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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

#621

Post by zaarn »

darawk wrote: post #619
zaarn wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In later stages it actually did keep those people there because they either couldn't afford to leave the city without half the family starving and/or militia hired by the factory owner enforcing people stayed there.

> militia hired by the factory owner enforcing people stayed there. That isn't capitalism. > In later stages it actually did keep those people there because they either couldn't afford to leave the city without half the family starving I'm not sure what that means. Cities weren't that big. Just walk out and go live on some uninhabited BLM land if you don't want to participate in the capitalist economy.

>That isn't capitalism.

Well, everything was steered by capital that the factory owners had.

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

#622

Post by darawk »

zaarn wrote: post #621
darawk wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> militia hired by the factory owner enforcing people stayed there. That isn't capitalism. > In later stages it actually did keep those people there because they either couldn't afford to leave the city without half the family starving I'm not sure what that means. Cities weren't that big. Just walk out and go live on some uninhabited BLM land if you don't want to participate in the capitalist economy.

>That isn't capitalism. Well, everything was steered by capital that the factory owners had.

Sure, but that doesn't make it capitalism.

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

#623

Post by dgudkov »

m_fayer wrote: post #394
dgudkov wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. This is a traditional, stereotypical belief that in order to escape poverty you have to work harder. This is old understanding of meritocracy and it's no longer valid. The new meritocracy is that you have to learn harder. And now, given all the learning resources available for free on the internet (which is also very accessible nowadays) it's probably the best t…

The capacity for self-education is not innate for most people. Developing this capacity requires dedication, the ability to delay gratification, significant emotional regulation, and most importantly it requires knowing how to learn. For optimal results, these skills must be fostered from an early age all the way through young adulthood. People who grew up with deprivation or abuse or neglect are unlikely to be good…

>The capacity for self-education is not innate for most people.

I disagree. Most mentally healthy people are capable of self-education. Self-education is what makes human a human. Being an adult person requires working self-education skill -- using public transit, bank services, mobile phones, internet, microwave ovens, TV sets, driving, etc -- all requires self-education to some extent. Getting professional skills is more difficult, but it just requires more effort, not a completely new skill.

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

#624

Post by dgudkov »

rpvnwnkl wrote: post #433
dgudkov wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. This is a traditional, stereotypical belief that in order to escape poverty you have to work harder. This is old understanding of meritocracy and it's no longer valid. The new meritocracy is that you have to learn harder. And now, given all the learning resources available for free on the internet (which is also very accessible nowadays) it's probably the best t…

Does “learning” really bring you out of poverty? Or is this the same old trope with an extra step added?

You still need to work hard, but working hard smarter works better than just working hard.

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

#625

Post by dgudkov »

xvire wrote: post #530
sharemywin wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you assume poor people are idle.

I don't assume anything. I just point out, that cost of self-education is indeed huge, if you measure it in profits not received from performing some labor. However, its 'price' would still be on par with being completely idle. Of course, not all poor people are idle, but some are. And if those who are indeed idle can afford idleness, non-idle people may afford self-learning.

What's the cost of self-education of a person that doesn't much anyway? Sitting on a bench all day is not labor, it's a waste of time.

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

#626

Post by dgudkov »

dzdt wrote: post #425
dgudkov wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. This is a traditional, stereotypical belief that in order to escape poverty you have to work harder. This is old understanding of meritocracy and it's no longer valid. The new meritocracy is that you have to learn harder. And now, given all the learning resources available for free on the internet (which is also very accessible nowadays) it's probably the best t…

There is a pretty high threshold before book learning provides any payoff. The minimum cutoff that some employers take seriously is 12 years of school or the equivalent. Lets guess the guy selling pens is at a grade level of half that. If he could self-teach at the same rate as the education system would advance him (unlikely), that is still 6 years of sitting in a library before reaching the first threshold of signi…

Payoff is somewhat proportional to self-education effort. For a big payoff you may need to spend years on learning. But for many people earning extra few hundreds bucks per month can drastically change their lifestyle. And that kind of change doesn't require years of self-education, but a little bit of curiosity, determination and perseverance.

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

#627

Post by SolaceQuantum »

ericd wrote: post #611
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually untrue. The resultant daughter cannot mate with her own father, so she will mate with the next most suitable male. Furthermore, lions function in pride groups with territories. The daughters would need to break off into their own territories eventually, where they would need males. Furthermore, it’s pretty common for brothers to join together to be stronger than the lone strongest male. Your example…

Is it not true that there's only one mating male in each pride, and that the others are exiled into bachelor groups? In any case, there are many examples in nature where a small percentage of the males do a very disproportionate amount of the mating.

Indeed. It isn’t uncommon for brothers to handle a pride and share the mates. I’m not making any claims about nature trends in general, merely that your lion example is inaccurate and therefore takes away from the argument.

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

#628

Post by sinker »

lyzan wrote: post #411
presscast wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time is money, as the saying goes. When you're working a double shift to put food on the table, it's really hard to learn an extra skill set (e.g. programming) and make time to build up a resume on github (or whatever). The cost isn't really located in the act of "buying" education.

I work 80+ hours a week, you don't need to tell me about time. However EVERY friend I have making significantly less than me / slightly struggling works a single job and spends significant free time in front of TV or games or facebook. My friend that worked hard all the time I taught coding to in under 8 months and he broke 6 figures within 3 years. The ones that were lazy I tried and they didn't put effort in to con…

I see comments like these often enough to convince me that a large portion of the active HN audience are simply out of touch with what's going on outside their major city tech bubble.

Not everyone is going to be able to find a well-paying tech job. How many times have you come onto this forum seeing active HNers who are tech-literate and have a history of programming employment complain that they cannot find a job?

Look at your neighbors.. everyday people like your grocer or mechanic or mailperson.. Take a look outside your bubble. Not everyone is going to be able to be fluent in tech even with great effort. It's not so much that it's impossible, but that's it's incredibly unrealistic.

The only reason I've been able to work as a programmer is because I lucked into it. I got hooked when I was 12 or so because I found it fun. I had plenty of time and enjoyed it. If I had to do it all over today out of desperation I'm not sure I could will myself to do something completely foreign and uninteresting.

I think you take for granted the knowledge foundation that you were given.

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

#629

Post by ericd »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #627
ericd wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not true that there's only one mating male in each pride, and that the others are exiled into bachelor groups? In any case, there are many examples in nature where a small percentage of the males do a very disproportionate amount of the mating.

Indeed. It isn’t uncommon for brothers to handle a pride and share the mates. I’m not making any claims about nature trends in general, merely that your lion example is inaccurate and therefore takes away from the argument.

Interesting, didn't know that, thanks.

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

#630

Post by ryan_j_naughton »

DiffEq wrote: post #506
noobermin wrote: post #18

It's not like meritocracy is completely unrelated to real life, it matters in a certain regime. However, if like Vanessa, you're born to lesser circumstances, you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. Similarly, if you are born to very well off standards, even if you're a dope and spend money from Dad's inheritance on cocaine, sure, you won't be successful but you'll still have a net of some kind. You ca…

You can escape poverty by working harder; it is just that working harder will not always work. It needs to be coupled with other virtues; of course the solution is not just simply to work harder, but to suggest that working harder is not a great deal part of the solution is false by every measure. Lets say this, you are born into a poor family - you still get to go to school that likely has a great library - the scho…

> with all that time on their poverty stricken hands

No offense, but this screams of ignorance. If you take into account the poverty tax [1], poor people pay more for many goods, have worse access to many services, and encounter much higher transaction costs to accomplishing normal life.

For example, if you are a single mother in Southside Chicago living in a food desert and far from the main L/Subway/Metro lines, then you take longer to commute to work, to go grocery shopping, to pick your kids up, etc. There are many additional costs to being poor that easily explain why they don't focus on "making their beds" or "organizing their place".

The Atlantic has a good article on decision fatigue and poverty "Your Brain on Poverty: Why Poor People Seem to Make Bad Decisions And why their "bad" decisions might be more rational than you'd think" that is worth a read [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto_tax

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-br...

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