This is a teenager • Hacker News Board

Re: This is a teenager

#741

Post by fregonics » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 12:33 PM UTC

thfuran wrote: post #330

fregonics wrote: post #259

The presentation argues that the adverse experiences cited are outside the individual's control, some of them are and they can have negative effects, i agree, like gun violence or uninterested parents, but others are questionable, like suspensions or being held back in school, which is (in most part) derived directly from the individual's actions. Since the margins in some of the statistics are so small i wonder how…

>derived directly from the individual's actions. Are you saying that a person's actions aren't influenced by their environment?

The person is indeed influenced by their environment, but the "adverse experiences" should factor in just that, environmental influences, not actions from the individuals.

I think environment influences can increase the likelihood of those adverse experiences, contact with violent behavior for instance can make a person more likely to be suspended, but a person may have been brought up in a normal family and still be violent and be suspended (i got to know such cases, and they're more common than you imagine), and even a person that had contact with this kind of situation may think that they do not want that for their life and use this as a motivator (also have seen such cases).

But the adverse experiences should focus not on the results, but the causes. What factors are we able to quantify that made this student be held back (uninterested parents? a personality disorder? ...) and how big is the influence of each of them in a person's destiny. Only looking at them we will be able to really learn something meaningful from what happened.

Re: This is a teenager

#742

Post by robertlagrant » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 12:36 PM UTC

Valakas_ wrote: post #731

cameldrv wrote: post #364

The punchline is this: "It's 2021. The research participants are in their late-30s now, which means they've had plenty of time to shape their own destinies. But we can clearly see that the experiences of their childhood had a huge effect on their financial situation as adults. It also has an effect on virtually everything else in their lives." You cannot infer the direction of causality from this data, i.e. that the…

If you knew even a little bit about trauma, you'd know it's not even up for debate at this point that trauma is a huge setback in life. Your risk of bad relationships, emotional dysregulation, physical ailments and diseases, stress, life unsatisfaction, (...) all increase as your ACE score increases. I keep repeating myself at this point, but trauma is the biggest epidemic with the most negative consequences that isn…

> I keep repeating myself at this point, but trauma is the biggest epidemic with the most negative consequences that isn't being talked about enough.

I would disagree; trauma is an incredibly well-used word in 2024.

Re: This is a teenager

#743

Post by phrotoma » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 12:40 PM UTC

doctorpangloss wrote: post #9

The visualization will frequently incorrectly show something of the form: True True False False True True False False

I stumbled across this on youtube last night and closed it halfway through when I realized the visualizations didn't make any sense. Clearly a lot of work went into this, how does something so confusing get made?

Re: This is a teenager

#744

Post by harimau777 » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 12:42 PM UTC

gentleman11 wrote: post #455

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, likely intentionally, understated. I cannot speak for the author, but the gist I got is that our society thrusts wholly unprepared people into adulthood and we could get a lot of improvements from just making it harder for people to fail at adulting. IYKYK and if you don’t you will get fucked - repeatedly. Basic life skills are not taught so it’s up to the individual if their family fails. Importantly,…

If you say the problem is social class and poverty, and not having available role models to show how adult life actually works, you’ll get flamed and trolled. If you say the problem is racial issues, you’ll get upvotes. I’ll just sit here and await my downvotes now

Is it possible that the issue is both and that the two are interrelated?

It seems to me that there can be both a problem with lack of role models and problems with racial issues and that both should be improved.

It seems to me that lack of role models could be exasperated by structural issues (mass incarceration, parents having to work too many hours) and in turn the lack of role models could exasperate the structural issues (unattended kids getting into crimes, kids struggling to get into college since their parents don't have time to tutor them).

Re: This is a teenager

#745

Post by harimau777 » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 12:54 PM UTC

anon291 wrote: post #302

richardlblair wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to look at visualizations like this and reflect on the experiences of the individuals living through hardship. Even those who 'make it out' may struggle in ways not fully captured in the data or this visualization. I grew up in a 'high risk environment', and experienced all the adverse experiences with the exception of gun violence (yay Canada). I'm one of the few that 'made it out'. Many of my childhood fr…

Unfortunately a solid number of these things would rely on the moral equivalent of slavery. > Reduce the burden of poverty. For instance, the poorer you are the further you have to travel to the grocery store. The people who often don't have the means to easily travel for food have to travel for food. No one wants to work in these neighborhoods because they are invariably awful. At some point the risk of an employee…

There's other options than slavery.

We could provide better public transportation so that people could more easily travel to the grocers.

We could provide incentives for grocery stores to open in underserved areas.

Re: This is a teenager

#746

Post by trogdor » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 1:17 PM UTC

brailsafe wrote: post #568

refulgentis wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Certainly not a bad thing to do, but just giving them some books is not going to make them like the better off kids in all of the other (highly correlated) ways that they're different From personal experience, I can absolutely vouch for that. 35, came from nowhere with nothing, absentee parents, out of house by 15. Dropped out of college, waited tables, did a startup, sold it, worked for 7 years at Google, now I'm…

Up front, I have no intention of trying to detract from any of those accomplishments, because you've obviously been grinding pretty hard for a while and admire the tenacity you must have had as a kid and the progression you've seemed to follow. I do however find it under-discussed how many subsequent dice rolls have to at least partially work out for that tenacity, and those little shifts, to be a compounding positiv…

It sounds like some of your thought processes are getting in the way of your success. Have you considered seeing a therapist? I think you would find it beneficial.

Re: This is a teenager

#747

Post by hackeraccount » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 1:21 PM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #711

cameldrv wrote: post #364

The punchline is this: "It's 2021. The research participants are in their late-30s now, which means they've had plenty of time to shape their own destinies. But we can clearly see that the experiences of their childhood had a huge effect on their financial situation as adults. It also has an effect on virtually everything else in their lives." You cannot infer the direction of causality from this data, i.e. that the…

You seem to construct a straw man. The whole point of the study is to show that kids that grow up with more adverse effects which are out of their control makes them more likely to have problems as an adult. You seem to say we can't infer causality, but that's exactly what they do. They show that having been affected by more adverse effects does make you more likely to suffer in the future. As the study says being po…

What if the root cause is the quality of the parents not the external events?

Re: This is a teenager

#748

Post by ciupicri » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 1:22 PM UTC

chgs wrote: post #665

ciupicri wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no doubt way worse places than the US. I was under the impressions that Americans work hard too. For example, if I'm not mistaking there's no mandated minimum number of vacation days, so you might get only 11 compared to 20 in most European countries. > Heaven forbid you get sick. The medical act is (very) good in the US, but is it affordable? > The children have to compete in complicated exams to even have…

20 days? The norm is 30-40 in the U.K (9ish bank holidays plus 20 minimum but many professional jobs are 25-30). I can’t imagine mainland Europe is worse.

The required minimum is 20 days in Romania + 2 for Easter + 2 for Christmas + a couple of other holy and secular days. Though if they're during the weekend, better luck next time.

Re: This is a teenager

#749

Post by ToValueFunfetti » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 1:23 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #543

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course low IQ can cause poverty. Someone with below 70 IQ is going to have a much harder time finding gainful employment than someone with 100 IQ. A college degree is huge for escaping poverty, and the average US college graduate has an IQ of 113. I agree that it's multivariate, and I'm open to the possibility that it is primarily another factor (although you haven't supported that claim), but it's absurd to concl…

> low IQ can cause poverty Is not the same as "people who are poor are that way because they disproportionately are genetically predisposed to have low IQs", which is the gist of the original comment I replied to. The discussion also isn't about intellectually disabled people (who fall into a separate category with specific legal protections).

Ah, okay. My initial intent was to call out the different evidentiary standards between your own position and the opposition- it was enough for you to rule out low IQ leading to trauma by showing that childhood trauma leads to low IQ, but it was insufficient when someone pointed to evidence that genetics are the primary cause of IQ differences because it was still compatible with your position.

I was quite surprised with your response and that should have triggered a more charitable reading; I can see now that you were quite obviously not saying what I interpreted. My apologies.

Re: This is a teenager

#750

Post by s1artibartfast » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 1:26 PM UTC

cardanome wrote: post #382

s1artibartfast wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may see correlations between socioeconomic class, but they are still by far weaker than correlations with Individual behavior and choice, which is my point. Telling someone not to be born poor isn't actionable advice. Telling them their chance of success is 1000% better if they don't do drugs IS actionable advice. Telling them to live in misery and wait for the collective to solve a social problem in decades isn'…

Everyone and their dog knows not to do drugs. Still people do. This is not actionable advice. Knowing about the effects of poverty means knowing more about yourself. Understanding yourself leads to being able to take more effective actions increasing the control you have over your life. You seem to think it is about victim mindset vs whatever you toxic middle-class self help "individual responsibility" thing is. Real…

It seems like we actually agree on more than it seems, even if we disagree on the value of a victim mindset and the necessity of adopting victim in-group identity.

Of course I agree with having ones eyes open to their personal circumstance and challenges, as well as the value of giving and receiving help to others. However, I do think it is ironic that you think people have the agency to help others more and become leaders, but not have the agency to help themselves.

Circling back to drugs, this is akin to becoming a sobriety advocate, but not trying to get sober. You say everyone knows not to do drugs, but from what I know, hopelessness, self-hate, and self-delusion is a key difference between those who become addicts and those that dont.

I think that exaggerated messaging about statistical disadvantage does more harm than good if it is uncoupled from the message about statistical advantage of personal action (e.g. you may be 2x more likely to end up poor if born poor, but you are 10x more likely to escape if you stay sober and go to college). these numbers are obviously made up, but literature overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that personal behaviors have more impact than group statistics and environmental circumstances. Of course personal choices like staying in school or smoking meth have huge impacts on your personal life!

Incomplete messaging of this is harmful because people need to understand and believe there is an actionable path to a better life in order to try. Hopelessness and despair are real barriers that need to be acknowledged.

You brought up depression earlier, and while I dont tell people to "snap out of it", it is also true that almost nobody overcomes depression without the belief that their actions CAN have improve their depression, and that there is a path to improvement. It is central and fundamental to rehabilitation. Most of depression therapy boils down to convincing people improvement is possible, and teaching them how to do it. A therapist may be a crucial help that makes the difference, but the patient still has to do 99% of the work.