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Comment by tajen | Hacker News Reader

I'm in France and I sometimes notice that USA articles focus only on underpriviledged talent. Why only the talents? It's a bit like rape is fought against, except in prisons because they're lower-grade citizen. Or like articles describing unwarranted violence from the SWAT teams: "The family was playing poker, they got busted for illegal gaming, 3 died" will trigger fewer reaction than "The SWAT team killed the dog." US articles often focus on a subset of the unpriviledged population.

Let's recall that our civilization needs to take care of everyone, even if they're not talented or guilty at some level. Not everyone is cute, but everyone needs to be saved.

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"everyone needs to be saved"

Unfortunately, the prevailing social zeitgeist in the US is that not everyone deserves to be saved- you have to earn the right to be deemed worthy enough to be saved, and really if you find yourself in a position where you need to be saved then it's probably your own fault and you should bootstrap your way out of it. The puritanical mindset is very, very strong and all-prevailing in the US.

>>Unfortunately, the prevailing social zeitgeist in the US is that not everyone deserves to be saved- you have to earn the right to be deemed worthy enough to be saved, and really if you find yourself in a position where you need to be saved then it's probably your own fault and you should bootstrap your way out of it. The puritanical mindset is very, very strong and all-prevailing in the US.

I wasn't sure how to parse this exactly but I was curious if you are actually correct here so I had a look at the General Social Survey[0]. The closest thing I could find to your post was the question of "EVERYONE SHOULD LOOK OUT FOR SELF"[1] and it looks like 67.7 percent of Americans disagree with that statement. In light of that fact, how do you defend your contrary position?

[0]http://sda.berkeley.edu/gss [1]Put EQUAL1 as the row variable then click "Run the table"

Maybe the people who took that survey are acting out of self interest?

How you frame the question can produce vastly different responses.

That said, I'd say the perception of Americans being selfish has more to do with our terrible electoral system in which the incentives are such that we elect politicians that, in aggregate, portray a more selfish representation of our populace than really is there. This is how you get polls saying large majorities of Americans believe in Issue X, but you have Congressmen and POTUS arguing over whether or not to implement Issue X.

>>How you frame the question can produce vastly different responses.

Here are some of the questions on the GSS:

In our society everyone must look out for himself. It is of little use to unite with others and fight for one's goals in politics or in unions. 67.7 percent disagreed

It is the responsibility of government to meet everyone's needs, even in case of sickness, poverty, unemployment, and old age. 57.3 percent agreed

If social welfare benefits such as disability, unemployment compensation, and early retirement pensions are as high as they are now, it only makes people not want to work anymore. 54 percent disagreed

Note that the GSS is cited more often academically than any other survey other than the US census so it carries some weight.

That first statement is hard to agree with because it takes an all-or-nothing stance in a broad manner (must + little use). Most people will disagree because there is probably a "I don't 100% agree" reaction to it. You'd probably get the same reaction going in the opposite direction.

In our society everyone must work together to succeed. It is of little use to try and effect change alone as one person cannot make a difference in politics or work.

Meanwhile, the other two statements are much more direct on the stance being questioned. The examples are the only open ended part as interpretations can differ between people, but they are still clear enough to get the intended meaning across.

>>Most people will disagree because there is probably a "I don't 100% agree" reaction to it.

I was trying not to be too wordy in my post but the "disagree" is actually 2 categories split between "mostly disagree" and "strongly disagree" so that covers the "I don't 100% agree" people. Note that there's also "strongly and somewhat agree" categories.

Here's the upshot of this thread. The OP I was replying to made a reference to the "prevailing zeitgeist" in America believing people should be "saved" only if they prove their worth. I checked the most widely respected social survey and it contradicts that assertion by a wide margin. As far as the questions being biased or people 100 percent agreeing as has been mentioned, either a couple of random internet commenters are right or the most cited source in mainstream social science[0] is. Personally I'll go with the latter.

[0]http://gss.norc.org/About-The-GSS

I think paraphrasing to reduce wordiness made the GSS seem far less objective in your comment. I'm sure you'd agree that losing that nuance, for someone who doesn't know much about the GSS, makes that question look... questionable.

The community on HN is here for good discussion so I don't think you need to worry about writing too much. Especially if it helps people understand.

Empathy is a dying sentiment in this country.

We've made the horrible mistake of conflating "success" with morality; i.e. "the poor are just lazy", or "this wealthy person is automatically a paragon of good judgement"

And then we've compounded the mistake by conflating morality with correctness.

It's a human problem, not a modern-day nor US-only one. It seems we're all intrinsically prone to the "Just World" hypothesis.

Consider the historical examples -- widely spread over cultures and times -- of where the wealthiest and most powerful people are assumed not just to be "good people", but God-approved or even proto-deities themselves.

I guess I'm an old fashioned US citizen and resist your sentiment. I'm of the opinion that if you grab a random adult, inspect them, ask them about their lives, look at their health, abilities, check out their finances, family, and all the rest - then you'll come to the conclusion that, for the vast majority, they themselves are best able to take care of themselves.

"Our civilization needs to take care of everyone" is simply impossible when there's a disaster and people are on their own. If our opening bid is "we (civilization) will take care of you, <random capable adult>", then I believe we set people up to be helpless when they are stranded. It's presupposed weakness.

Conversely, when people have freedom to make their own choices on how they conduct their lives, those self-support muscles and brains are strengthened. It's agency, it's people power.

What is a challenge for me with this philosophy is, how should we then help legitimately disadvantaged, sick, threatened people in society to survive and thrive if we assume most people can take care of themselves? At the bottom, obviously there are street urchins who are not cute and do need saving.

Perhaps the social safety net needs to be retooled to apply the most intense resources at the very bottom and then trail off rapidly such that resources are not spread too thin. This might focus the drive of capable, healthy individuals to take care of themselves as government service offerings would supply an uncomfortable/barely tolerable living.

People in real dire straits, like the homeless, need the most resources in my opinion. Homelessness should be declared illegal so that civil liberties aren't an issue when we force these people to work or become wards of the state if they are not capable.

I don't understand the freedom arguments in favor of the homeless; I would argue purely from a public health standpoint we (civilization) have the right force these people out of their predicament.

It's best for a person to take care of themselves, but it's foolish to expect that when they never got the resources, whether that's financial, mental, educational...

> Homelessness should be declared illegal so that civil liberties aren't an issue when we force these people to work or become wards of the state if they are not capable.

I think that's called slavery. That seems like the direct opposite of giving people agency and, if anything, the attitude that created all these problems in the first place.

USSR tried outlawing homelessness at one point, I think, but there wasn't exactly a job shortage or someone trying to make money off of the desperate.

> I think that's called slavery. That seems like the direct opposite of giving people agency and, if anything, the attitude that created all these problems in the first place.

People aren't given agency by other people, they're born with it. Agency can be denied a person though, especially when they break serious-enough laws. That's all I'm talking about. Now I just need to convince enough people to agree with me that scoffing the "must live in a domicile" law dips into the felony range of crimes.

I contend it's not humane to allow people to live on the street. It's in no one's interest for people in the community to live dangerously like that. Depending on the person's situation, a break from their downward spiral might set them on a path back upward. There's no guarantee the individual will be helped by incarceration, but it's needed for the health of the community.

And incarceration due to homelessness wouldn't be permanent, they didn't murder anyone by sleeping on the street. Obviously, jailing a person for homelessness doesn't fit the crime, too.

Case workers would have to decide what to do with people depending on their situation. Return them to their family? Send them to a workhouse to do their time on the farm? Put them in a home to get medical or mental care? I think this is where the social safety net needs the $$$ concentration. You think the prison industrial complex shouldn't extend to the homeless? Ok, let's write the laws that way: every dollar a person earns at a workhouse goes to them once they leave the house.

Agency is an illusion of our neurology. Our thoughts and actions are determined (or at least constrained within a small set of random possibilities) at any given moment by our genetics and our past environment.

I agree, I cannot find weakness in your arguments. I wish I could upvote you more than once. :)

"Illusion" strikes me as having a negative connotation, though. Could we say "Agency is the result of computation in our neurons" instead? We run simulations in our sleep to solve for problems we encountered the previous day. We're simulating things all the time with our computers.

We're not mindless automata, I'm sure. Although 'mind' could just be explained by the small set of random possibilities you refer to. But, I suspect that because I can ponder about what you've written and not segfault and die means I'm not mindless.

> People aren't given agency by other people, they're born with it.

That's most certainly not true. How much agency does an infant have? How much agency does a human raised illiterate far away from civilization have? I would say that humans definitely get a significant amount of their agency from society and their parents.

The agency of an individual human is very much dependent on what kind of information they were exposed to and other factors, but not all humans have the same level of agency.

Sure, a small child, infant, and nascent zygote human are helpless and cannot be self-sustaining. Great point. I'll restrict myself to adults who have the capability to act upon the world for this discussion from here on out.

> How much agency does a human raised illiterate far away from civilization have?

Is your definition of agency in this context,

* the state of being in action or of exerting power; operation, or

* a means of exerting power or influence; instrumentality?

Nothing in those definitions have anything to do with literacy or society. It seems to me that an adult far away from civilization has as much agency as his brains and muscles can deliver: there's no rules for that person to be concerned with other than laws of nature. They're able to exercise their raw humanity.

Obviously, such an adult lacks the amplifying powers of chemicals, electricity, computers, transport, etc that we have. But, who are we to judge the power/potential/quality of a feral human adult in the wild to do incredible things with his environment? Agency is a trait, not a quantity, and that's why it's a birthright. (It can be denied a person, however.)

Just do some thought experiments. What's the most powerful thing you could imagine yourself accomplishing before you died if we dropped you off in the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on your back? Don't just stop at "curl up and die", really shoot for the moon. I came up with some amazing things.

Now, if you were to argue that humans have nearly limitless potential but are impotent to realize that potential without the work of others, then I'd say you're on to something really profound and worth exploring and optimizing for, philosophical.

But, I think what you've stated here is that an individual apart from society somehow has diminished agency. You're either confusing concepts or underestimating man.

USSR actually did outlaw homelessness, and unemployment as well.

But at the same time, it guaranteed everyone a roof over their head, and a job; and that any job would pay enough to survive on. And it actually delivered on all those promises, at least at its economic heyday (roughly mid-60s to Perestroika).

Still, not exactly a good society to live in. The flip side of being guaranteed a job is that you couldn't turn one down. Even if you had to relocate, say.

agree completely, the thrust of the article is that "we need to do more to find these diamonds in the rough", what about the kids that are not so lucky to have been born with the kind of mental capacity that makes them find school so easy? do we just throw them to the wolves?

Fine that "diamonds" should be fostered as it is much better for society as a whole that gifted people use those gifts to their fullest extent, but we should not lose track of the fact that not everybody has been born with the same capabilities, and giving everybody equal opportunities is not the same thing as making sure everybody can live a fulfilling and decent life no matter if their IQ is 50 or 150.

> Not everyone is cute, but everyone needs to be saved.

I logged back in after months to upvote this comment. We often fall short of our ideals, but their value is still worth striving for.

I agree with you - and if everyone spoke with this candor I wouldn't have a problem helping.

The problem is that instead of saying what you've said, we try to help AS IF everyone is talented.

Everyone is equally intelligent, hard working, etc. Everyone has equal potential is something ingrained to us as Americans.

Then later, when people make boneheaded decisions etc, we want to fix those mistakes AFTER the fact. That's BS as far as I'm concerned.

If we were just honest and said hey, let's devise ways for helping everyone at different levels (not just levels of money), I could get on board. When we're constantly bombarded with misguided diversity initiatives, bailing out of irresponsible borrowers (be it individual or corporate), and adults who don't know how to interact with law enforcement, it becomes way way harder to get buy.

Most people are very hesitant to admit that because they recognize that there are a host of people who would act upon that admission to promote malicious policies

The USA also has a tradition of storytelling about underdogs rising to become champions. These stories resonate in part because almost all people can relate to the underdog in one way or another.

In other words, the underprivileged talent is a form of the American everyman.

Because the American dream is to reward merit, ignoring provenance. The American dream says nothing about providing good lives to those without merit.

Also normally merit is defined to include "hard working", not merely "talented". I think there's less sympathy for lazy talent than vice versa.

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