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Comment by wyldfire | Hacker News Reader

> He’s kept looking for computer programming work, and bought a book on Java, but the life of the poor is hard, and erratic bus driving schedules coupled with living paycheck-to-paycheck makes learning programming hard, especially without a decent computer.

I hate to be unsympathetic because I won the birth lottery by far. But these days it seems like you could learn python or java on a $50 used tablet or raspberry pi. Is it really so hard to learn to program for the poor? (serious question, not being critical)

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The poor are generally not in a position to dump large amounts of time, energy, and attention into something with such a risky and far-future payoff. I mean, they often don't have the wherewithal to cook dinner rather than grab something from McDonald's.

I think it's a (very real) problem of mental "energy" more than actual time.

What you mention of McDonalds has been studied:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/junk-food-cravings-a...

And also, some studies say that poor people don't have the mental "energy" because everything has to be evaluated against tradeoffs:

https://newrepublic.com/article/89377/poverty-escape-psychol...

50 dollars is a lot of money. try being poor for a while. try being so poor that you barely survive. like, you have to ration your food. like eating one apple a day for months.

The problem we have when thinking about poor people is that we think they're people just like us, but with no money.

That's not the way to think about it.

You would be astonished at their ignorance and, as an effect of that ingnorance, laziness. They literally have no idea what is possible. No idea what effort could achieve.

It's typically not their fault either. Someone with influence in their life has to set an example and show them the way otherwise they'll never understand how to unlock their potential.

That's partially true, but also assumes there's "something wrong" with being poor. Now of course, being poor is a worse lifestyle than being rich if all else were equal, but all else isn't equal. What if someone doesn't want to move to a major tech hub and instead makes just enough money doing something tolerable with people they like enough and they get to live and spend time with people they love. Am I really going to tell them they're missing out on life by not fleeing to a research university for 4 years and then Skyping their loved ones from their [big city] apartment while their roommates are playing loud music through the wall and they have no friends within 2 hours travel? All I'm saying is that there are tradeoffs that make working class people better off in many cases.

You don't have to live in a major tech hub to be a programmer. Programmers are employed all over the country. They'll generally get a lot more money in tech hubs, but you don't have to go there. Now, you probably won't get a job in some little 1000-person small town far from everything, but go to your nearest small city and there's probably some jobs there.

Exactly. It's not how much money you make anyway, it's how much you keep.

It can be harder to keep more when you're living in one of the most expensive cities in the world and those expenses aren't tax deductible.

Are you Paul Ryan?

Nope. Seriously though, I lived through not knowing any better and being surrounded by people who didn't know any better.

I'm actually not criticizing poor people, I'm trying to explain their situation to people who were raised to know better from childhood.

You might want to consider this, too: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-br... - be mindful of your privilege when judging other people. Since you're posting on HN, you're probably already in a few multi-sigma-from-mean categories.

I am mindful. I'm speaking from the experience of being that ignorant person and being lucky enough to have a few people in my life that showed me the way.

Not that this applies to this case, the guy was an ex-programmer, not just poor, but you're getting downvoted for raising a good point.

It's one of those cases of "you don't know what you don't know". Yes anyone could get a raspberry pi and become a web developer, but they have no idea it's a profession, let alone a relatively easy one to get in to. Even if they've heard of software developers, it's likely in the context of an entrepreneur in far off silicon valley, not in their community.

Thank you for understanding my point.

What other folk here fail to consider is that I was speaking from experience.

I was that ignorant when I was young and I was surrounded by others who were also ignorant of the possibilities around them. I was saved by someone when I was seventeen.

It's not an indictment to say these people are ignorant. It explains their apparent laziness. It's not that they refuse to better themselves, it's that they don't know why they should or how they could. It's obvious to us why and how, so it's hard to imagine someone not knowing.

To clarify, they're not actually lazy, they're directionless which can appear to others as laziness.

lmao

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