4 ms·

Believing that it's poor people's fault that they're poor - speaking of things no one ever backs up with data - is uniquely naive (and an extremely simplistic a

by eivarv 11y ago

Believing that it's poor people's fault that they're poor - speaking of things no one ever backs up with data - is uniquely naive (and an extremely simplistic attempt at an explanation). Also, note that having the quality of being "feel-good" does not invalidate an argument. When discussing this subject, I find that people mostly tend to really be arguing from how they make sense of the world (anecdotes, philosophy, political ideology, etc.) rather than saying anything useful about the world itself. For some reason, it also seems that this sort of thinking is especially prevalent (or at least visible) in the U.S., even though it compares poorly to other developed countries.

AstroChimpHam 11y ago
Believing it's most poor people's fault they're poor is the null hypothesis. We generally believe people's decisions matter. It's especially the null hypothesis for me, because this is what I grew up seeing with my own eyes, in my own family. It's even more so because the people I grew up with would have also said "it's not my fault I'm poor," even when I could clearly see them make bad decision after bad decision. Then there's the additional circumstantial evidence of seeing who invests in poor financial vehicles like lottery tickets and playing slot machines. Yes, I'd love to know these are all exceptions to the rule-- it would make me feel much better about the politics I'd like to believe, but the other camp is going to have to provide the data to back up their alternative hypothesis.
- eivarv 11y ago
  That's arguable [0]. The null hypothesis might as well be defined as there being no causal relationship between people's actions and their economic status. We do generally believe that people's decisions matter, but we also generally believe that context matters. People don't make decisions in vacuums, nor do all decisions matter. What the null hypothesis is or isn't does not change in your case, nor does multiple anecdotes equal data. While making irrational decisions with regard to one's economic situation and laying blame elsewhere is hypocritical, it is not behavior exclusive to poor people, and neither is "investing" in gambling. There is also the fact that poor people are not proven to consistently make these sorts of irrational choices. Any camp making any sort of claim is going to have to provide data. All the while, we have merrily ignored any other potential contributing factors, which will change depending on how we define poverty (absolute/relative, local/global, etc.) [0], including (off the top of my head): - History (e.g. colonialism, exploitation); - Government policy (discrimination, segregation, ethnic policies, etc.) [1, 2]; - Social attitudes/culture (stigma, prejudice, etc.) [3] - Nation status (underdeveloped nations ravaged by war, for instance); - Social mobility (auto-bootstrap-pulling, singular data points aside) [4]; - Risk factors in early development (lack of nutrition, stimuli and resources) [5, 6]; - Dumb luck (born into wealth, stumbling over winning lottery ticket). [0]: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration/glossary/poverty/ http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/theme... [1]: http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/01/11/discrimination-inequality-and-poverty-human-rights-perspective http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/01/11/discrimination-inequality... [2]: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/05/world/un-says-bad-government-is-often-the-cause-of-poverty.html http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/05/world/un-says-bad-governme... [3]: http://www.socialwatch.org/node/16324 http://www.socialwatch.org/node/16324 [4]: http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/issue_social_mobility.html http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/issue_social_mobility.ht... [5]: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/what-poverty-does-to-the-young-brain http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/what-poverty-does-to-... [6]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9673796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9673796

by eivarv 11y ago

AstroChimpHam 11y ago

Believing it's most poor people's fault they're poor is the null hypothesis. We generally believe people's decisions matter. It's especially the null hypothesis for me, because this is what I grew up seeing with my own eyes, in my own family. It's even more so because the people I grew up with would have also said "it's not my fault I'm poor," even when I could clearly see them make bad decision after bad decision. Then there's the additional circumstantial evidence of seeing who invests in poor financial vehicles like lottery tickets and playing slot machines. Yes, I'd love to know these are all exceptions to the rule-- it would make me feel much better about the politics I'd like to believe, but the other camp is going to have to provide the data to back up their alternative hypothesis.

eivarv 11y ago
That's arguable [0]. The null hypothesis might as well be defined as there being no causal relationship between people's actions and their economic status. We do generally believe that people's decisions matter, but we also generally believe that context matters. People don't make decisions in vacuums, nor do all decisions matter. What the null hypothesis is or isn't does not change in your case, nor does multiple anecdotes equal data. While making irrational decisions with regard to one's economic situation and laying blame elsewhere is hypocritical, it is not behavior exclusive to poor people, and neither is "investing" in gambling. There is also the fact that poor people are not proven to consistently make these sorts of irrational choices. Any camp making any sort of claim is going to have to provide data. All the while, we have merrily ignored any other potential contributing factors, which will change depending on how we define poverty (absolute/relative, local/global, etc.) [0], including (off the top of my head): - History (e.g. colonialism, exploitation); - Government policy (discrimination, segregation, ethnic policies, etc.) [1, 2]; - Social attitudes/culture (stigma, prejudice, etc.) [3] - Nation status (underdeveloped nations ravaged by war, for instance); - Social mobility (auto-bootstrap-pulling, singular data points aside) [4]; - Risk factors in early development (lack of nutrition, stimuli and resources) [5, 6]; - Dumb luck (born into wealth, stumbling over winning lottery ticket). [0]: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration/glossary/poverty/ http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/theme... [1]: http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/01/11/discrimination-inequality-and-poverty-human-rights-perspective http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/01/11/discrimination-inequality... [2]: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/05/world/un-says-bad-government-is-often-the-cause-of-poverty.html http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/05/world/un-says-bad-governme... [3]: http://www.socialwatch.org/node/16324 http://www.socialwatch.org/node/16324 [4]: http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/issue_social_mobility.html http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/issue_social_mobility.ht... [5]: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/what-poverty-does-to-the-young-brain http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/what-poverty-does-to-... [6]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9673796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9673796