Half my childhood I grew up in poor conditions. The stress of everything just drenches you. People traumatizing each other, young and old, in their stress and grief. The poor dull each other. Dulled minds are handed down. Poverty is not just economic fact, it is a state of mind.
How were your sleep patterns? I'm frankly amazed we don't consider that stress and sleep are two sides of the same physiological coin - the autonomic nervous system. Sleep is quite simply the recovery from stress and the damage caused.
Yes. I remember in my high school there was some essay to describe the childhood. The writing was meant to be nostalgic and what not with happy memories. My writing was filled with stress, pain and anxiety. School shoes wearing out, how will I get new school shoes? Growing up, damn, how will I get new clothes?
An interesting question I've had recently, which isn't necessarily directly related to the subject of the article is, "how does access to technology affect brain development?"
When I was a kid, my family was dirt poor, in a fairly literal sense. That was the early to mid 80's and while I was reasonably bright as a student, access to technology really did hold me back.
I didn't get my hands on a computer until high school (in '90), and that was a broken C-64 that I had to fix myself. I didn't have a TV to connect it to. I had to earn enough to buy an old black and white TV at a garage sale before I could even get it working.
My whole life I felt that this is what held me back, and so when the time came, I endeavored to make sure my kids had access to technology if they were interested.
But now I see where tech has headed. They've had computers, but mostly pads and phones their entire lives. It seems almost like these platforms have DULLED their imagination to some extent.
I wonder in the coming generations, if we will see some sort of correlation with access to tech in one's formative years. Especially given the intentionally addictive nature of many of the apps that have become popular in recent years. Also as tech has become ubiquitous and cheap, access it not entirely defined by economics anymore either.
Success is far more than raw intelligence. I'll be interesting to see how all of that plays out in the next generation or two.
My understanding is that the strongest predictors of success that psychologists know about are:
1. Intelligence
2. Conscientiousness [1]
It's also my understanding that these factors usually are correlated under 40% as success predictors. Seems that a lot of it is just plain luck and/or environment. I don't see raw intelligence not being important towards success anytime soon but I don't doubt how as access to information/technology increases, that other factors will begin to dominate as differentiating factors.
I would absolutely agree with your hypothesis about the future. Kids these days don't have the kind of access to technology that you describe - the kind of access that inspires you to take something apart to see how it works, put it back together, explore what you can make it do - they have access to polished, streamlined advertisement-serving systems.
These systems (video streaming and children's games immediately come to mind) are designed to keep kids glued to the screen in order to maximize ad revenue. Any other goal is secondary, if considered at all. The genuine sense of discovery and creation which stems from having a blank & boring canvas to paint on has been replaced with stimuli-drenched dopamine-driven curated experiences. No room for imagination, no need for wonder.
In your life, those years, it did not hold you back except when you compare yourself to a very small group of people who 1) had access 2) took advantage of said access. I'm imagining you probably compared yourself to the kid in War Games (1983) and wish you had the same access to hardware/modems/etc.
Truth is, at least anecdotally, most kids that had access back then didn't really dive into it. Hacking and programming in general was not something everyone was doing. Your interest alone gave you an edge even though access came later in life.
Present day, I think it's similar but different. Access is very high. Interest is still low, but definitely much higher than it was and increasing. The kids now who grow up consuming apps/social/etc are not helping themselves at all. Just like how getting cable TV "technology" in the 80s helped no one. The kids who regularly use a keyboard are the kids who have both access & interest to actually be a maker. And for most makers, the keyboard part still comes later like it did for you. What has increased is the support system for learning. Schools are getting involved, tons of startups revolve around learning to code, etc and of course the social stigma of being a nerd has flipped entirely. Not only have nerds become cool, or at least tolerable, computers do not necessarily equate to nerd like they used to.
That all said, in absolute terms there are more makers now than in the past and there will be more. Also, I feel, most of the low hanging fruit has been eaten. Which at some point means all these makers will need/want to solve bigger problems than we have to date and this is what's really interesting about the next couple of generations in tech.
I also grew up dirt poor, had a C-64, etc. I'm a little less than a decade younger than you.
I taught myself to program, but very poorly. I had a reasonably good education through high school, but nothing that helped developed my tech skills. I could not afford an education beyond that.
My older brother was a sys admin, so I got good at that. Started my tech career in support and languished for a decade or so of low (progressively higher) paying tech jobs.
It wasn't until I knew developers in my personal life that I was able to identify exactly what I was missing to turn my programming hobby professional. I filled in all of those gaps over about 3 years of brutally hard work. I quit working and ran through my savings + some debt just to study and build a portfolio. It wasn't until I was in my 30s that I could change careers and do what I'd always wanted.
As a counter point, I've always felt that a main thing holding people back was desire & drive. You not having "it" lead to you cultivating a desire and a drive to acquire.
I grew up poor or lower middle class. But later my parents' finances improved and my siblings grew up upper middle class.
I can tell you there is huge difference between my siblings especially youngest and I when it comes to finance and career.
1. They barely save any money, live pretty lavish lifestyle for what they earn. I pretty much focus on saving. Sometimes, I will skip important events, dinners, etc because I haven't met my savings goal. Before I got married, I lived in 33% of after tax income.
(My friends split in two groups after college, those who upgraded their lifestyle as they earned more money, and those who either kept college lifestyle as long as possible or did not earn a lot after college to upgrade their life style. I remained friend with later group only.)
2. My siblings don't take shit form their bosses, quit jobs without finding next one. I worry too much about my job, answer phone or emails after work etc.
3. My siblings will quit jobs and travel or find themselves or whatever. I have never ever voluntarily quit job without finding next job.
4. My siblings will risk significant amount of their savings in various ventures. I only invest in index funds.
5. They buy stuff on impulse. I will research best deals.
I can go on and on about difference in our mentality but main point is that somehow even with 6 figure income, I fear poverty more than I should. And they pretty much live as if money is unlimited resource.
This also causes issues with my wife though she lived in poverty a bit too, so she understands my fears.
My background mirrors yours, but I'm not the miser you seem to be. I've never made a six figure income and it took years to get to a comfortable income.
I also married and had children young. I've pretty much given up on saving and spend what I can to insure my kids have a brighter future.
Correlation is not causation, but most factors say yes. Moreover, the brain health of families is not generally a consideration in school systems. If kids are under toxic stress and not sleeping enough to recover, their brains won't develop to their full potential. That science is well-understood from animal models and glimpsed in human neuroimaging studies.
"If kids are under toxic stress and not sleeping enough to recover, their brains won't develop to their full potential. That science is well-understood from animal models and glimpsed in human neuroimaging studies."
I'm in education. I'd like to learn more about these statements. Can you recommend what/where I should search?
>Moreover, the brain health of families is not generally a consideration in school systems
Has anyone succeeded in making it a consideration and shown results?
>If kids are under toxic stress and not sleeping enough to recover, their brains won't develop to their full potential.
That begs more questions. Which child is using their brains to its full potential? What does 'full' mean here anyway? and how far away from 'full' are we talking about.
>That science is well-understood from animal models and glimpsed in human neuroimaging studies.
There is a study often cited by Thomas Sowell, which is never, ever mentioned by those on the political left in the US and never mentioned by the far right in the US -- as it goes against the narrative of both those groups. The study found that the school aged children of African American servicemen in Germany had the same average IQ as their classmates.
Something we're doing to large numbers of urban children in the US is morally equivalent to putting lead in the water. It's largely been the political left in the US which has had control of large urban areas. The culture of the US in the 1st half of the 20th century wasn't harmful in this way. Poles and Italians were able to increase their average IQ's to parity with the US as a whole in that period. African Americans were also making progress in that period, but this stopped in the 1960's.
One of the historical patterns which comes across in Thomas Sowell's work is that of minority elites continuing the cultural isolation of their own group to maintain their own power. One of the chief tools of maintaining cultural isolation is identity politics.
Integration and fighting redlining are pretty "left" goals as are school lunch programs and their ilk that attempt to alleviate some of the stress at home. You won't hear "AA/POC have lower IQs" because of the soundbites, but you definitely hear "Everyone has the right to a safe and stable home life" / "Kids deserve equal opportunity in schools" - all attempts at preventing the damage being cited here (or rather, getting the outcomes seen in the study). It doesn't need to be talked about directly because there's actual work to be done about it.
I can see how such a story is against the 'right/racist' narrative as they think race has a major influence on intelligence, but why doesn't it fit the 'left' narrative which seems to categorize humans based on their social class?
I am not well read enough on the subject to have my own opinion. My summary of his words: The average score of an IQ test is defined as 100, so the raw intelligence each score represents changes over time as population intelligence changes over time. Some nations have seen an increase in average IQ of 20 points. There is a difference of IQ between African Americans and the rest of the US population, but that can be explained as being socially isolated, and the same difference can be found in other socially isolated populations.
*
Edit: I am embarrassed to have linked to such a publication, but will not modify my original words.
Having "control" over cities does not mean being able to cancel out systemic racism and discrimination. That doesn't mean I give the left a pass, but it has been a constant fight to make progress of any kind, especially given that cities don't often have the resources to deal with systemic issues. Cities are on the front line of these issues doing symptom relief (affordable housing, homelessness etc). It often requires legislation to tackle systemic issues, like redlining[0].
To compound that, a lot of urban areas that are "controlled by the left" are at the mercy of their state governments for a lot of funding and the ability to make major changes. Some states are disallowing their cities from enforcing their own minimum wage increases while also enshrining discrimination as legal.
Expecting cities to be able to take on a national issue stemming from the enslavement of millions of people and the subsequent economic subjugation of said people is like expecting developers to be able to take on decades old technical debt while completing their day to day work.
> It's largely been the political left in the US which has had control of large urban areas.
Control of what, exactly? Inheriting a broken series of communities from the weight of the history of slavery? Let's remember the US's history of slavery and Jim Crow did to these communities and how hard the urban north fought against it while the south reveled in it.
Also let's remember northern urban African-Americans didn't live under the constant threat of lynching like their southern counterparts did, so the conservative handling of black communities was far worse historically and a lot of the northern urban systems were overwhelmed by southern migration to the north to escape these very social issues! Its like chasing jews out of your country than laughing at the jewish ghettos in the country next door.
>Poles and Italians were able to increase their average IQ's to parity with the US as a whole in that period.
People without a history of being slaves here and, of course, people with white skin. This isn't apples to apples.
I really think you're missing the forest for the trees here in some hamfisted attempt to blame everything on the bogeyman "of the left." You can't just dismiss racism and the legacy of the Jim Crow era as a non-existent factor in the lives of black communities.
As for progress peaking in the 60s lets remember how Republicans treated blacks during and after the civil rights movement. Its no coincidence.
Lee Atwater on using blacks as society's scapegoats to push for tax cuts and other unrelated policies by driving race hate as much possible in he GOP's Southern Strategy.
You start in 1954 by saying ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘Nigger.’ That hurts you. It backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states rights and all that stuff and you get so abstract. Now you talk about cutting taxes and these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that’s part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract and that coded, we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. Obviously sitting around saying we want to cut taxes and we want this, is a lot more abstract than even the busing thing and a hell of a lot more abstract than nigger nigger. So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.
The book "How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character" by Paul Tough is a nice primer on this topic. The book includes findings from the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study [1] that points at a link between adverse childhood experiences childhood trauma with health and social problems later in life.
Of course, growing up in poverty doesn't automatically mean you'll have a higher ACE level, nor does it mean you cannot change your outcomes, but it does tend to offer more traumatic experiences than children outside of poverty.
Growing up poor I think I had more stress then my peers but there was also an element of street smartness which I realised my friends simply lacked. As poor was pretty shameless asserting my needs or optimising for my benefit at the expense of others where as my rich friends seemed to not understand my selfish behaviour.
For example when I was offered a job I negotiated 200% more salary upfront. The HR person was shocked but later we settled on 140% more. Where my other friend made much much less.
Poverty is a state of mind but it had other benefits too in my case.
The other side of the coin (having grown up dirt poor, nearly starved to death as a child) is that by the time I hit 45 about half my high school class was already dead. Mostly alcohol and the sorts of accidents that come from working dangerous jobs.
Only a couple really made it out and thrived, of the ones that remain many are broken and on barbiturates or meth, still just trying to make it through the day somehow.
I work with a lot of people now who grew up wealthy on the east coast or in Orange County, and they often just don't believe me that people starved to death a couple states over while they were summering at the Hamptons. These venn diagrams just don't mix, ever.
The ability of a population to sometimes come up with incredible solutions does not negate the theory that growing up poor harms brain development.
You have structured your post as a criticism or denial of the point in the article, but your post is just a logical fallacy that makes no sense. Additionally, your post suggests that you think poverty is almost a desirable situation, you show no compassion or concern for the 40 million Americans living in poverty or how the system of American capitalism has left so many of them with likely brain development problems.
You dismiss leading science and modern culture for an attitude that certaintly doesn't belong in reasonable conversation online or anywhere. Your post is effectively 'F the poor, nothing is wrong with the situation, they are smart enough to get out of the whole we put them in, who cares about trying to help them or even understand what poverty is like'.
Could a contributing factor be the quality of food that easier to access when poor? I grew up in a slightly higher than poverty environment and had to cook when my mom was at work. I was probably an exception, all my friends would eat frozen prepared meals and fast food.
Calories certainly do not equal proper vitamins, enzymes and amino acids, required for a developing living being. Frozen meals and fast food have plenty of empty calories and can put the body in survival mode, storing more fat and leading to blood sugar issues, to say the least. Thoughts?
Nutrition is definitely a factor, but probably not the major one.
I think the number one factor is probably access to parental attention.
It's shocking how much better an elementary age student can do when there is a parent to remind them about a homework project that is due. Or be available to answer a question on basic math or the meaning of a word.
Even in two equally driven students, self learning gets stuck at home in ways parents can unblock if they have the time and energy to do it.
Being poor is not something you can tell someone, you need to live it to experience the horror, you are despised and disrespected for something you had no control over
I don't know about brain development but I think that it tends to encourage narrowmindedess.
When you only have a few options and choosing the wrong one is potentially devastating, you tend to zero in on the safe and sure choice. Iterate on this a million times and you have a person who will tend to stick to the status quo and dismiss other options.
In my experience, I have recognized cycles of trauma. My mom grew up in poverty with food insecurity and her dad was an abusive alcoholic- so much that when he passed away it was like good riddance. He was so abusive my grandmother refused to remarry.
I didn't grow up with food insecurity but I remember that a $1 ice cream sandwich or slice of pizza was a luxury until I got my first job.
My first relationship was with an abusive person. He tried to control what I eat, separate me from my friends and family, and almost destroyed me. It was only when a friend recommended me a book Why Does He Do That? that I recognized in horror that not only was he abusive, I saw the same red flags in another relationship, my parents...
Environment is so important, sometimes I see this cycle in others. I'm afraid when you come from an abusive environment sometimes you don't know any better. You don't know how you should or deserve to be treated.
I saw a documentary about two young girls that were the first in their families to graduate high school and go to college in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the USA [1]. It was a feel good documentary and then I looked up the students on Facebook. One student was now a teen mom and the other had dropped out of college and was working at McDonald's. She was publicly crying for help on her Facebook personal page on why her life was so miserable. I understand that feeling to feel cursed just for being alive.
I believe she may have been bullied by her wealthier classmates... Separated from her support network, bullied, and struggling to learn as well as go to school, I feel like her odds were heavily stacked against her to begin with. (And that's what Shanti Bhavan discovered too. You can't help them go to college and leave them hanging, you have to support them through college).
However, I've also seen incredible stories of strength from some of the poorest places on earth. Shanti Bhavan [2], Barefoot College [3], and SECMOL [4] have done and are doing incredible work!
My uneducated belief is that what all three of those places have in common is their deep love and unwavering belief for their students whether they are children or an illiterate grandmother training to be a solar engineer- as well as arming them with skills to work and provide for their families (probably the major key- that's how they gain their confidence).
Maybe that's one way to tackle poverty as a mental health issue. Help traumatized communities that might be in a cycle of trauma to break abusive mindsets. Teach needed skills, confidence, and financial literacy, so they can believe that they can be more than a teen mom or like my mom, locked in an abusive marriage or relationship from financial dependence.
I sincerely hope that poor American children today are not being treated worse than children from families who live with less than $1/day. In that sense, I believe instead of tackling poverty as neurological/biological, we should also investigate the environmental and behavioral.
As another movement says, violent communities don't need more police officers but mental health counselors.
As for anyone who says that the poor are lazy, please read about the salt farmers of India in Gujarat [5]. Watch My Name is Salt [6] to see how they farm salt for 8 months for almost nothing. You will never be able to call the poor lazy after seeing that.
everything is about the environment. If you have an under stimulating environment then even your health is affected.
Read about the WWII pregnant survivors of holocaust where their lack of food evolved into the fetus being stingy with proteins and sugars and now they are experiencing health problems because now their body stores more than it needs and weight gain and other health factors arose.
So yes, environment can be detrimental to not only brain, but full physiological development
[+] [-] Antimachides|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wnevets|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robg|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyencomper|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amrx101|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomp|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] plurgid|8 years ago|reply
When I was a kid, my family was dirt poor, in a fairly literal sense. That was the early to mid 80's and while I was reasonably bright as a student, access to technology really did hold me back.
I didn't get my hands on a computer until high school (in '90), and that was a broken C-64 that I had to fix myself. I didn't have a TV to connect it to. I had to earn enough to buy an old black and white TV at a garage sale before I could even get it working.
My whole life I felt that this is what held me back, and so when the time came, I endeavored to make sure my kids had access to technology if they were interested.
But now I see where tech has headed. They've had computers, but mostly pads and phones their entire lives. It seems almost like these platforms have DULLED their imagination to some extent.
I wonder in the coming generations, if we will see some sort of correlation with access to tech in one's formative years. Especially given the intentionally addictive nature of many of the apps that have become popular in recent years. Also as tech has become ubiquitous and cheap, access it not entirely defined by economics anymore either.
Success is far more than raw intelligence. I'll be interesting to see how all of that plays out in the next generation or two.
[+] [-] Endama|8 years ago|reply
1. Intelligence 2. Conscientiousness [1]
It's also my understanding that these factors usually are correlated under 40% as success predictors. Seems that a lot of it is just plain luck and/or environment. I don't see raw intelligence not being important towards success anytime soon but I don't doubt how as access to information/technology increases, that other factors will begin to dominate as differentiating factors.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness
[+] [-] Liquix|8 years ago|reply
These systems (video streaming and children's games immediately come to mind) are designed to keep kids glued to the screen in order to maximize ad revenue. Any other goal is secondary, if considered at all. The genuine sense of discovery and creation which stems from having a blank & boring canvas to paint on has been replaced with stimuli-drenched dopamine-driven curated experiences. No room for imagination, no need for wonder.
[+] [-] conductr|8 years ago|reply
Truth is, at least anecdotally, most kids that had access back then didn't really dive into it. Hacking and programming in general was not something everyone was doing. Your interest alone gave you an edge even though access came later in life.
Present day, I think it's similar but different. Access is very high. Interest is still low, but definitely much higher than it was and increasing. The kids now who grow up consuming apps/social/etc are not helping themselves at all. Just like how getting cable TV "technology" in the 80s helped no one. The kids who regularly use a keyboard are the kids who have both access & interest to actually be a maker. And for most makers, the keyboard part still comes later like it did for you. What has increased is the support system for learning. Schools are getting involved, tons of startups revolve around learning to code, etc and of course the social stigma of being a nerd has flipped entirely. Not only have nerds become cool, or at least tolerable, computers do not necessarily equate to nerd like they used to.
That all said, in absolute terms there are more makers now than in the past and there will be more. Also, I feel, most of the low hanging fruit has been eaten. Which at some point means all these makers will need/want to solve bigger problems than we have to date and this is what's really interesting about the next couple of generations in tech.
[+] [-] busterarm|8 years ago|reply
I taught myself to program, but very poorly. I had a reasonably good education through high school, but nothing that helped developed my tech skills. I could not afford an education beyond that.
My older brother was a sys admin, so I got good at that. Started my tech career in support and languished for a decade or so of low (progressively higher) paying tech jobs.
It wasn't until I knew developers in my personal life that I was able to identify exactly what I was missing to turn my programming hobby professional. I filled in all of those gaps over about 3 years of brutally hard work. I quit working and ran through my savings + some debt just to study and build a portfolio. It wasn't until I was in my 30s that I could change careers and do what I'd always wanted.
[+] [-] ythn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xeoncross|8 years ago|reply
Self motivation > resources
[+] [-] thaumaturgy|8 years ago|reply
Poverty linked to epigenetic changes and mental illness: https://www.nature.com/news/poverty-linked-to-epigenetic-cha...
Childhood poverty linked to brain changes related to depression: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/news/childhood-poverty-link...
What Poverty Does to Your Brain: https://www.attn.com/stories/2442/effects-poverty-brain-ment...
What Poverty Does to the Young Brain: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/what-poverty-does-to...
'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result: http://www.philly.com/philly/health/20130721__Crack_baby__st...
How Poverty Taxes the Brain: https://www.citylab.com/life/2013/08/how-poverty-taxes-brain...
Freeing Up Intelligence: https://scholar.harvard.edu/sendhil/publications/freeing-int...
Growing Up Poor Is Bad for Your Brain: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vvb4gy/growing-up...
These articles should be pretty good reads on the subject. Let me know if any of them are especially weak.
[+] [-] throwaway5787|8 years ago|reply
I can tell you there is huge difference between my siblings especially youngest and I when it comes to finance and career.
1. They barely save any money, live pretty lavish lifestyle for what they earn. I pretty much focus on saving. Sometimes, I will skip important events, dinners, etc because I haven't met my savings goal. Before I got married, I lived in 33% of after tax income.
(My friends split in two groups after college, those who upgraded their lifestyle as they earned more money, and those who either kept college lifestyle as long as possible or did not earn a lot after college to upgrade their life style. I remained friend with later group only.)
2. My siblings don't take shit form their bosses, quit jobs without finding next one. I worry too much about my job, answer phone or emails after work etc.
3. My siblings will quit jobs and travel or find themselves or whatever. I have never ever voluntarily quit job without finding next job.
4. My siblings will risk significant amount of their savings in various ventures. I only invest in index funds.
5. They buy stuff on impulse. I will research best deals.
I can go on and on about difference in our mentality but main point is that somehow even with 6 figure income, I fear poverty more than I should. And they pretty much live as if money is unlimited resource.
This also causes issues with my wife though she lived in poverty a bit too, so she understands my fears.
[+] [-] etqwzutewzu|8 years ago|reply
See references here: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/5802/do-first-b...
[+] [-] pnutjam|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robg|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heymijo|8 years ago|reply
I'm in education. I'd like to learn more about these statements. Can you recommend what/where I should search?
[+] [-] ksk|8 years ago|reply
Has anyone succeeded in making it a consideration and shown results?
>If kids are under toxic stress and not sleeping enough to recover, their brains won't develop to their full potential.
That begs more questions. Which child is using their brains to its full potential? What does 'full' mean here anyway? and how far away from 'full' are we talking about.
>That science is well-understood from animal models and glimpsed in human neuroimaging studies.
Could you elaborate?
[+] [-] lr4444lr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stcredzero|8 years ago|reply
Something we're doing to large numbers of urban children in the US is morally equivalent to putting lead in the water. It's largely been the political left in the US which has had control of large urban areas. The culture of the US in the 1st half of the 20th century wasn't harmful in this way. Poles and Italians were able to increase their average IQ's to parity with the US as a whole in that period. African Americans were also making progress in that period, but this stopped in the 1960's.
One of the historical patterns which comes across in Thomas Sowell's work is that of minority elites continuing the cultural isolation of their own group to maintain their own power. One of the chief tools of maintaining cultural isolation is identity politics.
[+] [-] hirsin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JepZ|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lev99|8 years ago|reply
https://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2002/10/01/race...
I am not well read enough on the subject to have my own opinion. My summary of his words: The average score of an IQ test is defined as 100, so the raw intelligence each score represents changes over time as population intelligence changes over time. Some nations have seen an increase in average IQ of 20 points. There is a difference of IQ between African Americans and the rest of the US population, but that can be explained as being socially isolated, and the same difference can be found in other socially isolated populations.
* Edit: I am embarrassed to have linked to such a publication, but will not modify my original words.
[+] [-] okreallywtf|8 years ago|reply
To compound that, a lot of urban areas that are "controlled by the left" are at the mercy of their state governments for a lot of funding and the ability to make major changes. Some states are disallowing their cities from enforcing their own minimum wage increases while also enshrining discrimination as legal.
Expecting cities to be able to take on a national issue stemming from the enslavement of millions of people and the subsequent economic subjugation of said people is like expecting developers to be able to take on decades old technical debt while completing their day to day work.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|8 years ago|reply
Control of what, exactly? Inheriting a broken series of communities from the weight of the history of slavery? Let's remember the US's history of slavery and Jim Crow did to these communities and how hard the urban north fought against it while the south reveled in it.
Also let's remember northern urban African-Americans didn't live under the constant threat of lynching like their southern counterparts did, so the conservative handling of black communities was far worse historically and a lot of the northern urban systems were overwhelmed by southern migration to the north to escape these very social issues! Its like chasing jews out of your country than laughing at the jewish ghettos in the country next door.
>Poles and Italians were able to increase their average IQ's to parity with the US as a whole in that period.
People without a history of being slaves here and, of course, people with white skin. This isn't apples to apples.
I really think you're missing the forest for the trees here in some hamfisted attempt to blame everything on the bogeyman "of the left." You can't just dismiss racism and the legacy of the Jim Crow era as a non-existent factor in the lives of black communities.
As for progress peaking in the 60s lets remember how Republicans treated blacks during and after the civil rights movement. Its no coincidence.
Lee Atwater on using blacks as society's scapegoats to push for tax cuts and other unrelated policies by driving race hate as much possible in he GOP's Southern Strategy.
You start in 1954 by saying ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘Nigger.’ That hurts you. It backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states rights and all that stuff and you get so abstract. Now you talk about cutting taxes and these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that’s part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract and that coded, we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. Obviously sitting around saying we want to cut taxes and we want this, is a lot more abstract than even the busing thing and a hell of a lot more abstract than nigger nigger. So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
[+] [-] sethjgore|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonbigbootay|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeleeorg|8 years ago|reply
Of course, growing up in poverty doesn't automatically mean you'll have a higher ACE level, nor does it mean you cannot change your outcomes, but it does tend to offer more traumatic experiences than children outside of poverty.
[1] https://www.samhsa.gov/capt/practicing-effective-prevention/...
[+] [-] Karishma1234|8 years ago|reply
For example when I was offered a job I negotiated 200% more salary upfront. The HR person was shocked but later we settled on 140% more. Where my other friend made much much less.
Poverty is a state of mind but it had other benefits too in my case.
[+] [-] ourcat|8 years ago|reply
It's astounding what people in that situation can come up with.
[+] [-] matte_black|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crunchlibrarian|8 years ago|reply
Only a couple really made it out and thrived, of the ones that remain many are broken and on barbiturates or meth, still just trying to make it through the day somehow.
I work with a lot of people now who grew up wealthy on the east coast or in Orange County, and they often just don't believe me that people starved to death a couple states over while they were summering at the Hamptons. These venn diagrams just don't mix, ever.
[+] [-] cryptoz|8 years ago|reply
The ability of a population to sometimes come up with incredible solutions does not negate the theory that growing up poor harms brain development.
You have structured your post as a criticism or denial of the point in the article, but your post is just a logical fallacy that makes no sense. Additionally, your post suggests that you think poverty is almost a desirable situation, you show no compassion or concern for the 40 million Americans living in poverty or how the system of American capitalism has left so many of them with likely brain development problems.
You dismiss leading science and modern culture for an attitude that certaintly doesn't belong in reasonable conversation online or anywhere. Your post is effectively 'F the poor, nothing is wrong with the situation, they are smart enough to get out of the whole we put them in, who cares about trying to help them or even understand what poverty is like'.
[+] [-] LinuxBender|8 years ago|reply
Calories certainly do not equal proper vitamins, enzymes and amino acids, required for a developing living being. Frozen meals and fast food have plenty of empty calories and can put the body in survival mode, storing more fat and leading to blood sugar issues, to say the least. Thoughts?
[+] [-] ghostbrainalpha|8 years ago|reply
I think the number one factor is probably access to parental attention.
It's shocking how much better an elementary age student can do when there is a parent to remind them about a homework project that is due. Or be available to answer a question on basic math or the meaning of a word.
Even in two equally driven students, self learning gets stuck at home in ways parents can unblock if they have the time and energy to do it.
[+] [-] peter_retief|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrguyorama|8 years ago|reply
A significant contingent of the population does not believe that to be true.
[+] [-] andrewl|8 years ago|reply
https://neuroethics.upenn.edu/portfolio-items/childhood-pove...
[+] [-] arvinsim|8 years ago|reply
When you only have a few options and choosing the wrong one is potentially devastating, you tend to zero in on the safe and sure choice. Iterate on this a million times and you have a person who will tend to stick to the status quo and dismiss other options.
[+] [-] known|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robg|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] camdenreslink|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Regardsyjc|8 years ago|reply
I didn't grow up with food insecurity but I remember that a $1 ice cream sandwich or slice of pizza was a luxury until I got my first job.
My first relationship was with an abusive person. He tried to control what I eat, separate me from my friends and family, and almost destroyed me. It was only when a friend recommended me a book Why Does He Do That? that I recognized in horror that not only was he abusive, I saw the same red flags in another relationship, my parents...
Environment is so important, sometimes I see this cycle in others. I'm afraid when you come from an abusive environment sometimes you don't know any better. You don't know how you should or deserve to be treated.
I saw a documentary about two young girls that were the first in their families to graduate high school and go to college in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the USA [1]. It was a feel good documentary and then I looked up the students on Facebook. One student was now a teen mom and the other had dropped out of college and was working at McDonald's. She was publicly crying for help on her Facebook personal page on why her life was so miserable. I understand that feeling to feel cursed just for being alive.
I believe she may have been bullied by her wealthier classmates... Separated from her support network, bullied, and struggling to learn as well as go to school, I feel like her odds were heavily stacked against her to begin with. (And that's what Shanti Bhavan discovered too. You can't help them go to college and leave them hanging, you have to support them through college).
However, I've also seen incredible stories of strength from some of the poorest places on earth. Shanti Bhavan [2], Barefoot College [3], and SECMOL [4] have done and are doing incredible work!
My uneducated belief is that what all three of those places have in common is their deep love and unwavering belief for their students whether they are children or an illiterate grandmother training to be a solar engineer- as well as arming them with skills to work and provide for their families (probably the major key- that's how they gain their confidence).
Maybe that's one way to tackle poverty as a mental health issue. Help traumatized communities that might be in a cycle of trauma to break abusive mindsets. Teach needed skills, confidence, and financial literacy, so they can believe that they can be more than a teen mom or like my mom, locked in an abusive marriage or relationship from financial dependence.
I sincerely hope that poor American children today are not being treated worse than children from families who live with less than $1/day. In that sense, I believe instead of tackling poverty as neurological/biological, we should also investigate the environmental and behavioral.
As another movement says, violent communities don't need more police officers but mental health counselors.
As for anyone who says that the poor are lazy, please read about the salt farmers of India in Gujarat [5]. Watch My Name is Salt [6] to see how they farm salt for 8 months for almost nothing. You will never be able to call the poor lazy after seeing that.
[1] Oyler documentary: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B06ZY7Z66X
[2] Daughters of Destiny Netflix documentary: http://www.shantibhavanchildren.org/netflix/
[3] Bunker Roy, founder of Barefoot College TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/bunker_roy
[4] Sonam Wangchuk, founder of SECMOL TED talk: https://youtu.be/t5-Dea7rpRg
[4] Jungwa, The Broken Balance is a documentary by a SECMOL grad on how climate change is affecting his home in Ladakh, India: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/jungwathebrokenbalance
[5] https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2016/08/salt-fa...
[6] https://www.amazon.com/My-Name-Salt-Farida-Pacha/dp/B01MDK9N...
More resources on poverty:
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
[+] [-] jonjojr|8 years ago|reply
Read about the WWII pregnant survivors of holocaust where their lack of food evolved into the fetus being stingy with proteins and sugars and now they are experiencing health problems because now their body stores more than it needs and weight gain and other health factors arose.
So yes, environment can be detrimental to not only brain, but full physiological development
[+] [-] pressurefree|8 years ago|reply
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