Re:Why poor people make poor decisions
by andrepd on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @02:29PM
(#22301767)
Why do I keep seeing these sorts of arguments.
>No. Poverty is a lack of education and, more importantly, mentorship. This is because [insert story about "neighbor"]
To put it very bluntly: I don't give two shits about your neighbour. This is the kind of thinking that justifies racism and other types of discrimination. I have a gypsy neighbour who collects welfare and does not work while he sells drugs in his neighbour |= therefore gypsies are leeches and criminals. You see the problem? For every story of yours I can tell you a story about a guy who had caring and hardworking parents, a nurturing environment, was he himself very hardworking, but simply had not enough money to make it in this world (not enough money to attend good schools, do extracurricular activities, had to care for his siblings or work after school himself, etc.). What does that tell me about this problem?
I don't care for anecdotes about your neighbour (because everybody has "a neighbour", or his cousin's wife has a friend from work who knows a guy who...), I don't care for "common sense opinions". I care for research, data, in short: meaningful facts about large-scale trends rather than individual cases, of which you can find every sort.
>No. Poverty is a lack of education and, more importantly, mentorship. This is because [insert story about "neighbor"]
To put it very bluntly: I don't give two shits about your neighbour. This is the kind of thinking that justifies racism and other types of discrimination. I have a gypsy neighbour who collects welfare and does not work while he sells drugs in his neighbour |= therefore gypsies are leeches and criminals. You see the problem? For every story of yours I can tell you a story about a guy who had caring and hardworking parents, a nurturing environment, was he himself very hardworking, but simply had not enough money to make it in this world (not enough money to attend good schools, do extracurricular activities, had to care for his siblings or work after school himself, etc.). What does that tell me about this problem?
I don't care for anecdotes about your neighbour (because everybody has "a neighbour", or his cousin's wife has a friend from work who knows a guy who...), I don't care for "common sense opinions". I care for research, data, in short: meaningful facts about large-scale trends rather than individual cases, of which you can find every sort.