Isn't this essentially what Maslow's hierarchy states?
How Poverty Taxes the Brain
21–30 of 175 posts
Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain
#22It's odd how HN upvotes both articles about learning how to think as well as articles that claim that people are doomed to their financial circumstances because of externalities. It's a strange schizophrenia in a community pursuing entrepreneurialism.
Regularly, competing views are upvoted, for example for tech stacks or languages. More than one mind end up in schizophrenia everywhere, don't they?
Yeah, but you can get a startup company's technology going with Ruby, Python, or PHP.
However, if you espouse an absolutist "victim of circumstances" ideology like the article:
The finding further undercuts the theory that poor people, through inherent weakness, are responsible for their own poverty – or that they ought to be able to lift themselves out of it with enough effort.
You are doomed.
Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain
#23No it doesn't. I've been poor. There is no 1 standard deviation IQ penalty. "The finding further undercuts the theory that poor people, through inherent weakness, are responsible for their own poverty..." Again, no. The poorer members of our society have more limitations on average. This is usually IQ, but will often be something like physical disability (ie., blindness), ugliness, or poor socialization, inherent or…
Also location, network, lack of friends and family support, mental illness, pressure from peers to conform to a low standard...
Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain
#24Eric Blair (known to some as George Orwell) wrote two of the most biting descriptions of the grind of poverty:
Down and out in Paris and London
http://www.george-orwell.org/Down_and_Out_in_Paris_and_Londo...
The Road to Wigan Pier
Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain
#25It's odd how HN upvotes both articles about learning how to think as well as articles that claim that people are doomed to their financial circumstances because of externalities. It's a strange schizophrenia in a community pursuing entrepreneurialism.
On top of everything else, you should probably look into what schizophrenia actually entails.
Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain
#26I can speak to this. For a while in 2010 I was completely broke after leaving my first job out of college, which I hated, and having some other employment opportunities fall through. Having that little money changes your decision making process about absolutely everything. Obviously every financial decision is effected, even the tiniest purchases weigh into bigger questions like "will I have enough money in my bank a…
I observe this at the grocery store. The ones I visit have people from a wide range of economic status. When I go in, I grab what I need and don't think about price - it's almost always just the staples like bread, milk, fruit and eggs, and I know with certainty that I can afford it. And that I don't think about price is literally true until I'm told how much it costs, then I pay it, then I promptly stop thinking about it. I know my eating habits, I know my income, and I know that my eating habits are well within my budget, so it's not worth spending any more cycles on it.
Contrast this with the people who, upon learning that some item in their basket is not actually on sale, put a different item back. Or split the cost of the groceries across a WIC card and cash. Or use five coupons for a small basket.
For me, going to get groceries is an afterthought - I'm out of certain food, I'm out of my place, so I'll pick them up. But for some other people, it's clear to me that visiting the grocery store is an exercise in risk management and weighing priorities. In other words, being poor is hard work.
Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain
#27What is correlation and what is causation?
Is it possible that less intelligent people are shunted (through education, etc) into lower-paying jobs? Thus, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regularly, competing views are upvoted, for example for tech stacks or languages. More than one mind end up in schizophrenia everywhere, don't they?
Yeah, but you can get a startup company's technology going with Ruby, Python, or PHP. However, if you espouse an absolutist "victim of circumstances" ideology like the article: The finding further undercuts the theory that poor people, through inherent weakness, are responsible for their own poverty – or that they ought to be able to lift themselves out of it with enough effort. You are doomed.
As far as I see, it happens the following way. Some people see some article on HN, their mind flashes in dissonance. They upvote the next article which opposes that one.
So that's why, right after we see an article defending X, we see one defending an anti-X, or not-X.
Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain
#29TL;DR: Poor people are 13 IQ points below non-poor because they spend "brain bandwidth" thinking about their poverty instead of doing other brain activities.
Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain
#30Isn't this essentially what Maslow's hierarchy states?
Exactly!