14 ms·

It's not like meritocracy is completely unrelated to real life, it matters in a certain regime. However, if like Vanessa, you're born to lesser circumstances, y

It's not like meritocracy is completely unrelated to real life, it matters in a certain regime. However, if like Vanessa, you're born to lesser circumstances, you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. Similarly, if you are born to very well off standards, even if you're a dope and spend money from Dad's inheritance on cocaine, sure, you won't be successful but you'll still have a net of some kind. You can always improve your lot, but where you start has a large impact on how much of phase space you can reach, so to say. I think the mentality is shifting a little as millenials and gen z are slowly letting go of the meritocratic myth, but blaming internal motivations more than context is a problem in the American conception of the world we still suffer from as a nation. The inability of us to accept that our actions are not the only determining things in our lives seriously limit our ability to fully comprehend the world and how it really works which leads us to thinking ideas like work requirements are actually sane rather than completely counterproductive.

neumann 8y ago
The slope counts for something, but the y-intercept should not be forgotten. And in the US, the distribution along the y-intercept is huge, but often ignored.
skookumchuck 8y ago
> the meritocratic myth I've been around to see people over decades, and how their decisions affect their lives. Meritocracy is not a myth. Where people wind up is very much a consequence of their choices. This isn't the Soviet Union where one is assigned a career, a job and an apartment. I've seen immigrants arrive here with nothing and become millionaires. That's why everyone wants to come to America. The opportunity is here.
- bsder 8y ago
  > Where people wind up is very much a consequence of their choices. True. But we also have lots of studies showing that the best of the lowest socioeconomic class almost never do better than the laziest of the uppermost socioeconomic class.
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    So why do penniless immigrants keep coming here? Do they know something poor people in America don't, or are they simply misinformed?
    - michaelmrose 8y ago
      This is the most ridiculous proof that America is the land of opportunity I can imagine. From https://www.wola.org/analysis/fact-sheet-united-states-immigration-central-american-asylum-seekers/ https://www.wola.org/analysis/fact-sheet-united-states-immig... "While the total number of migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border is near its lowest level since the early 1970s, the number of apprehended unaccompanied children and families is again on the rise after a dramatic drop in the months following Trump’s inauguration. This is a vulnerable population who, for the most part, are deliberately seeking out U.S. border security authorities and asking for protection. Affirmative requests for asylum of individuals from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras have increased by 25 percent in fiscal year 2017 compared to 2016. These people are fleeing for a reason. As White House Chief of Staff John Kelley once put it, the mass migration of children from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border primarily consists of “[parents that] are trying to save their children.” The countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are facing unparalleled levels of violent crime, with El Salvador and Honduras ranking among the top five most violent countries in the world."
      - skookumchuck 8y ago
        "The United States has been the top destination for international migrants since at least 1960, with one-fifth of the world's migrants living there as of 2017." That doesn't make much sense if the US is a hell-hole of capitalism grinding people into poverty (as immigrants usually have little). In 2016, 1.49 million immigrants came to the US. The median age is 44, so they're hardly all children. Meanwhile, an awful lot more want to come but can't get in legally. > This is the most ridiculous proof that America is the land of opportunity I can imagine. People run to opportunity, not away from it. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested...
- blub 8y ago
  What you've seen is irrelevant, when on the whole the lower and middle classes suffer due to lack of a social safety net and an extreme form of capitalism. There's a large amount of news articles which describe the situation of labour in the US. If things keep going like this, those millionares will soon have to build their own fortress cities to keep all the undesirable and disgruntled poor people away. The fact that poor people come to the US doesn't prove anything either, 99,(9)% of them will never be millionares, just like most people won't.
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    I know people who profess to be victims, too. I'll tick off the choices they made that got them where they are. Of course, they get angry with me. Nobody wants to hear the truth. Where I am, the good and the bad, is nearly entirely the sum of my choices. For example, if you floss or not eventually has a large effect on your health. Ditto for the amount you choose to drink, smoke, and exercise. Where you choose to live, who you choose to marry, who you pick for friends, what you do with your free time, do you work to excel in school or do just enough to squeak by, what major do you select in college, it just goes on and on.
    - blub 8y ago
      When one US citizen can barely make ends meet, it's reasonable maybe to tell them to try harder. When millions can barely do it, the political and business classes fucked up and they need to fix it. That's the point of goverment, they can tackle systemic issues.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >I know people who profess to be victims, too. I'll tick off the choices they made that got them where they are. Of course, they get angry with me. Nobody wants to hear the truth. Who told you poor people are capable of as good choices as richer people? When you live life in easy mode is easy to make the right choices. It's also easy to see some people who managed to play in hard mode and win, and extrapolate to everybody (especially if you don't account for lucky breaks and mitigating factors in their course). But because a handful managed to win in hard mode, it doesn't make it as easy as those who play in easy mode, nor it makes it any more statistically possible for the masses to win the hard mode gameplay they were dealt. >Where I am, the good and the bad, is nearly entirely the sum of my choices. LOL. http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate (One is even tempted to wish upon people saying hat a couple some serious accident or decease that kills their savings or takes their job, or puts them into depression, or have them tend to another family member, and such, to see whether their tune will remain the same...)
- coldtea 8y ago
  >I've been around to see people over decades, and how their decisions affect their lives. Meritocracy is not a myth. Where people wind up is very much a consequence of their choices. Choices is not the same as skills. Meritocracy is about merit, not choices.
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    People choose to acquire skills, or not. It's the whole point of all the education available to Americans, most of it free. Choose it, or not. Heck, you can even get an MIT education for free over the internet. It's up to you.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >People choose to acquire skills, or not. >It's the whole point of all the education available to Americans, most of it free. Choose it, or not. Heck, you can even get an MIT education for free over the internet. It's up to you. It's only free if your time is worthless. Else you have opportunity costs. Which are not just monetary (e.g. needing to work long hours to put food on the table) but human too (e.g. tending to a sick relative or raising your kid). One could still study after his shift flipping burgers for their "MIT education for free over the internet". But they'd still be left without an actual MIT degree, and even following that free education will be much harder than the average HN commenter whose parents splurged for their education.
      - kamaal 8y ago
        >>It's only free if your time is worthless. If a person is poor, and they still think sparing an hour watching a Ivy League university lecture(that can vastly increase their opportunity range) isn't worth your time, they have far bigger problems related to entitlement. >>Else you have opportunity costs. And there they have a choice. Which opportunity is more important to one's life? >>and even following that free education will be much harder than the average HN commenter whose parents splurged for their education. There is often a huge space between Homelessness and being a billionaire. You can always start doing work that is better than flipping burgers. And I don't any one will contest the fact that it will take a person years before they reach 6 figure salaries. Again, even an entry level QA job could pay you better than flipping burger and you can work from there.
- kart23 8y ago
  That last point really hits home with me. Everyone keeps saying the american dream is bullshit, but I know many people who lived it, including my own parents. I know people that came here on a boat with nothing, and now living in 10 million dollar homes. America is the only country where one can experience both extremes in one lifetime.
dgudkov 8y ago
>you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. This is a traditional, stereotypical belief that in order to escape poverty you have to work harder. This is old understanding of meritocracy and it's no longer valid. The new meritocracy is that you have to learn harder. And now, given all the learning resources available for free on the internet (which is also very accessible nowadays) it's probably the best time ever to self-educate. Once in a while I walk past a person selling pens/begging for money in my neighborhood. I always wonder how much he could've learnt and improved his life if he spent his time on learning instead of sitting on a bench and begging for money. I have sympathy for people that are poor due to unbearable circumstances such as mental illness or disability. But I honestly don't understand why an otherwise capable person won't make an effort to self-educate in order to break out of poverty.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ionised 8y ago
  Learning costs money, especially as an adult. You still need to cover your basic expenses, homeless or not.
  - bko 8y ago
    Learning is not just formal education. Learning costs much less money today than it probably ever has. Practically everyone in the US has the access of all the world's collective information.
    - iei02ndjd 8y ago
      And all the free time in the world while working 3 jobs: https://youtu.be/wFNj5sireDo https://youtu.be/wFNj5sireDo
      - bko 8y ago
        OP originally said it was expensive. She did not argue that it was easy or the person had free time. That's a cute clip, but if you look at statistics you'll see Americans with less than a high school degree work on average 7.8 hours a day, and only 30% work on weekends and holidays. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t04.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t04.htm
lr4444lr 8y ago
The diabetic Vanessa could have chosen not to have her first baby at 16.
- cm2012 8y ago
  You have no idea the kind of mental state, upbringing and understanding of the world Vanessa had at 16. One of the big reasons teen girls get pregnant is a desperate hope to fill the psychological void in their hearts created by neglectful parents.
  - hhjinks 8y ago
    That does not absolve her of her irresponsibility. 99% of 16-year-olds realize having a kid is a bad idea. She made her bed, and now she sleeps in it. I can empathize with her situation, but I can not empathize with anyone saying she is not herself at least partly responsible.
    - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
      Why are we making motherhood something that cuts into someone’s career at all? Furthermore why are we making motherhood something that should punish the mother? Is it okay that a mother go without resources because she mothered too young? Is it fair/meritocratic to her child?
      - akvadrako 8y ago
        To some degree most cultures do give assistance to new mothers, at least if they are poor. It seems you are arguing for more of that; the issue is it creates bad outcomes. The poorer you are, the more practical sense it makes to have a child. Then the next generation is more likely to have grown up in less than ideal circumstances. The only kind of children society should encourage is those in stable financially-secure families.
        SolaceQuantum 8y ago
DiffEq 8y ago
You can escape poverty by working harder; it is just that working harder will not always work. It needs to be coupled with other virtues; of course the solution is not just simply to work harder, but to suggest that working harder is not a great deal part of the solution is false by every measure. Lets say this, you are born into a poor family - you still get to go to school that likely has a great library - the school and the library represent a deposit of great wealth that has been bestowed on you by society and you can take advantage of that - or not; most don't and mostly it is due to laziness. Most children would rather watch TV all day. Say you live in a "bad" neighborhood. You can pick up trash around your house or leave it there, or throw more trash on the ground. My observation is that the poor just throw more trash on the ground, they don't make their beds, they live in filthy or cluttered houses...with all that time on their poverty stricken hands they could at least organize their place. I have seen such stark differences...here in the states, in the middle east, and in Africa. I have seen impoverished people that wallow in their mire, and I have seen those that work hard to improve their situation, and though they may still be financially impoverished - they at least make the things around them a little nicer, educate their minds with what books they have and therefore live a more fulfilled life.
- imtyler 8y ago
  >My observation is that the poor just throw more trash on the ground, they don't make their beds, they live in filthy or cluttered houses... I would argue here that you've confused correlation with causation. Perhaps a minimum wage 60 hours/week worker just doesn't have the time or energy to make their bed, not an unwillingness. Maybe the poor conditions in a neighborhood are what make it affordable, not preferable. Etc.
- bjourne 8y ago
  > You can escape poverty by working harder; it is just that working harder will not always work. You can escape poverty by buying lottery tickets too. Obviously it is all about the probabilities. But if you earn $10/hour (what kind of insane unlivable wage is that?) even if you work 16h/day you'll still be poor.
  - 8y ago
yawboakye 8y ago
> However, if like Vanessa, you're born to lesser circumstances, you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. Wealth and poverty for both society and the individual a generational. This generation lifts themselves to a height that makes life better for the next generation. One life time isn't enough to measure whether working hard will make you successful. Being born into a well off standard is being born into generations of sacrifices and hard work. If the current generation doesn't work hard to maintain they will certainly make life harder for a few generations down the line.
snowwrestler 8y ago
Attributing outcomes to inherent properties, instead of systems and interactions, seems to be a fundamental mental error that is manifested in language, at least in English. We say that a blanket or jacket "is warm", even though all it's doing is trapping heat that we produce. We say a task "is difficult", even though we are the ones who are having the difficulty in completing it. We say an apple "is red" even if we know that the color we perceive is a property of how light interacts with the apple's matter. And we often say that people "are poor" rather than "in poverty." Language exists somewhere between representing the way we think, and affecting the way we think. Attributing poverty to an inherent property of a particular person, rather than their context, seems in line with how we speak (and perhaps think) about a lot of the world around us. I think this is one reason it is so hard to fix social problems: because the first step must be a critical mass of people who can and will overcome a default way of thinking about the world.
- marknutter 8y ago
  Yes. They must be, how shall we say... "re-educated".
- Fellshard 8y ago
  It is easier now than ever, though, when we can point to countless examples of class mobility in modern times, both upwards and downwards; and it helps that those are stories people love to tell.

neumann 8y ago

The slope counts for something, but the y-intercept should not be forgotten. And in the US, the distribution along the y-intercept is huge, but often ignored.

skookumchuck 8y ago

> the meritocratic myth I've been around to see people over decades, and how their decisions affect their lives. Meritocracy is not a myth. Where people wind up is very much a consequence of their choices. This isn't the Soviet Union where one is assigned a career, a job and an apartment. I've seen immigrants arrive here with nothing and become millionaires. That's why everyone wants to come to America. The opportunity is here.

bsder 8y ago
> Where people wind up is very much a consequence of their choices. True. But we also have lots of studies showing that the best of the lowest socioeconomic class almost never do better than the laziest of the uppermost socioeconomic class.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  So why do penniless immigrants keep coming here? Do they know something poor people in America don't, or are they simply misinformed?
  - michaelmrose 8y ago
    This is the most ridiculous proof that America is the land of opportunity I can imagine. From https://www.wola.org/analysis/fact-sheet-united-states-immigration-central-american-asylum-seekers/ https://www.wola.org/analysis/fact-sheet-united-states-immig... "While the total number of migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border is near its lowest level since the early 1970s, the number of apprehended unaccompanied children and families is again on the rise after a dramatic drop in the months following Trump’s inauguration. This is a vulnerable population who, for the most part, are deliberately seeking out U.S. border security authorities and asking for protection. Affirmative requests for asylum of individuals from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras have increased by 25 percent in fiscal year 2017 compared to 2016. These people are fleeing for a reason. As White House Chief of Staff John Kelley once put it, the mass migration of children from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border primarily consists of “[parents that] are trying to save their children.” The countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are facing unparalleled levels of violent crime, with El Salvador and Honduras ranking among the top five most violent countries in the world."
    - skookumchuck 8y ago
      "The United States has been the top destination for international migrants since at least 1960, with one-fifth of the world's migrants living there as of 2017." That doesn't make much sense if the US is a hell-hole of capitalism grinding people into poverty (as immigrants usually have little). In 2016, 1.49 million immigrants came to the US. The median age is 44, so they're hardly all children. Meanwhile, an awful lot more want to come but can't get in legally. > This is the most ridiculous proof that America is the land of opportunity I can imagine. People run to opportunity, not away from it. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested...
blub 8y ago
What you've seen is irrelevant, when on the whole the lower and middle classes suffer due to lack of a social safety net and an extreme form of capitalism. There's a large amount of news articles which describe the situation of labour in the US. If things keep going like this, those millionares will soon have to build their own fortress cities to keep all the undesirable and disgruntled poor people away. The fact that poor people come to the US doesn't prove anything either, 99,(9)% of them will never be millionares, just like most people won't.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  I know people who profess to be victims, too. I'll tick off the choices they made that got them where they are. Of course, they get angry with me. Nobody wants to hear the truth. Where I am, the good and the bad, is nearly entirely the sum of my choices. For example, if you floss or not eventually has a large effect on your health. Ditto for the amount you choose to drink, smoke, and exercise. Where you choose to live, who you choose to marry, who you pick for friends, what you do with your free time, do you work to excel in school or do just enough to squeak by, what major do you select in college, it just goes on and on.
  - blub 8y ago
    When one US citizen can barely make ends meet, it's reasonable maybe to tell them to try harder. When millions can barely do it, the political and business classes fucked up and they need to fix it. That's the point of goverment, they can tackle systemic issues.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >I know people who profess to be victims, too. I'll tick off the choices they made that got them where they are. Of course, they get angry with me. Nobody wants to hear the truth. Who told you poor people are capable of as good choices as richer people? When you live life in easy mode is easy to make the right choices. It's also easy to see some people who managed to play in hard mode and win, and extrapolate to everybody (especially if you don't account for lucky breaks and mitigating factors in their course). But because a handful managed to win in hard mode, it doesn't make it as easy as those who play in easy mode, nor it makes it any more statistically possible for the masses to win the hard mode gameplay they were dealt. >Where I am, the good and the bad, is nearly entirely the sum of my choices. LOL. http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate (One is even tempted to wish upon people saying hat a couple some serious accident or decease that kills their savings or takes their job, or puts them into depression, or have them tend to another family member, and such, to see whether their tune will remain the same...)
coldtea 8y ago
>I've been around to see people over decades, and how their decisions affect their lives. Meritocracy is not a myth. Where people wind up is very much a consequence of their choices. Choices is not the same as skills. Meritocracy is about merit, not choices.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  People choose to acquire skills, or not. It's the whole point of all the education available to Americans, most of it free. Choose it, or not. Heck, you can even get an MIT education for free over the internet. It's up to you.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >People choose to acquire skills, or not. >It's the whole point of all the education available to Americans, most of it free. Choose it, or not. Heck, you can even get an MIT education for free over the internet. It's up to you. It's only free if your time is worthless. Else you have opportunity costs. Which are not just monetary (e.g. needing to work long hours to put food on the table) but human too (e.g. tending to a sick relative or raising your kid). One could still study after his shift flipping burgers for their "MIT education for free over the internet". But they'd still be left without an actual MIT degree, and even following that free education will be much harder than the average HN commenter whose parents splurged for their education.
    - kamaal 8y ago
      >>It's only free if your time is worthless. If a person is poor, and they still think sparing an hour watching a Ivy League university lecture(that can vastly increase their opportunity range) isn't worth your time, they have far bigger problems related to entitlement. >>Else you have opportunity costs. And there they have a choice. Which opportunity is more important to one's life? >>and even following that free education will be much harder than the average HN commenter whose parents splurged for their education. There is often a huge space between Homelessness and being a billionaire. You can always start doing work that is better than flipping burgers. And I don't any one will contest the fact that it will take a person years before they reach 6 figure salaries. Again, even an entry level QA job could pay you better than flipping burger and you can work from there.
kart23 8y ago
That last point really hits home with me. Everyone keeps saying the american dream is bullshit, but I know many people who lived it, including my own parents. I know people that came here on a boat with nothing, and now living in 10 million dollar homes. America is the only country where one can experience both extremes in one lifetime.

dgudkov 8y ago

>you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. This is a traditional, stereotypical belief that in order to escape poverty you have to work harder. This is old understanding of meritocracy and it's no longer valid. The new meritocracy is that you have to learn harder. And now, given all the learning resources available for free on the internet (which is also very accessible nowadays) it's probably the best time ever to self-educate. Once in a while I walk past a person selling pens/begging for money in my neighborhood. I always wonder how much he could've learnt and improved his life if he spent his time on learning instead of sitting on a bench and begging for money. I have sympathy for people that are poor due to unbearable circumstances such as mental illness or disability. But I honestly don't understand why an otherwise capable person won't make an effort to self-educate in order to break out of poverty.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ionised 8y ago
Learning costs money, especially as an adult. You still need to cover your basic expenses, homeless or not.
- bko 8y ago
  Learning is not just formal education. Learning costs much less money today than it probably ever has. Practically everyone in the US has the access of all the world's collective information.
  - iei02ndjd 8y ago
    And all the free time in the world while working 3 jobs: https://youtu.be/wFNj5sireDo https://youtu.be/wFNj5sireDo
    - bko 8y ago
      OP originally said it was expensive. She did not argue that it was easy or the person had free time. That's a cute clip, but if you look at statistics you'll see Americans with less than a high school degree work on average 7.8 hours a day, and only 30% work on weekends and holidays. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t04.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t04.htm

lr4444lr 8y ago

The diabetic Vanessa could have chosen not to have her first baby at 16.

cm2012 8y ago
You have no idea the kind of mental state, upbringing and understanding of the world Vanessa had at 16. One of the big reasons teen girls get pregnant is a desperate hope to fill the psychological void in their hearts created by neglectful parents.
- hhjinks 8y ago
  That does not absolve her of her irresponsibility. 99% of 16-year-olds realize having a kid is a bad idea. She made her bed, and now she sleeps in it. I can empathize with her situation, but I can not empathize with anyone saying she is not herself at least partly responsible.
  - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
    Why are we making motherhood something that cuts into someone’s career at all? Furthermore why are we making motherhood something that should punish the mother? Is it okay that a mother go without resources because she mothered too young? Is it fair/meritocratic to her child?
    - akvadrako 8y ago
      To some degree most cultures do give assistance to new mothers, at least if they are poor. It seems you are arguing for more of that; the issue is it creates bad outcomes. The poorer you are, the more practical sense it makes to have a child. Then the next generation is more likely to have grown up in less than ideal circumstances. The only kind of children society should encourage is those in stable financially-secure families.
      - SolaceQuantum 8y ago

DiffEq 8y ago

You can escape poverty by working harder; it is just that working harder will not always work. It needs to be coupled with other virtues; of course the solution is not just simply to work harder, but to suggest that working harder is not a great deal part of the solution is false by every measure. Lets say this, you are born into a poor family - you still get to go to school that likely has a great library - the school and the library represent a deposit of great wealth that has been bestowed on you by society and you can take advantage of that - or not; most don't and mostly it is due to laziness. Most children would rather watch TV all day. Say you live in a "bad" neighborhood. You can pick up trash around your house or leave it there, or throw more trash on the ground. My observation is that the poor just throw more trash on the ground, they don't make their beds, they live in filthy or cluttered houses...with all that time on their poverty stricken hands they could at least organize their place. I have seen such stark differences...here in the states, in the middle east, and in Africa. I have seen impoverished people that wallow in their mire, and I have seen those that work hard to improve their situation, and though they may still be financially impoverished - they at least make the things around them a little nicer, educate their minds with what books they have and therefore live a more fulfilled life.

imtyler 8y ago
>My observation is that the poor just throw more trash on the ground, they don't make their beds, they live in filthy or cluttered houses... I would argue here that you've confused correlation with causation. Perhaps a minimum wage 60 hours/week worker just doesn't have the time or energy to make their bed, not an unwillingness. Maybe the poor conditions in a neighborhood are what make it affordable, not preferable. Etc.
bjourne 8y ago
> You can escape poverty by working harder; it is just that working harder will not always work. You can escape poverty by buying lottery tickets too. Obviously it is all about the probabilities. But if you earn $10/hour (what kind of insane unlivable wage is that?) even if you work 16h/day you'll still be poor.
- 8y ago

yawboakye 8y ago

> However, if like Vanessa, you're born to lesser circumstances, you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. Wealth and poverty for both society and the individual a generational. This generation lifts themselves to a height that makes life better for the next generation. One life time isn't enough to measure whether working hard will make you successful. Being born into a well off standard is being born into generations of sacrifices and hard work. If the current generation doesn't work hard to maintain they will certainly make life harder for a few generations down the line.

snowwrestler 8y ago

Attributing outcomes to inherent properties, instead of systems and interactions, seems to be a fundamental mental error that is manifested in language, at least in English. We say that a blanket or jacket "is warm", even though all it's doing is trapping heat that we produce. We say a task "is difficult", even though we are the ones who are having the difficulty in completing it. We say an apple "is red" even if we know that the color we perceive is a property of how light interacts with the apple's matter. And we often say that people "are poor" rather than "in poverty." Language exists somewhere between representing the way we think, and affecting the way we think. Attributing poverty to an inherent property of a particular person, rather than their context, seems in line with how we speak (and perhaps think) about a lot of the world around us. I think this is one reason it is so hard to fix social problems: because the first step must be a critical mass of people who can and will overcome a default way of thinking about the world.

marknutter 8y ago
Yes. They must be, how shall we say... "re-educated".
Fellshard 8y ago
It is easier now than ever, though, when we can point to countless examples of class mobility in modern times, both upwards and downwards; and it helps that those are stories people love to tell.