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

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#131

Post by Jun8 » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 1:09 AM UTC

Produce wrote: post #121

Jun8 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what the exact unutterable "dangerous" solution you have in mind, but I can assure you, that's not it. The concept of inequality is bred into the human psyche (our hardware or software), you cannot get rid of simplistic social constructs such as communism, etc. Even if technology advances to the level of creating robots to do all menial tasks, our concepts and need for inequality will not go away (for a…

>The concept of inequality is bred into the human psyche If it's inherent then why are there examples of societies which lack it?

The concept of a society with a strong form of equality is, I think, an utopia, and AFAIK, no such society exists. Even if you look at primitive societies, there are better hunters, the tribe leader has more wives than the regular guy, the shaman is revered, etc.

One can say that's not what this discussion is about, i.e. it's the potential for equality, the right to be equal rather than the radical definition above, but then the discussion becomes muddled, how to measure inequality, economically (e.g. the Gini index), by asking people, etc. "Inequality" then becomes a very complicated word like "democracy" or "justice".

I think it's interesting to draw a comparison with democracy: "true" democracy, i.e. radical democracy, is likewise impossible to maintain. The closest form in Athens degenerated to tyranny many times. And probably Athens was the largest collection of people where such pure democracy is feasible, i.e. it cannot be scaled up to a whole country. Judging from the lack of other examples in human history, one can see that the order of things in Athens was not the natural state of society.

So, I maintain that pure forms "liberté, égalité, fraternité" are not practical and cannot be achieved.

Now, one can argue back, saying "Yeah, yeah, we know that, but surely you can rank countries on how much they have achieved these, e.g. surely no one would debate that the US is more democratic than Saudi Arabia." This, of course, is true, but (i) means that we should leave behind "a brotherhood of men, and no possession, too" crap behind and (ii) leads us back to the question of measuring inequality.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#132

Post by sp332 » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 1:11 AM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #130

sp332 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a desire to learn but no possibility of learning (no teachers, no materials etc.) then you won't be educated.

There is always something to learn. At some point, a long, long time ago, people had to have made discoveries and learn from that without teachers or materials. The education we have come to take for granted didn't just appear out of thin air. You might be reinventing the wheel, but it's still a great achievement. The lack of teachers and materials isn't going to stop anyone who wants to learn.

Really? because the article directly contradicts you. These people were totally capable of learning, and demonstrated a willingness to learn, but they were not educated.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#133

Post by Mz » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 1:14 AM UTC

Produce wrote: post #119

Ralith wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? The solution proposed by the article is to make quality education available.

And the implication of everybody being well educated is that everyone will have white collar jobs or prestigious blue collar jobs. If everyone is well educated then who will want to take a job as a street cleaner when they've just spent $80k on their education? The solution is clearly not limited to just educating everyone, is it?

Real education does not necessarily mean spending big bucks. There is plenty of evidence that simply throwing money at the problem doesn't really work. A better correlation is high parental involvement and a community which values education.

Also, pay alone does not determine if one is poor. It is not possible to avoid having people who are "relatively poor" as measured by absolute income. But it is possible to take better care of people and reduce real problems like malnutrition, even if you have phd's waiting tables because there are too many of them.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#134

Post by kylebrown » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 1:14 AM UTC

WiseWeasel wrote: post #63

planetguy wrote: post #3

Surely genetics plays a huge role, one that's ignored in this article.

What would be the point? It's not an issue we're equipped to address, so what good would come from dwelling on the topic, even discounting the risk of muddying the author's point with divisive claims?

Genetics is a red herring, but so are most discussions about "social" causes. Social is just the new genetic. More often than not, the discussion goes down the same slippery slope of blame-the-victim reasoning to rationalize the status quo.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#135

Post by dllthomas » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 1:21 AM UTC

Produce wrote: post #119

Ralith wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? The solution proposed by the article is to make quality education available.

And the implication of everybody being well educated is that everyone will have white collar jobs or prestigious blue collar jobs. If everyone is well educated then who will want to take a job as a street cleaner when they've just spent $80k on their education? The solution is clearly not limited to just educating everyone, is it?

Robots?

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#136

Post by randomdata » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 1:24 AM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #132

randomdata wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is always something to learn. At some point, a long, long time ago, people had to have made discoveries and learn from that without teachers or materials. The education we have come to take for granted didn't just appear out of thin air. You might be reinventing the wheel, but it's still a great achievement. The lack of teachers and materials isn't going to stop anyone who wants to learn.

Really? because the article directly contradicts you. These people were totally capable of learning, and demonstrated a willingness to learn, but they were not educated.

How do you define education? Something as simple as learning how to interact with people is something that anyone in the presence of other people (which is most people on the planet) can do. Maybe you can't learn computer science in rural Africa, but that's not really what I'm talking about.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#137

Post by planetguy » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 1:26 AM UTC

Peaker wrote: post #74

planetguy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shouldn't be in the least bit controversial; it's well known that a great many human characteristics are extremely heritable, and it would be absolutely shocking if none of these characteristics turned out to be helpful or harmful in becoming rich or poor. But since you want sources, here we go: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21826061 "Genome-wide association studies establish that human intelligence is high…

Note that correlations between populations are not transitive like that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy

That is indeed true, and I thought about putting in a note about that in my original comment, but... c'mon folks, I don't think there can be any serious doubt about the idea that some people are born stupid, and that stupid people are more likely to be poor. Can there? Is this a concept which people genuinely doubt?

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#138

Post by stretchwithme » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 1:28 AM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #114

stretchwithme wrote: post #81

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.

But your investment returns are someone else's uninvested consumption. Aggregate demand is like a field of crops, and our society seems to have chosen to eat its seed corn.

Not all returns are someone else's consumption. If that were the case, there would be no industry.

You can invest in a business that makes things for businesses or things that are actually investments for consumers.

An education is not (usually) consumption for a consumer. Neither is a car that more than pays for itself with the time it saves. Using the same car to go traveling around the country instead of getting an education is more consumption than investment.

Our society has chosen to water down the natural incentives to make prudent investments. Saving money no longer pays meaningful interest. The government gives you large incentives to buy a much bigger house than you might otherwise buy or rent. That "extra" house is consumption.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#139

Post by planetguy » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 1:29 AM UTC

WiseWeasel wrote: post #63

planetguy wrote: post #3

Surely genetics plays a huge role, one that's ignored in this article.

What would be the point? It's not an issue we're equipped to address, so what good would come from dwelling on the topic, even discounting the risk of muddying the author's point with divisive claims?

It makes all the difference in the world. If people are poor because that's the best they're genetically equipped to do, then there's not much we can do about it.

Look at pigeons. They eat out of garbage cans. They die within a few years. They get run over by cars rather a lot. But we don't really worry about this, because they're just fucking pigeons.

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#140

Post by cgs1019 » Fri, Jun 22, 2012, 1:33 AM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #109

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.

Well, he did preface the entire article with that fact; it's not as if he doesn't give credit. There are any number of reasons not to go into the details of the inspiration during the course itself, and anyway, there's nothing whatsoever to indicate that he didn't mention it at some point.

To imply that this most selfless, compassionate, and generous person not only forgot to give credit but did so as a result of some inbuilt insensitivity to wealth disparity is an egregious misrepresentation. I mean, did you read what the guy's work was about? Is this really a nit to be picked?