8 ms·

> In the political/economic world, I see poor people refusing to engage in personal responsibility (i.e. having children out of wedlock, doing drugs, smoking, e

by GVIrish 10y ago

> In the political/economic world, I see poor people refusing to engage in personal responsibility (i.e. having children out of wedlock, doing drugs, smoking, eating badly and not exercising, refusing to work) while the rich do the exact opposite. Yet there are plenty of poor people working two jobs and clipping coupons but never see their economic situation meaningfully improve. On the other side, someone born into wealth can be lazy, use drugs, and be a general screw up and still die wealthy. Plenty of rich people do drugs too but the chances of them going to jail for doing drugs are negligible compared to the chances of jail time for a poor person. Law enforcement targets poor neighborhoods far more heavily, wealthy people don't buy drugs off street corners, and wealthy people can pay for far better legal representation. Crime? White collar crime is rarely punished with jail time. Someone selling drugs on the street might get several years in jail, whereas someone who helps launder billions for drug cartels gets no jail time and their company only pays a fine. Unethical sociopathic behavior in politics and many parts of the business world is how some people get to the top. It's not that the most qualified or deserving person got what they deserved, it was that the most ruthless, self-promoting, and deceitful person took the spoils. The just world hypothesis is often what callous people use to justify why they have the riches and people lower on the totem pole don't. It's easy to point at poor people and say they're poor because they're lazy or irresponsible, but it's much harder to admit that someone succeeded because of either advantages they were born into, or outright immoral behavior.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
Very few poor people work two jobs or even one. That's a marked contrast to high income individuals who work very hard. http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p60-252.pdf http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publication... Similarly, poor people are more likely to have substance abuse problems. http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/2013MHDetTabs/NSDUH-MHDetTabs2013.pdf http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/2013MHDetTabs... Now, as you note, rich people get away with things more - so wouldn't responsible poor people be less likely to do drugs? As a responsible adult, I do far more drugs in India (a cop might want 500rs ~ $7) than Malaysia (off with their heads!). You seem to believe the just world hypothesis is false, yet you clearly haven't even googled data which suggests it's a pretty solid statistical hypothesis in this case. It's truly a flaw in our society that such rhetoric - describing people who hold true beliefs as "callous" and "immoral" - is causing people to hold utterly incorrect beliefs. It's kind of like the modern version of "only satan worshippers believe in evolution".
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  I'm curious how you deduced that "Very few poor people work two jobs" or "High income individuals work very hard" from a census report that doesn't mention multiple job holding, and includes no information about hours worked. >it's a pretty solid statistical hypothesis in this case. Certainly not on the basis of that report, it's not.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    See table 3. Very few poor people work at all. Extrapolating from this to multiple job holders follows from the fact that people who work is an upper bound on people who work multiple jobs.
    - notlefthanded 10y ago
      Maybe poor people don't work because there's a welfare cliff wherein people can work a lot more and still experience no gain in quality of life or economic situation.
- GVIrish 10y ago
  The point isn't that most poor people work 2 jobs or whatever, the point is that there are plenty of poor people that work very hard but don't get ahead. Someone born into wealth who even puts in half the effort of a single mother working two jobs is still going to be wealthy. Furthermore, if you are born into a family where you have to work hourly jobs to support the family at the expense of your own educational advancement, chances are you are not going to advance as much economically as someone who doesn't have to make that compromise. As far as poor people and substance abuse, several states implemented drug testing regimes for people on welfare and what they found in all cases is that the drug use rate for welfare recipients was less than that of the general public, in most cases, about an order of magnitude less. http://time.com/3117361/welfare-recipients-drug-testing/ http://time.com/3117361/welfare-recipients-drug-testing/ The problem with the just world hypothesis is that it goes backwards from the successful outcome, then asserts that this outcome is proof that the world is fair. Person A is rich and successful because they worked hard and people who aren't rich and successful must've failed because they were lazy or irresponsible. But the truth is that circumstances are a large part of success and failure. Sure, when you equalize circumstances someone's personal effort, ability, and choices are what determines outcomes, but circumstances are rarely equal. When you're talking about groups of people born into massively unequal circumstances, the whole 'just world' thing falls apart. Someone born into a poor area, with bad schools, poor economic opportunities, and crime problems is simply not playing with the same deck of cards. Similarly, someone in the professional world who doesn't have the same connections as others or is not willing to bend the rules like others may be, is at a disadvantage. It doesn't mean that working hard and being skilled won't get you forward in life, most times it does. What it means is that success and achievement are not always fair and they are almost never independent of the situation someone is born and raised in.
Grishnakh 10y ago
> On the other side, someone born into wealth can be lazy, use drugs, and be a general screw up and still die wealthy. Exactly. Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan are poster children for this.

by GVIrish 10y ago

yummyfajitas 10y ago

Very few poor people work two jobs or even one. That's a marked contrast to high income individuals who work very hard. http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p60-252.pdf http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publication... Similarly, poor people are more likely to have substance abuse problems. http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/2013MHDetTabs/NSDUH-MHDetTabs2013.pdf http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/2013MHDetTabs... Now, as you note, rich people get away with things more - so wouldn't responsible poor people be less likely to do drugs? As a responsible adult, I do far more drugs in India (a cop might want 500rs ~ $7) than Malaysia (off with their heads!). You seem to believe the just world hypothesis is false, yet you clearly haven't even googled data which suggests it's a pretty solid statistical hypothesis in this case. It's truly a flaw in our society that such rhetoric - describing people who hold true beliefs as "callous" and "immoral" - is causing people to hold utterly incorrect beliefs. It's kind of like the modern version of "only satan worshippers believe in evolution".

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
I'm curious how you deduced that "Very few poor people work two jobs" or "High income individuals work very hard" from a census report that doesn't mention multiple job holding, and includes no information about hours worked. >it's a pretty solid statistical hypothesis in this case. Certainly not on the basis of that report, it's not.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  See table 3. Very few poor people work at all. Extrapolating from this to multiple job holders follows from the fact that people who work is an upper bound on people who work multiple jobs.
  - notlefthanded 10y ago
    Maybe poor people don't work because there's a welfare cliff wherein people can work a lot more and still experience no gain in quality of life or economic situation.
GVIrish 10y ago
The point isn't that most poor people work 2 jobs or whatever, the point is that there are plenty of poor people that work very hard but don't get ahead. Someone born into wealth who even puts in half the effort of a single mother working two jobs is still going to be wealthy. Furthermore, if you are born into a family where you have to work hourly jobs to support the family at the expense of your own educational advancement, chances are you are not going to advance as much economically as someone who doesn't have to make that compromise. As far as poor people and substance abuse, several states implemented drug testing regimes for people on welfare and what they found in all cases is that the drug use rate for welfare recipients was less than that of the general public, in most cases, about an order of magnitude less. http://time.com/3117361/welfare-recipients-drug-testing/ http://time.com/3117361/welfare-recipients-drug-testing/ The problem with the just world hypothesis is that it goes backwards from the successful outcome, then asserts that this outcome is proof that the world is fair. Person A is rich and successful because they worked hard and people who aren't rich and successful must've failed because they were lazy or irresponsible. But the truth is that circumstances are a large part of success and failure. Sure, when you equalize circumstances someone's personal effort, ability, and choices are what determines outcomes, but circumstances are rarely equal. When you're talking about groups of people born into massively unequal circumstances, the whole 'just world' thing falls apart. Someone born into a poor area, with bad schools, poor economic opportunities, and crime problems is simply not playing with the same deck of cards. Similarly, someone in the professional world who doesn't have the same connections as others or is not willing to bend the rules like others may be, is at a disadvantage. It doesn't mean that working hard and being skilled won't get you forward in life, most times it does. What it means is that success and achievement are not always fair and they are almost never independent of the situation someone is born and raised in.

Grishnakh 10y ago

> On the other side, someone born into wealth can be lazy, use drugs, and be a general screw up and still die wealthy. Exactly. Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan are poster children for this.