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It’s incredible how wording can be confusing to different readers. The HN title of this post is currently “the end of poverty has just begun” which made me thi
by hideo 5y ago
It’s incredible how wording can be confusing to different readers.
The HN title of this post is currently “the end of poverty has just begun” which made me think “just” = “recently”. So I thought the article would be about something that has indicated that the rate of poverty reduction has increased.
The URL says “history-of-poverty-has-just-begun” which made me think this is an article about historiography of poverty and how it’s not been cataloged well.
The article title says “The history of the end of poverty has just begun” which just completely confuses me.
The article subheading says “ The decline of global poverty is one of the most important achievements in history, but the end of poverty is still very far away.” which to me is a much more accurate summary of the article. Mainly that most of the world still lives on less than $30 a day. But some parts of the world have been uplifted from poverty recently.
My point I think is that, to me, a better post title would be something like “Poverty is only now starting to decline”
- jdthedisciple 5y agoI fully agree with you but I'd suggest simply adding the word "only" before "just" in the title, I think that's missing. I.e.: "The end of poverty has only just begun"
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago> a better post title would be something like “Poverty is only now starting to decline” But, excepting short-lasting wars and recessions, worldwide poverty has always been in decline: https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty https://data.worldbank.org/topic/11 https://data.worldbank.org/topic/11
- hideo 5y agoWhile I agree with you I think the actual article argues otherwise. It links to the same link as you.
- cryoz 5y agoChanged to the article title on the website.
- Isamu 5y ago> “Poverty is only now starting to decline” More like: progress has been made at extreme poverty ($1.90/day) and now we can upgrade our expectations to start to address basic poverty ($30/day).
- aszen 5y agoFolks 30 usd a day isn't basic poverty at all, it's what i used to earn as a software developer for some time. It's a pretty decent amount in a third world country
- ahahahahah 5y agoThat's right. That's why they are talking about PPP dollars, not USD. Read more here: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/icp/brief/poverty-ppps https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/icp/brief/poverty-ppps
- goodpoint 5y ago"extreme poverty" is a very arbitrary threshold and some charts are using a fixed threshold that is based on purchasing power and not updated based of *real* cost of life compared to what goods and services are enjoyed by less poor people. Furthermore, inequality is actually rapidly increasing in many societies. Yet, one can cherry-pick an arbitrary threshold making the whole analysis profoundly misleading.
- gruez 5y ago>that does not updated based of real cost of life Does being adjusted for PPP not do that?
- hkt 5y agoPPP is designed precisely to allow fair comparisons. The article refers to it as "international dollars". It is important to note it did not refer to USD anywhere: it is talking about $30PPP per day, which in real currency is a wildly variable amount but which buys approximately the same things. Without understanding the distinction between PPP and USD, it is not possible to fully comprehend the article.