3 ms·

As I point out elsewhere, lots of folks (backpackers, college students) suffer similar material deprivation, environment and stress. Yet they don't make the sam

As I point out elsewhere, lots of folks (backpackers, college students) suffer similar material deprivation, environment and stress. Yet they don't make the same bad choices. Nearly all of India lives in far worse conditions than American poor folks and also don't make the same bad choices. Your theory doesn't seem to be predicting the world very well. would you then, in that world, see giving direct support as preferable to waiting for people in need to "get their shit together"? The post you are responding to explicitly favors giving direct support - just in-kind rather than cash. ...continued studies of human behaviour show that we're much more influenced by our conditions than our inner character. [citation needed]

TeMPOraL 11y ago
> As I point out elsewhere, lots of folks (backpackers, college students) suffer similar material deprivation, environment and stress. Yet they don't make the same bad choices. Short-term, voluntary material deprivation and stress, both of which you can end instantly at any time you want if you so choose, isn't the same thing as poverty. > Nearly all of India lives in far worse conditions than American poor folks and also don't make the same bad choices. Exactly my point. No sane person would call nearly all of Indians a nation of lazy, irresponsible people, and yet it's a popular sentiment towards the poor in western countries. I think my theory predicts the world pretty good. > The post you are responding to explicitly favors giving direct support - just in-kind rather than cash. I should have wrote "unconditional support", by which I mean support that doesn't make assumptions about what the helpee really needs based on helper's view of personal virtue. > [citation needed] Start with "fundamental attribution error" and continue from there; it's pretty well-studied area.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Short-term, voluntary material deprivation and stress, both of which you can end instantly at any time you want if you so choose, isn't the same thing as poverty. How do you define "poverty"? Apparently it's not material deprivation, harsh environment or stress. So what is it? I think my theory predicts the world pretty good. Your theory predicts that intelligent Asian professionals, when faced with material deprivation, environment and stress will make good choices? Similarly for upper middle class Americans temporarily placed in an educational situation? And it's only a narrow set of people who will actually wind up making bad choices? I guess I totally misread your post. So in fact, it's not true that "moral failings are in fact mostly results of external causes"? The fundamental attribution error is not a magic incantation to ward off all evidence of bad decisionmaking or moral failure.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    > How do you define "poverty"? Apparently it's not material deprivation, harsh environment or stress. So what is it? It's being stuck in material deprivation. My theory is that it's most often caused by harsh environment or medical conditions. "Harsh environment" includes being born into poverty. My theory predicts that even intelligent Asian professionals will make bad choices faced with enough material deprivation, environment and stress. People backpacking and students are doing it out of their own choice and can always stop backpacking and go home / drop out or change university to a less demanding one. Unless they're doing either to escape poverty, at which point you can clearly see it's not the conditions of backpacking/education that are the source of one's problems. > I guess I totally misread your post. So in fact, it's not true that "moral failings are in fact mostly results of external causes"? My point is that there's much less moral failings happening at all than people (usually in a better situation) like to think. That is - a person X is not poor because he's lazy, he's poor because he is malnourished and so stressed that he doesn't have spare cognitive capacity to educate himself and get a better job. My theory predicts that if you solve his direct financial needs for a predictable while (for him; as opposed to random, one-off, non-repeating, small help that doesn't let him plan), he'll most likely recover and start to improve his condition. > The fundamental attribution error is not a magic incantation to ward off all evidence of bad decisionmaking or moral failure. No, but it's a name for when people are too eager to see bad decisionmaking or moral failure where there is none. Also, I pointed it out as a starting point - articles describing the concept in detail cite studies about the effects of environment on human behaviour and elaborate on how predictable humans are if you can set up the external conditions. I'm sorry I am not linking to anything concrete, but I'm writing from a crappy hotel over Great Chinese Firewall. I am asking you to trust that if you start from fundamental attribution error, you'll end up reading about relevant studies :). It's 5 minutes for you, 5 minutes per site for me :(.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      My theory predicts that even intelligent Asian professionals will make bad choices faced with enough material deprivation, environment and stress. In that case, India falsifies your theory. Virtually all of India - including the professional class - is stuck in material deprivation vastly worse than American poverty - the average American poor consumer unit consumes $20k/year, while Indian GDP/Capita is $6k/year (adjusted for cost of living). They don't usually make the same bad choices. They get educated, save money for a rainy day, mostly avoid drugs, etc. Actually, now that I think of it, English literature adjuncts are another counterexample. My theory predicts that if you solve his direct financial needs for a predictable while... Why financial? Why not just fix malnourishment directly? I did google the fundamental attribution error, but I did not find any studies showing that certain specific environmental conditions will cause all sorts of people to engage in the same bad behaviors that poor Americans engage in. The most I found is studies showing things like "people will attribute a basketball player's poor shooting success to ability rather than reduced lighting." This suggests a bias is present, but doesn't come close to proving your thesis.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

> As I point out elsewhere, lots of folks (backpackers, college students) suffer similar material deprivation, environment and stress. Yet they don't make the same bad choices. Short-term, voluntary material deprivation and stress, both of which you can end instantly at any time you want if you so choose, isn't the same thing as poverty. > Nearly all of India lives in far worse conditions than American poor folks and also don't make the same bad choices. Exactly my point. No sane person would call nearly all of Indians a nation of lazy, irresponsible people, and yet it's a popular sentiment towards the poor in western countries. I think my theory predicts the world pretty good. > The post you are responding to explicitly favors giving direct support - just in-kind rather than cash. I should have wrote "unconditional support", by which I mean support that doesn't make assumptions about what the helpee really needs based on helper's view of personal virtue. > [citation needed] Start with "fundamental attribution error" and continue from there; it's pretty well-studied area.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Short-term, voluntary material deprivation and stress, both of which you can end instantly at any time you want if you so choose, isn't the same thing as poverty. How do you define "poverty"? Apparently it's not material deprivation, harsh environment or stress. So what is it? I think my theory predicts the world pretty good. Your theory predicts that intelligent Asian professionals, when faced with material deprivation, environment and stress will make good choices? Similarly for upper middle class Americans temporarily placed in an educational situation? And it's only a narrow set of people who will actually wind up making bad choices? I guess I totally misread your post. So in fact, it's not true that "moral failings are in fact mostly results of external causes"? The fundamental attribution error is not a magic incantation to ward off all evidence of bad decisionmaking or moral failure.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > How do you define "poverty"? Apparently it's not material deprivation, harsh environment or stress. So what is it? It's being stuck in material deprivation. My theory is that it's most often caused by harsh environment or medical conditions. "Harsh environment" includes being born into poverty. My theory predicts that even intelligent Asian professionals will make bad choices faced with enough material deprivation, environment and stress. People backpacking and students are doing it out of their own choice and can always stop backpacking and go home / drop out or change university to a less demanding one. Unless they're doing either to escape poverty, at which point you can clearly see it's not the conditions of backpacking/education that are the source of one's problems. > I guess I totally misread your post. So in fact, it's not true that "moral failings are in fact mostly results of external causes"? My point is that there's much less moral failings happening at all than people (usually in a better situation) like to think. That is - a person X is not poor because he's lazy, he's poor because he is malnourished and so stressed that he doesn't have spare cognitive capacity to educate himself and get a better job. My theory predicts that if you solve his direct financial needs for a predictable while (for him; as opposed to random, one-off, non-repeating, small help that doesn't let him plan), he'll most likely recover and start to improve his condition. > The fundamental attribution error is not a magic incantation to ward off all evidence of bad decisionmaking or moral failure. No, but it's a name for when people are too eager to see bad decisionmaking or moral failure where there is none. Also, I pointed it out as a starting point - articles describing the concept in detail cite studies about the effects of environment on human behaviour and elaborate on how predictable humans are if you can set up the external conditions. I'm sorry I am not linking to anything concrete, but I'm writing from a crappy hotel over Great Chinese Firewall. I am asking you to trust that if you start from fundamental attribution error, you'll end up reading about relevant studies :). It's 5 minutes for you, 5 minutes per site for me :(.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    My theory predicts that even intelligent Asian professionals will make bad choices faced with enough material deprivation, environment and stress. In that case, India falsifies your theory. Virtually all of India - including the professional class - is stuck in material deprivation vastly worse than American poverty - the average American poor consumer unit consumes $20k/year, while Indian GDP/Capita is $6k/year (adjusted for cost of living). They don't usually make the same bad choices. They get educated, save money for a rainy day, mostly avoid drugs, etc. Actually, now that I think of it, English literature adjuncts are another counterexample. My theory predicts that if you solve his direct financial needs for a predictable while... Why financial? Why not just fix malnourishment directly? I did google the fundamental attribution error, but I did not find any studies showing that certain specific environmental conditions will cause all sorts of people to engage in the same bad behaviors that poor Americans engage in. The most I found is studies showing things like "people will attribute a basketball player's poor shooting success to ability rather than reduced lighting." This suggests a bias is present, but doesn't come close to proving your thesis.