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Comment by rsyring | Hacker News Reader

https://blog.ctms.me/about/

It would appear from the about page and the article that he has the requisite skills to earn an income that should move him out of the "poor" category:

- auto mechanic

- digital tech

- landscaping

I'm not trying to dismiss the difficult realities associated with being poor. But if you have the skills to make more money and bring your family out of the "poor" category, why wouldn't you do that? IMO, basic financial security for your family should trump "I like to work outside."

He obviously has different priorities, which is fine. But I'm not sure the search for sympathy/empathy in the blog post is warranted.

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I was unconvinced he was writing about his current state, but a prior state / maybe his family background.

I hadn't considered that until reading comments like this. It's possible...probable even.

In that case, was he really poor? His whole argument is that being poor is a permanent state. If he's not poor now, was he ever?

His comment that you can get out- two people did- may either be a claim that his own escape doesn’t prove that escape is possible for all, or a batman reference. I lack the media literacy to be sure which.

It fits the Batman reference, somewhat.

Bruce Wayne (Batman's public-facing identity) was imprisoned in a pit where he was the second person to ever escape.

What I find a bit ironic, is this allegory can be used to reach the opposite perspective OP is trying to dispel. The bit about the "hopefulness" doesn't only refer to the light at the opening of the pit, but also in that the "escape" mechanism was actually being facilitated by the prison. This "escape" was supposedly designed to enact the "true despair" the OP was highlighting. The element they left out, was the fact this was done by extending a "support" rope from the opening which was deliberately too short to be useful. This causes Bruce to muster his own raw physical and mental strength to make the climb without the rope and ultimately prevail through personal will-power.

I guess OP would say Bruce is actually only "broke" here and not "poor".

System thinking please. Can every person in poverty become IT employed? Start a landscaping business? If they did would that likely cause a whole brand new set of problems? What jobs are these people currently doing? Don't those jobs need to be done? Can our society afford them to be done? Shouldn't anyone contributing to society (or legitimately unable to) be permitted to thrive? What could we do that would permit that? What do we do currently which harms it?

If there are jobs are legitimately not worth doing or paying someone to thrive while doing, why do those jobs exist? If these people aren't capable (or even willing) to do these jobs (or better jobs), why? How can we motivate or train people. (Lots of education, healthcare and especially psychotherapy are missing, I can tell you that.)

We can't solve poverty by thinking "well, some individuals might be able to solve theirs". It's a whole population, we have to solve for the whole population.

And people they work with and know

>landscaping

You're not going to make any money in this unless you have a ton of tools. Working for someone else with the tools generally doesn't pay crap. Also in the US it is/was common to use undeclared immigrant labor for these kinds of jobs.

Also, I imagine if you live in the middle of nowhere, landscaping skills would be all but useless. You need to be within reasonable distance of enough people willing to pay you a living wage.

I'm pretty sure the author's membership in the "poor" category is in the past tense.

I poked around their blog some more out of curiosity and I can't figure out what his situation is. In a year-old article about burnout and vacation, he mentions burning out from a job in marketing, and ends by saying therapy isn't an option because he lives under the poverty line and can't even afford to get vital blood work done. Maybe this hit so hard that it actually made him unable to do more remunerative work. But it sure feels like he's poor by choice. Which is odd because this article seems like a pretty good description of what it's like to be poor not by choice. There is an almost throwaway line that stands out at me now:

"Should I work a second job and never see my wife? My kids? Should I never have any personal time? Should my entire life revolve around money? Should I kill myself for capitalism?"

The rest of the article is about how you can't just choose to stop being poor. And in the middle of all this is something that boils down to, "I could stop being poor, I just don't like the tradeoff." Which is certainly his right, but it makes this whole thing feel like poverty cosplay.

"I could stop being poor, I just don't like the tradeoff."

I feel like this is an ugly truth, but still a truth. It's also very ugly.

For some people there's no tradeoff on how much they have to suffer to get some financial security because they already have it. Some people have to suffer a bit but quickly hit escape velocity. Some people never stop suffering. It's terrible.

I think Dave Ramsey has many annoying qualities but his "sometimes you have to act crazy to get out of it" is basically correct even if it's very, very uncomfortable IMO.

It's one of those difficult topics that people like to take to extremes.

Many poor people are in difficult situations with no clear way out. They're already working the best paying job they can find, as much as they can, and doing as much as they can to advance. Learning new skills requires time and energy they don't have.

Some are poor by choice. They could put in more hours, get a second job, or learn new skills, and escape the trap. But they don't want to. This might be "lazy," or it might be "prioritizes family time," or whatever.

But as soon as you say that some people are really stuck no matter how hard they try to get out, it's taken as saying nobody can ever get out of it. And if you say that some people can get out of it and don't, it's taken as saying every poor person is just lazy.

What's curious about this post is that it seems like a pretty good insider description of being completely stuck, except the author isn't.

Not just that, they appear to have 6 kids.

I have a lot of empathy for people that are struggling financially, especially with how hard things are now. I grew up in a way that most would consider to be "poor", though I mostly never felt that way.

I do well for myself now, better than I ever thought I could, and yet still I had to think very hard about the financial implications and compromises that come with choosing to have kids. Making 6 babies then complaining that you're poor, come on man, wtf? If you're going to do that, you have to do absolutely whatever you can to bring resources in for your family. That means working the "boring desk job" if it pays more, even if you prefer to be outside wiring up sprinklers.

Where is the accountability, the locus of self control? Sorry, but I don't buy any of this.

This gets me too. I generally agree that success is basically luck * effort, so I don't judge people who haven't been able to "make it." Similarly, I don't really admire people for having "made it"... If I don't know them personally, there's no way for me to gauge the ratio of luck and effort.

However, I do judge adults who aren't in good circumstances who also decide to bring children into their hardship. I have two kids, which is the most I felt I could provide for (time, money, attention, energy, etc).

I don't see how you can be "dirt poor" of the way explained if you live in the USA and have 6 kids.

Even the "worst" state in the USA will give tons of assistance quite high with 6 kids.

    - Cancel Netflix
    - Make food at home
    - Stop going to Starbucks
    - Fix it yourself
    - Don’t upgrade your phone

I have money and I do all of these things. It's got nothing to do with being poor. More of just a best practice imho.

In the article he says those things are not really relevant, because he's already been doing them at 100% for a long time.

Poor people should have Amazon prime because it doubles as fast delivery, and zero other streaming services. Staying in is always going to be cheaper than going out so some entertainment at home is a good idea.

Poor people shouldn't be buying shit on Amazon, nor should they be spending money on Prime.

They'd be better off with DVDs from the library.

The problem is the same as with dieting; we do know what we need to do but the willpower required is quite high.

And the world is engineered to make it hard, because they want to separate us from what money we do have.

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