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Being poor changes your thinking about everything

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Re: Being poor changes your thinking about everything

#91
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prevalence of pro-early marriage, pro-birth, anti-condom social and religious values probably has something to do with this, as well as the fact that it's an evolutionary given that everyone wants to have children (or at least sex). Hard to argue with biology.

Do you think those values are wrong ? Look at the fertility numbers : if the rich were made responsible for producing the nation's offspring ... well there wouldn't be a future for America. Furthermore, there is nothing that increases happiness half as much as having a child.

Yes, I do, because they give people a moral argument that outweighs the ethical problems of creating a human being capable of suffering from hunger when you know you probably can't feed her (well).

Re: Being poor changes your thinking about everything

#92
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a problem starting such a collective (which is, in effect, what you are proposing): Housing. To have many people live together, you need square footage (or m², for metric people). This necessitates a large apartment or house. Such a thing, (if not bought outright, ha, ha, just kidding), will be expensive. The landlord will need a single legal person to be responsible for the paying of this rent, and own the l…

Two words: Detroit [1]. Houses there are so cheap that this kind of plan would probably work as long as you had enough human will and intention to make it happen. As far as I can tell, that is where these things break down. It's hard for groups to form this kind of collective dynamic and trust in the absence of some cohering force - religion, a focal point like a cult leader, or similar influences. [1] Well, OK, two…

There's a reason houses in Detroit are so cheap.

Re: Being poor changes your thinking about everything

#93
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think those values are wrong ? Look at the fertility numbers : if the rich were made responsible for producing the nation's offspring ... well there wouldn't be a future for America. Furthermore, there is nothing that increases happiness half as much as having a child.

Yes, I do, because they give people a moral argument that outweighs the ethical problems of creating a human being capable of suffering from hunger when you know you probably can't feed her (well).

If that is true, then Americans are violating eachother's human rights, and laws should be changed until that stops being a valid concern, because the US has signed the human rights treaty. It's that simple. The same goes for other concerns that stand in the way of poor people having children.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/#a16

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/#a25

And if the problem is food, then I would say the US is violating far more than just those 2 rules.

Re: Being poor changes your thinking about everything

#94
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root of all poverty is that children aren't taught to worship the businessmen who choose to value their time at "as little as the government allows" and avoid employing them and their parents at all if possible. What?

The root cause is that the teaching system doesn't turn all children into businessmen. If everyone was a businessman, they'd be earning more than government set minimums.

You can't be a successful businessman without 1) having or making something that people value (which requires skill, capital, or some of both) and 2) taking risks with your time and money instead of earning low but guaranteed income. If you don't have skills, capital, or the cash to survive when your gamble doesn't pay off (just like it usually doesn't pay off in Silicon Valley), you don't get to be a businessman. Teaching a child from a low-income family how to run a business is stupid unless you are also prepared to make a brain-dead investment in a kid with a shitty high school diploma and zero professional experience outside of a Walmart.

I have a laptop and I've had the luxury of time to learn to program. If I invest 1,000 hours in a web startup that fails, I still get to eat food from a grocery store and sleep on a bed.

As a young adult in a family living paycheck-to-paycheck (because they are paid barely enough to survive) you are not likely to have free time to develop skills - you need to be working to cover the cost of your meals, taking care of young children, etc. You don't stand a chance.

But let's say you had some free time, and you went to the (evil socialist government waste-of-taxpayer-money) public library and taught yourself some Rails and spent enough time on the Internet to get an idea of something people wanted. Already we're talking pretty implausible, but let's go with it. High school ends, and you want to dive into building this thing. But guess what? You need to eat. So you take a shitty minimum wage job and come home exhausted every day; your body physically will not let you concentrate no matter how hard you try. Game over.

You have a shitty education and no GitHub portfolio. There is absolutely no reason for a venture capitalist to believe in you, you're just another delusional starry-eyed kid who has no idea how much he doesn't know. But let's say your parents have faith, and they're willing to continue eating the cost of your room and board in their apartment because they just know you're going to make it big like Mark Zuckerberg and will be able to take care of them. You work 100 hours a week on your idea for 6 months, but it fails. It was a good idea but it turned out there wasn't a market for it, or you screwed up because you've never done this before, or you got eaten alive by competition staffed with Stanford comp sci graduates. Not only is the game over, but you've betrayed your parents, you're getting evicted, your siblings are being placed in foster care, and you're homeless.

It was pretty irresponsible of your parents to let you do that. Which is probably why "keep your head down, work hard, take what you get, and recognize ambition as sinful" makes sense to people as a religious value.

Taking risks with your time is a luxury which you absolutely do not have when you're living on the edge of not making rent. Capitalism does not allow for everyone to be an owner - the whole point is that the ability to make money resides in the hands of people with money as opposed to the collective.

Re: Being poor changes your thinking about everything

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so it annoys the shit out of me that when a friend in finance got a $10k raise, all she could talk about was "but I lose half of it to the government!". In some strange world where 30% equals half, she's more concerned about what she lost than the fact that her gain was almost equal to a poor person's annual income. She couldn't even frame her payrise as a positive. There's more to life than feeling lucky we aren…

I think issue is specifically complaining about it going to the government , where the implication is that it's going to be squandered on "lesser people." With no sensitivity for the fact that the taxes on her raise make an enormous difference to someone on welfare. The complaint in this situation is not "I wish I had made more" but "The government should take less."

Would you make the similar protest if they complained about their tax dollars going to wars and spying?

Re: Being poor changes your thinking about everything

#96
post #87
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having kids is a human right. That should be the end of the discussion. Anyone, rich or poor, is * entitled to have children [1] * entitled to financial and other aid to raise those children safely and securely [2] [1] UDHR, Article 16, paragraph (1) http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/#a16 [2] UDHR, Article 25, paragraph (2) http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/#a25 Since the US has signed these treaties, and unless…

Why is calling something a "human right" and pointing to some UN declaration any different than calling something a "God-given right" and pointing to the Bible?

International law.

Re: Being poor changes your thinking about everything

#97
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I do, because they give people a moral argument that outweighs the ethical problems of creating a human being capable of suffering from hunger when you know you probably can't feed her (well).

If that is true, then Americans are violating eachother's human rights, and laws should be changed until that stops being a valid concern, because the US has signed the human rights treaty. It's that simple. The same goes for other concerns that stand in the way of poor people having children. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/#a16 http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/#a25 And if the problem is food, then I would sa…

Ah, but now you are talking about expanding government (which can't do anything right) and taking from people what they've rightfully earned by being superior people and "working harder." And if you believe in supply-side economics, preventing growth which would trickle down into food for those children. Some people consider that a violation of their human rights too.

I don't. I think a little socialism is healthy. But I defy you to solve this without screwing over at least one large group of voters. If that were possible, it probably would have been done already.

Re: Being poor changes your thinking about everything

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think issue is specifically complaining about it going to the government , where the implication is that it's going to be squandered on "lesser people." With no sensitivity for the fact that the taxes on her raise make an enormous difference to someone on welfare. The complaint in this situation is not "I wish I had made more" but "The government should take less."

Would you make the similar protest if they complained about their tax dollars going to wars and spying?

The people you vote for when you want lower taxes (Republicans) are not going to cut budgets for wars and spying, they're going to cut "redistributive" programs for "welfare queens."

Libertarians might get it done, but there's a serious bootstrapping problem in getting enough people to vote for them that they have a chance. For now, every vote for a libertarian is thrown away to idealism where it could at least be doing something.

Re: Being poor changes your thinking about everything

#99
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seriously don't see any economic value associated with the education of a child from age 6-18? We can argue about what specific subjects are best to teach in school, and what a teacher ought to be paid, but don't you think that, broadly speaking, educating children provides some economic benefit to a nation?

Child care workers who watch children when parents aren't present make $19,000, that's maybe more appropriate. http://www.bls.gov/ooh/personal-care-and-service/childcare-w... Where are the proper studies (with 1000s of participants) showing teachers can do a better job than babysitters who hand out an ipad with learning software to every student? The teaching system is a 19th system. It's like if the tech industry co…

I think education is definitely ripe for disruption.

There's a lot of "but it's always been done that way", and teachers' unions are very quick to play the "think of the chilllllldrun card". Lots of entrenched bureaucracy and budgets that people don't want to lose.

Re: Being poor changes your thinking about everything

#100
post #2

I'm very much reminded of these: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about-... http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-devel... http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-things-politicians-will-never-... Especially the last one. EDIT: Fixed last link

One of the articles is making a massive deal about 'afford[ing] those grocery trips' and 'burning shitloads of gas'. As someone who comes from a country where 'gas' is a shit load more expensive than the US because of tax I call utter bullshit. It costs about 20-40p to go to a supermarket, or at most a dollar in your US terms. Over here there's also a massive competition war going on at the moment between Tesco & Sai…

Grocery stores are hard to get to in an urban environment in America.

Also, it's hard to have time to cook when you're working two jobs.

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