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Comment by sologoub | Hacker News Reader

As someone who has experienced pretty rough times (different from the OP), but doing just fine myself, of course luck has a lot to do with it, but why in the world so many people feel so compelled to belittle the accomplishment of OP climbing out and then encouraging others to at least hope for the same?

I’m pretty sure things would be very different today if I didn’t have that hope. Don’t take the hope from people even if it’s a long shot.

For all those reading this who are in a bad place financially or otherwise - YOU CAN DO IT! Do not listen to nay sayers and just do your best (or better yet, do even better - you can never really know your own limits/potential unless you try). It’s not a done deal, but is better than the alternative.

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If you read "you can do it" as encouragement to others in the same situation, it's a good thing. When you read it as a justification for why we shouldn't expand the social net, it's pretty terrible. No one is trying to belittle OP's accomplishments, but "I did it and you can too" sounds like a line from an anti-welfare politician so it shouldn't be surprising that many people take issue with it.

Agreed. "It can be done" would be a more appropriate phrasing, IMO. I dug myself out of worse circumstances than OP described, but it took a lot of luck, persistence, and a good amount of risk taking to get there. I guess it helped that I was at a point where I didn't have much to lose, so, risk taking seemed less risky than staying where I was.

OPs context does not touch on safety nets at all, so where are you getting this from?

Seems like such thinking is a symptom of our current political BS. Having experienced some pretty crappy times, would you honestly think I’d oppose NOT subjecting others to the same misery?! Of course not, no one should experience these and everyone deserves basic dignity.

It’s just the social context in the US right now and for better or worse, this is often a very US-centric forum. “I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and you can too” is very strongly associated with the political view that people should receive minimal/no help from the government. It’s a talking point by that side and one that is heavily parodied/mocked by the other side. You can’t use a phrase like that without many people seeing a connection - as seen in this comment section.

That’s a very unfortunate and cruel situation.

For what it’s worth, I don’t actually know of an implemented system that is sufficient in preventing/mitigating enough of the poverty. (EDIT: if we had basic income, that would probably do it, without means testing/etc) US situation is unbelievable in that regard - not only do we not have a safety net to speak of, our medical care system is a fast track to poverty and bankruptcy.

Thanks for that distinction. This is the right framing and clarifies things for me.

I don't think the point is to belittle their accomplishments, but rather a realistic take on poverty. A lot of people try really hard, and still cannot get out of poverty.

This is something we as a society need to deal with, and not disregard a systematic problem with anecdotal success stories and saying "You can too!"

> why in the world so many people feel so compelled to belittle the accomplishment of OP climbing out and then encouraging others to at least hope for the same?

It is very sad if you ask me. Some people hold the worldview that becoming poor and staying poor are things entirely outside of one's own control. Success stories threaten that worldview, so people admonish those who "made it" and remind them that they are nothing but lucky.

How do you keep believing "YOU CAN DO IT"? I have been looking for stable employment for three years, only finding temporary gigs or underemployment. The past year, I've pretty much given up. I know I'm doing something wrong, I just don't know what.

Today I am forcing myself to go through the motions of an application - and I am constantly asking myself why am I doing this, because they will just find fault with me and not respond.

He said poverty doesn’t have a color implying that black people aren’t impoverished because of systemic racism, but because they don’t work hard enough. It’s racist drivel.

An interesting social science result is that one (in my mind, the primary) result of wokeness is deminished empathy for impoverished whites. I took ops comment to mean "hey, don't disregard my struggle because i happen not to be black", rather than seeing, as you apparently have, "racist drivel". A point I'm sure has been made a million times, and which you are no doubt impervious to, but one that remains valid nonetheless.

Keep in mind, you're referring to a comment on a message board that took maybe 30 minutes to write, and likely less, not an op-ed in the NYT. Read more charitably, and in context, "poverty doesn't have a color" sounds more like "people of any race can end up poor."

What does this have to do with black?

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