whether that sign be dressing in red or blue or wearing a suit. It's our culture which judges that those who perform certain jobs are more deserving of comfort than others. Yet without that farmer growing his crops how would you eat? Without that garbage collector removing waste, how would you stay healthy? Without that secretary, how would your business function properly? It's these value judgements which really hurt us. Someone will always need to do those jobs (until our machinery is smart enough, anyway) and, as it stands, they will always be deemed by the rest of us to be undeserving of the comfort that we have just because we do something essentially far less fundamental.

Just as power corrupts, so inequality breeds resentment and poisons society. There's a word for the solution I'm hinting at but it's too dangerous to even mention.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#108

Post by Produce » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 11:52 PM UTC

Ralith wrote: post #100

danielweber wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did this project have good results? Have other people successfully replicated those good results running the project themselves? I suspect, like most projects, it didn't meet both of those criteria. However, if it did, I would be extremely interested.

> A year after graduation, ten of the first sixteen Clemente Course graduates were attending four-year colleges or going to nursing school; four of them had received full scholarships to Bard College. The other graduates were attending community college or working full-time. Except for one: she had been fired from her job in a fast-food restaurant for trying to start a union. It sounds like it was successful to me.

So the solution is to make everyone a nurse or an engineer or a manager? Who's going to sweep the streets and grow food?

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#109

Post by erikpukinskis » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 11:54 PM UTC

Sad that he tells the students "This will be proof, I hope, of my idea about the humanities".

It's Viniece Walker's idea, the woman he met in prison, who earned the idea with her struggles.

I wish more people of privilege were aware of how often they "forget" to give credit where credit is due, especially when credit is due to someone of less privilege.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#110

Post by ilaksh » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 11:54 PM UTC

This article is breathtakingly ludicrous. The 'humanities' and the culture that espouses them are essentially pre-scientific. The exercise described by the author is an embarrassing demonstration of that.

Inequality is built-in to the structure of our 'civilization'. There are social science studies which have demonstrated how that works. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=inequality&... Some of those might not be as ludicrous as the article (although many of the authors of those studies may be social Darwinists which would probably invalidate many of the results).

My current perspective is this: there is a very simple, stupid set of beliefs which are supporting the structure which leads to the maintenance of vast inequality. Basically, we still have castes and have gone through a few different rationalizations and slight variations over the centuries.

So I think that good social science will look at income inequality over generations in terms of social class and look at social class as an extension of ancient caste systems. I also think that at one time caste systems may have provided an overall benefits to societies, but modern technology has long since made them obsolete.