Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society • Hacker News Board

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#91

Post by coldtea » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 11:32 AM UTC

andai wrote: post #88

coldtea wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised how fast a society can collapse if it's left to wannabe Einsteins and Feynmans and Elon Musks and nobody is there to dig ditches, clean the garbage and work the assembly line. Or how better a society would be without tons of well paid white collar jobs (advertisers for one).

But how am I supposed to know what to buy!

It's sarcasm I know, but:

1) Detailed specs by the manufacturer (that have to be valid or get large fines -- e.g. regarding speaker frequency response, or drug side effects, or cosmetics effectiveness, etc.).

2) Reviews by the media

3) Reviews by laymen

4) Word of mouth

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#92

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 11:34 AM UTC

slavik81 wrote: post #77

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there is a philosophical divide between us, but this argument sounds really weird to me. From his/her point of view, of course being born to educated parents is luck, if not what else is it? We don't have any choice or any influence on the matter of who we are born to, and we cannot change it with our effort or lack of it. The fact that from their parents' point of view it's not luck, because they worked for it…

What isn't luck? I only am who I am today because of a combination of nature and nurture. My genes and my environment defined who I am. I had no control over either of those things. I mean, if I was born on Steve Job's birthday, with Steve Job's genes, to Steve Job's parents, presumably I would be Steve Jobs. From that perspective, it's pure luck I'm not a billionaire. And, similarly, pure luck that I'm not literally…

> What isn't luck?

Bingo!

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#93

Post by TheAdamAndChe » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 11:34 AM UTC

honestoHeminway wrote: post #87

I think the most important experience a poor man can have is "Selbstwirksamkeit", the experience, that one can influence ones own destiny and not remain a puppet to be pushed around, slaved and sheparded by bosses, police and landlords. We should make that epxerience part of any curiculum on public schools.

In America as globalization and large multinational corporations have taken root, workers have lost leverage. The idea that poor people have the strength and stability to not be pushed around or controlled by the rich simply is not possible at the moment. Union-busting, globalization, student loan debt, rising cost of living, and stagnant wages mean poor Americans can do less and less with each passing year.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#94

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 11:37 AM UTC

throwaway399 wrote: post #78

analog31 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, I'm the first to admit that I've achieved my level of income by luck, and without hard work. I was lucky to have two educated parents, their wealth to fall back on, and an affluent, healthy environment to grow up in. My parents paid for my undergraduate education, and the government paid for my graduate degree. I "work" in a nice office, by playing with equations and gadgets, and talking to people. Mean…

I guess my history is almost opposite while achieving similar results. However, I get bunched in the same group and expected to feel privileged and guilty. I grew up in another country and went to end of junior + high school in a US school in the inner city where nobody studied in my class except for me. 65% of the class never graduated. My parents, although very educated in our home country never paid for school and…

> I was ranked 10th in a graduating class of 900 students and did well on the SATs except for the English section.

Being born one or two standard deviations away from median on the intelligence scale is a whole lot of luck and privilege.

> The problem is not money, but culture. Privilege has _nothing_ to do with it since tons of people in much much poorer countries with schools that have a lot fewer funds do a lot better.

My dad was born in a village in Bangladesh, but raised my brother and I in an upper middle class household in the US. He's the first to admit that he got lucky. Had he been born as someone of average intelligence, or not had parents who made education a priority, or he hadn't had extremely fortuitous timing in his career, he'd still be in Bangladesh. I'm pretty successful myself and I'd count myself doubly lucky. Had I been born in a village in Bangladesh, I'd have failed out of the rigid unforgiving school system. (I skated by in US K-12 based purely on test-taking ability.) Hell I'd probably be doing manual labor there instead of being a white collar professional in the US.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#95

Post by jimnotgym » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 11:39 AM UTC

unsigner wrote: post #42

analog31 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, I'm the first to admit that I've achieved my level of income by luck, and without hard work. I was lucky to have two educated parents, their wealth to fall back on, and an affluent, healthy environment to grow up in. My parents paid for my undergraduate education, and the government paid for my graduate degree. I "work" in a nice office, by playing with equations and gadgets, and talking to people. Mean…

Being born to two educated parents is not luck on your part, but well deserved reward for a long, concerted effort on theirs. You're not a random happening on a clean slate; you're just the latest offshoot of a family.

Who says his parents were not lucky too? No offense intended to OP, but they could have been two rich dropouts who lived their lives in a squat, lapsed into drug addiction and then found one of their estranged parents had died and left them $10m. The myth that rich people are rich because they worked hard is just that, a myth. The myth that a family is rich because generations worked hard is just ignorant.

Please reference the British aristocracy whose wealth is generally attributable to an ancestor being friends with William the Conqueror, as famously said by the Duke of Westminster (Richest man in Britain, recently dies and passed his estate to his son tax free)

"The Duke of Westminster was acutely aware that his own vast wealth was entirely due to luck. When once asked for the secret of financial success, he replied it was to have an ancestor who had been a close friend of William the Conqueror. It may have been that his inability to know how to make amends for this fluke lay behind his discontent."

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/08/its-better-to-be-a-lotte...

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#96

Post by jimnotgym » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 11:41 AM UTC

andai wrote: post #86

slavik81 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What isn't luck? I only am who I am today because of a combination of nature and nurture. My genes and my environment defined who I am. I had no control over either of those things. I mean, if I was born on Steve Job's birthday, with Steve Job's genes, to Steve Job's parents, presumably I would be Steve Jobs. From that perspective, it's pure luck I'm not a billionaire. And, similarly, pure luck that I'm not literally…

Do we make our own destiny, or does our destiny make us?

Both, with some effort i could get good a poker. Some games I will lose no matter what because you can only play the hand you are dealt

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#97

Post by 5thaccount » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 11:42 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #75

5thaccount wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These articles also sell it without a solution. "It isn't X, it is Y. I have no idea how to fix Y, or a single policy idea to suggest, but, yeh, definitely Y." We are all obsessed with what policy makes us feel, rather than its impact. Example: Seattle minimum wage laws https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.meer/posts/101031868860665... let me quote here: > This is the official study that was commissioned several years a…

That study had serious flaws in the data they were looking at, and their analysis.

Which "study"?

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#98

Post by humanrebar » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 11:50 AM UTC

throwaway399 wrote: post #78

analog31 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, I'm the first to admit that I've achieved my level of income by luck, and without hard work. I was lucky to have two educated parents, their wealth to fall back on, and an affluent, healthy environment to grow up in. My parents paid for my undergraduate education, and the government paid for my graduate degree. I "work" in a nice office, by playing with equations and gadgets, and talking to people. Mean…

I guess my history is almost opposite while achieving similar results. However, I get bunched in the same group and expected to feel privileged and guilty. I grew up in another country and went to end of junior + high school in a US school in the inner city where nobody studied in my class except for me. 65% of the class never graduated. My parents, although very educated in our home country never paid for school and…

I'll point out that the poorest parts of the country are actually in small towns with few opportunities. The schools do not tend to be as dangerous or toxic, but home lives for students can be just as bad or worse (statistically speaking).

That's not to have a rural/urban competition, but to say that poverty is not localized and the culture of poverty has many expressions. It has been plugged a lot lately, but urban people who want to be multicultural, intelligent, and informed should really read books like Hillbilly Elegy.

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#99

Post by cyphunk » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 11:53 AM UTC

throwaway399 wrote: post #78

analog31 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, I'm the first to admit that I've achieved my level of income by luck, and without hard work. I was lucky to have two educated parents, their wealth to fall back on, and an affluent, healthy environment to grow up in. My parents paid for my undergraduate education, and the government paid for my graduate degree. I "work" in a nice office, by playing with equations and gadgets, and talking to people. Mean…

I guess my history is almost opposite while achieving similar results. However, I get bunched in the same group and expected to feel privileged and guilty. I grew up in another country and went to end of junior + high school in a US school in the inner city where nobody studied in my class except for me. 65% of the class never graduated. My parents, although very educated in our home country never paid for school and…

you're experiance sounds horrible. your solutions seem to create a narrow path through but only for people like you. and from what you describe, the problems are far beyond education reform and reflect back on social structures, as you already suggested. Growing weath gaps and shrinking saftey nets -- these and other areas, outside of hign school, should be higher on the list of needed reforms. it's not going to be fixed with better schools

Re: Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society

#100

Post by jimnotgym » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 11:56 AM UTC

For anyone who wants to investigate the connection between poverty and society further, I can highly recommend, Rutger Bregman's book 'Utopia for realists'. It is funny to see cases in history where well researched,cost effective and progressive social programs have been stopped due to plain prejudice from those in power.

I keep hearing Ayn Rand mentioned these days. Reading those long tedious books can give you fodder for some interesting thought experiments, but beyond that I find the ideas not just damaging, but childishly simplistic. When I hear that some bigshot tech mogul is a follower of Rand I feel that they are about to make excuses for their appalling behavior by making appeal to some kind of authority. I associate Rand with white supremacists and debunked myths