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You are right about the feedback loops that make it hard to escape poverty. The most uncomfortable one to talk about is basic social network effects. Two people

You are right about the feedback loops that make it hard to escape poverty. The most uncomfortable one to talk about is basic social network effects. Two people meet at some prestigious college and get married - are we shocked they have children who are predisposed for success? Besides from having god-given IQ, they are likely some combination of ambitious, punctual, respectful of authority, long-term oriented, hard-working, etc. But would one of those parents have ever been interested in marrying and having kids with some high school dropout, someone from a vastly different social place and lacking those values? It's pretty rare. Society organizes itself around this stuff and it's extremely powerful. The two high school dropouts end up hooking up and having kids and it's often times (though obviously not always) the opposite cycle. And yeah there are plenty of societal biases that are real, but I really don't think anything will ever be as powerful as this self-organizing dynamic of how people marry and have kids. It's cold and depressing and uncomfortable but it's reality.

cactus2093 6y ago
In your explanation I see the feedback loop that makes it easier for you and your children to stay out of poverty if you're already successful. I don't see a feedback loop that makes it hard to escape poverty. Why did the high school dropouts drop out in the first place, and why does that make their kid more likely to drop out? Ideally their kid should still have access to public school education, with all the tools needed to go on to become successful themselves. To be clear I'm not saying there is no poverty feedback loop, just that even taking what you've said about fundamental human preferences at face value it is not inevitable that it stay this way. We can improve our systems to make it easier for people to escape poverty. But this doesn't really have anything to do with billionaires. Many of the issues in these systems are not even for lack of funding, but inefficiently spent funding or other poorly designed incentives or bureaucratic rules that make things more difficult for poor people.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Ideally their kid should still have access to public school education, with all the tools needed to go on to become successful themselves. Ideally, but in reality public education is not an equalizer like that. Wealthy parents give their students advantages that school can't provide in our society: e.g. upper class culture and habits, resources for extra education, connections, etc. Even the institutional bits aren't equal: local property tax based funding mechanisms mean richer people live in better-resourced school districts than poorer people, with better educational opportunities.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - lilcorey10 6y ago
    What are examples of upper class culture or habits?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- vondur 6y ago
  When children have a rough family/home life growing up, that can create some big obstacles to overcome later in life. If their parents don't see a value in education, then the children tend to inherit that outlook took, thus continuing the cycle. Of course, some will work there way out of it, but I'd imagine that number is small compared to those who get stuck in it.
- CraigJPerry 6y ago
  > I don't see a feedback loop that makes it hard to escape poverty Really? You’re 16 years old, you’ve a high IQ and a passion for programming. Your parents are alcoholics. You don’t have nice clothes. You don’t have perfect manners because it’s just not the world you live in. How do you get to the university admissions interview in the next town? How will you compete against the mannerly, well turned out student with no record of truancy. All you have is a high IQ and a passion. Will that cut it? > incentives Actors are sometimes irrational, you can’t rely on incentives.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bumby 6y ago
    Bill Gates has openly admitted how much his environment helped. Being genetically gifted as he is is only part of the equation. He also grew up in an affluent enough area to have early to computers as well as the time and supportive environment to pursue it. I wonder if people who claim environment doesnt matter have spent any appreciable time in poor neighborhoods. The absolute best will usually find their way out. I think a society should optimize for beyond those who are just in the vanishing tail of the curve
    - webmaven 6y ago
      > Bill Gates has openly admitted how much his environment helped. Being genetically gifted as he is is only part of the equation. He also grew up in an affluent enough area to have early to computers as well as the time and supportive environment to pursue it. Not to mention the role his familial connections had in his landing that sweetheart deal with IBM.
      - dralley 6y ago
        For the unaware, his mom was an acquaintance of the IBM CEO by virtue of both serving on the board of United Way, and Microsoft came up in conversation between them. A few weeks later IBM contracted Microsoft to write the operating system for the first IBM "personal computer".
- Karrot_Kream 6y ago
  > Ideally their kid should still have access to public school education, with all the tools needed to go on to become successful themselves. > just that even taking what you've said about fundamental human preferences at face value it is not inevitable that it stay this way You're not wrong, but funding education is _expensive_, and education is only part of the puzzle, access is another large part of it, and so are the social norms you develop. My family and I grew up in "poverty-lite", and while I did manage to get into a great college, the adjustment was quite difficult. In high school I would show up to regional science fairs, and would often come in 2nd or 3rd place, and would lose to kids who used their high school's teacher's Masters thesis as a science project (for reference, in my school nobody even had a Masters degree.) Socially, I grew up very different from them. Where I grew up, you kept your head down and got in line. Disputes were aired out publicly, and often descended to fistfights if you were under 21. Textbooks were expensive, and my school often couldn't afford enough for everyone. I was constantly begging the librarian to borrow math books, but I never could because we didn't even have enough copies for the students in the actual class, let alone me, an interested kid. For my college peers money was never an issue. I used my good grades to become a TA as soon as I could, and I worked as many hours as I could so I could pay rent and make expenses while my friends seemed to have endless amounts of time to go to social hangouts and parties, which certainly blocked the connections I could make. Over the years I've made a handful of friends in tech who grew up in a similar income bracket as mine, and they remain comforting to me because even now, I have a hard time relating to the average Silicon Valley tech worker whose life started in upper-middle class gated suburbs.
  - svachalek 6y ago
    Yep. And good luck figuring out how to impress girls that spent every summer of their childhood in Paris and Switzerland.
    - chii 6y ago
      The incorrect assumption is that you need to impress those girls at all.
      - deleted 6y ago
centimeter 6y ago
Heritability studies suggest this is much more strongly mediated by genetic factors (such as IQ and time preference) than social factors.
- samcal 6y ago
  I'm not sure this holds up to scrutiny. My limited understanding of epigenetics means that social factors and genetic factors are not so easily separated, we'd need significantly more generations of data to show that.
  - SamReidHughes 6y ago
    We know it holds up to scrutiny, because the epigenetics excuse, constructed without the information supply needed to support it, doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    Non-heritable effects (including epigenetic) are estimated to contribute to less than 30% of population intelligence variance.
    - bccdee 6y ago
      If you were familiar with the data, you wouldn't make statements like that, because heritability is a population statistic, not a constant. It varies significantly between populations, to the point where you can't make claims about it without controlling for the population you're studying. For instance, we could say that the heritability of intelligence among the children of suburban Chicago families in a particular income bracket is 70%, but not that the heritability of intelligence in general is 70%.
      - xyzzyz 6y ago
        If you were familiar with the data, you wouldn't make statements like that, because heritability of intelligence is largely the same across all population studied so far, and universally high. There are exceptions, e.g. Scarr-Rowe effect is most likely real, but it only seems to work on very low end of SES range, which is virtually unseen in today's America, even at the lowest end of what counts as poverty.
bumby 6y ago
>It's pretty rare. I think it was in The Meritocracy Trap that spoke to how this is a relatively recent phenomenon that is exacerbates wealth inequality. Previously it appears to have intermarriage between social classes
- sizt 6y ago
  OMG this article is a complete load of S.H.I.T.
known 6y ago
Reminds me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates
benc666 6y ago
Thank you for this well-thought (and written) comment. Human nature - ignored at own peril.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
If they have those admirable middle class traits were they born that way? Or is cultural and social inheritance as influential as genetic inheritance? I used to live in an upper middle class area, and a worrying number of the people were very polished thieves. They spent an unholy amount of time fighting over inheritances with other family members and over property boundaries with neighbours. When they worked - inevitably as land owners, landlords, upmarket real estate agents, investment advisors, lawyers, company directors, horse breeders, and so on - they'd always pad their bills and expenses, inflate their prices, and cheat on their taxes. Were they "successful" - in the sense of being very comfortably off? Of course they were. Did they try to marry their own? Naturally - out of snobbery and opportunism if for no other reason. Were they admirable human beings or truly productive members of society? Not noticeably. Between the drink and drug problems, the predictable infidelities and ensuing dramas, and the polished and educated facade hiding feral greed and entitlement, they looked good from the outside - not so much from the inside. If you don't own shares/stocks to any significant extent your labour goes to supporting these people. They make a lot of money from "investments" and pretend this is a glorious, noble, and risky social service. In fact they're simply skimming money from the top of the economy into their own pockets - effectively wasting it when it could be put to work doing something innovative for future generations.
- timeeater 6y ago
  You have a weird concept of "thievery". If someone's prices are too high, don't hire them. If somebody doesn't pay enough, don't work for them. If you think they are skimming money, then there has to be a way to offer the same services cheaper (without the skimming). So instead of complaining, do it. What's your excuse?
  - cosmodisk 6y ago
    It's not about prices. He's referring to "crooks with suits and big smiles". We all met at least a few. They aren't your local drug dealers or some shady pawn shop owners. They are usually in pretty good jobs. Lawyers that only care about getting more money from the client rather then really helping them, dentists who do rush jobs so they could make more money, realtors,who flock properties and "forget" to mention important aspects that could have an impact on the decision. Business owners who take everyone they deal with for a ride and so on. And yes, they do live in nice houses and nice neighborhoods and can often be mistaken for decent people.

cactus2093 6y ago

In your explanation I see the feedback loop that makes it easier for you and your children to stay out of poverty if you're already successful. I don't see a feedback loop that makes it hard to escape poverty. Why did the high school dropouts drop out in the first place, and why does that make their kid more likely to drop out? Ideally their kid should still have access to public school education, with all the tools needed to go on to become successful themselves. To be clear I'm not saying there is no poverty feedback loop, just that even taking what you've said about fundamental human preferences at face value it is not inevitable that it stay this way. We can improve our systems to make it easier for people to escape poverty. But this doesn't really have anything to do with billionaires. Many of the issues in these systems are not even for lack of funding, but inefficiently spent funding or other poorly designed incentives or bureaucratic rules that make things more difficult for poor people.

ardy42 6y ago
> Ideally their kid should still have access to public school education, with all the tools needed to go on to become successful themselves. Ideally, but in reality public education is not an equalizer like that. Wealthy parents give their students advantages that school can't provide in our society: e.g. upper class culture and habits, resources for extra education, connections, etc. Even the institutional bits aren't equal: local property tax based funding mechanisms mean richer people live in better-resourced school districts than poorer people, with better educational opportunities.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- lilcorey10 6y ago
  What are examples of upper class culture or habits?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
vondur 6y ago
When children have a rough family/home life growing up, that can create some big obstacles to overcome later in life. If their parents don't see a value in education, then the children tend to inherit that outlook took, thus continuing the cycle. Of course, some will work there way out of it, but I'd imagine that number is small compared to those who get stuck in it.
CraigJPerry 6y ago
> I don't see a feedback loop that makes it hard to escape poverty Really? You’re 16 years old, you’ve a high IQ and a passion for programming. Your parents are alcoholics. You don’t have nice clothes. You don’t have perfect manners because it’s just not the world you live in. How do you get to the university admissions interview in the next town? How will you compete against the mannerly, well turned out student with no record of truancy. All you have is a high IQ and a passion. Will that cut it? > incentives Actors are sometimes irrational, you can’t rely on incentives.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bumby 6y ago
  Bill Gates has openly admitted how much his environment helped. Being genetically gifted as he is is only part of the equation. He also grew up in an affluent enough area to have early to computers as well as the time and supportive environment to pursue it. I wonder if people who claim environment doesnt matter have spent any appreciable time in poor neighborhoods. The absolute best will usually find their way out. I think a society should optimize for beyond those who are just in the vanishing tail of the curve
  - webmaven 6y ago
    > Bill Gates has openly admitted how much his environment helped. Being genetically gifted as he is is only part of the equation. He also grew up in an affluent enough area to have early to computers as well as the time and supportive environment to pursue it. Not to mention the role his familial connections had in his landing that sweetheart deal with IBM.
    - dralley 6y ago
      For the unaware, his mom was an acquaintance of the IBM CEO by virtue of both serving on the board of United Way, and Microsoft came up in conversation between them. A few weeks later IBM contracted Microsoft to write the operating system for the first IBM "personal computer".
Karrot_Kream 6y ago
> Ideally their kid should still have access to public school education, with all the tools needed to go on to become successful themselves. > just that even taking what you've said about fundamental human preferences at face value it is not inevitable that it stay this way You're not wrong, but funding education is _expensive_, and education is only part of the puzzle, access is another large part of it, and so are the social norms you develop. My family and I grew up in "poverty-lite", and while I did manage to get into a great college, the adjustment was quite difficult. In high school I would show up to regional science fairs, and would often come in 2nd or 3rd place, and would lose to kids who used their high school's teacher's Masters thesis as a science project (for reference, in my school nobody even had a Masters degree.) Socially, I grew up very different from them. Where I grew up, you kept your head down and got in line. Disputes were aired out publicly, and often descended to fistfights if you were under 21. Textbooks were expensive, and my school often couldn't afford enough for everyone. I was constantly begging the librarian to borrow math books, but I never could because we didn't even have enough copies for the students in the actual class, let alone me, an interested kid. For my college peers money was never an issue. I used my good grades to become a TA as soon as I could, and I worked as many hours as I could so I could pay rent and make expenses while my friends seemed to have endless amounts of time to go to social hangouts and parties, which certainly blocked the connections I could make. Over the years I've made a handful of friends in tech who grew up in a similar income bracket as mine, and they remain comforting to me because even now, I have a hard time relating to the average Silicon Valley tech worker whose life started in upper-middle class gated suburbs.
- svachalek 6y ago
  Yep. And good luck figuring out how to impress girls that spent every summer of their childhood in Paris and Switzerland.
  - chii 6y ago
    The incorrect assumption is that you need to impress those girls at all.
    - deleted 6y ago

centimeter 6y ago

Heritability studies suggest this is much more strongly mediated by genetic factors (such as IQ and time preference) than social factors.

samcal 6y ago
I'm not sure this holds up to scrutiny. My limited understanding of epigenetics means that social factors and genetic factors are not so easily separated, we'd need significantly more generations of data to show that.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  We know it holds up to scrutiny, because the epigenetics excuse, constructed without the information supply needed to support it, doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
- centimeter 6y ago
  Non-heritable effects (including epigenetic) are estimated to contribute to less than 30% of population intelligence variance.
  - bccdee 6y ago
    If you were familiar with the data, you wouldn't make statements like that, because heritability is a population statistic, not a constant. It varies significantly between populations, to the point where you can't make claims about it without controlling for the population you're studying. For instance, we could say that the heritability of intelligence among the children of suburban Chicago families in a particular income bracket is 70%, but not that the heritability of intelligence in general is 70%.
    - xyzzyz 6y ago
      If you were familiar with the data, you wouldn't make statements like that, because heritability of intelligence is largely the same across all population studied so far, and universally high. There are exceptions, e.g. Scarr-Rowe effect is most likely real, but it only seems to work on very low end of SES range, which is virtually unseen in today's America, even at the lowest end of what counts as poverty.

bumby 6y ago

>It's pretty rare. I think it was in The Meritocracy Trap that spoke to how this is a relatively recent phenomenon that is exacerbates wealth inequality. Previously it appears to have intermarriage between social classes

sizt 6y ago
OMG this article is a complete load of S.H.I.T.

known 6y ago

Reminds me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates

benc666 6y ago

Thank you for this well-thought (and written) comment. Human nature - ignored at own peril.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

If they have those admirable middle class traits were they born that way? Or is cultural and social inheritance as influential as genetic inheritance? I used to live in an upper middle class area, and a worrying number of the people were very polished thieves. They spent an unholy amount of time fighting over inheritances with other family members and over property boundaries with neighbours. When they worked - inevitably as land owners, landlords, upmarket real estate agents, investment advisors, lawyers, company directors, horse breeders, and so on - they'd always pad their bills and expenses, inflate their prices, and cheat on their taxes. Were they "successful" - in the sense of being very comfortably off? Of course they were. Did they try to marry their own? Naturally - out of snobbery and opportunism if for no other reason. Were they admirable human beings or truly productive members of society? Not noticeably. Between the drink and drug problems, the predictable infidelities and ensuing dramas, and the polished and educated facade hiding feral greed and entitlement, they looked good from the outside - not so much from the inside. If you don't own shares/stocks to any significant extent your labour goes to supporting these people. They make a lot of money from "investments" and pretend this is a glorious, noble, and risky social service. In fact they're simply skimming money from the top of the economy into their own pockets - effectively wasting it when it could be put to work doing something innovative for future generations.

timeeater 6y ago
You have a weird concept of "thievery". If someone's prices are too high, don't hire them. If somebody doesn't pay enough, don't work for them. If you think they are skimming money, then there has to be a way to offer the same services cheaper (without the skimming). So instead of complaining, do it. What's your excuse?
- cosmodisk 6y ago
  It's not about prices. He's referring to "crooks with suits and big smiles". We all met at least a few. They aren't your local drug dealers or some shady pawn shop owners. They are usually in pretty good jobs. Lawyers that only care about getting more money from the client rather then really helping them, dentists who do rush jobs so they could make more money, realtors,who flock properties and "forget" to mention important aspects that could have an impact on the decision. Business owners who take everyone they deal with for a ride and so on. And yes, they do live in nice houses and nice neighborhoods and can often be mistaken for decent people.