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It's hard to look at visualizations like this and reflect on the experiences of the individuals living through hardship. Even those who 'make it out' may strugg

It's hard to look at visualizations like this and reflect on the experiences of the individuals living through hardship. Even those who 'make it out' may struggle in ways not fully captured in the data or this visualization. I grew up in a 'high risk environment', and experienced all the adverse experiences with the exception of gun violence (yay Canada). I'm one of the few that 'made it out'. Many of my childhood friends are dead (usually overdoses), suffer from substance abuse, or are still stuck in the poverty cycle (on average it takes 7 generation to break the cycle). I look at this visualization and I can feel, to my core, what these folks feel. Even for those that 'made it out', I feel for them. I struggle with my mental health, I've had to actively reparent myself, and I feel pretty lonely. Many of the people I'm surrounded by don't know what it feels like to carry all the weight from your childhood. I do agree that the government shouldn't just throw resources at the problem. There are some things the government can do, though. 1. Teach conflict resolution skills to young children. This mitigates adverse experiences and prepares the children for adulthood (especially if they 'make it out') 2. Address addiction as a health problem and not a criminal problem. Children don't need to see their parents as criminals, they need to witness them get better. 3. Reduce the burden of poverty. For instance, the poorer you are the further you have to travel to the grocery store. The people who often don't have the means to easily travel for food have to travel for food. 4. Access to education. The people I grew up around who have found success did so because our schools were really well equipped. You'll notice I didn't list access to support systems. Honestly, they are kind of useless. As a child you understand that if you open up about your experience there is a solid chance your parents will get in trouble or you'll be removed from your home. No child wants this. You end up holding it all in because you can't trust adults. These are just some of my thoughts. Definitely not comprehensive, I could ramble on about this for ages. (edit - formatting)

anon291 3y ago
Unfortunately a solid number of these things would rely on the moral equivalent of slavery. > Reduce the burden of poverty. For instance, the poorer you are the further you have to travel to the grocery store. The people who often don't have the means to easily travel for food have to travel for food. No one wants to work in these neighborhoods because they are invariably awful. At some point the risk of an employee being murdered / assaulted means stores close down. There's no good answer for this, other than to keep doing what we're doing. Our current economic system has consistently lifted large numbers of people out of poverty historically, and is still doing it today. We should at least give it a go for seven more generations. That's not to say we should do nothing, but large overhauls seem uncalled for given the data.
- richardlblair 3y ago
  My context is Canada where getting killed at work wouldn't been an issue. In the context I'm speaking about it would likely drive opportunity in low income neighborhoods. Canada also have horrific city planning, so when I say people need to travel far I mean they need to spend up to 3 hours in some major (major for us) cities just to get groceries. The US is a whole other can of worms, I don't know how to solve those problems. I'm also not as familiar with the nuances.
  - anon291 3y ago
    > Canada also have horrific city planning, so when I say people need to travel far I mean they need to spend up to 3 hours in some major (major for us) cities just to get groceries. I can't imagine anyone in a major US city spending 3 hours. Maybe rurally, but even the so-called 'food deserts' in a big city like LA ... it's just a few miles. At the end of the day, look... my mother taught in inner-city public schools. I know the problems these kids have. They're given meals and such (and they should be), but that is not going to solve a cheating father, a mother too depressed by said cheating to lift a finger to do anything (and maybe whoring herself out or doing drugs to damp the pain?), and a family that sees the child as a cash bag. I mean what are we possibly to do? You give the food and still the child doesn't get it. I feel these policies end up failing because the policy makers are from whole families (And are likely extremely socially conservative in their own life) and can't imagine anything so debased.
    - parpfish 3y ago
      3 hours seems plausible if you need to take a bus trip with a transfer. 1:15 each way on the bus and 30min in the store
      - richardlblair 3y ago
        Bingo. Especially in poorly laid out cities.
    - lazyasciiart 3y ago
jtriangle 3y ago
Not to mention, if you rat on your parents and get yanked into a group home, your experience is very likely the same or worse as it would be at home, and growing up, you know kids who this happened to and more or less have proof as to why you don't talk about it. I certainly saw this happen to people I knew, one of them lived with us for awhile and my folks arranged for her to live with a relative, which allowed them to really make it in life instead of being stuck in the system. Weirdly, after some initial trouble that looked impossible to overcome, it was very simple to get them placed into our home, and, very simple to get them in with a relative. Most of that was the workings of the social worker assigned to them, who was hard to reach out to, and very clearly over worked. Basically, there has to be a better intervention than just taking people's children away, which certainly keys into your points. I'd take it further to the point where, the poverty line is re-evaluated per locality, and inflation needs to be accurately reported, and with it the tax brackets as required by law. Then we need to dump the tax burden completely off the lowest earners, along with their requirement to file taxes at all. Then, we need to re-evaluate the bottom tiers to ramp in slowly to help eliminate welfare traps. It'd probably be a good idea, additionally, to no longer tax things like unemployment/workmen's comp/disability/social security/etc, for similar reasons. Reporting taxes itself is a burden all its own, and it negatively affects people who already struggle with math. Also, something that isn't currently done, and certainly should be done, is to create interactions between the kids who have poor situations with the kids that have good situations. My elementary school had a 'buddy' program, where the older kids would hang out in a structured way with the younger kids. I think it'd go a long way in terms of support to have a system where kids from the good side of town interact with kids from the bad side of town in that way, and to make it a K-12 program. You additionally get the side product of the kids who have better situations being able to socialize with, and therefore have empathy for, kids in bad situations, and real empathy at that, not "spend some more tax money" empathy, actual boots on the ground empathy, person to person.
- richardlblair 3y ago
  I had a lot of what you're talking about in your last paragraph in our Air Cadet program. I was exposed to a lot of different people, both adult volunteers and peers, from different walks of life. It had a really positive impact on my life.
nurple 3y ago
I'm 2 generations from immigrants on one side, 2 from pioneers and 1 from blue-collared work on the other. I wish more people could empathize with those who struggle within poverty as it is an incredibly hard row to hoe, not just physically, but also mentally. I think a lot of people take for granted what an impact a small amount of money, or the lack thereof, has on a person's ability to thrive and contribute to their community, and how much its impact on a person's mental health contributes to hopelessness and often ultimately substance abuse. I do like your thoughts on things the government could change. Frankly, though, I actually think they know these things but have perverse incentives to keep the population stratified. This country would financially crumble without the abuse of those in poverty for every one of those 7 generations, if not more. I think managing this pool of exploitable resources is actually a primary component of most govs immigration strategies.
no-dr-onboard 3y ago
> Teach conflict resolution skills to young children. This is pretty huge. A lot of my experience growing up in California during the 90s was "tell an adult" and "zero tolerance" coming down from school administrators. This is useful at a very young age, but it neglects to equip the children with agency for when the adults aren't around. You can't tell an adult when you're on the school bus and conflict breaks out. You can't tell an adult when you're out on a soccer trip and people are getting rowdy in the locker room. The bystander effect is very strong in school aged children because we neglect to introduce them to their inherent agency in conflict. There is also a degree of antifragility that parents could teach as well. Your emotions aren't reality. What people say about you isn't either. Again, these should come from parents.
- tomp 3y ago
  What do you mean? In the adult world, you'd just call the police. In the child world, sometimes you tell the adults, but they don't do anything, and the abuse continues. That's at least my experience with bullying in primary school. "Conflict resolution" and such virtue-signalling buzzwords don't work against violent bullies.
  - jaysinn_420 3y ago
    Call the police? I don't need two problems.
  - germinalphrase 3y ago
    The role of law enforcement is rarely about direct intervention to stop criminal behavior (or in your example, violent bullying). They investigate and, potentially, punish criminal behavior that has happened in the past. They act as a deterrent to crime, but also to vigilante justice. Conflict resolution provides the potential victim with agency to intervene in a situation on their own behalf. Of course, this doesn't preclude the option of calling the police. Why not expand someone's options for keeping safe?
  - hirsin 3y ago
    This is fairly literally how people watch a homeless guy get choked to death in the New-York subway. "Someone will call the cops eventually". No, you can't be a bystander, even if it might be dangerous.
fyrepuffs 3y ago
That's because Canada has safety nets for people. They have affordable healthcare and places to turn to if you're out of work and need assistance. It's because Canada is a compassionate society. It doesn't take this down right mean attitude of a "f-u" you're poor because it's your fault.
- g8oz 3y ago
  I think it's a compassionate society only when compared to the United States. Not if you compare it to a place like France, Germany or the Nordics. Those places have safety nets that Canadians would find unbelievably generous.
bccdee 3y ago
I'd love it if the government would throw resources at the problem, though. People act as if we're already flushing huge amounts of cash down the toilet of socialized benefits, but the fact is that the government has been extremely laissez-faire for decades. The midcentury boom was characterized by extensive intervention and public spending. There are much worse ways combat poverty than simply giving people public works jobs building the houses they need. Even direct cash transfers massively reduce the burden of poverty.

anon291 3y ago

Unfortunately a solid number of these things would rely on the moral equivalent of slavery. > Reduce the burden of poverty. For instance, the poorer you are the further you have to travel to the grocery store. The people who often don't have the means to easily travel for food have to travel for food. No one wants to work in these neighborhoods because they are invariably awful. At some point the risk of an employee being murdered / assaulted means stores close down. There's no good answer for this, other than to keep doing what we're doing. Our current economic system has consistently lifted large numbers of people out of poverty historically, and is still doing it today. We should at least give it a go for seven more generations. That's not to say we should do nothing, but large overhauls seem uncalled for given the data.

richardlblair 3y ago
My context is Canada where getting killed at work wouldn't been an issue. In the context I'm speaking about it would likely drive opportunity in low income neighborhoods. Canada also have horrific city planning, so when I say people need to travel far I mean they need to spend up to 3 hours in some major (major for us) cities just to get groceries. The US is a whole other can of worms, I don't know how to solve those problems. I'm also not as familiar with the nuances.
- anon291 3y ago
  > Canada also have horrific city planning, so when I say people need to travel far I mean they need to spend up to 3 hours in some major (major for us) cities just to get groceries. I can't imagine anyone in a major US city spending 3 hours. Maybe rurally, but even the so-called 'food deserts' in a big city like LA ... it's just a few miles. At the end of the day, look... my mother taught in inner-city public schools. I know the problems these kids have. They're given meals and such (and they should be), but that is not going to solve a cheating father, a mother too depressed by said cheating to lift a finger to do anything (and maybe whoring herself out or doing drugs to damp the pain?), and a family that sees the child as a cash bag. I mean what are we possibly to do? You give the food and still the child doesn't get it. I feel these policies end up failing because the policy makers are from whole families (And are likely extremely socially conservative in their own life) and can't imagine anything so debased.
  - parpfish 3y ago
    3 hours seems plausible if you need to take a bus trip with a transfer. 1:15 each way on the bus and 30min in the store
    - richardlblair 3y ago
      Bingo. Especially in poorly laid out cities.
  - lazyasciiart 3y ago

jtriangle 3y ago

Not to mention, if you rat on your parents and get yanked into a group home, your experience is very likely the same or worse as it would be at home, and growing up, you know kids who this happened to and more or less have proof as to why you don't talk about it. I certainly saw this happen to people I knew, one of them lived with us for awhile and my folks arranged for her to live with a relative, which allowed them to really make it in life instead of being stuck in the system. Weirdly, after some initial trouble that looked impossible to overcome, it was very simple to get them placed into our home, and, very simple to get them in with a relative. Most of that was the workings of the social worker assigned to them, who was hard to reach out to, and very clearly over worked. Basically, there has to be a better intervention than just taking people's children away, which certainly keys into your points. I'd take it further to the point where, the poverty line is re-evaluated per locality, and inflation needs to be accurately reported, and with it the tax brackets as required by law. Then we need to dump the tax burden completely off the lowest earners, along with their requirement to file taxes at all. Then, we need to re-evaluate the bottom tiers to ramp in slowly to help eliminate welfare traps. It'd probably be a good idea, additionally, to no longer tax things like unemployment/workmen's comp/disability/social security/etc, for similar reasons. Reporting taxes itself is a burden all its own, and it negatively affects people who already struggle with math. Also, something that isn't currently done, and certainly should be done, is to create interactions between the kids who have poor situations with the kids that have good situations. My elementary school had a 'buddy' program, where the older kids would hang out in a structured way with the younger kids. I think it'd go a long way in terms of support to have a system where kids from the good side of town interact with kids from the bad side of town in that way, and to make it a K-12 program. You additionally get the side product of the kids who have better situations being able to socialize with, and therefore have empathy for, kids in bad situations, and real empathy at that, not "spend some more tax money" empathy, actual boots on the ground empathy, person to person.

richardlblair 3y ago
I had a lot of what you're talking about in your last paragraph in our Air Cadet program. I was exposed to a lot of different people, both adult volunteers and peers, from different walks of life. It had a really positive impact on my life.

nurple 3y ago

I'm 2 generations from immigrants on one side, 2 from pioneers and 1 from blue-collared work on the other. I wish more people could empathize with those who struggle within poverty as it is an incredibly hard row to hoe, not just physically, but also mentally. I think a lot of people take for granted what an impact a small amount of money, or the lack thereof, has on a person's ability to thrive and contribute to their community, and how much its impact on a person's mental health contributes to hopelessness and often ultimately substance abuse. I do like your thoughts on things the government could change. Frankly, though, I actually think they know these things but have perverse incentives to keep the population stratified. This country would financially crumble without the abuse of those in poverty for every one of those 7 generations, if not more. I think managing this pool of exploitable resources is actually a primary component of most govs immigration strategies.

no-dr-onboard 3y ago

> Teach conflict resolution skills to young children. This is pretty huge. A lot of my experience growing up in California during the 90s was "tell an adult" and "zero tolerance" coming down from school administrators. This is useful at a very young age, but it neglects to equip the children with agency for when the adults aren't around. You can't tell an adult when you're on the school bus and conflict breaks out. You can't tell an adult when you're out on a soccer trip and people are getting rowdy in the locker room. The bystander effect is very strong in school aged children because we neglect to introduce them to their inherent agency in conflict. There is also a degree of antifragility that parents could teach as well. Your emotions aren't reality. What people say about you isn't either. Again, these should come from parents.

tomp 3y ago
What do you mean? In the adult world, you'd just call the police. In the child world, sometimes you tell the adults, but they don't do anything, and the abuse continues. That's at least my experience with bullying in primary school. "Conflict resolution" and such virtue-signalling buzzwords don't work against violent bullies.
- jaysinn_420 3y ago
  Call the police? I don't need two problems.
- germinalphrase 3y ago
  The role of law enforcement is rarely about direct intervention to stop criminal behavior (or in your example, violent bullying). They investigate and, potentially, punish criminal behavior that has happened in the past. They act as a deterrent to crime, but also to vigilante justice. Conflict resolution provides the potential victim with agency to intervene in a situation on their own behalf. Of course, this doesn't preclude the option of calling the police. Why not expand someone's options for keeping safe?
- hirsin 3y ago
  This is fairly literally how people watch a homeless guy get choked to death in the New-York subway. "Someone will call the cops eventually". No, you can't be a bystander, even if it might be dangerous.

fyrepuffs 3y ago

That's because Canada has safety nets for people. They have affordable healthcare and places to turn to if you're out of work and need assistance. It's because Canada is a compassionate society. It doesn't take this down right mean attitude of a "f-u" you're poor because it's your fault.

g8oz 3y ago
I think it's a compassionate society only when compared to the United States. Not if you compare it to a place like France, Germany or the Nordics. Those places have safety nets that Canadians would find unbelievably generous.

bccdee 3y ago

I'd love it if the government would throw resources at the problem, though. People act as if we're already flushing huge amounts of cash down the toilet of socialized benefits, but the fact is that the government has been extremely laissez-faire for decades. The midcentury boom was characterized by extensive intervention and public spending. There are much worse ways combat poverty than simply giving people public works jobs building the houses they need. Even direct cash transfers massively reduce the burden of poverty.