Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

It's extremely counterproductive to, as the article puts it, "take the question of the moral quality of the poor off the table."

The fact is that a large amount of poverty is directly correlated with "moral quality". Most poor people in the US (maybe Canada is different?) have low "moral quality", which I define as engaging in behaviors that are likely to keep a person poor. These behaviors include not seeking work [1], substance abuse [2], single motherhood [3] and crime [4] (including crimes with no economic motive such as intimate partner violence).

There are direct causal relationships between all of these behaviors and poverty. Not seeking work will result in not having a job, drug abuse will make you lose your job, and having no job makes you poor. Etc.

Why would we want to take the primary cause of poverty off the table if our goal is to solve it?

It's almost as if this guy's primary goal is to create a vote bank of government dependents rather than reduce poverty.

[1] http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publication...

[2] http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/2013MHDetTabs... https://www.nber.org/chapters/c11165.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/adultsmoking/

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Promises-Can-Keep-Motherhood-Marriage... http://www.economics21.org/html/great-gatsby-curve-revisited...

[4] http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/hpnvv0812.pdf

I think this is a super simplistic view. You're basically saying: Bad decisions leads to being poor. Not a single person is under the impression that all poor people made good decisions. Of course there is a causal relationship! But it's much more complicated than that. Some people are poor because they were born physically disabled, or mentally disabled. Some people got sick and lost their job and savings. Some people are poor because they're taking care of loved ones. Not all women choose to be single mothers. And many people living in poverty have jobs.

The causal arrow also goes in both directions. Does a poor man on the street, with no shower, no transportation, no cell phone, and barely enough money in his pocket to eat, really have the ability to seek work? Does a poor man on the street have any reason to worry about the problems of substance abuse? Does a poor man on the street worry about going to jail for a while?

I'm not even sure what you're suggesting though. It sounds like you're suggesting that we should continue shaming poor people as an effective means to prevent poverty. You don't think absolute desperation and lack of safety, security, health, and food, is enough of a motivation? You think shaming works? I don't get it.

None of these ideas even matter though. With basic income, what matters is the end result for a society. Maybe life isn't just better for the poor people, but maybe it's better for you too. Maybe more poor people end up being functional members of society. Maybe you end up safer, healthier and happier in a society with basic income. Maybe people still want to work. Maybe there are more entrepreneurs. Maybe a basic income system is necessary for our society to function in the future. There are a lot of indications that this is the case. This is why we need to do basic income studies.

Does a poor man on the street, with no shower, no transportation, no cell phone, and barely enough money in his pocket to eat, really have the ability to seek work?

Yes. Hundreds of thousands of people manage to do this even with the additional hindrances of no tengo permiso de trabajo and no hablo Ingles. But I'm sure that those illegal Mexicans are suffering from privilege, unlike the white man born into a country where welfare benefits usually exceed the mean GDP/Capita of Mexico.

The book Scratch Beginnings is well worth a read: https://www.amazon.com/Scratch-Beginnings-Search-American-Dr...

I'm not even sure what you're suggesting though. It sounds like you're suggesting that we should continue shaming poor people as an effective means to prevent poverty. You don't think absolute desperation and lack of safety, security, health, and food, is enough of a motivation?

Apparently not.

You think shaming works?

No, I think ignoring the cause of the problem is not a road to a solution.

Maybe a basic income system is necessary for our society to function in the future. There are a lot of indications that this is the case.

I have yet to see even a back of the envelope calculation suggesting these benefits will occur.

I appreciate you taking BI supporters who are unable to rationally justify their positions to task.

Except everyone living in poverty also has degraded brain functions - which also keeps them in poverty. There's a real physical correlation to mental health and poverty. Removing poverty from the equation will mean less single moms, because less dads committing crimes to get money. It'll mean more advanced brain function because they don't experience the stress growing up in poverty brings....

Here's a good article on this: http://europe.newsweek.com/how-poverty-affects-brains-493239...

From what I have seen, the very rich are lacking in morals a lot. Avoiding taxes, exploiting workers, hiking prices of essential drugs to generate profits. Not all of them but many.

I've backed up my claims with careful citations. Can you do the same?

Or is this just scapegoating an unsympathetic minority in order to distract attention from the bad behaviors of a politically powerful and exploitative group? Kind of like how Trump blames illegal Mexicans for the plight of the white non-working class?

Do you not see that poverty can also be the cause of those behaviours, rather than the reverse?

>There are direct causal relationships between all of these behaviors and poverty. Not seeking work will result in not having a job, drug abuse will make you lose your job, and having no job makes you poor. Etc.

Not being able to afford education, or clean clothes, or a permanent residence rules you out of 99% of the job market, which is why so many give up on the job search. As stated by OP (and many parts of society), this is morally wrong, akin to being sub-human, untermensch. Actually believing this sentiment contributes further to this negative feedback cycle and leads to depression which leads to drug abuse.

Not to mention -- college grads are ALSO finding employment rough, unemployment for college grads is > 7% -- surely if the economy looks bleak for people with a college degree, maybe its' a bit more bleaker for those without?

http://www.epi.org/publication/the-class-of-2015/

So it is your sincere belief that most poor people are 'broken' in the sense that they can't even make rational decisions where 'rational' means 'likely to improve one's life'?

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