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I don't think you're as much at odds with the author as you claim. What I read in the article was him trying to teach a different way of looking at things, a new angle, which is what I read you got out of your enlistment.

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Yes, this quote from the reply jumped out at me: "What mattered was that I was removed from the environment I was in."

The author is saying the same thing, though perhaps more to do with mental models than physicality.

I'm not saying it didn't have a positive effect on the people who were able to participate. What I'm saying is that it showed a positive impact for a carefully chosen group of people who met a very narrowly defined set of characteristics. There's nothing in the way it was done that provides any specific insights into people at or below the poverty level, what keeps them there or what can be done to provide help improving their situation. All it served to do was to highlight that smart people in a bad situation want to learn and are improved for having learned, the same as smart people in a not-bad situation. I called it a "feel good" piece because the only meaningful conclusion it reaches (because the narrow selection constraints prevented it from being broadly applicable) is that poor people are people, too and look how great it is we helped some.

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