I went through a few years of unstable income in my early twenties (circa 2000), it wasn't altogether bad, just very very sporadic. When I think back on those years I had all kinds of bad behaviours that were not rational. For example, not paying bills because something more urgent might come up. Not looking at balances because it was easier to not know.
I would go from feeling rich one month because a freelance client had paid a bill, to not having a cent a month later.
There were times when it felt like I was running a pyramid scheme on myself. Needing to use money from a previous job to buy computer hardware to sell to the next client.
In retrospect, I was also too proud to ask for help. I let things get way out of control before my mother ended up taking out a personal loan to bail me out at one point. If I had asked for help earlier it would have been a cheaper problem to solve.
It took years to shed some of the residual behaviours, even after I started earning decent money. Despite having savings and reliable income I would still let bills run until they were overdue.
These days I'm a lot more proactive about personal finances and good money management, but it's hard to tell how much of that is just maturity, and how much is the fact that I no longer have problems with unstable income.
>It took years to shed some of the residual behaviours, even after I started earning decent money. Despite having savings and reliable income I would still let bills run until they were overdue.
You wouldn't believe how many "wealthy" people do the exact same thing including not paying their subcontractors etc. My dad used to do electric installations in new built homes. Usually the larger the house and the wealthier the owner more excuses there would be when the time to pay came.Some of those "clients" took 2 years to get money out of them. Doing that to a small contractor you owe is pretty bad behaviour, but at the same time I can understand prioritising your outgoings if you have let's say an annual gas bill review and you know they'll not come after you until you're 3 months late. In such situation paying 89 days late is perfectly reasonable. Nothing bad about it.
And as a young person in your early 20's this is all bad enough, but I am going to read into it a little more and infer you were single. Now imagine if you had children to feed, the additional stress and additional expense probably would have broke you (financially, which happened anyway, and mentally). Not to mention knowing the effect of all this stress on your children and their developing minds.
This study is an odd way of looking at what is already established and known...instability has a detrimental cognitive and psychological effect on people, in particular children, but its not limited to children and extends to people with fully developed brains.
I sill get anxiety at looking at my bank account, even though it hasn't been at 2 figures for years - I'm still fighting that dread of having to go "how am I going to pay for rent" even though I now own a home.
> it wasn't altogether bad, just very very sporadic. When I think back on those years I had all kinds of bad behaviours that were not rational. For example, not paying bills because something more urgent might come up. Not looking at balances because it was easier to not know.
I never had unstable income (maybe wishing I had more), but I definitely had some degree of these specific bad behaviors.
I feel (financial) maturity is a big part of this; As a parent now, I'm being intentional on how my kids earn allowance and think about spending.
For example, not paying bills because something more urgent might come up
Nothing wrong with this behavior as long as you pay on the due date. Schedule automatic payments on the due date & you'll hang on to the cash as long as possible, and you also won't forget to make payments & incur fees.
Oh how I can relate. It's been about a year now since I closed my failed startup, and still no webdev job after many interviews. After a year of countless applications, interviews and networking with no result (insanely repetitive and people can sense the desperation) things start to spiral. I get this sense from friends and family that they begin to think something's wrong with me and distance themselves - not to mention being unable to afford to do much.
There is something about spending too much time on the same problem that may drive a person insane. I think it might create deep valleys over certain neural pathways that are shared with other important functions. For example after a year of grinding on the same problem of "get job" my mind has become hyper sensitive to patterns and hidden meanings like never before. I'll see a leaf blowing in the wind and my mind will sometimes slip into interpreting it as some symbolic message from the universe to help me find a job. In a way I can sort of understand these homeless guys that walk the streets talking to themselves - they might just be further along, so deep in this pattern recognition psychosis from trying to survive that their brains are telling them the whole world is talking to them directly.
> I can sort of understand these homeless guys that walk the streets talking to themselves
Good for you man. I honestly believe that every person should lose their mind at least once. Once you've built up some insane reality, it'll always be there, and the space between is (IMO) kind of special. It's amazing how one can hold two completely contradictory storylines of the world in their head. And for me it helps with groking how different the inside of other peoples minds can be. How real it can feel. How fake my real is. How just as plausible their real could be.
For those interested, one of the easiest cheapest ways to lose your mind is to go live out in the woods for a while (bush fever). Seriously, if you've never had your bubble burst, it might do you some good.
Hey, would love to connect. I’ve been looking for a few who’ve been there and have appropriate skills. Can be remote/nomadic. Not sure how HN works on the backend - are you able to send me an email or PM?
A very important skill I learned is to catch myself spending too much time solving the same problem head on, fire an interrupt, step back and rethink. In most of the cases, approaching the problem from a different angle, reformulating it, or just saying "Fuck it. Plan B now." is much more viable than ramming yourself into the same closed door over and over again.
The article acknowledges that the study does not show causation and it seems a little strange to think a causal arrow in this direction is more plausible than the other direction. It seems like people who do better at thinking and memory tasks should also do better at their jobs and interviews and therefore be less likely to experience an income drop. To speculate on income drop's effect on mental acumen one would want to measure intelligence at the beginning of a career and in middle age and then correlate the delta to number and size of income drops.
Poverty harms children. It's possible it harms young adults as well. The sooner we dismiss the notion that we need the poverty to motivate us to work and adopt some form of basic income, the better.
It might be cheaper too than current system when you consider all the harm that poverty does to economy and workers.
A nice variant of basic income is minimal tax return when everyone gets tax return proportional to a small percentage of the total tax collected past year. This would allow to gradually reduce other forms of social payments, without introducing arbitrary fixed values for the amount of basic income.
> Objective: Income volatility presents a growing public health threat. To our knowledge, no previous study examined the relationship among income volatility, cognitive function, and brain integrity.
> Methods: We studied 3,287 participants aged 23–35 years in 1990 from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults prospective cohort study. Income volatility data were created using income data collected from 1990 to 2010 and defined as SD of percent change in income and number of income drops ≥25% (categorized as 0, 1, or 2+). In 2010, cognitive tests (n = 3,287) and brain scans (n = 716) were obtained.
> Results: After covariate adjustment, higher income volatility was associated with worse performance on processing speed (β = −1.09, 95% confidence interval [CI] −1.73 to −0.44) and executive functioning (β = 2.53, 95% CI 0.60–4.50) but not on verbal memory (β = −0.02, 95% CI −0.16 to 0.11). Similarly, additional income drops were associated with worse performance on processing speed and executive functioning. Higher income volatility and more income drops were also associated with worse microstructural integrity of total brain and total white matter. All findings were similar when restricted to those with high education, suggesting reverse causation may not explain these findings.
> Conclusion: Income volatility over a 20-year period of formative earning years was associated with worse cognitive function and brain integrity in midlife.
Is sticking a shotgun in your mouth because one doctor visit consumed all your life's savings a "thinking problem"? Because I'm seeing a lot of that I don't think it's just a problem some pill will fix.
I'm not sure how to parse this. But I do want to say that you can overcome losing your life savings or losing a loved one or other significant losses. It's emotionally hard. But it can even be a moment of personal growth. Stoic philosophy is a good resource for western audiences looking to handle problems coping with loss.
Well it could be a lot of different things. No money for good food, sports and a lot of stress that accompanies having no steady source of income etc..
I was thinking the same, as an extra ingredient in the recipe. Nutrition and good health habits (avoid smoking, avoid excessive drinking of alcohol or sodas, sleep the necessary for your well-being, practice some sport, etc) are essentials you can't ignore.
Getting low grades on exams is also linked to thinking problems in later years, we should automatically assign the same grade to all children to help them to become smarter </s>
Note that peer groups have a lot to do with thinking problems in general. If you are poor or broke and hang out with poor or broke people, your thinking will be different.
Also, people tend to hang out with other people making roughly the same as them, which compounds the problem.
This study followed 23 to 35 year olds. This is post college for most people. Probably a good reason to not go to grad school (income drop) unless you have a financial buffer!
This is not a comment to undermine the effect of the hardship of having a precarious situation, but it must be said that scientifically, it is impossible to conclude a causality vs a correlation.
I am not saying that this is true, but it is possible that people with unsteady incomes are more risk-taking, which in itself is a psychological traits which may be linked to poorer performance in iq-like test in middle age.
Researchers found when compared to people with no income drops, people with two or more income drops had smaller total brain volume. People with one or more income drops also had reduced connectivity in the brain, meaning there were fewer connections between different areas of the brain.
One of the things I find difficult is sharing. Even to close friends, but I don't feel the need to. Maybe I just have been hanging out with the wrong people lately, which I have stopped seeing recently - and to which I have been feeling better since. I'll have to give some thought into the the word "difficult" I decided to use - but I'll leave that for some other time.
I have been teaching myself programming on and off for a few years now. After having had some health issues last year, I ended up five days in a public hospital and stopped programming until earlier this year when I took it up again.
The experience in that hospital was bizarrely amusing, but I won't digress. I'm guessing the onset was due to some combination of stress and/or burnout. After the hospital it took months to recuperate.
In that time I didn't have much energy would do some light reading and came across an article, right here on HN about sourdough.
All in all, having a hobby helps. And I'm quite fortunate to have a family that provides food and a roof. But it is taxing on so many levels not to be able to help out, to provide. And with the upcoming holidays it gets hard. It hits me hard.
F*. When I started writing this I did not expect it to take that turn. Let's get back on track.
Right. I picked up programming again earlier this year. Funnily, things started to click. I don't know why, maybe the break helped. Anyhow, looking for jobs is another thing that takes a toll on you. I've never worked in the industry, nor have I had a job for too long. I try to search for jr. jobs and when I do find one, the rejection after rejection does not make it easy.
And despite the sorrow sounding note of this, this is just me venting to strangers on the net. And by the age of the thread, few people will read, if any at all.
I stopped talking to the few acquaintances. People who weren't contributing anything positive in my life. And I have to say, I have been more productive since.
I'm currently learning django. Reading Eloquent Javascript and practicing my vim skills - which I took up recently out of necessity. Funnily I found myself trying to use vim keybindings last time I opened up Visual Studio Code.
And that's not to mention all the other tabs that are open. A back-burner of things I want to learn.
Things may get tough, as they always will. But it's all about knowing when to slow down. Take a deep breath, and every now and then, vent.
Cue the "I was from a poor family and I got into Stanford, everybody should be able to it" from people who don't understand how life, statistics, outliers, and relative effort required (for a middle/class rich kid playing in "easy mode" to succeed, versus a poor kid playing the "extra hard mode").
People who confuse what's possible but 10x more difficult for some income groups/backgrounds, to be the same as being equally possible and as easy. Or that think that just because some outliers managed to win the hard mode, everybody should be able to (and are just lazy if they don't) - while ignoring lucky breaks and mitigating circumstances in their case, e.g. you might be poor, but not have a parent sick to take care of. Or you might be an immigrant, but have parents working their ass off to get you to college. Or you might have a stable family as opposed to abuse. Or your teachers might not care at all to encourage you.
This is not about telling people not to try. This is about recognizing that even trying is not "equally easy", and that outlier success stories doesn't mean the game is not rigged against those from poor backgrounds. And perhaps finding ways to fix this issues (e.g. reducing poverty, abuse, stress factors for poor people, better educational districts, and so on).
As one of those people (I didn't go to Stanford, but I did move a few rungs up the socioeconomic ladder), I take issue with your point. It's not helpful.
There is definitely a culture of anti-intellectualism and escapism among the poor in the US (my background). Sure, the rich kids have it easy and it's super easy to sit around feeling bad about that but in many, many cases people could better themselves with a modicum of effort.
I grew up asking everyone (friends, family, neighbors): Why won't you read book? Why do you "hate" math? Why are computers "for nerds"? Why do you spend all of your time watching football?
I'm now much more successful than the people who ignored or derided me during that time period.
Was it easy for me to get ahead? No. But it is possible; oh and I wasn't one of those people with parents who worked hard, a good family life or supportive community around me. I was on my own.
This is an important point. I came from a less well off family in Scotland and when younger considered many of my peers to be lacking intelligence or ambition in life. Then a while ago I dated a girl also from that town and got an insight into just how lucky I was. It never occurred to her that she could possibly go to uni until the last month of school (despite being one of the most intelligent people I've ever met) whereas my dad and godmother explained it and encouraged me when I was 10. We might have had similar-ish circumstances in many ways, but just a few early role models made us vastly different in our views of what was possible.
You may think people have lots of opportunities but that's not useful if they're not aware they have those opportunities.
I wonder if it's "fixable", though. I come from a lower-middle-class family, so does my wife; we're upper-middle-class now. Our kids are nowhere near as "driven" as we were... but, to the extent that we can, of course we're going to use all our resources to make them more successful than they "deserve". It's basic human nature, yes the game is rigged, because if you come from a family that is both stable & well-off, your family will naturally provide much more support than the society could provide to the average Joe. I'm not sure how that can change ever (or even if it's desirable to try to change it).
The downside of being raised in a well-off family (at least anecdotally/ from my circle of friends) is that the children already have almost everything they could desire, and they take this stuff for granted, and as such they tend to put less effort into "life". Yes they need less effort to be successful - but they are also used to "less effort", so they don't try as hard. This balances the game a little, for those less fortunate. But I can totally see how if your background is too bad, the game is actively rigged against you, and it's not humanly possible to overcome your condition. That's probably where the society needs to focus the most.
>...the game is not rigged against those from poor backgrounds
Rigged isn't a fair word, it's just reality.
Also, as another commenter pointed out, there are people that are successful in a wide range of ways, money is just one of them. And those that had it easy early on often times don't do well later in life when things can get hard.
Edit: I spent time on the streets as a teen (yes it affected me) but my siblings did not, but they are worse off then me. I hit bottom and bounced back, they are still struggling in many ways. (not just money)
Absolutely. But it is great for the extremely rich to be able to point to the few new e.g billionaires each generation as examples that anything is possible and if you are not then you must be lazy.
I understand where you're coming from and there are definitely statistics and luck at play in the game of like, but I don't fully agree with your conclusion.
As someone who also came from a slightly lower income background I had a lot of support encouraging me to cultivate a habit of reading and from my parents that helped me heaps. Anecdotally, I know many people who came from much higher socioeconomic backgrounds who grew in the exact same environment as I did, couldn't care less about sciences, learning, etc.
The United States has a huge problem of anti-intellectualism and it is looked down upon a lot if you're into computers, a nerd, etc. If you go to third world countries like India, etc. you'll realize that even people who are dirt poor place an extremely huge amount of importance on education. Because time and again, they've seen that the only way to get out of their pit of poverty.
Except this study is only demonstrating correlation, not causality. The causality could easily flow in the exact opposite direction: Your family has unstable income because either culturally or genetically you are prone to thinking problems later in life.
As anecdotal evidence from my high school class the people who had it easier did not become as successful as people who had it harder by their 40s. This might be pretty unrepresentative but the level of motivation was very different.
Instead of spending all that time and effort invalidating the opinion of those who have successfully made it out of those circumstances, why don't you ask them how they did it and what they think can be done to help those who haven't?
The problem with keyboard warriors is that it isn't actually action. It's akin to the studies showing that people who talk about what they're going to do get the same emotional satisfaction from actually doing it.
What you've managed to do is dismiss the very people who have the most insight and made yourself feel better to boot. What's not to like, right?
[+] [-] vertis|6 years ago|reply
I would go from feeling rich one month because a freelance client had paid a bill, to not having a cent a month later.
There were times when it felt like I was running a pyramid scheme on myself. Needing to use money from a previous job to buy computer hardware to sell to the next client.
In retrospect, I was also too proud to ask for help. I let things get way out of control before my mother ended up taking out a personal loan to bail me out at one point. If I had asked for help earlier it would have been a cheaper problem to solve.
It took years to shed some of the residual behaviours, even after I started earning decent money. Despite having savings and reliable income I would still let bills run until they were overdue.
These days I'm a lot more proactive about personal finances and good money management, but it's hard to tell how much of that is just maturity, and how much is the fact that I no longer have problems with unstable income.
[+] [-] Roark66|6 years ago|reply
You wouldn't believe how many "wealthy" people do the exact same thing including not paying their subcontractors etc. My dad used to do electric installations in new built homes. Usually the larger the house and the wealthier the owner more excuses there would be when the time to pay came.Some of those "clients" took 2 years to get money out of them. Doing that to a small contractor you owe is pretty bad behaviour, but at the same time I can understand prioritising your outgoings if you have let's say an annual gas bill review and you know they'll not come after you until you're 3 months late. In such situation paying 89 days late is perfectly reasonable. Nothing bad about it.
[+] [-] throwaway_law|6 years ago|reply
This study is an odd way of looking at what is already established and known...instability has a detrimental cognitive and psychological effect on people, in particular children, but its not limited to children and extends to people with fully developed brains.
[+] [-] SketchySeaBeast|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r00fus|6 years ago|reply
I never had unstable income (maybe wishing I had more), but I definitely had some degree of these specific bad behaviors.
I feel (financial) maturity is a big part of this; As a parent now, I'm being intentional on how my kids earn allowance and think about spending.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ip26|6 years ago|reply
Nothing wrong with this behavior as long as you pay on the due date. Schedule automatic payments on the due date & you'll hang on to the cash as long as possible, and you also won't forget to make payments & incur fees.
[+] [-] jablinski|6 years ago|reply
There is something about spending too much time on the same problem that may drive a person insane. I think it might create deep valleys over certain neural pathways that are shared with other important functions. For example after a year of grinding on the same problem of "get job" my mind has become hyper sensitive to patterns and hidden meanings like never before. I'll see a leaf blowing in the wind and my mind will sometimes slip into interpreting it as some symbolic message from the universe to help me find a job. In a way I can sort of understand these homeless guys that walk the streets talking to themselves - they might just be further along, so deep in this pattern recognition psychosis from trying to survive that their brains are telling them the whole world is talking to them directly.
[+] [-] seph-reed|6 years ago|reply
Good for you man. I honestly believe that every person should lose their mind at least once. Once you've built up some insane reality, it'll always be there, and the space between is (IMO) kind of special. It's amazing how one can hold two completely contradictory storylines of the world in their head. And for me it helps with groking how different the inside of other peoples minds can be. How real it can feel. How fake my real is. How just as plausible their real could be.
For those interested, one of the easiest cheapest ways to lose your mind is to go live out in the woods for a while (bush fever). Seriously, if you've never had your bubble burst, it might do you some good.
[+] [-] shardinator|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] john_moscow|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dlphn___xyz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ja3k|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scotty79|6 years ago|reply
It might be cheaper too than current system when you consider all the harm that poverty does to economy and workers.
[+] [-] chr1|6 years ago|reply
A nice variant of basic income is minimal tax return when everyone gets tax return proportional to a small percentage of the total tax collected past year. This would allow to gradually reduce other forms of social payments, without introducing arbitrary fixed values for the amount of basic income.
[+] [-] helpPeople|6 years ago|reply
If you have internet and food, are you still in poverty?
[+] [-] Onanymous|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EndXA|6 years ago|reply
> Objective: Income volatility presents a growing public health threat. To our knowledge, no previous study examined the relationship among income volatility, cognitive function, and brain integrity.
> Methods: We studied 3,287 participants aged 23–35 years in 1990 from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults prospective cohort study. Income volatility data were created using income data collected from 1990 to 2010 and defined as SD of percent change in income and number of income drops ≥25% (categorized as 0, 1, or 2+). In 2010, cognitive tests (n = 3,287) and brain scans (n = 716) were obtained.
> Results: After covariate adjustment, higher income volatility was associated with worse performance on processing speed (β = −1.09, 95% confidence interval [CI] −1.73 to −0.44) and executive functioning (β = 2.53, 95% CI 0.60–4.50) but not on verbal memory (β = −0.02, 95% CI −0.16 to 0.11). Similarly, additional income drops were associated with worse performance on processing speed and executive functioning. Higher income volatility and more income drops were also associated with worse microstructural integrity of total brain and total white matter. All findings were similar when restricted to those with high education, suggesting reverse causation may not explain these findings.
> Conclusion: Income volatility over a 20-year period of formative earning years was associated with worse cognitive function and brain integrity in midlife.
[+] [-] situational87|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neuland|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tiku|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GGfpc|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] azeotropic|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stebann|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chr1|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gmadsen|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] programminggeek|6 years ago|reply
Also, people tend to hang out with other people making roughly the same as them, which compounds the problem.
[+] [-] sjg007|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcheung|6 years ago|reply
The study doesn't make any mention of doing tests throughout their lifespans so it's hard to claim that income stability impairs brain function.
At best there is a correlation and it makes more sense to me that impaired brain function leads to income instability, not the other way around.
[+] [-] d--b|6 years ago|reply
I am not saying that this is true, but it is possible that people with unsteady incomes are more risk-taking, which in itself is a psychological traits which may be linked to poorer performance in iq-like test in middle age.
[+] [-] sebastianconcpt|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flyGuyOnTheSly|6 years ago|reply
Eaten nothing but packets of ramen for months on end probably takes more of a toll on the brain than a light wallet.
[+] [-] mikelyons|6 years ago|reply
Also, the stress of poverty is known to cause cognitive issues IIRC
[+] [-] SerLava|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Teichopsia|6 years ago|reply
One of the things I find difficult is sharing. Even to close friends, but I don't feel the need to. Maybe I just have been hanging out with the wrong people lately, which I have stopped seeing recently - and to which I have been feeling better since. I'll have to give some thought into the the word "difficult" I decided to use - but I'll leave that for some other time.
I have been teaching myself programming on and off for a few years now. After having had some health issues last year, I ended up five days in a public hospital and stopped programming until earlier this year when I took it up again. The experience in that hospital was bizarrely amusing, but I won't digress. I'm guessing the onset was due to some combination of stress and/or burnout. After the hospital it took months to recuperate.
In that time I didn't have much energy would do some light reading and came across an article, right here on HN about sourdough.
All in all, having a hobby helps. And I'm quite fortunate to have a family that provides food and a roof. But it is taxing on so many levels not to be able to help out, to provide. And with the upcoming holidays it gets hard. It hits me hard.
F*. When I started writing this I did not expect it to take that turn. Let's get back on track.
Right. I picked up programming again earlier this year. Funnily, things started to click. I don't know why, maybe the break helped. Anyhow, looking for jobs is another thing that takes a toll on you. I've never worked in the industry, nor have I had a job for too long. I try to search for jr. jobs and when I do find one, the rejection after rejection does not make it easy.
And despite the sorrow sounding note of this, this is just me venting to strangers on the net. And by the age of the thread, few people will read, if any at all.
I stopped talking to the few acquaintances. People who weren't contributing anything positive in my life. And I have to say, I have been more productive since.
I'm currently learning django. Reading Eloquent Javascript and practicing my vim skills - which I took up recently out of necessity. Funnily I found myself trying to use vim keybindings last time I opened up Visual Studio Code.
And that's not to mention all the other tabs that are open. A back-burner of things I want to learn.
Things may get tough, as they always will. But it's all about knowing when to slow down. Take a deep breath, and every now and then, vent.
[+] [-] known|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] known|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|6 years ago|reply
People who confuse what's possible but 10x more difficult for some income groups/backgrounds, to be the same as being equally possible and as easy. Or that think that just because some outliers managed to win the hard mode, everybody should be able to (and are just lazy if they don't) - while ignoring lucky breaks and mitigating circumstances in their case, e.g. you might be poor, but not have a parent sick to take care of. Or you might be an immigrant, but have parents working their ass off to get you to college. Or you might have a stable family as opposed to abuse. Or your teachers might not care at all to encourage you.
This is not about telling people not to try. This is about recognizing that even trying is not "equally easy", and that outlier success stories doesn't mean the game is not rigged against those from poor backgrounds. And perhaps finding ways to fix this issues (e.g. reducing poverty, abuse, stress factors for poor people, better educational districts, and so on).
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/the-wireless/373065/the-pencilswo...
[+] [-] malvosenior|6 years ago|reply
There is definitely a culture of anti-intellectualism and escapism among the poor in the US (my background). Sure, the rich kids have it easy and it's super easy to sit around feeling bad about that but in many, many cases people could better themselves with a modicum of effort.
I grew up asking everyone (friends, family, neighbors): Why won't you read book? Why do you "hate" math? Why are computers "for nerds"? Why do you spend all of your time watching football?
I'm now much more successful than the people who ignored or derided me during that time period.
Was it easy for me to get ahead? No. But it is possible; oh and I wasn't one of those people with parents who worked hard, a good family life or supportive community around me. I was on my own.
[+] [-] ck425|6 years ago|reply
You may think people have lots of opportunities but that's not useful if they're not aware they have those opportunities.
[+] [-] virgilp|6 years ago|reply
The downside of being raised in a well-off family (at least anecdotally/ from my circle of friends) is that the children already have almost everything they could desire, and they take this stuff for granted, and as such they tend to put less effort into "life". Yes they need less effort to be successful - but they are also used to "less effort", so they don't try as hard. This balances the game a little, for those less fortunate. But I can totally see how if your background is too bad, the game is actively rigged against you, and it's not humanly possible to overcome your condition. That's probably where the society needs to focus the most.
[+] [-] RobertRoberts|6 years ago|reply
Rigged isn't a fair word, it's just reality.
Also, as another commenter pointed out, there are people that are successful in a wide range of ways, money is just one of them. And those that had it easy early on often times don't do well later in life when things can get hard.
Edit: I spent time on the streets as a teen (yes it affected me) but my siblings did not, but they are worse off then me. I hit bottom and bounced back, they are still struggling in many ways. (not just money)
[+] [-] mgoetzke|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harshalizee|6 years ago|reply
As someone who also came from a slightly lower income background I had a lot of support encouraging me to cultivate a habit of reading and from my parents that helped me heaps. Anecdotally, I know many people who came from much higher socioeconomic backgrounds who grew in the exact same environment as I did, couldn't care less about sciences, learning, etc.
The United States has a huge problem of anti-intellectualism and it is looked down upon a lot if you're into computers, a nerd, etc. If you go to third world countries like India, etc. you'll realize that even people who are dirt poor place an extremely huge amount of importance on education. Because time and again, they've seen that the only way to get out of their pit of poverty.
[+] [-] darawk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qaq|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JackFr|6 years ago|reply
If you read it, the study starts at age 23 and only measures relative income drops.
[+] [-] celticmusic|6 years ago|reply
Instead of spending all that time and effort invalidating the opinion of those who have successfully made it out of those circumstances, why don't you ask them how they did it and what they think can be done to help those who haven't?
The problem with keyboard warriors is that it isn't actually action. It's akin to the studies showing that people who talk about what they're going to do get the same emotional satisfaction from actually doing it.
What you've managed to do is dismiss the very people who have the most insight and made yourself feel better to boot. What's not to like, right?