Yeah. I get pretty vocal in threads about poverty, and I'm a big fan of effective social programs intended to reduce poverty, but I have to agree with you (on t

Yeah. I get pretty vocal in threads about poverty, and I'm a big fan of effective social programs intended to reduce poverty, but I have to agree with you (on the basis of personal experience) to some extent. It's a bit more complicated than just "poor people make bad decisions"; there are confounding factors in mental health (https://www.nature.com/news/poverty-linked-to-epigenetic-changes-and-mental-illness-1.19972 https://www.nature.com/news/poverty-linked-to-epigenetic-cha...), relative education, and human psychology (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-brain-on-poverty-why-poor-people-seem-to-make-bad-decisions/281780/?single_page=true https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-br...). However, there's an entire class of politics around the notion that people are wealthy or poor only on the basis of their qualities as a person (and therefore social programs should be eliminated and people left to fend for themselves), and so people who are trying to experiment with effective social programs for the poor are quick to counter any arguments that imply that individual decision-making is a factor. (Myself included.)