I also was inspired by developers like John Carmack and Chris Sawyer, and fortunately my dad had a Compaq Presario in those days, so I took a love for programming early. I can remember having to haul a bookbag full of programming books from the local library, through the ghetto to our apartment, nervous day that was.
I don't people really understand how much different it is living in the ghetto vs living in a middle-class area. It is night and day, and anyone can attest that once you make it out you never want to return if you can help it, and most fail to appreciate the incredible difficulty of "fixing" an area like that or even helping someone who refuses to leave
I went through similar things. I do alright now but my brother stayed on the same line and things aren't so good there.
If there is one difference I can point at, it was my friends and girlfriends (and now wife) that are the causative factor in my direction. They pushed me to be more than the sum of my past and circumstances. My brother's friends just held him in place. I was lucky.
It's absolutely, crushingly, depressing seeing how far you've come up, vs how others are staying down and the incredibly thin line of circumstance that seperates you both.
I hear you! this hits home hard with me. It is truly sad to see your family "stuck" in the same circumstances but at the same time I also think is very motivating to know that you "broke" the cycle from your family's "unlucky" past circumstances.
The American ghettos / projects are a solvable issue. It baffles me how such a relatively easy problem (compared to middle eastern wars) is so hard to fix for the richest economy on earth. Can you tell me why it is difficult to fix the projects and ghettos?
Meanwhile, a war just needs to end. The structure can always be rebuilt. The culture may not be the same as it was when it started, but it won't be in disarray forever, and the people in a warzone usually want the war to end.
Changing this perception is key to making progress on this and related issues of class and resource distribution. There's heaps of research out on the positive difference a slight increase in resources can make in terms of human development.
I never said anything about laziness or unworthiness, don't lump my experience or comments with some other group you have imagined.
And lastly, I will not change my perception on anything. I have first-hand experience of having my life threatened because I was on the wrong side of the street at the wrong time, or I declined to do something for someone who couldn't take no for an answer, or I simply walked a certain way. These experiences won't be diluted so that you can co-opt them to influence others on your ideology.
I am honestly glad you made it out, by the way. I'm not so presumptuous to think that a comment here would "change your perception" or "co-opt" anyone to serve my "ideology."
Not sure why you'd think your personal experience is representative of the average experience -- decades of social science research suggest the contrary.
Are you sure it doesn't just say that external factors created or create pressures against taking extant opportunities, rather than those opportunities don't exist in the first place?
Because “the projects and ghettos” aren't a statement of a problem, and to the extent that there is an agreement that there are problems around those things, there is not consensus on what the problem is, much less the solution, and the lack of consensus is not only about empirical fact, but includes a fundamental clash of ideological principles.
Further, various factions (there are more than two) seem to believe that the problem is exacerbated by what other factions believe to be a proto-mitigation. E.g. see discussion of rent control -- some people believe that rent control keeps people out of public housing, others believe that rent control forces people into public housing, still others believe that rent control has nothing to do with it.
Projects/ghettos are not simple to solve. It is a pretty complex problem.
Really not a good sign for our long-term growth potential.
It's dividing into "gangs". (With colors, even!)
Strong families are in short supply.
The culture doesn't value long-term growth (either human or economic). It's all short-term fix, or entertainment to help you ignore the problem.
Drug dealers destroy a lot of lives (looking at you, Purdue Pharma).
People don't trust cops.
It seems like there may be more to this. Anything I'm missing?
Because I'm willing to bet it's a world hunger solution: "Just give everyone food!"
Simple to say, difficult to do.
The main difficulty, as far as I can tell, is that most people are reluctant to pay to feed even the people that they share the streets with, let alone people in the third world. But I don't think you can really call a problem "difficult" if the only reason you haven't done it is because you choose not to.
[1] https://hungermath.wordpress.com/2013/12/08/how-much-would-i...
[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/americans-spend-3...
[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/22/americas-165-billion-food-wa...
And then you handwave away the infrastructure necessary to do so.
You literally did the thing I called out.
That sentence is one of the coolest and most hopeful things I've read in a while. When people can see the "other" as "just like me", despite the obvious difference, then maybe we can break down some of the walls that divide us.
The thing that really helped the both of us out were magnet schools. By taking us out of our neighborhoods and giving us friends and relationships from more walks of life, I think it helped us see that the world was larger than the blocks we grew up on and we adjusted for living in a world that didn't begin and end with things that were in our immediate surroundings.
Recently I've watched 'The Wire' for the first time and the season focused on education really hit hard. Having gone to 'inner city' schools where I wore uniforms and felt pressure to pursue... let's call them 'non-academic' goals, I really related to the outlook of the adults in that school. Particularly when the kid's mom was scolding him for not having the initiative to start selling drugs (this was my friend's mom in spades) and the retired police officer who explained to that kid's dad that he didn't have to live in the same world they grew up in. I got a similar speech from a vice principal who grew up in my neighborhood.
McMillan and Omaha North were my first introductions to computer programming. I fell in love. Met so many people of different backgrounds. And I don't know where I'd be today without those initial classes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/postlive/opinion-three-simple...
Question though: what do you mean with 'raised in projects'? I can't really Google it. Or is this a reference to the song I find?
In everyday American English, "the projects" often refers to a very dangerous urban residential area, or at the very least, a non-desirable one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidized_housing_in_the_Unit...
"The projects" on the other hand are owned and operated by government.
"Projects" and "Section 8" are two separate government programs, but they both wind up with similar demographics because it only attempts to solve one issue.
And in the case of Section 8, assumes best faith action of a third party. Which is hardly the case. Often, an apartment complex gets built as "Section 8" housing. And since the government is footing the bill, not the tenant, it's built to the least possible standard and service is usually poor. Because the incentive for the landlord is to spend as little as possible on it.
Is it synonymous with a Ghetto?
"The projects" strictly refers to the building developments themselves, but is often used informally to refer to a poor neighborhood in general.
"The Ghetto" refers to a neighborhood of an urban area and not a particular building or group of buildings. "The projects" are often in the ghetto but not necessarily.
Saying "I grew up in the ghetto" and "I grew up in the projects" are more-or-less equivalent. Both only refer to urban areas; there is no such thing as a rural ghetto.
The term rural ghetto can be used.
I didn't say that rural poverty isn't poverty. I'm simply saying that the word "ghetto" almost always refers to an urban context.
”the word "ghetto" almost always refers to an urban context.”
These are not the same thing.
Project refers either to public housing, or more generally any group of buildings where economically disadvantaged people tend to be segregated.
Because these very frequently overlap in the US, people often use them interchangeably.
If the government standard says you need to do maintenance on HVAC once every 6 months. You do maintenance once every 6 months, regardless of whether or not it needs it more often.
and also this youtuber (donoteat01) has some excellent commentary >> https://youtu.be/xqJbE1bvdgo
I support and train at a gym that employs at-risk youth and reformed criminals and trains them to become personal trainers with the appropriate certs. It's run by a guy who used to work with these kids in the hood and has devoted his life to this cause. Graduates of his training program enjoy significantly lower rates of recidivism. I feel great about being able to help out as a person with a good salary in tech (and the young trainees/formerly imprisoned youths I've met through the program are absolutely phenomenal people).
And inspired many others, myself included, to go from playing video games to making video games, and programming in general.
But yeah, most people do not do well in life there, they are stuck in a cycle of violence, drugs, and other destructive behavior that they never recover from. It makes absolutely no sense how I was able to make it out and end up doing very well in life.
I want to help others break free from the cycle of self destruction but it’s very hard unless you are with them daily.
Anyways, to this day I’m thankful for John Carmack for giving me that spark of interest in computers.