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> You, like a real rich person, start to attribute success to your own individual skills and talents, and you become less attuned to all of the other things tha

> You, like a real rich person, start to attribute success to your own individual skills and talents, and you become less attuned to all of the other things that contributed to you being in the position that you're in. Rather than hammer an obvious point about the general bias against social services by the wealthy, I think it's more useful to point out the other side of the coin, which is that many poor people are poor not because of a direct lack of talent or skill but because of all the other things that contributed to them being in the position that they're in. There was another post recently on HN that compared poverty to a rogue background process that drains willpower, and yet another one about how entrepreneurs are disproportionally from well-to-do backgrounds. You can't take risks when you're poor, you don't have mobility, you can't pay for childcare, you spend time clipping coupons instead of reading... the list goes on.

rhizome 13y ago
It's the discounting of luck, as described by the Fundamental Attribution Error. The line you quote is about as short an example of the error as is possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
maxharris 13y ago
you can't pay for childcare Having children is a choice. There are no storks dropping babies into random homes. True, people do make bad choices for a variety of reasons (teen pregnancy, for example), but nearly every parent, including teens, have some idea that children are a major responsibility that require a considerable amount of care, attention and financial resources from their parents. This is not simply a matter of social/economic conditions or of genes. I remember being a teenager not all that long ago (I'm 32 now). The girls that got pregnant all knew better - I remember sitting through the same lectures in class that they did - but they made their choices. So if it's not social conditions or genes, what is it? I really think it boils down to ideas, which are accessible to anyone and everyone: 1) Life is for keeps. You only get one go at it, and that's it! 2) Your own life matters most, and it is possible to make something of it, if you try. 3) What's good for you does not come at the expense of other people. 4) How can you make your mark on the world if you're just starting out and all of your spare time is spent changing diapers? --- Your ideas are not determined by your social/economic conditions.^ If the ideas people held were simply a matter of economic conditions, no one would ever rise out of poverty. (I'd supply some names, but it's better if you just do a Google search for "poor people who became rich.") ^Nor are they determined by your genes - I won't delve into this because I'm assuming that this point is obvious.
- skunkworks 13y ago
  It's not just a choice in a vacuum, there are other things that contribute significantly to you making right and wrong choices, and specifically when it comes to making good life choices, a lot of those decisions are influenced negatively by poverty.
  - growupkids 13y ago
    Citation please. No but Seriously. This is just a series of platitudes: decisions are influenced negatively by poverty? Yes, and some are influenced positively by poverty, as in "this sucks and I don't want to be hungry anymore". I know it motivated me to see my parents struggle, to eat government cheese, and to move all the time because of the need for new work for my dad. Experience is a great teacher, and it motivated me to not make the same mistakes my parents made. Its not a zero sum game. Even being poor isn't poor anymore. When I was little, and we were poor, dirt poor in the backwoods of Tenessee we didn't have a phone, we had one kerosene heater, we lived on a dirt road, no health care, and we got our milk from the neighbors cow ( real milk kids is gross ). Compare that with the average "poor" person today, cell phone, government health insurance, clean safe water to drink, a government provided debit card to go shopping ( no govt cheese for them), paved roads! Yep, life's tough. They'll never get out of poverty. Maybe you're right. If it's too nice, why bother. I definitely didn't want to be backwoods poor, it positively influenced my decisions. I ain't poor no more.
    - skunkworks 13y ago
      You're welcome to dismiss my argument as a series of platitudes, but you should also agree to allow me to dismiss your story as a platitude, about how you were so determined not to be poor that it drove you to succeed. I'm not actually dismissing your story -- I am in no position to judge fairly -- but I'm trying to point out that the fundamental attribution bias and the closely related actor-observer bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93observer_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93observer_bias) are both powerful. What if your personality type made it such that you had a high likelihood of success whether you were rich or poor? Finally, with all this talk about "choice", let me go ahead and throw out a controversial statement: we have a lot less free will than we want to believe we do.

rhizome 13y ago

It's the discounting of luck, as described by the Fundamental Attribution Error. The line you quote is about as short an example of the error as is possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

maxharris 13y ago

you can't pay for childcare Having children is a choice. There are no storks dropping babies into random homes. True, people do make bad choices for a variety of reasons (teen pregnancy, for example), but nearly every parent, including teens, have some idea that children are a major responsibility that require a considerable amount of care, attention and financial resources from their parents. This is not simply a matter of social/economic conditions or of genes. I remember being a teenager not all that long ago (I'm 32 now). The girls that got pregnant all knew better - I remember sitting through the same lectures in class that they did - but they made their choices. So if it's not social conditions or genes, what is it? I really think it boils down to ideas, which are accessible to anyone and everyone: 1) Life is for keeps. You only get one go at it, and that's it! 2) Your own life matters most, and it is possible to make something of it, if you try. 3) What's good for you does not come at the expense of other people. 4) How can you make your mark on the world if you're just starting out and all of your spare time is spent changing diapers? --- Your ideas are not determined by your social/economic conditions.^ If the ideas people held were simply a matter of economic conditions, no one would ever rise out of poverty. (I'd supply some names, but it's better if you just do a Google search for "poor people who became rich.") ^Nor are they determined by your genes - I won't delve into this because I'm assuming that this point is obvious.

skunkworks 13y ago
It's not just a choice in a vacuum, there are other things that contribute significantly to you making right and wrong choices, and specifically when it comes to making good life choices, a lot of those decisions are influenced negatively by poverty.
- growupkids 13y ago
  Citation please. No but Seriously. This is just a series of platitudes: decisions are influenced negatively by poverty? Yes, and some are influenced positively by poverty, as in "this sucks and I don't want to be hungry anymore". I know it motivated me to see my parents struggle, to eat government cheese, and to move all the time because of the need for new work for my dad. Experience is a great teacher, and it motivated me to not make the same mistakes my parents made. Its not a zero sum game. Even being poor isn't poor anymore. When I was little, and we were poor, dirt poor in the backwoods of Tenessee we didn't have a phone, we had one kerosene heater, we lived on a dirt road, no health care, and we got our milk from the neighbors cow ( real milk kids is gross ). Compare that with the average "poor" person today, cell phone, government health insurance, clean safe water to drink, a government provided debit card to go shopping ( no govt cheese for them), paved roads! Yep, life's tough. They'll never get out of poverty. Maybe you're right. If it's too nice, why bother. I definitely didn't want to be backwoods poor, it positively influenced my decisions. I ain't poor no more.
  - skunkworks 13y ago
    You're welcome to dismiss my argument as a series of platitudes, but you should also agree to allow me to dismiss your story as a platitude, about how you were so determined not to be poor that it drove you to succeed. I'm not actually dismissing your story -- I am in no position to judge fairly -- but I'm trying to point out that the fundamental attribution bias and the closely related actor-observer bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93observer_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93observer_bias) are both powerful. What if your personality type made it such that you had a high likelihood of success whether you were rich or poor? Finally, with all this talk about "choice", let me go ahead and throw out a controversial statement: we have a lot less free will than we want to believe we do.