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Anytime an article hits Hacker News such as this; that is, with explicit references to class and socioeconomic status, I cringe as I read the comments. The comm

Anytime an article hits Hacker News such as this; that is, with explicit references to class and socioeconomic status, I cringe as I read the comments. The comments are both predictable, and utterly devastating. Psychology is largely at play here, since both the Fundamental attribution error (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error) and cognitive dissonance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance) have extremely strong effects. For the most part, the readership here often seems to be completely unaware of the daily realities of a very real underclass in western societies. Environment has a profound effect on our individual development. I've lived a privileged life. I have many close friends who were not so fortunate. I could not possibly imagine my life circumstances today if I had to face what some of my friends did.

todayiamme 16y ago
It's not their fault. Most people simply don't know what bottomless despair is like. Even fewer know what it's like to have no resources whatsoever to deal with it. I sometimes still cry and question why I wasn't born normal like others. It doesn't matter what I know and understand. It doesn't matter what I tell myself. I still feel that stab. I couldn't have imagined what this felt like until I had to go through it, and herein lies the problem. The people who often try to erase social injustices are those who have lived a life of privilege and have absolutely no idea what it's like on the other side. A lot of them rely on second or third hand sources, but they often fail to get the gist of things. This isn't something wrong on it's own, but whenever people are frustrated they tend to grope for explanations and a lot of people fail to give this any thought whatsoever. Even though this article seems to be well intentioned, but stuff like this hurts people in the longer run. Take a look at this; >>>It is not simply a case of teenage girls from deprived backgrounds accidentally becoming pregnant. Evidence from many sources suggests that teen pregnancy rates are similar in poor and affluent communities. However, motherhood is a choice, as both Geronimus and Johns are keen to point out. Teenage girls from affluent backgrounds are more likely to have abortions than their less-privileged peers. In terms of reproduction, the more affluent girls are best off concentrating on their own career and development so that they can invest more in the children they have at a later stage. "It seems that girls are assessing their life chances on a number of fronts and making conscious decisions about reproduction," says Johns.<<< The reason why they don't have pretty often is because they can't afford abortions. Even if there are clinics that perform this for an extremely low cost. Most people lack access and awareness in the ghetto, which is just another side effect of growing up there. Affluent children can think about their life choices because they have the luxury of doing so. Most children from the ghetto don't. The very idea that such behavior is driven by genetic impulses is something that shows a flawed understanding of the entire concept at some stage by the writer. I am not an expert on it, but Richard Dawkins surely is and he takes the pains to point out that genes are like a coder who writes a complex AI program. After her/his job is finished the program is on its own. If you think about it everything comes down to genetic impulses and the environment plays a crucial role in determining those impulses, but in humans another paradigm also comes into the equation; the ability for us to make a conscious choice. What I am trying to say is that the expert who wrote that paper is trying to get an extremely valuable point across, but the way it is used to explain everything is demeaning and flawed. There is no magic bullet for such problems, and you really need not resort to such things. Good ole' hard work with dedication and understanding ought to do. [edit: I forgot to add "flawed understanding by the writer" the expert who has been quoted is spot on, but the general conclusions derived seem to be pretty shabby.]
- frossie 16y ago
  While I do respect your larger point... The reason why they don't have pretty often is because they can't afford abortions. A lot of the research in that article was done in the UK, where cost is not really a factor. Abortions are covered by the national heath service. Also, there are no parental notification rules or any similar barriers that make it so hard in the US. Contraception is also free, and so I don't think it is completely unreasonable to speculate that many of these births are actually wanted and to examine the reasons for them, as the researchers are attempting in the OP. Whether their theory is actually correct, I don't know.
  - todayiamme 16y ago
    My mother works in the health ministry and I read some of her files one day. They had the same problem even though they were giving out services and contraception for free social stigma, lack of awareness and access resulted in people turning away from such resources. I am not saying that the births are not wanted either. What I am trying to say is that as a result of the environment such children are in they are taught that this is life and there is nothing more they can expect. This doesn't happen explicitly but implicitly through the actions of others. I really can't explain this. I think that the OP is right and they are well intentioned, but they are making the same mistake over and over again. There is no magic bullet over here. Of course, you should try to find ways to increase your ability to make change, but there really is not magic bullet.
  - nmftt 16y ago
    I don't think the reason teenagers don't use contraception is because they want to get pregnant, but because they don't clearly see the implications. I know abortions are emotionally hard and if you don't see yourself having a future to protect it's harder to make that decision. Still as far as I know abortions are very accepted in Europe and it probably more likely that you have an abortion if your parents know you're pregnant. Especially if you have successful parents that can see the implications of having a child at an early age, which many underprivileged teenagers don't have.
    - 16y ago
SandB0x 16y ago
I know where you're coming from, but I think that's a little judgemental. Most people are either affected by or extremely concerned about poverty and welfare - I don't quite follow how cognitive dissonance comes into it. Maybe people don't think of responding to this, a large scale study, with personal anecdotes. There are plenty of amazing posts on HN in response to other stories. Surely it's valuable to understand more about ourselves, what affects us, and how we can offer effective help, even if the process can seem a little clinical and heartless.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  He isn't suggesting people are not concerned by poverty. He is attempting to shut down debate by suggesting that anyone who hasn't actually experienced the phenomenon under discussion is incapable of reasoning about it and is probably irrational. One could make similar statements about any topic: Anytime an article hits Hacker News such as this; that is, with explicit references to astronomy and outer space, I cringe as I read the comments[...]Psychology is largely at play here, [wikipedia articles about irrationality]. For the most part, the readership here often seems to be completely unaware of the realities in an extraterrestrial environment. [No facts provided.] I've lived a terrestrial live. I could not possibly imagine a low temperature, low pressure environment [and like me, no one else can reason about phenomena they have not personally experienced.] Such statements serve only to stifle debate, most likely in an effort to induce people to support an emotionally pleasing policy choice. When I make the same statement about an environment utterly alien to all human experience, it's obviously ridiculous. So why do we accept such a statement when it is made about nothing but a different sort of human experience?
  - henrikschroder 16y ago
    He is attempting to shut down debate by suggesting that anyone who hasn't actually experienced the phenomenon under discussion is incapable of reasoning about it and is probably irrational. In my experience, people who are born and raised upper middle class have absolutely no understanding of the different social classes, or what makes people belong to one and not the other. That makes for pretty irrational arguments. :-) That said, I agree with you on the whole "shutting down debate", it's rather boring.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

todayiamme 16y ago

It's not their fault. Most people simply don't know what bottomless despair is like. Even fewer know what it's like to have no resources whatsoever to deal with it. I sometimes still cry and question why I wasn't born normal like others. It doesn't matter what I know and understand. It doesn't matter what I tell myself. I still feel that stab. I couldn't have imagined what this felt like until I had to go through it, and herein lies the problem. The people who often try to erase social injustices are those who have lived a life of privilege and have absolutely no idea what it's like on the other side. A lot of them rely on second or third hand sources, but they often fail to get the gist of things. This isn't something wrong on it's own, but whenever people are frustrated they tend to grope for explanations and a lot of people fail to give this any thought whatsoever. Even though this article seems to be well intentioned, but stuff like this hurts people in the longer run. Take a look at this; >>>It is not simply a case of teenage girls from deprived backgrounds accidentally becoming pregnant. Evidence from many sources suggests that teen pregnancy rates are similar in poor and affluent communities. However, motherhood is a choice, as both Geronimus and Johns are keen to point out. Teenage girls from affluent backgrounds are more likely to have abortions than their less-privileged peers. In terms of reproduction, the more affluent girls are best off concentrating on their own career and development so that they can invest more in the children they have at a later stage. "It seems that girls are assessing their life chances on a number of fronts and making conscious decisions about reproduction," says Johns.<<< The reason why they don't have pretty often is because they can't afford abortions. Even if there are clinics that perform this for an extremely low cost. Most people lack access and awareness in the ghetto, which is just another side effect of growing up there. Affluent children can think about their life choices because they have the luxury of doing so. Most children from the ghetto don't. The very idea that such behavior is driven by genetic impulses is something that shows a flawed understanding of the entire concept at some stage by the writer. I am not an expert on it, but Richard Dawkins surely is and he takes the pains to point out that genes are like a coder who writes a complex AI program. After her/his job is finished the program is on its own. If you think about it everything comes down to genetic impulses and the environment plays a crucial role in determining those impulses, but in humans another paradigm also comes into the equation; the ability for us to make a conscious choice. What I am trying to say is that the expert who wrote that paper is trying to get an extremely valuable point across, but the way it is used to explain everything is demeaning and flawed. There is no magic bullet for such problems, and you really need not resort to such things. Good ole' hard work with dedication and understanding ought to do. [edit: I forgot to add "flawed understanding by the writer" the expert who has been quoted is spot on, but the general conclusions derived seem to be pretty shabby.]

frossie 16y ago
While I do respect your larger point... The reason why they don't have pretty often is because they can't afford abortions. A lot of the research in that article was done in the UK, where cost is not really a factor. Abortions are covered by the national heath service. Also, there are no parental notification rules or any similar barriers that make it so hard in the US. Contraception is also free, and so I don't think it is completely unreasonable to speculate that many of these births are actually wanted and to examine the reasons for them, as the researchers are attempting in the OP. Whether their theory is actually correct, I don't know.
- todayiamme 16y ago
  My mother works in the health ministry and I read some of her files one day. They had the same problem even though they were giving out services and contraception for free social stigma, lack of awareness and access resulted in people turning away from such resources. I am not saying that the births are not wanted either. What I am trying to say is that as a result of the environment such children are in they are taught that this is life and there is nothing more they can expect. This doesn't happen explicitly but implicitly through the actions of others. I really can't explain this. I think that the OP is right and they are well intentioned, but they are making the same mistake over and over again. There is no magic bullet over here. Of course, you should try to find ways to increase your ability to make change, but there really is not magic bullet.
- nmftt 16y ago
  I don't think the reason teenagers don't use contraception is because they want to get pregnant, but because they don't clearly see the implications. I know abortions are emotionally hard and if you don't see yourself having a future to protect it's harder to make that decision. Still as far as I know abortions are very accepted in Europe and it probably more likely that you have an abortion if your parents know you're pregnant. Especially if you have successful parents that can see the implications of having a child at an early age, which many underprivileged teenagers don't have.
  - 16y ago

SandB0x 16y ago

I know where you're coming from, but I think that's a little judgemental. Most people are either affected by or extremely concerned about poverty and welfare - I don't quite follow how cognitive dissonance comes into it. Maybe people don't think of responding to this, a large scale study, with personal anecdotes. There are plenty of amazing posts on HN in response to other stories. Surely it's valuable to understand more about ourselves, what affects us, and how we can offer effective help, even if the process can seem a little clinical and heartless.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
He isn't suggesting people are not concerned by poverty. He is attempting to shut down debate by suggesting that anyone who hasn't actually experienced the phenomenon under discussion is incapable of reasoning about it and is probably irrational. One could make similar statements about any topic: Anytime an article hits Hacker News such as this; that is, with explicit references to astronomy and outer space, I cringe as I read the comments[...]Psychology is largely at play here, [wikipedia articles about irrationality]. For the most part, the readership here often seems to be completely unaware of the realities in an extraterrestrial environment. [No facts provided.] I've lived a terrestrial live. I could not possibly imagine a low temperature, low pressure environment [and like me, no one else can reason about phenomena they have not personally experienced.] Such statements serve only to stifle debate, most likely in an effort to induce people to support an emotionally pleasing policy choice. When I make the same statement about an environment utterly alien to all human experience, it's obviously ridiculous. So why do we accept such a statement when it is made about nothing but a different sort of human experience?
- henrikschroder 16y ago
  He is attempting to shut down debate by suggesting that anyone who hasn't actually experienced the phenomenon under discussion is incapable of reasoning about it and is probably irrational. In my experience, people who are born and raised upper middle class have absolutely no understanding of the different social classes, or what makes people belong to one and not the other. That makes for pretty irrational arguments. :-) That said, I agree with you on the whole "shutting down debate", it's rather boring.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]