I have nothing against "underrepresented people", or any particular feelings toward any class of humans not defined by particular actions.
My views towards poor people are the same as my views towards myself and my friends; most of my own problems are my fault. This is doubly true when statistics suggest a correlation between bad behaviors and negative outcomes.
Note the vast majority of my posts are merely discussion of the world as it is, not an expression of mood affiliation (" I'm so empathetic to favored groups, bask in my moral virtue"). And if you actually want to fix things rather than morally posture, you need to do the same.
Further, note that in at least one of your links, I'm advocating in favor of the poor (India being my goto example) and against the rich (american "poor"), at least if you read my post through thr lens of mood affiliation. But I guess "those people" don't count.
Being honest, you come off as extremely out-of-touch with the experience of poor people in the US. Have you had any close relationships with poor people? I don't mean an educated person that is down on their luck, or college students eating ramen, but someone who grew up poor and is still poor now.
Most people here probably agree with you that poor people tend to have worse impulse control. But you seem totally unaware of how significantly stress, trauma, or desperation affect impulse control. It's more than just stress about paying the bills. I tutored reading at an intercity elementary school and there were kids there who had family members incarcerated or murdered, homes foreclosed, parents making the local headlines for child abuse, etc. One boy I taught had to move out of his house because someone shot it up in a driveby looking for his older brother. A girl from a refugee family had 19 siblings and a physically abusive, alcoholic father. My coworker taught a boy whose parents were both in prison for murder. It was not uncommon to see little kids wearing RIP shirts for friends and family members. These stories are so much more common than you'd think. I'm not being hyperbolic, look at gunshot and homocide maps for Chicago in a single year:
Sure, a phenomenally resilient person can make it out of horrible circumstances, but the average person isn't able to. I personally don't think I would have fared well if I grew up in a bad environment. As a younger person I was angry and depressed enough already without the reality of hearing gunshots nightly, losing family members, facing systemic discrimination, going to bed hungry, etc. I had a great family and I still fucked up along the way sometimes. I also had a support system that allowed me to take the risks that made me independent and not poor today.
I somewhat disagree with your last point too. I grew up in the US but now live in a very poor country. The struggle is bad in both countries, just different.
When I live in the US I mostly live in poor neighborhoods. I've known many poor people. And I've observed a number of poor people get off their ass, get a job, and stop being poor. Let me point out two issues:
I don't mean an educated person that is down on their luck, or college students eating ramen...
If poverty were actually the cause of assorted bad things, then why wouldn't college students experience those same bad things? Clearly something else is at work.
You provide one possible alternative factor: crime. Perhaps we need more police in certain regions, drone powered surveillance, or other such solutions. That's a problem, but it's a) unrelated to the question of whether time spent working prevents poor people from cooking and b) minimally related to poverty.
Because most college students are not poor in the sense that they grew up poor and still are poor. And college students who grew up poor are much more likely to leave college midway through, which is an obvious effect of dealing with ever-looming stress, health problems, and trauma that people from a poor background are much more likely to deal with.
It's impossible to go to college or enter the workforce and just switch off all the bad things in your past and present. From my experience a lot of my college friends who left midway through had family problems, often financial or health problems. Again this is stuff that poor people go through much more, and it negatively impacts their ability to hold down a job, finish college, and succeed in general.
It's a complicated issue but you seem to have no desire to understand it further than "get off your ass, get a job, and stop being poor".
And I strongly disagree that the US needs more police.
Surveillance is inevitable and if data and access are open, then I'm relatively at ease with it.
Edit: Crime is minimally related to poverty? I don't know how you can justify that statement.
And college students who grew up poor are much more likely to leave college midway through, which is an obvious effect of dealing with ever-looming stress, health problems, and trauma that people from a poor background are much more likely to deal with.
So the claim is not that being poor is directly an issue, but that poor people are more likely to have other issues.
Most people's actions are controlled by their circumstances. Most people don't have much leeway for free will, and those that do don't know enough to apply it correctly. And since they often they don't even know what they don't know, they can't educate themselves out of their ignorance.
There's remarkably little empathy in what you write. It makes me think you're either on the autistic spectrum, or very young with no life experience, younger that I had thought you were based on your profile age.
Toehead2000 stated your theory more succinctly: "Poor people have no agency." Suffice it to say that I don't agree - I believe poor people are just as human as I am.
Scroll up for a simple way to test whether lack of education is a correct theory. What's the result?
As for empathy, I believe it's nothing but a feel-good substitute for moral reasoning. I've discussed that in more depth in the past: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8507328
And the way you are attempting to use it, as a substitute for actual facts, is simply anti-intellectualism. So are the ad-hominem fallacies, which have sadly become commonplace here and in modern culture.
"Poor people have no agency." Suffice it to say that I don't agree - I believe poor people are just as human as I am.
Suffice it to say, I think you are radically overestimating how much agency even you have.
As for empathy, I believe it's nothing but a feel-good substitute for moral reasoning.
Empathy is necessary for human communication. Without it, you will forever be grinding your own axe and never change anyone's mind. You need to be able to get inside other people's heads, and see things from their perspective, in order to change their minds and behaviours. And in doing this, you see that most people are not that different to you. Usually, they just have different information.
Principles - and I prefer ethical principles to a system of morality with its baggage-laden language of judgement - are useful tools for judging things. But if you want to actually change the world, and improve things, you need more than that. You need to be able to take action, and predict the results of your action. And here's the paradox: the action that is most principled may not lead to the result that is most good. It may even be harmful to the greater good.
Now, I'm not saying that ends justify means, either, but rather: viewing actions through a simplistic principle-based lens is ultimately not productive.
I don't think there's any god. I don't think anyone is going to pat you on the head for doing the right thing even if it results in despair. All we can do is try and improve the human condition for all of us, collectively, into the future. And in this, ends do matter. Simplistic principles are not enough.
My views towards poor people are the same as my views towards myself and my friends; most of my own problems are my fault. This is doubly true when statistics suggest a correlation between bad behaviors and negative outcomes.
Note the vast majority of my posts are merely discussion of the world as it is, not an expression of mood affiliation (" I'm so empathetic to favored groups, bask in my moral virtue"). And if you actually want to fix things rather than morally posture, you need to do the same.
Further, note that in at least one of your links, I'm advocating in favor of the poor (India being my goto example) and against the rich (american "poor"), at least if you read my post through thr lens of mood affiliation. But I guess "those people" don't count.