How Poverty Taxes the Brain • Hacker News Board

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#171

Post by pfisch » Sun, Sep 01, 2013, 6:12 PM UTC

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #111

ramchip wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I don't think these are worse than smoking at all. They sound more like phases in a normal person's life.

Take the idea of evolution. As pg points out in his essay, the reason evolution was so difficult for people to accept is that species seem to be unchanging, static fixtures. It would be absurd to suggest that a dolphin used to walk around on land, yet evidence shows that they did, a couple million years ago. It turns out that the idea of evolution is useful in other contexts. Most of the best software was written by…

This is a strange defense. You are basically defending an addiction by saying that it is better than smoking crack or doing heroin. That doesn't really defend your addiction, it is just comparing it to other things you could do that would be even worse.

I don't really care if you smoke or whatever, it is just rather expensive in the short term and potentially outrageously expensive to the point of bankruptcy in the long term. Also there are shorter term health implications that kind of suck as well. It is certainly not a good investment.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#172

Post by tsotha » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 1:00 AM UTC

nickthemagicman wrote: post #165

tsotha wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not compassion. That's stroking your own ego.

You're a sick person.

For pointing out the utter vapid shallowness of your "compassion"? Guilty as charged, I suppose.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#173

Post by randomdata » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 4:30 AM UTC

sejordan wrote: post #74

randomdata wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find having a good income just brings on the stress of ensuring that you are saving enough for when you no longer have a good income, and so that $1 soda is still a mental hurdle, even if you can easily afford it.

I've found that automating my finances make a lot of those stresses go away. I don't have to worry about accidentally overspending in my checking account and not being able to pay my bills because my bills are paid from a separate account, and they're all on auto-pay. Likewise, my savings and retirement investments are automated and I just know that enough is going there. I have a checking account, which is labeled "…

Interesting perspective, but I feel like the stress comes from the idea that you can never have enough saved. Even if you schedule a certain percentage of your income to be saved automatically, what if you need that percentage + N in the future? You are ultimately limited by your income, but within those confines, if you squander a $1 now, you won't have that $1 to fall back on in the future.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#174

Post by Carltonian » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 7:41 PM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #122

Carltonian wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, and I'm already 10 chapters into Moby Dick, but it's just not the best environment for that. It feeds back into the article. There's a reason studying is synonymous with a quiet place, or with people also studying with you. Doing it under less ideal circumstances than that creates overhead on your attempts to "get ahead" that people with means do not have to deal with. Not making excuses for myself, I am of mea…

I've been making some good progress coding on the bus, fwiw... but a new, light-ish laptop with battery life certainly helps with that, so that's more an argument for why more people with means should be taking the bus more rather than any kind of dismissal of your thesis.

(Sorry for the late reply) I spent too much time over the past few months putting a budget together, and I'm about to head back to school to finish the last year of my degree while working, after which I'm likely getting married, so I'm being frugal. My response to my car crash was, "get through this spending as little money as possible. Also make going without a car hurt so that paying for rental car coverage next time is easier". I also thought the ordeal would be handled by my insurance by last Friday, but the police report hasn't been finished and is holding everything up.

As for the laptop, I've got a Samsung Chromebook (the small, ARM one) running Ubuntu and I recommend it. It's ARM, which makes getting things running a bit hard, and it's not the beefiest, so if you want to wait for the new ones this year that will likely be x86 and beefier for $250, you can do that too. I don't take it on the bus though. That was the first bit of advice I got from someone else on the bus.

Re: How Poverty Taxes the Brain

#175

Post by dllthomas » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 11:12 PM UTC

Carltonian wrote: post #174

dllthomas wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been making some good progress coding on the bus, fwiw... but a new, light-ish laptop with battery life certainly helps with that, so that's more an argument for why more people with means should be taking the bus more rather than any kind of dismissal of your thesis.

(Sorry for the late reply) I spent too much time over the past few months putting a budget together, and I'm about to head back to school to finish the last year of my degree while working, after which I'm likely getting married, so I'm being frugal. My response to my car crash was, "get through this spending as little money as possible. Also make going without a car hurt so that paying for rental car coverage next t…

"Also make going without a car hurt so that paying for rental car coverage next time is easier."

On the flip side, I like to make sure I can get by without a car. Of course, my understanding is that's a whole ton easier up here (Bay Area) than down there.

Congrats on the impending nuptials!