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Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

nytimes.com

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Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#321

Post by leaveyou »

fzeroracer wrote: post #288
leaveyou wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find amazing is that so few people here notice the consequences of working hard in a field that is not worth it anymore. His entire family should have slowly "pivoted" away from fishing long long time ago (the first/second year with a low ROI for the risk). The same applies to IT or any other sector. When the prospective ROI turns negative (subtract the total costs of your job(time/health/opportunity) from the…

Let's say for example Software as a whole suddenly crashed. It's now one of the worst paying jobs you can possibly get, while being a coal miner jumps up as one of the most profitable jobs. Would you immediately sign up and start working in the mines? Would you be physically fit enough for it? There are large amounts of cultural and career inertia that you have to overcome to 'pivot' your career towards something wil…

My whole point: things rarely "suddenly crash" but you still have to keep an open eye and connect the dots and take action or at least advise your kids and help them take action. I totally agree that there is a lot of cultural and career inertia (I have a similar story like you but in different context and part of the world).

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#322

Post by Ntrails »

cyborgx7 wrote: post #271
Tommek wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my point.

If you only look at numbers and not individual stories, you miss the blind-spots of your data.

They aren't blind spots, they're outliers. If a change to medicare makes 99% of users significantly better off and 1% significantly worse, then it's a net good change. The useful reporting tells both sides, but simply telling the sobstory of one person really negatively impacted is worthless.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#323

Post by noobermin »

Tommek wrote: post #219
noobermin wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are humans, they relate to individual stories more than raw statistics. I think it's great, it shows there's always a human side to trends and large statistics.

And that's how we get those "vaccines cause autism" mothers. They like stories more than statistics, too.

That's usually because the stories with "vaccines cause autism" don't bother with the statistics. This story does and discusses a real trend.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#324

Post by foobar1962 »

Tommek wrote: post #214

Why do these articles always start with a story about a person? I see this in nearly all articles from american news papers. It's strange. Seems like a paper from a young student who needs to get his 3000 wordcount. It just bloats the article and makes it difficult to get the information out of it.

Agreed. I got a couple of screen-scrolls through the article and gave up. It might be my attention span declining, to it could just be too much fluff in the story.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#325

Post by Firadeoclus »

throwaway8879 wrote: post #264
throwaway77384 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, you are conflating fairness and equality, which are totally separate concepts. Let's assume you are talking about sharing, as that's what the original point was about. Specifically the sharing of 19 bones among 20 dogs, by dividing up the bones. Assumign by 'naive' you mean wrong, are you saying that it is simply a more optimal situation for one dog to go hungry? Does the one dog always go hungry, or does one d…

The only "civilization" I care about is me. Is it really that difficult for you to understand and accept that there are people like me out there who only care about themselves and the resources they can acquire for themselves? The dog can die. It isn't my problem.

Even if all you care about is yourself your survival depends on others. Both their helping you acquire the things you need and their not actively wanting to kill you. Societal collapse is your problem.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#326

Post by ionised »

throwaway8879 wrote: post #249
michaelmrose wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Support your position please.

Sharing resources with other people has absolutely nothing to do with being intelligent.

Why not?

We are a social species that attained our dominant position on the planet through co-operation.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#327

Post by mch82 »

cyborgx7 wrote: post #302
drdaeman wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This means the numbers are meaningless and don't provide a good representation. Needs better data. Call me inhumane, but a single story doesn't mean anything . It's just some random point in the set. Drawing any conclusions from such a single point is dangerous (the larger the set, the more), as we humans just love to extrapolate single points and even tend have quite strong emotional defenses about their importance.…

I'm not talking about "drawing conclusions from a single point of data". I'm talking about using single points of data to interrogate the completeness and correctness of your data.

You’re correct that the approach can be misused. However, it’s also worth thinking of it like a “persona” in product design. When used correctly the journalist has the data, the data tell a story, the journalist chooses a subject that personifies the story so people care to read about it.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#328

Post by pxtail »

ddalex wrote: post #253
kingofhdds wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing, unless you force a dog which hunted its bone to share it with one who slept the whole day, and call it "equality".

Or you can share 5% of your hunt to keep the lazy dog from attacking you while you sleep. Is it 'fair'? No. Is it a wise move? Maybe.

> Or you can share 5% of your hunt to keep the lazy dog from attacking you while you sleep. Is it 'fair'? No. Is it a wise move? Maybe.

Then you'll get used to share your 5% , after some time he'll want to have 6.75% and you'll think- well , compared to 5% additional 1.75% is nothing for my safety! After some time other dogs will start to look with keen eyes on lazy dog lifestyle.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#329

Post by [deleted] »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #247
Tommek wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's how we get those "vaccines cause autism" mothers. They like stories more than statistics, too.

Polemic. We also get stories like, "despite a strong economic recovery, John, 26, struggles to find a new job after being laid off."

[deleted]

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#330

Post by stressbone »

dnautics wrote: post #243
ojii wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why hasn't the market solved this problem? Maybe "the market" is not a good tool to solve inequality.

You can flip it: > Why hasnt the government solved this problem? Maybe the government is not a good tool to solve inequality? After all, what percentage of your salary before taxes goes to directly help the less fortunate with no middleman? Before you answer: You could probably do more.

The government abides by the rules of the market, banks and corporations. A truly independent government could be different.
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