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It is a fair point and I know plenty of people like that as well.

However, to give another perspective on it. When I think of changing an unequal situation, I look at the situations you described like this: "Did something happen early on in that person's life that just kind of made them give up?" I've known people like that, and although it is _also_ true that they _could_ lift themselves out of that situation, when you take it in aggregate over a large population, it becomes a problem (at least to me it does).

Why is it a problem? Well, to me it is for two main reasons. First, it gives an indication that there may be a systemic problem that could be corrected (overzealous police, poor education, a political issue, etc.). Frankly, we're far along enough as a species that there's no reason to tolerate that. Second, it means a meaningful portion of the population isn't contributing to humanity/earth/however you want to think of it in a way they otherwise could, which holds all of us back.

One of the things that makes it complex is that the answer, I think, changes a lot depending on the population.

I totally agree with you. I've thought about this as well. Most of the folks I know in bad situations had some early stumbles and they sort of just gave up, as you say. The thing is - and where I struggle - is that the early stumbles weren't insurmountable. It's like they had no fire, no tenacity, no will power.

Fire, tenacity, and willpower for... what, exactly? Towards what end? Why should everyone have to play ubermensch just to survive?

Because that's how nature works? Because it's naive to think we've evolved so far that we are no longer subject to natural forces and evolutionary history?

So farmers have spent thousands of years of civilization valiantly striving to out-ubermensch each-other, and the rest of us just never heard about it? Shepherds? Priests? Scientists? Artists and writers?

Shit, how have I missed the evolutionary war of all against all going on all around me? There are so many gene-rivals I could have stabbed in back-alleys!

Or does evolution maybe allow for successful strategies towards survival and reproduction that don't neatly map to metaphors about war?

Oh please, you're propping up a strawman. You don't need to be an "ubermensch" to survive, and that's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying you can't expect to be lazy and make bad choices and also expect to have as much as someone who works hard and makes smart choices. That was my point regarding evolutionary history and nature.

Farmers that worked hard and planned ahead did better than those who did nothing. Those that bought crop insurance or fastidiously watched the weather were in a better position to succeed than those who didn't. Similar scenarios abound for your other examples.

No matter how much you wish otherwise, nature (and our society) is set up for certain kind of animals/people to succeed - and if you wilfully choose to ignore the system that's fine, but don't be mad when it doesn't work out great for you.

I don't wish. I put my efforts into overthrowing your so-called "natural" order. Nature, after all, is merely everything compatible with the laws of physics. If we create a universal basic income, or pass living-wage laws, those are natural!

While UBI and living wage laws are compatible with physics, they are not part of nature. UBI and living wage laws are human rules, and nature will do whatever it wants.

Humans have nature, too, and no amount of laws or rules will stop human nature. Until human beings become something else, always bet on it. Giving them more resources (e.g. money) tends to make things worse for them.

Strawman? His question was why is it necessary for everyone to be an ubermensch and your response not one message before his said "Because that's how nature works[.]"

Unless you meant to write something completely different, that's your stance and he rebutted it

"our society is set up for certain kind of people to succeed - but don't be mad when it doesn't work out great for you."

Here's the mistake in your thinking as a society can be set up to be fair or unfair. However, a society can be changed and does change. It's fine to be mad at unfairness, it's fine to fight unfairness via societal changes.

The minute we collectively stopped stronger folks than you and me from beating us up and taking our stuff, we left the realm of "how nature works".

In the west, we're all living in rich enough countries that no one should need superhuman will or fire or tenacity simply to live a decent life. No one willing to work 40 hours a week should be denied access to the medical care system, face food or housing insecurity, etc.

The fact that that is the situation for many speaks to problems in the way we've arranged society (which is about as far from "how nature works" as possible), not some innate rightness in the world.

> No one willing to work 40 hours a week

Quite often that's the problem. Particularly if we've built up a palace of perverse incentives that make it a better strategy to coast along on the byzantine web of social services that is effectively an inefficient Basic Income for people at the bottom of the pile, than it is to get a shitty job and make just enough money to lose all those benefits.

I can't really blame people that realize that that's the situation they face, though.

> Did something happen early on in that person's life that just kind of made them give up?

That is a retrospective way to address fairness. Another is, "Given where they are, can they start doing better and end up in a better place?"

A systemic problem that can (or used to) shove people down economically could be different than a systemic problem that doesn't allow a (reasonable) way to advance once they're at the bottom.

Point being, maybe people gave up. Maybe it's their fault. Maybe there was nothing they could do about it. But it's imperative that they have credible ways to undo that decision going forward.

Relevant issues (different people will add and/or subtract from the list):

1. permanent felony records and difficulty in getting records expunged after a history of good citizenship

2. hard cut-offs in government benefit programs

2a. getting a raise should not be a personal net loss

2b. getting married should not be a personal net loss

2c. getting more hours should not be a personal net loss, for you or your employer (the ACA really messed up here)

2d. moving to a better situation should not put your benefits at risk

3. Age discrimination needs to be taken more seriously

3a. 50-year-old college grads should have the same shots as anyone else. Otherwise, retraining from failed industries will be prohibitively difficult.

3b. New grads can't afford to wait 5-10 years for their first shot... this causes delayed marriages, delayed savings for retirement, an aging workforce, etc.

4. Home addresses are tied to wealth. Public schools are tied to home addresses. So public educational opportunity for kids is tied to how much wealth their parents have. Something has to be done about this.

Indeed, in the UK a single working parent with one child on the minimum income working between 30 to 40 hours a week has an effective marginal tax rate of 91% (every extra pound earned means 91 pence is transferred to the government via income tax, national insurance, and reduced benefits). No wonder most single parents in the UK don't want to work. And the well off complain about a, before deductions, rate of 40%.

Counter-anecdote: my wife has a Master's degree and works 60 hours a week, trying to transition from biotech to teaching. She has to cobble together multiple jobs, some of which are in the "low-wage sectors". She works 60 hours a week because, well, budgets have been cut to school districts. She'll be earning $16k/year next year as a teaching fellow, albeit earning her education Master's while doing it.

We have a friend who scarcely makes $11.50/hour working in foodservice. Sure, the woman doesn't have the discipline or ambition to be a high-powered professional, but she never wanted to be a high-powered professional. She's working-class in the proper sense of the word: born to blue-collar workers, grew up in a blue-collar town, wants to just do a fair day's work for a day's livable pay. She doesn't get that choice, because everything outside the professional class has been gutted of livable wages and opportunities.

Nonetheless, how many jobs are professional jobs? 20%? 10% of new jobs inside this past decade? If your proposal is simply that inequality isn't a problem because everyone should be a professional, how are 100% of the people supposed to squeeze themselves into 10% of the jobs?

And if 90% of the people end up in the bottom 90% of the jobs, why should those jobs exploit them by paying unliveably low wages? After all, if there wasn't profit to be made employing those workers, nobody would do it, and minimum-wage rises at the municipal level have "destroyed" nowhere near as many jobs as predicted.

It looks to me like "inequality" really means "exploitation", a word Americans should start saying more often.

Your wife is being paid to go to school and she'll make better money as a teacher when she completes?

Brilliant, welcome to the middle class.

If you're unambitious and living on 20k a year (like your friend in foodservice), you can get a roommate, a beater car, and still have a fun life. That's not exploitation, that's her choice.

If she wants the responsibility of providing for a family, she should probably take on more responsibility in her career, and make way for our unemployed youths who need their first jobs so future employers will take them seriously for real ones.

>If you're unambitious and living on 20k a year (like your friend in foodservice),

As a matter of fact, her old employer never gave her full-year hours, so she had to deal with a basically minimum-wage income of ~$15k/year. She finally found a new foodservice position in her area (where she can afford the housing costs in mere driving distance to work) that will convert her to full-time this year, so she's making a bit of a move up. She's also been attending community college to become a paralegal, but that takes time when you're working and also dealing with personal issues.

And she'll never be able to support a family, dying young or putting stress on social programs as she ages with no support network.

Then after 30 years of these low skill folks dying off without having kids everyone will be pooping their pants about millions of immigrants moving in to prop up our economy that we uprooted and wondering where the economic power of the west is headed.

If you wife counts the cost of commuting, dress clothing, supplies/materials, paying others to cook/clean/care, taxes... does this even make a profit? What is the point?

Meanwhile, there is an impact on family life. There are only 168 hours in a week. Take out 56 for sleeping, 60 for work... now down to 52, which is 7.43 hours per day. In those 7.43 hours you must cook, eat, bathe, poop, shop, make love, commute, exercise, and more. I don't think that really fits. Something is not getting the time required.

Is there a good reason she persists? Would she feel unvalued as a stay-at-home mom? Does she fear that she might be inadequate? Does she somehow think she'd be a failure if she chose a traditional role? I hope you would still respect and value her if she did that, and that she knows it. (don't just assume she knows it -- and she may hesitate to believe you if you say it, due to upbringing or peers)

We don't have children. We don't believe in that "traditional role" rubbish. And also, we live in Boston: if you don't have two professionals working here, you don't make rent. Biotech was toxic for her, so she's taking a hit for a year to change fields.

I lived in Boston doing part-time IT help for what is $14.38/hour in 2017 dollars. You can make rent, just not in completely over-the-top fancy digs. I lived at 525 Newbury Street, in a basement apartment facing the alley. That isn't even a bad location; it is a very short walk away from the Kenmore Square station on the Green Line.

I had time for fun. I'm sure you can buy better toys than I could, but you mostly can't buy time.

Anyway, it is 100% false that you need two professionals to make rent. You could do it with a full-time minimum-wage job. Anything above that is luxury.

I've noticed an alarming lack of financial intelligence among people my age (I'm 24). People have no concept of saving money or investing, and consume as much as they possibly can. Lots of people are within a month of running out of cash, and have credit card debt.

Looking back on my public school education in the US, I'm kind of shocked that there was never a required course on personal finance. We had to spend weeks studying every major war in history, something that will never matter to us in our day-to-day lives, but we're left on our own to figure out how to stay out of debt and build a future for ourselves as working people. This directly impacts our lives every single day.

You pretty much have to read niche blogs and subreddits to even be exposed to it in our culture. It worries me a lot.

I think there's a bit of a squeeze area where people who work hard at jobs that pay between 30k and 50k (or even higher depending on the area) can find themselves basically paycheck to paycheck. And it's not all down to making bad decisions.

On top of that it's hard to hold every to a standard of making perfect decisions all the time. For example I know a couple people who bought houses right before the bubble burst in '08. Sure you can say that was a bad decision, but it's awfully heartless to expect everyone to be supremely wise to the real estate market.

There's people who probably don't have the ability to land a higher paying job yet still work hard at absolutely necessary jobs they have. And I think they deserve to have the comfort and safety, though perhaps not quite the luxury, as those who rise above them.

> For example I know a couple people who bought houses right before the bubble burst in '08.

And? Unless they lost their jobs in the mean time, or made some very very bad decisions with their mortgages, they are in all likelihood no longer upside down.

A drop in the value of your home doesn't take money out of your pocket - you're still making the same payments, you just feel worse about it.

>they are in all likelihood no longer upside down.

You clearly don't live in a non-metro area.

I don't disagree that there is a group of folks who are working hard and still struggling. I also agree that there should be some wiggle room for a few bad decisions not to sink you completely (depending on the severity of the decision).

But, in my experience this is not a large group of people. And, for the most part, this group isn't the one I see complaining in the news media.

And in any event, none of the policies the government currently has are meant for this group. They are somewhat lost in the shuffle. Should we do more for this group? Absolutely! But, I don't have a lot of hope much will get done.

It is all anecdotal, and completely misses a couple of things.

Firstly, that the direction of causality is not established. Nor is it likely to be an arrow, but rather merely a connection that has a feedback loop.

What I mean by feedback is that poor decisions often beget other poor decisions. Consider in a completely deterministic world such as chess. A poor move often leaves you only with other poor moves to make. The later into the game where you have played poorly, the more amazing you have to be playing at the end to still have a shot. (Any other sport shows this, too. You can always win with time on the clock. But it is harder the more you are behind.)

Secondly, don't neglect that your attitude and interactions will also lead to some of the outcomes you are seeing in discussions. You may think "they mostly realize this." It could just as likely be that they dont' get fired up about it with you.

Remember the speaker when it comes to inequality - sometimes, it looks to me more about upper middle class/the professional class assuaging internal guilt than a movement from the lower class.

I agree honest, a bunch of my friends from home don't do shit, don't want to do shit, and are perfectly happy with life. Honestly, probably happier than my wealthy friends. Low cost of living takes a lot of stress off your back.

The above only applies to people in that exact situation - there are of course huge structural problems with poverty in America w/r/t/ race, immigration status, etc. that are 100% not semi-idyllic image I'm describing.

I think blaming this on impulse control is self-serving.

I expect those with lower incomes tend to feel more oppressed and unhappy. They work hard every week but it's always paycheck to paycheck, and they always feel beholden to their employer. They don't have the financial freedom to _really_ control their lives in any significant way.

So perhaps they compensate by seeking fulfillment and distraction with netflix and video games. There has to be some outlet for all of their frustration, some way of mitigating that feeling of helplessness.

I live with a guy that has worked at Walmart for 13 years. He comes home absolutely exhausted. I don't know how he keeps going, but I have to think that indulging in movie theater visits and other forms of entertainment/distraction may actually be vital to maintaining his mental health.

I also know a lot of poor people, and none that work hard or work on themselves. The only poor person I know who works hard is me, but that's because every time I have money I use it to attempt a business. I don't consider that unfair at all, just the definition of 'risk'

What about 'unfairness' in the other direction? Anecdotally, I know plenty of people born into upper (or at least middle) class families who have made impulsive or bad decisions: not working hard in university or at their jobs, abusing drugs, getting DUIs, etc.. Almost all of them are "succeeding" despite their bad choices.

Lack of social mobility can mean it's difficult for poor people to rise above their station, but it also means it's hard for the rich to screw up badly enough that they suffer real consequences for their mistakes.

You say no hardworking, disciplined, motivated person should live in poverty, but what of the lazy, undisciplined wastrel offspring of the upper classes? Should they live in [relative] luxury?

I share some of your observations but I disagree with your implication that these people are poor primarily because they are lazy.

The alternative is that they lack motivation because their lives are exhausting and debilitating. Maybe that sounds paradoxical, but there are at least a handful of studies (with a quick Googling, e.g. [0] [1]) which suggest being poor is a massive stressor that has an impact on mental and physical health. When someone has no money and no clear path for advancement in life, it's not hard to see why they might want to escape with games or movies or drugs. That won't make their long term situation better, but its something small they can control and feel good about in an otherwise bleak and chaotic world.

It's also the case that people who've experienced success from working hard will have more motivation than those who haven't succeeded. To the latter group, the formula for success is theoretical rather than a lived experience--they haven't had positive reinforcement for past efforts so they're less motivated to try again in the future, even if that's suboptimal in their abstract model of the world.

So ultimately, yes, a lot of poverty is the result of bad decisions, but that's an incomplete picture of the death spiral of poverty where a lack of money and options creates a mindset that encourages those decisions.

[0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/am-i-right/201210/the-e...

[1] http://www.urban.org/urban-wire/povertys-toll-mental-health

Why is stress management / relaxation a bad decision? As far as they go, Netflix and video games are some of the best time/value propositions for these aspects of life.

Being poor is a constant juggling act between physical/mental/financial health. I don't think it makes sense to look at trade-offs between them as bad decisions.

What about people who tried hard, worked diligently, made smart decisions, got bogged down in poverty, and decided that there's no point in trying hard, working diligently, and making smart decisions if they're just going to get bogged down in poverty?

This is something I think gets lost, poor people in low-paying jobs have a pretty tenuous existence. They'll set aside their $10 a month for savings (and end up with $120 at the end of a year) and the first emergency wipes out their savings. So they start saving again--$10 a month or whatever--and a few more years, another emergency wipes it out.

It always gets me how people talk about how you can just live frugally, on poverty wages, and you'll slowly be less poor. That might work, if you have no emergencies in life, literally never make a mistake or display bad judgment in any way (remember, one emergency will wipe out years of saving and mistake-free life choices), and don't even think of having a family or raising children.

But positing that as "the way things ought to be for everyone" in the richest country on earth? That's fucked up.

I don't find that very weird. But then, as a currently successful person, I believe way less in the concept of "free will" than most.