Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Poverty leaves a mark on our genes

eurekalert.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 66 posts

Re: Poverty leaves a mark on our genes

#11

Post by ta1234567890 »

rolltiide wrote: post #7
vipref wrote: post #3

> socioeconomic status (SES) is a powerful determinant of human health and disease, and social inequality is a ubiquitous stressor for human populations globally It is common to see why this could be a big problem for poor people as they have to worry about health, food, etc for day to day living while we take them as granted and can focus on other things like writing code, going to meetings, and the like without wor…

My observations is that our society puts too much emphasis on having people prove they are self-reliant, instead of improving its population's productivity. In this dichotomy, the former is detrimental to the society, the latter would enhance it. I think focusing on productivity would go further than the dichotomy's of "welfare or not", where people are mostly skeptical of whether a subsidized poor person is contribu…

I agree with the sentiment of changing the narrative, but productivity seems to already be a big part of western society and it seems pretty soul-less. Why not focus on well-being of everyone?

Re: Poverty leaves a mark on our genes

#12

Post by aluren »

johnchristopher wrote: post #8
aluren wrote: post #6

>understandings of genes as immutable features of biology that are fixed at conception This 'understanding' has been known to be wrong for 30+ years now. Rearrangements, microchimerism, epigenetics, chromosome organization etc. are all things that exist and modulate information transfer beyond the standard four letters or the 'environment' (whatever people think it means) and we're still only scratching the surface.…

This understanding was still taught like that in the 90's, western continental Europe.

True. Most of what I've been taught after high school feels like "you've been lied to, everything you were taught in high school was wrong or grossly oversimplified and now you need to unlearn it all and relearn from scratch." Makes you wonder what the purpose of high school was in the first place.

Re: Poverty leaves a mark on our genes

#13

Post by iguy »

johnchristopher wrote: post #8
aluren wrote: post #6

>understandings of genes as immutable features of biology that are fixed at conception This 'understanding' has been known to be wrong for 30+ years now. Rearrangements, microchimerism, epigenetics, chromosome organization etc. are all things that exist and modulate information transfer beyond the standard four letters or the 'environment' (whatever people think it means) and we're still only scratching the surface.…

This understanding was still taught like that in the 90's, western continental Europe.

It's not called the central dogma of biology for nothing!

But seriously, in my understanding it's taught that way to try to rid people of mystical pre-evolutionary notions. Once they have firmly grasped the basics they can move on to super-interesting corners where stranger things may happen, and about which people are still arguing.

The physics analogy is people arriving with mistaken intuition about "when does the dead body roll out of the truck" level problems. The fact that Newton isn't the end of the story doesn't spare you from having to un-learn Hollywood/Aristotle first. Nor will your earlier confusion be any help in wrapping your head around post-Newton concepts.

Re: Poverty leaves a mark on our genes

#14

Post by rolltiide »

ta1234567890 wrote: post #11
rolltiide wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My observations is that our society puts too much emphasis on having people prove they are self-reliant, instead of improving its population's productivity. In this dichotomy, the former is detrimental to the society, the latter would enhance it. I think focusing on productivity would go further than the dichotomy's of "welfare or not", where people are mostly skeptical of whether a subsidized poor person is contribu…

I agree with the sentiment of changing the narrative, but productivity seems to already be a big part of western society and it seems pretty soul-less. Why not focus on well-being of everyone?

> Why not focus on well-being of everyone?

Because that won't gain consensus.

But demonstrating how some parts of our culture undermine productivity can.

I think we could reach similar outcomes, if the lack of well-being can be proven to show that it undermines productivity.

Re: Poverty leaves a mark on our genes

#15

Post by astura »

BearsAreCool wrote: post #9
aluren wrote: post #6

>understandings of genes as immutable features of biology that are fixed at conception This 'understanding' has been known to be wrong for 30+ years now. Rearrangements, microchimerism, epigenetics, chromosome organization etc. are all things that exist and modulate information transfer beyond the standard four letters or the 'environment' (whatever people think it means) and we're still only scratching the surface.…

This is new knowledge to me, where do I read about this?

https://www.whatisepigenetics.com/what-is-epigenetics/

Re: Poverty leaves a mark on our genes

#16

Post by reasonaway »

aluren wrote: post #6

>understandings of genes as immutable features of biology that are fixed at conception This 'understanding' has been known to be wrong for 30+ years now. Rearrangements, microchimerism, epigenetics, chromosome organization etc. are all things that exist and modulate information transfer beyond the standard four letters or the 'environment' (whatever people think it means) and we're still only scratching the surface.…

Genes do explain much of the variation between people for many characteristics. You can think of them as initial character stats that are then modified by environmental factors and random noise.

Re: Poverty leaves a mark on our genes

#17

Post by [deleted] »

vipref wrote: post #3

> socioeconomic status (SES) is a powerful determinant of human health and disease, and social inequality is a ubiquitous stressor for human populations globally It is common to see why this could be a big problem for poor people as they have to worry about health, food, etc for day to day living while we take them as granted and can focus on other things like writing code, going to meetings, and the like without wor…

[deleted]

Re: Poverty leaves a mark on our genes

#18

Post by stretchwithme »

rolltiide wrote: post #7
vipref wrote: post #3

> socioeconomic status (SES) is a powerful determinant of human health and disease, and social inequality is a ubiquitous stressor for human populations globally It is common to see why this could be a big problem for poor people as they have to worry about health, food, etc for day to day living while we take them as granted and can focus on other things like writing code, going to meetings, and the like without wor…

My observations is that our society puts too much emphasis on having people prove they are self-reliant, instead of improving its population's productivity. In this dichotomy, the former is detrimental to the society, the latter would enhance it. I think focusing on productivity would go further than the dichotomy's of "welfare or not", where people are mostly skeptical of whether a subsidized poor person is contribu…

Impact on productivity is not the right way to judge a crime. Definitely not the sole measure or the paramount one. It would be open season on old people if that were the case. I suspect you wouldn't want to see that happen.

I don't believe the current system punishes offenders effectively or rehabilitates them. It's not great at segregating dangerous people either, as people are released when they've "paid their debt to society" rather than when they stop presenting a threat.

I'd prefer it if prisons were more like the prison farms in Scandinavia, especially for young non-violent criminals. They need to learn to produce things or render services that other prisoners will want. They should be able to build their own houses. They should have to learn how to work and freely trade with others BEFORE they are released.

Some criminals are a persistent threat to the population and must be tightly controlled. People who've murdered multiple people, for example. And some should never be released.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/wh...

Anyway, a complicated topic for sure.

Re: Poverty leaves a mark on our genes

#19

Post by heavenlyblue »

aluren wrote: post #6

>understandings of genes as immutable features of biology that are fixed at conception This 'understanding' has been known to be wrong for 30+ years now. Rearrangements, microchimerism, epigenetics, chromosome organization etc. are all things that exist and modulate information transfer beyond the standard four letters or the 'environment' (whatever people think it means) and we're still only scratching the surface.…

>> DNA is not source code

It is source code, it's just that source code is self-modifying.

Re: Poverty leaves a mark on our genes

#20

Post by wallace_f »

rolltiide wrote: post #14
ta1234567890 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the sentiment of changing the narrative, but productivity seems to already be a big part of western society and it seems pretty soul-less. Why not focus on well-being of everyone?

> Why not focus on well-being of everyone? Because that won't gain consensus. But demonstrating how some parts of our culture undermine productivity can. I think we could reach similar outcomes, if the lack of well-being can be proven to show that it undermines productivity.

I'm not sure what fraction of paid jobs even contribute greater than their cost to society. The War on Poverty has spent trillions, and poverty has increased. A lot of industries obviously don't contribute (tax attorneys, lobbyists, bureaucrats, administrators (see the Rise of the Administrator in healthcare), even much of law enforcement, academia, or regulators). Actually even my first high-paid job working for a financial tech company, I'm convinced didn't contribute to society. Most of our work was mandated by regulatory laws, and most of our customers were capture by monopolistic competition or downright aggressive, questionable sales.

I don't see anyone saying this, but I think fixing the bottom 10% of society requires fixing the top 90%. I see no way that happens. Nobody accepts blame for being wrong, and most people's cognitive capabilities are filled by an evening watching cable TV.

Post reply on HN