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Comment by frankzinger | Hacker News Reader

Kamaal makes a valid point. He is simply stating things from the perspective of a poor person, and is describing reality. It would be a big mistake for a poor person to rely on somebody else to improve his situation.

The situation is very similar in South Africa. The poor makes up such a large proportion of the population that their situation cannot be improved significantly without major wealth redistribution (combined with a massive reduction in government corruption, preferably). Neither of these things are likely to happen (unless there is a revolution), so a poor person can only realisticly rely on himself to improve his situation.

Kamaal's point does not contradict the OP's. It's just a statement of reality from the perspective of the poor.

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I wouldn't agree with this. the poor (generally) on their own: Have no chance. They can work endlessly, and their situation will not change. Kamaal seems to be blaming them for being 'victims'... But they literally have no chance on their own. They need others (poor and higher classes) to change the institutions that cause their helplessness.

Arguing they have only themselves to rely on, feels like a rationalisation to not help them.

Which part of Kamaal's post blames anybody for having the 'victim mentality'? All I see him saying is that 10:1 nobody will help you so you need to either accept poverty or work towards getting yourself out of it.

EDIT: I see where you're coming from now that I've seen his higher-up posts.

Half of the problem of being poor is even being aware that you are able to change your status. It's intellectually lazy to pull the 'just work hard' line, when most of what gets you wealth is what you know, not how hard you work.

Not to mention that in the end, even if everyone did 'just work hard', there isn't enough wealth to go around. The civilised thing is at least to give people basic services and let themselves work to higher wealth from there.

I never said "just working hard" will solve the poor's problems. All I said was that it's better to do all you can than to expect help to come from the government or charity because that is unrealistic in countries with such a large poor population and would most likely only get you a lifetime of false hope.

And I am not saying that most poor people expect handouts. If anything I would guess that most of them are hard-working. I only brought it up because of the parent post. I realise I owe my own middle-class status to the fact that my parents are middle-class.

And I am all for the well-off helping the poor. I only wish the (South African, in my case) government would do their part.

No, but your parent did. My point is that merely knowing that you can work to improve your position, build on it, is novel information in and of itself for a great many people, not to mention how to do that.

My position is less about handouts, and more about the assumption that poor people know how to get out of poverty and all that's missing is the elbow grease. Yes, relying on the government for handouts isn't going to work, and you also want to be careful of welfare dependence. But education is a significant wealth-enabler, and merely knowing how to deal with various things can give people a leg up. Kamaal's point is about giving a giant shrug and saying "eh, what can you do?". It reflects the current realities of the situation, but the lazy part is not bothering to think of better ways forward.

> there isn't enough wealth to go around.

Though one often reads that acquiring/making wealth isn't a zero sum game.

It definitely isn't a zero-sum game - more basic medical skills in a demographic will improve quality of life, for example, and that's just (almost) free knowledge - but it still doesn't mean there's enough wealth to give everyone a comfortable life.

> Neither of these things are likely to happen (unless there is a revolution),

There was actually a revolution. When I was a kid, Nelson Mandela was in jail. Did the revolution improve matters?

One thing is very different between .in and .za: .za is one of the most violent countries in the world, while .in is one of the least violent.

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