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A comment on An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Gets Poverty Wrong. Parent comment

Re:An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Get... by nickolai on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @03:27AM (#3351099)
That's a very intersting quote article you quote there. Just one thing : the article seems to claim that not caring to solve one's problems stems from the impossibility to solve them all in a forseeable future. Hence the problems create a "why bother ?" attitude, which in turn creates more problems. This pretty much nails the issue to me. But then the author goes on "The core of the problem has not been self-discipline or a lack of opportunity, my argument is that the cause of poverty has been poverty."

This is where I'm lost - isnt a "why bother?" attitute a textbook definition of lack of self-discipline?

I do agree with everything else in the article, especially with the idea of removing problems and roadblocks instead of simply throwing money at the issue.

So In my opinion there is a self discipline issue. Trouble is, the more you assist people in solving their problems, the more incline they will be to let their problems rot until you come and solve them again. The ultimate goal theere is to find a way to reliably restart the problem-solving circuit, once the people have been pulled back up to the surface.

AFAIK, no one has found a reliable way yet and unfortunately there is not much of a proposal in the article either.

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Re:An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Get... by Anderkent on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @09:14AM (#3351855)
It would be a self-discipline problem if the affected people were showing less self-discipline than others. The author is saying that a rich person (that does not currently have the self-discipline problem) put into this situation would behave similarly. Thus the core issue is not with the poor people having less self-discipline, but instead with how poverty affects our self-discipline.
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Re:An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Get... by ranit8 on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @09:06PM (#3354720)
> the more you assist people in solving their problems, the more incline they will be to let their problems rot until you come and solve them again.

I disagree, most people given a chance will try to improve their condition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolsa_Fam%C3%ADlia

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