How Poverty Taxes the Brain • Hacker News Board

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#141

Post by slurry » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 3:21 PM UTC

msandford wrote: post #125

slurry wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're curious about causality could have saved yourself the trouble of constructing these thought experiments by reading the abstract: "[W]e examined the cognitive function of farmers over the planting cycle. We found that the same farmer shows diminished cognitive performance before harvest, when poor, as compared with after harvest, when rich. This cannot be explained by differences in time available, nutrition…

The argument wasn't that drinking soda caused poverty. It was a thought experiment about the idea that a person's decisions are cumulative and that a person could lean ever so slightly towards saving and slowly dig themselves out of poverty, or ever so slightly towards spending and find themselves in poverty. And that it wouldn't necessarily take hundreds of year for those decisions to add up, that perhaps it could h…

I know I characterized your argument a bit harshly. It's probably true? In some cases? All? I don't know. The paper doesn't rule it out. It does purport to show that causality does run the other way [as well].

Anyway, I just think it's important to keep in mind how much the macro environment affects which bad decisions get punished and how much. The same mistake that might have got you a nasty email from the boss in the late 90s might have got you fired in the late 00s. The sorting effect you hypothesize might happen, but there's significant variability in how harsh it is, at least a portion of which we have control over.

As for inflation and unemployment, basically all mainstream economists agree that there is something called NAIRU, the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment. It's the rate of unemployment below which inflation starts to accelerate. The Wikipedia article isn't very helpful but here it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAIRU

Here are Excel files of historical NAIRU rates targeted by the Federal Reserve:

http://www.phil.frb.org/research-and-data/real-time-center/g...

Here is a paper on NAIRU (opening section is a reasonably good general introduction) by Greg Mankiw, who is not my favorite economist but very widely respected [pdf]:

http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mankiw/files/jep.ballmankiw...

The section on why NAIRU exists basically concludes "nobody knows." Unfortunately this is macroeconomics so there's a lot of just-becausing.

I'm not sure if it's a good theory or not but it's widely believed by economists, especially central bankers. So if unemployment goes above a given rate, which changes depending on circumstances (I think the latest estimate is 6.5%), they're going to tighten the money supply anyway so that growth and especially job growth slow down.

So essentially, it's an unstated national policy in almost every country not to have full employment.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#142

Post by nickthemagicman » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 4:03 PM UTC

tsotha wrote: post #126

msandford wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason we don't see eye-to-eye on this is this line right here: > 700-rent 200-car note 80-insurance 500-food 200- utilities 200-gas When I look at that I still see room to squeeze it cheaper. Rent could go down with a roommate (or several). A $200 car note is pretty substantial. $500 for food is also a lot more than needs to be spent. I think that when you look at that, it's a bare-minimum kind of thing…

I think this is exactly right. There's almost always somewhere you can cut - when I was a student I lived on $11k per year in today's dollars. $2000/month seems kind of luxurious. And I didn't suffer any of the wrenching decision making overhead in the article. Decisions were easy - "Is there any way I can avoid buying this?" No? Then I bought it.

College students are like the Kevin Federline's of poverty.

They believe that because they lived frugally for a few years while seizing opportunities that a middle class existence opened for them they are now able to speak expertly on poverty and what being on the street is like.

And Kevin Federline made it up out of the streets with his dangerous thug dance moves.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#143

Post by nickthemagicman » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 4:16 PM UTC

msandford wrote: post #94

nickthemagicman wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you're trolling or just extremely naive and idealistic. You're still operating under the assumption that you have choices when you're in poverty. Imagine working two jobs 80 hours a week and pulling in $2000 at minimum wage. 700-rent 200-car note 80-insurance 500-food 200- utilities 200-gas Where are you going to make 'choices' to get ahead assuming all of your time and money are gone? This is the cyc…

I think the reason we don't see eye-to-eye on this is this line right here: > 700-rent 200-car note 80-insurance 500-food 200- utilities 200-gas When I look at that I still see room to squeeze it cheaper. Rent could go down with a roommate (or several). A $200 car note is pretty substantial. $500 for food is also a lot more than needs to be spent. I think that when you look at that, it's a bare-minimum kind of thing…

If you're really that numb to people's suffering that you argue that it's possible to live on a 30$ weekly food budget because one wing nut posts a web page about it...

Well, it really does make me think you're trolling and that you've already make up your mind that 90% of the world is in poverty because they made poor decisions.

You could drink your own urine to save money on water bills as well....

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#144

Post by unono » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 4:16 PM UTC

tluyben2 wrote: post #138

unono wrote: post #110

Poverty is a great opportunity for startups. There's huge pent up demand for crowd sourcing of the Mechanical Turk variety. There's no real reason a person shouldn't be able to work anytime, using just a smartphone, and earn a middle class income. This is going to be huge next year, 2014 will be the year of the crowd-work.

What kind of work are you talking about? I live in a village/province/country with a very high unemployment rate for part of the year; I tried getting people (esp youth) here in the village to do the work you suggest; it's simply not possible. They cannot do it; not native English and the jobs which are out there are either trivial for a computer to do meaning they pay literally cents or too hard for them to do (corr…

The crowd-work industry is woefully immature at the moment. However, it's potential is far greater, 1000000x or more.

The way to imagine it is that all work that gets done in the world could be split up into pieces and coordinated by software. When there is a lot of this crowd-work to go around, prices will rise and crowd-workers will earn a reasonable income.

Much of enterprise software today is already this, the filling in forms and systemic procedures. However, it hasn't been intelligently designed to be distributed through the internet, instead having been mostly a transfer of pen and paper forms into a computer.

Another type of crowd-work is of the physical variety, what amazon, uber, task-rabbit do. There are complaints that these reduce wages, but I don't buy that. There is pent-up demand for things that currently don't get done. For example, I might hire someone to clean my house, but the current mechanisms are too much effort. If there was an uber-like button to press, I might do it every once in a while.

I could get carried away and talk about this for hours so I'll stop. But the essential point is to reorganize all work through web and mobile interfaces, have human -> computer -> human, instead of the inefficient human -> human system.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#145

Post by venus » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 4:54 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #136

consz wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only ate wonderbread for all 2k calories of the day, it would mess up your health -- just as eating $0.125 packets of ramen would mess up your health if that was all you ate.

Not all ramen is $.125 a pack though, most of it in the world is actually not! It is just stupid and shallow that people think "ramen" would just mean the crap that they sell in American grocery stores. Why not just use the real name of what you are talking about? "Instant noodles," "instant ramen," or "fangbian mian" would be much more accurate and much less bizarre.

From wikipedia:

> In North America, Japanese instant noodles were imported starting in the 1970s bearing the name "ramen", causing the term "ramen" to be often used in North America to refer to instant noodles.

So there you go. I'm sure it will disappear in time, as awareness of asian cuisine develops.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#146

Post by superuser2 » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 5:37 PM UTC

michaelfdeberry wrote: post #61

venomsnake wrote: post #42

Being poor is a full time job. I have fasted for weeks without problems and yet on the one occasion in the last 20 years where I was unable to buy food for three days the hunger was severe and overwhelming - the experiences had nothing in common. The cognitive load I have seen on friends struggling with poverty is immense - they are permanently mentally exhausted of all the hard decisions and complicated math needed…

> Here is an idea for a product - easy to use program that balances the budget as good as possible while taking into account the unique challenges that struggling people are faced with. It's a good idea, but saving money often has an up front cost and I think an app to help the poor would fall into that category. The people that would end up benefiting from such an app would be people that could afford to purchase a…

An app... for people who can afford smartphones but not groceries?

It's an interesting problem, though. A smartphone app would be the perfect way to deliver that functionality, but if someone has a smartphone, they probably don't need it.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#147

Post by 90002 » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 5:41 PM UTC

delluminatus wrote: post #49

ritchiea wrote: post #14

I 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 also find that poverty detrimentally affects people's self-esteem and confidence. It's hard to avoid seeing income as a societal judgement of your value or ability (even though it really isn't). I've seen this in my family: if people are laid off or struggling financially, it is just incredibly destructive. Losing a job had more impact on my relatives' happiness than getting a divorce. When I called my family I cou…

While this may not be true to everyone contributing their 2 cents on this piece, most folks here cannot possibly fathom nor understands what it's like to be buried in stress due to poverty or near poverty experiences. I, too, have experienced my fair share of impoverished conditions throughout the course of my life, but it is a bit difficult, even frustrating, trying to explain to someone the effects of poverty. The emotional and physical toll poverty takes on one individual is beyond belief, but some folks will never get it, to be honest. Furthermore, the effects never quite diminish, even if one is able to climb out of poverty, unfortunately.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#148

Post by watt » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 5:52 PM UTC

mabhatter wrote: post #121

scott_s wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as nutritional value goes, eggs are a great deal. Packed with protein your body can use and easy to prepare.

you know, you could grow a whole baby chicken from one of those!

not from a store-bought unfertilized egg, no.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#149

Post by straight_talk_2 » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 6:41 PM UTC

lightbritefight wrote: post #71

Swizec wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an even more interesting observation: I have grown up not quite in poverty, but still in a single parent home with mum having to work multiple jobs at times to support me and my sister. Thinking about money has rubbed off on me. Nowadays I personally have zero money problems on account of my freelancing business doing great. But going to the grocery store habits learned over half of my life still kick in. Do I bu…

Easier doesn't mean better. You learned risk aversion and prioritization skills from your mothers habits. The fact is that you don't need to employ that aversion at the moment, but its a tool you have if you do need it. The number of people I see who blow though heroic gobs of money astonishes me sometimes. I realize that my metric is entirely variable, but I'm talking about paying 2-3x for a similar good simply beca…

You are completely wrong. Easier is better, most of the time. In a 21st century developed economy it's vastly more efficient to spend your time thinking how to improve your income than how to optimize small expenses. Same principle as the famous "Premature optimization is the root of all evil".

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#150

Post by krisgee » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 6:42 PM UTC

watt wrote: post #148

mabhatter wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you know, you could grow a whole baby chicken from one of those!

not from a store-bought unfertilized egg, no.

I think that was just a comment on why there's so much nutrition packing in an egg not any comment on the viability of a given egg.