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Growing up I always thought poor people are poor because they are lazy. But I realised later that I was soo wrong. Life is an unpredictable mess. Sometimes even

Growing up I always thought poor people are poor because they are lazy. But I realised later that I was soo wrong. Life is an unpredictable mess. Sometimes even when you try your hardest due to some things that are not in your hands you can end up on the other side. I want to quote Morgan Housel here "Some people are born into families that encourage education; others are against it. Some are born into flourishing economies encouraging of entrepreneurship; others are born into war and destitution. I want you to be successful, and I want you to earn it. But realize that not all success is due to hard work, and not all poverty is due to laziness. Keep this in mind when judging people, including yourself"

Aeolun 5y ago
Most of my success is due to great circumstances, but I’m still really happy I grew up in those.
- ahel 5y ago
  > but I'm still really happy I grew up in those. Of course you should be happy and grateful. Being born in any circustance is not something anybody can decide. It's even worse when people feel bad about having born in or having good circustamces.
pydry 5y ago
>Growing up I always thought poor people are poor because they are lazy. This is a message that the American media tries to get us to internalize through selective storytelling: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-true-story-behind-the-welfare-queen-stereotype https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-true-story-behind-the-...
humanrebar 5y ago
I'm very against judging people. That being said, we do a disservice to our youth if we overemphasize the role of luck in being in poverty or not. There are strong correlations between poverty and lifestyle choices people typically do have control over. - Starting your career before having children. In many cases, this implies finishing a certain amount of school and/or training. - Marrying a responsible person and staying married - Avoiding substance abuse - Planning your pregnancies [1] - Avoiding a criminal record [2] And then there are risk mitigation strategies to avoid catastrophe: - Establishing an emergency fund - Living within your means - Getting insurance and keeping up with payments - Avoiding high risk investments and career moves [3] I guess I feel that people who have figured out the basics are hesitant to preach what they practice. All of the above seems like a given to people who are comfortably middle class. But if you didn't have wise parents and nobody says anything out of an overemphasis on empathy, you could make any of those mistakes easily and then get treated like a fool. [1] Tragically, some people are raped and become pregnant against their will, which is why we shouldn't judge folks, but the mass majority of pregnancies do not happen for this reason. Considering the abortion rate for married women, it seems that accidental pregnancy is actually very common. [2] Again, don't judge. People are falsely convicted of crimes. People have criminal family members. People make dumb choices and learn their lessons. But being violent over beefs or going for joy rides in stolen cars is just setting yourself up to struggle financially. [3] If it's too good to be true, it probably is.
- watwut 5y ago
  1.) The biggest predictor of your wealth is wealth of your parents. Given that class mobility is so low, I think that luck of being born to right familly matters a lot. 2.) Rich people marry more often. There is strong cultural expectation that you marry oafter you are self sufficient and stable. However, being married does not make you rich. 3.) If you are establishing emergency fund, then you are less poor. Also, poor don't do career choices, they have jobs or don't have jobs.
  - humanrebar 5y ago
    Who said anything about being rich? I was talking about avoiding poverty. I was talking about what we should be teaching the young. Being born into a family that knows how to avoid unforced mistakes is absolutely important. Especially if society is to busy emoting about poverty to teach young people the "secrets" of avoiding it. I pointed out that the emergency fund is a risk management strategy. It's for people eke their way into some money. Telling poor people to just have savings is useless, but that wasn't what I was saying.
    - watwut 5y ago
      It seem that statistically, people who don't make unenforced errors still don't change social class. You want to change the topic from "how people actually become and start in their social classes" into different one. As if telling truth about current social and economic structures should not be said, because someone may make one more mistake as a result. Like in particular teenage pregnancies are going down while social mobility also goes down. Non pregnant teenagers are still unlikely go from poor to non poor. Avoiding powerty is something you do when you start in higher class and prevents falling. But most poor were born that way was my point. Lastly, if my daughter got pregnant, she would be able to get enough financial support from me to finish high school and college. It would sux, but she would not become poor because of that.

Aeolun 5y ago

Most of my success is due to great circumstances, but I’m still really happy I grew up in those.

ahel 5y ago
> but I'm still really happy I grew up in those. Of course you should be happy and grateful. Being born in any circustance is not something anybody can decide. It's even worse when people feel bad about having born in or having good circustamces.

pydry 5y ago

>Growing up I always thought poor people are poor because they are lazy. This is a message that the American media tries to get us to internalize through selective storytelling: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-true-story-behind-the-welfare-queen-stereotype https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-true-story-behind-the-...

humanrebar 5y ago

I'm very against judging people. That being said, we do a disservice to our youth if we overemphasize the role of luck in being in poverty or not. There are strong correlations between poverty and lifestyle choices people typically do have control over. - Starting your career before having children. In many cases, this implies finishing a certain amount of school and/or training. - Marrying a responsible person and staying married - Avoiding substance abuse - Planning your pregnancies [1] - Avoiding a criminal record [2] And then there are risk mitigation strategies to avoid catastrophe: - Establishing an emergency fund - Living within your means - Getting insurance and keeping up with payments - Avoiding high risk investments and career moves [3] I guess I feel that people who have figured out the basics are hesitant to preach what they practice. All of the above seems like a given to people who are comfortably middle class. But if you didn't have wise parents and nobody says anything out of an overemphasis on empathy, you could make any of those mistakes easily and then get treated like a fool. [1] Tragically, some people are raped and become pregnant against their will, which is why we shouldn't judge folks, but the mass majority of pregnancies do not happen for this reason. Considering the abortion rate for married women, it seems that accidental pregnancy is actually very common. [2] Again, don't judge. People are falsely convicted of crimes. People have criminal family members. People make dumb choices and learn their lessons. But being violent over beefs or going for joy rides in stolen cars is just setting yourself up to struggle financially. [3] If it's too good to be true, it probably is.

watwut 5y ago
1.) The biggest predictor of your wealth is wealth of your parents. Given that class mobility is so low, I think that luck of being born to right familly matters a lot. 2.) Rich people marry more often. There is strong cultural expectation that you marry oafter you are self sufficient and stable. However, being married does not make you rich. 3.) If you are establishing emergency fund, then you are less poor. Also, poor don't do career choices, they have jobs or don't have jobs.
- humanrebar 5y ago
  Who said anything about being rich? I was talking about avoiding poverty. I was talking about what we should be teaching the young. Being born into a family that knows how to avoid unforced mistakes is absolutely important. Especially if society is to busy emoting about poverty to teach young people the "secrets" of avoiding it. I pointed out that the emergency fund is a risk management strategy. It's for people eke their way into some money. Telling poor people to just have savings is useless, but that wasn't what I was saying.
  - watwut 5y ago
    It seem that statistically, people who don't make unenforced errors still don't change social class. You want to change the topic from "how people actually become and start in their social classes" into different one. As if telling truth about current social and economic structures should not be said, because someone may make one more mistake as a result. Like in particular teenage pregnancies are going down while social mobility also goes down. Non pregnant teenagers are still unlikely go from poor to non poor. Avoiding powerty is something you do when you start in higher class and prevents falling. But most poor were born that way was my point. Lastly, if my daughter got pregnant, she would be able to get enough financial support from me to finish high school and college. It would sux, but she would not become poor because of that.