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>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. Th
by 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 This is old understanding of meritocracy and it's no longer valid.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 agoLearning costs money, especially as an adult. You still need to cover your basic expenses, homeless or not.
- bko 8y agoLearning 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 agoAnd all the free time in the world while working 3 jobs: https://youtu.be/wFNj5sireDo https://youtu.be/wFNj5sireDo
- bko 8y agoOP 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
- iei02ndjd 8y agoStatistics hide the raw numbers and emotional reality. 30% is how many people? What’s their schedule look like if they have kids too? That’s a cute trick, using cold hard facts to normalize away bullshit
- bko 8y agoProvide something to back up the claim that less educated Americans are working 3 jobs and that it's impossible for them to receive education. The evidence I provided to support my claim is not perfect but it's better than a video of bush making a joke
- shaftoe 8y agoYou don't get ahead by making excuses and you don't help people by defending straw men.
- flatb 8y agoYou also don't get ahead if you there's a perfectly valid reason outside of your control that prevents you from 'getting ahead', or makes it extremely unlikely. Most dictionaries would call those 'excuses'. And you especially don't get ahead if those valid reasons exist but are seldom discussed by the people with the most power to solve them, and are instead often reduced to 'excuses', 'lazyness', or any other straw man, like the one you're complaining about.
- lyzan 8y agoWhile not totally free (access costs) a vast majority of the knowlage I've learned and use for my job has been from free resources online. Realistically, I've probably spent under $500 in 10 years on educational materials (excluding buying my first non-work-sponsored laptop) and am now "Senior" level in my field. Plus almost all that was in more recent years as I'm trying learn more theoretical / academic applications. Combine that with most cities having libraries with free books and in major cities free internet, and I'd argue is cheaper and easier than ever to learn, though it does still cost time.
- SolaceQuantum 8y agoHow much of that could you do pulling multiple low-wage jobs and raising child(ren)? If you yourself had a serious chronic illness? If you yourself was raised in poverty so you had to go to schools with high failure rates and no education in which to acquire your own education?
- lyzan 8y agoOh, don't get me wrong: I don't think its the best option, but the scenario first described in question was a homeless man with indefinite "free" time on their hands. I personally work 2 full time jobs, I'm aware how scarce free time can get. I'm certainly not saying that everyone can do it on their own either. Just that cost is a very weak barrier to knowledge and that I agree you need to learn your way out of poverty. I'm also a big proponent of basic income exactly for the reasons above, but I think the core idea is well founded. Hard work at a job (or two jobs) doesn't usually get you out of a shitty job, where as learning enough to get a better job does.
- presscast 8y agoTime is money, as the saying goes. When you're working a double shift to put food on the table, it's really hard to learn an extra skill set (e.g. programming) and make time to build up a resume on github (or whatever). The cost isn't really located in the act of "buying" education.
- 8y ago
- xvire 8y agoLearning costs is only marginally higher than the cost of idleness.
- sharemywin 8y agoyou assume poor people are idle.
- kamaal 8y agoI don't think any one is saying its easy. People are only saying access to resources and the overall process has only gotten easier. A person still has to work an uphill run everyday until they reach some financial break through .
- xvire 8y agoI don't assume anything. I just point out, that cost of self-education is indeed huge, if you measure it in profits not received from performing some labor. However, its 'price' would still be on par with being completely idle. Of course, not all poor people are idle, but some are. And if those who are indeed idle can afford idleness, non-idle people may afford self-learning.
- dgudkov 8y agoWhat's the cost of self-education of a person that doesn't much anyway? Sitting on a bench all day is not labor, it's a waste of time.
- m_fayer 8y agoThe capacity for self-education is not innate for most people. Developing this capacity requires dedication, the ability to delay gratification, significant emotional regulation, and most importantly it requires knowing how to learn. For optimal results, these skills must be fostered from an early age all the way through young adulthood. People who grew up with deprivation or abuse or neglect are unlikely to be good self-learners as adults.
- sharemywin 8y agoYou also forgot the most important factor. Time. When your in school it's paid for. When your in college it's paid for. When you have children and you need to "put food on the table" the equation tips the other direction.
- dgudkov 8y ago>The capacity for self-education is not innate for most people. I disagree. Most mentally healthy people are capable of self-education. Self-education is what makes human a human. Being an adult person requires working self-education skill -- using public transit, bank services, mobile phones, internet, microwave ovens, TV sets, driving, etc -- all requires self-education to some extent. Getting professional skills is more difficult, but it just requires more effort, not a completely new skill.
- dzdt 8y agoThere is a pretty high threshold before book learning provides any payoff. The minimum cutoff that some employers take seriously is 12 years of school or the equivalent. Lets guess the guy selling pens is at a grade level of half that. If he could self-teach at the same rate as the education system would advance him (unlikely), that is still 6 years of sitting in a library before reaching the first threshold of significance (GED). Self-teaching is not a likely road out of a desperate situation!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kamaal 8y agoThere is one kind of learning that you do to get a job. But education in general is something that is beyond that. Learning basic personal finance, or a skill, or learning to exercise, or reading about government services, learning cooking etc can go a great deal in fixing one's problems. Education often involves learning something, its not always reading text books and writing exams.
- dgudkov 8y agoPayoff is somewhat proportional to self-education effort. For a big payoff you may need to spend years on learning. But for many people earning extra few hundreds bucks per month can drastically change their lifestyle. And that kind of change doesn't require years of self-education, but a little bit of curiosity, determination and perseverance.
- rpvnwnkl 8y agoDoes “learning” really bring you out of poverty? Or is this the same old trope with an extra step added?
- YinglingLight 8y agoDelayed gratification is the mechanism behind all steps.
- sharemywin 8y agosomeone has to invest in you besides just you. could be parents, government, mentor, investor, teacher.
- YinglingLight 8y agoDo you suggest that 'delayed gratification' is a nature/nurture trait?
- sharemywin 8y agoAs far As I've seen, all traits are a combination of nature/nurture.
- dgudkov 8y agoYou still need to work hard, but working hard smarter works better than just working hard.
- sharemywin 8y agoImagine everyone was able to get "educated" and get a white collar job, what would that look like? No one to work factories or construction, wait tables, etc. Society is made by object moving not papers or digits. And people are getting pissed off because the paper pushers and the digit movers are getting all the rewards and theirs nothing left for the people doing the actual work. Don't get me wrong I enjoy the benefits of a "good" job and I finished college to get where I am.
- jmull 8y ago> ...But I honestly don't understand... This is the part you should be focusing on. You've developed a model to explain why people live in poverty and how they can get out. Yet, as you can plainly see yourself, it doesn't actually jibe with reality.