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How Poverty Taxes the Brain

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Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#151

Post by marcosdumay »

3825 wrote: post #34
angersock wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you're financially stable you are like someone programming in a high level language who has tedious tasks like memory management taken care of for you. " This is exactly the correct metaphor. I had to, at one point, stop using my coworking space and start working from home because I couldn't deal with the occasional overhead of "Huh, shit, I forget to bring lunch--can I afford to eat out today? Do I have enough g…

This is why you don't need to pay your programmers too much but you do need to pay them enough that they can focus more on their job and not on trivial items. In hindsight, nicely presented lunches, gym (and perhaps babysitting?) on campus apparently serve a very real purpose. It makes sense that they are minimizing distractions. (When you think of it this way, employees should not have to pay income tax for free lun…

> Do people with money not stress about spending money?

It's a matter of degrees. It's quite different to ask "Can I afford to buy this product? Should I get a cheaper one, or go without?" at every product at the grocery, or ask "Can I afford to continue buying those groceries? Should I change my routine?" once after you pay your grocery bill.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#152

Post by tsotha »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #142
tsotha wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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.

Based on this and your earlier comment I have serious doubts as to whether you've actually met someone who makes less than about $60k a year. You do ape your Contemporary Marxism professor passingly well, though.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#153

Post by angersock »

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.

At our place we don't bother eating instant noodles unless they're Shin Cup or Mi goreng.

You can actually eke out a decent meal if you're willing to add additional nutritious items (eggs, greens, etc.) to otherwise bad instant noodles.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#154

Post by nickthemagicman »

tsotha wrote: post #152
nickthemagicman wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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. Based on this and your earlier comment I have serious doubts as to whether you've actually met someone who makes less than about $60k a year. You do ape your Contemporary Marxism professor passingly…

One of your previous comments:

"$80k is hardly the low end of the car market. I can buy a decent Porsche for less."

You're a poverty expert obviously. With nothing but warmth, mercy, and compassion towards those less fortunate than you.

Fox news and Rush Limbaugh will guide your moral compass.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#155

Post by specialist »

Swizec wrote: post #62
scott_s wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abo…

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…

No longer poor, but I still price compare, because I'm tired of being screwed, not because cash is tight.

Enjoy that grass fed medium rare top sirloin. Life is good.

Just don't pay top dollar for imported beef pumped full of steroids and antibiotics. I merely want what I pay for. Top dollar for indestructible hipster glasses? No problem. Tack sneaky $2.00 fees on to my phone bill? Hulk Smash!

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#156

Post by tsotha »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #154
tsotha wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Based on this and your earlier comment I have serious doubts as to whether you've actually met someone who makes less than about $60k a year. You do ape your Contemporary Marxism professor passingly…

One of your previous comments: "$80k is hardly the low end of the car market. I can buy a decent Porsche for less." You're a poverty expert obviously. With nothing but warmth, mercy, and compassion towards those less fortunate than you. Fox news and Rush Limbaugh will guide your moral compass.

>One of your previous comments...

Proving nothing. How do you know whether or not I can afford a Porsche? The ghettos are full of kids who know how much a high-end Lamborghini costs.

As it happens, I could afford to buy a Porsche if that was the sort of thing I wanted. Because in the decades since college I lived within my means and strove to make my skills more attractive to people who might want to hire me.

One thing I didn't do was fetishize poverty. All you have to do to be poor is refrain from doing anything. In the US nobody of average intelligence needs to be poor.

>Fox news and Rush Limbaugh will guide your moral compass.

I don't watch broadcast television or listen to commercial radio, so I'm not exactly sure what's on Fox or what Limbaugh is saying. But to the extent they support things like self-discipline, thrift, and hard work (you can find definitions for those words with Google) I agree with them.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#157

Post by Groxx »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #131
jacques_chester wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not thinking of ramen-at-the-noodle-house ramen. They're thinking of nothing-but-cheap-dry-noodles-and-salt ramen.

Ah, I forget hacker news has an American biased perspective, where ramen just means cheap crap you get in packets, not the fancy stuff we have in Asia. And of course, ramen in Japanese just means "Chinese noodles", plenty of people in china eat them everyday in china and they are just fine. Imagine if some Chinese poster said "Yeah, careful with using that white bread as a currency unit. It sure is cheap, but it's th…

No, you're encountering the bias that $.15 ramen causes. And the HN bias towards pedantry (not always unfair).

15-cent ramen is crap everywhere that you can discuss a $50 steak dinner and $3/dozen eggs. The egg in your ramen, by those units, would have cost 25 cents alone, and is clearly excluded.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#158

Post by seanmcdirmid »

venus wrote: post #145
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And this is hackernews, where all the readers must be from North America? I doubt the poster is even in San Francisco, where there are lots of decent ramen restaraunts to be found. On that same wiki page, there is nary a pic to be found of instant noodles.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#159

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Groxx wrote: post #157
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I forget hacker news has an American biased perspective, where ramen just means cheap crap you get in packets, not the fancy stuff we have in Asia. And of course, ramen in Japanese just means "Chinese noodles", plenty of people in china eat them everyday in china and they are just fine. Imagine if some Chinese poster said "Yeah, careful with using that white bread as a currency unit. It sure is cheap, but it's th…

No, you're encountering the bias that $.15 ramen causes. And the HN bias towards pedantry (not always unfair). 15-cent ramen is crap everywhere that you can discuss a $50 steak dinner and $3/dozen eggs. The egg in your ramen, by those units, would have cost 25 cents alone, and is clearly excluded.

The ramen I had was 40 RMB, which...given that 1 RMB is .16 USD, is around 40 ramen units. They would never call ramen as fangbian mian here.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#160

Post by consz »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #158
venus wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And this is hackernews, where all the readers must be from North America? I doubt the poster is even in San Francisco, where there are lots of decent ramen restaraunts to be found. On that same wiki page, there is nary a pic to be found of instant noodles.

Well, yes, it is an english speaking website, so I imagine the colloquial usage of 'ramen' probably refers to whatever the colloquial US usage of 'ramen' is.
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