How do we change the mindset of the poor to get them out of poverty?

[Zaap]

I've worked in corporate America with way too many overpaid middle managers with MBAs who somehow still can't spell cat or find their ass with both hands to be able to believe that every successful person earned their success and vice versa every unsuccessful person their failure.

Such people need to fall to their own true level of worth as well as a global economy sheds the baggage. There's plenty of people stuck in a falling down shack right now that could do their jobs better but for an accident of geography. Time to correct that.Let the chips fall where they may.

 

[Paratus]

"Are there no prisons? And the Union workhouses, are they still in operation?"

You know I suddenly realized while watching "A Christmas Carol" last year that in Ebenezer Scrooge, Dickens was writing about conservatives. The amazing thing to me was that the conservative personality was the same then as it still is today, 170 years later.

Unfortunately I don't think even a visit from the Ghosts of Christmas could change some of the assholes in this thread.

 

[shortylickens]

Free handouts dont work as well as making people learn how to take care of themselves.

You can quote Dickens all you want. It doesnt change reality.

 

[Paratus]

Free handouts dont work as well as making people learn how to take care of themselves.

You can quote Dickens all you want. It doesnt change reality.

No reality doesn't change.

However are you sure you know what reality actually is? Cause it sounds like you are referring to ideology.

If you look at some of the links, scientific studies have shown that unattached money handed out to poor people ended up increasing their overall situation. Most of the money went to education, or building up a business. Overall the communities that received the money were well ahead of the controls.

Again reality is what it is.

 

[werepossum]

Complicated question. In the first world, there's very definitely a mentality that will more likely lead to being poor than it will produce success. It's living in a land that DOES have opportunities for those willing to do what's required to take advantage of them- and yet falling for all the ruses that says you can't succeed (usuall pushed by poltical hack assholes) then living in a way where your focus is on things that pretty much will lead to a life of poverty- IE: spending all your time in a street gang terrorizing your own neighborhood instead of doing something productive, spending all your time learning something like being a rap star or a basketball player, rather than something you might actually stand a shot in hell of doing successfully.

On one side of town, you have a culture of people pushing their kids to study, learn useful skills, become doctors, CPAs, engineers, whatever- that wouldn't begin for one second to tolerate their kids roaming the streets at all hours, getting involved in crime, wasting too much of their time on things unlikely to get them anywhere- that's a community more likely to succeed.

On the other side of town you have a culture embracing exactly the opposite- not giving a shit if their kids study or not, in fact yelling at their teachers for any attempt at discipline. Kids roaming the street at all hours? What's the big deal? Focusing all their time and energy on things more likely to land them in a jail cell than an office earning money? So what? That's the culture. So be it. It's also one leading to poverty and a shitty life more than it is success.

Meanwhile- you have poor people around the world who don't have the benefit of living in the first world, who have exactly the opposite mindset- they WANT to get the hell out of poverty, and understand what it actually takes to do so. All many of them really require is a system where it's even possible to do so. Even with no money, many of them encourage their kids to focus on education, and don't put up with bullshit excuses.

It's why you can pluck a person out of that environment -with the mindset of wanting to improve themselves- stick them in the first world, and they will see opportunity literally *everywhere* and often do well.

It's no secret with me: I'd much rather see that type of person all over the world rewarded with the jobs and opportunities that many of the first world "poor-in-mindset" have forfeited dibs on, and are less deserving of. I hope the trend continues in that direction, and the poor-in-mindset eventually reach the type of poverty that comes when even the liferaft of first-world citizenship is removed and your life choices are totally your own. And that those who embrace improvement and strive for better (not just demand it out of some warped belief in first-world birthright privilege) get the rewards for it they deserve.

Well said, but it's not quite that simple. See below.

My experience is that poor people have no clue how to get out of poverty because they are not educated, don't understand the process of getting educated, don't know how to create wealth, and the system heavily penalizes those who make around the poverty level by having their cost of living be a huge portion of their income. My experience also says that many people who are living in the middle class are very close to being poor. If they lose their job and don't have family to support them for the 6 months it takes to get a new job they might be out on the street. A medical emergency can make just about anyone poor not just because of the bills but because of the loss of income. Then on top of that you have people who are poor because they did everything close to correct but not quite. Maybe they went and got educated as a aerospace engineer but the industry burst and there were no jobs. Now they're left with debt and no job despite being educated. Now these people stand a better chance of getting on their feet but they might have to go back to school and are technically poor for over 10 years of their life.

Over generalizing is a fools errand. Most of us are far closer to being poor than we care to admit. Maybe you don't have enough car insurance coverage so if you kill someone you're bankrupt. Maybe you have a variable rate mortgage. Maybe you're on the verge of a bitter divorce.

Combating poverty takes broad measure.

This is also well said. Many poor people truly believe that if they work hard, they'll have a good life, because that's what we say. Yet if one has no marketable, valuable skills, one can work extremely hard and yet only the truly exceptional AND lucky will reach solid middle class. While it's easy in theory to take a hard-working, honest, personable but largely illiterate and unsophisticated janitor and train him up to be a manager, it's vastly easier and more common to just hire someone with existing managerial skills. This is not well understood and often manifests simply as "the man" or "the system" keeping you down.

Even the simplest requirements are not well understood. Case in point - our one time janitorial service had one of the most beautiful young women I've ever met. She disappeared for three days, no phone call, no text, nothing. When she came back, she told her manager that she had gone to Atlanta with her momma. She was of course fired. Here's a reasonably bright, reasonably articulate, very attractive high school graduate with a good personality, seemingly everything she needed to succeed, and yet neither her education nor her family had given her a basic understanding of the bare minimum required to hold even a minimum wage job. I knew her for maybe a year and found nothing deficient in either her mind or her character, yet she just did not have the skills to even get in on the ground floor in our society. That's an ignorance problem, not a stupidity or laziness problem.

Its very telling on how utterly clueless you are that you think people don't want to get out of poverty.

You missed "understand what it takes to actually get out of poverty." Money is not HOW one gets out of poverty, it's the RESULT of one getting out of poverty. Understanding how one earns that money is understanding what it takes to get out of poverty.

 

[nehalem256]

No reality doesn't change.

However are you sure you know what reality actually is? Cause it sounds like you are referring to ideology.

If you look at some of the links, scientific studies have shown that unattached money handed out to poor people ended up increasing their overall situation. Most of the money went to education, or building up a business. Overall the communities that received the money were well ahead of the controls.

Again reality is what it is.

And the reality is it was given out in some poor Vietnamese village I believe.

You don't see a difference in giving out money to people who are use to self-reliance or starvation and giving it out to people who are used to government handouts?:hmm:

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Poor people are usually poor by choice. Sure there are poor people with disabilities and I can understand in that situation. In my experience poor people usually have problems with working and even when they do work they waste their money on junk or cars they shouldn't own.

 

[alkemyst]

Poor people are usually poor by choice. Sure there are poor people with disabilities and I can understand in that situation. In my experience poor people usually have problems with working and even when they do work they waste their money on junk or cars they shouldn't own.

QFT, they also have an attitude that the job they can get is 'beneath them'.

One of the best/worst nights out was our table just spilled a drink, the hostess was passing by so I asked her if she can get someone (not even putting it on her directly) to get us napkins/a towel/etc.

Her IMMEDIATE reply was "WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I AM, I AM THE HOSTESS HERE!"

She was commenting while we were waiting for the table how she was so happy to be working finally and "this place" was so nice (it was a high end dining establishment, like not quite coats required, but casual attire was not allowed). She was talking about looking for a decent job for so long.

I think the Maitre D wanted to leap over five tables when her heard not only her outburst but the F bomb being dropped.

We actually got fully comp'd that night and they offered us any two bottles off their short wine list and desserts all around. We had a table of 8+.

They asked me if there is anything they could do further. I said I don't want to see her fired, I think it would be a good lesson if she was told to apologize.

She was asked and she said FUCK THEM!. She was escorted out. #YOLO

 

[Zaap]

Well said, but it's not quite that simple. See below.

That's just the problem- life ISN'T "that simple" and yet people want it to be. Nothing I said is based on anything being "simple"- it's based on likelihood and best-possible chances. Those things aren't guarantees, which is what some people want to believe in, but it's not possible to guarantee success, and those who pretend there is are usually basing it on some highly simple-minded scheme of big government.

If a person is hard working, educated (for real) and acquires skills and knowledge that's useful to their fellow man, they stand a much better chance and likelihood of succeeding than someone who wallows in a subculture that places less value on those things, and believes their lack of success is just a conspiracy of "da man" out to get them. And yes, there ARE plenty of people mired in that.

There are different levels to this as well- if you work hard at things that don't pay very well- like being able to wash dishes for example- you can't expect to make as much and do as well as someone who works hard at learning how to build/design/make things. Again, these are just facts, but they're uncomfortable for some that have been told that all outcomes should be equal to make things "fair", while ignoring the obvious reality that the world doesn't work that way.

What I find telling, is that we've devolved so far in so little time, that telling people the best way to prepare for success is to be hard working, and acquire knowledge and skills is some sort of radical, far-fetched idea. Oh how radical!!! And to admit that some groups and cultures focus on that more than others is also supposed to be radical.

Meanwhile, the same people think there's nothing far-fetched and simple-minded about their constant "solution" they push- which is basically just don't hold anyone accountable for anything, push equality of outcome no matter what, concoct grand big government schemes to take money from those that are successful and just give it to those who aren't, and then sit back and pretend that's the magic formula to make everyone's dreams come true, and that there's never any problem with it, nor that it's over-simplistic bullshit.

Waiting around for some government fatcat to deliver your success to you: most rational and "compassionate" idea in the world!

Realizing that being prepared and able to do for self is the only way anything really works: RADICAL IDEA!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!

 

[Veliko]

That's just the problem- life ISN'T "that simple" and yet people want it to be. Nothing I said is based on anything being "simple"- it's based on likelihood and best-possible chances. Those things aren't guarantees, which is what some people want to believe in, but it's not possible to guarantee success, and those who pretend there is are usually basing it on some highly simple-minded scheme of big government.

If a person is hard working, educated (for real) and acquires skills and knowledge that's useful to their fellow man, they stand a much better chance and likelihood of succeeding than someone who wallows in a subculture that places less value on those things, and believes their lack of success is just a conspiracy of "da man" out to get them. And yes, there ARE plenty of people mired in that.

There are different levels to this as well- if you work hard at things that don't pay very well- like being able to wash dishes for example- you can't expect to make as much and do as well as someone who works hard at learning how to build/design/make things. Again, these are just facts, but they're uncomfortable for some that have been told that all outcomes should be equal to make things "fair", while ignoring the obvious reality that the world doesn't work that way.

What I find telling, is that we've devolved so far in so little time, that telling people the best way to prepare for success is to be hard working, and acquire knowledge and skills is some sort of radical, far-fetched idea. Oh how radical!!! And to admit that some groups and cultures focus on that more than others is also supposed to be radical.

Meanwhile, the same people think there's nothing far-fetched and simple-minded about their constant "solution" they push- which is basically just don't hold anyone accountable for anything, push equality of outcome no matter what, concoct grand big government schemes to take money from those that are successful and just give it to those who aren't, and then sit back and pretend that's the magic formula to make everyone's dreams come true, and that there's never any problem with it, nor that it's over-simplistic bullshit.

Waiting around for some government fatcat to deliver your success to you: most rational and "compassionate" idea in the world!

Realizing that being prepared and able to do for self is the only way anything really works: RADICAL IDEA!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!

This is just an incredibly long winded and tedious way of regurgitating the "pull your socks up" spiel.

 

[Zaap]

This is just an incredibly long winded and tedious way of regurgitating the "pull your socks up" spiel.

^ And speaking of the simple-minded.

 

[nickbits]

Based on my limited experience with poor people, they lack ambition/drive. I don't think there is a way to fix them except via natural selection.

 

[hal2kilo]

Nice try, get over your self.

After almost 8 years, I thought this would have died out, he inherited the mess to begin with.

Thanks, Dubya!

Check your meter.

 

[Moonbeam]

How would all you successful people have even the slightest inkling of what the mentality of the poor is or even the most remote of notions as to what to do about this factually ancient problem addressed now for ages by many of humanity's greatest minds? All you can hope to achieve, in your mechanically instilled pile of programmed garbage is to project your own inner state of unconscious poverty on others in whom you actually se yourselves.

 

[werepossum]

QFT, they also have an attitude that the job they can get is 'beneath them'.

One of the best/worst nights out was our table just spilled a drink, the hostess was passing by so I asked her if she can get someone (not even putting it on her directly) to get us napkins/a towel/etc.

Her IMMEDIATE reply was "WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I AM, I AM THE HOSTESS HERE!"

She was commenting while we were waiting for the table how she was so happy to be working finally and "this place" was so nice (it was a high end dining establishment, like not quite coats required, but casual attire was not allowed). She was talking about looking for a decent job for so long.

I think the Maitre D wanted to leap over five tables when her heard not only her outburst but the F bomb being dropped.

We actually got fully comp'd that night and they offered us any two bottles off their short wine list and desserts all around. We had a table of 8+.

They asked me if there is anything they could do further. I said I don't want to see her fired, I think it would be a good lesson if she was told to apologize.

She was asked and she said FUCK THEM!. She was escorted out. #YOLO

Sweet Lord, some people are too stupid to live.

That's just the problem- life ISN'T "that simple" and yet people want it to be. Nothing I said is based on anything being "simple"- it's based on likelihood and best-possible chances. Those things aren't guarantees, which is what some people want to believe in, but it's not possible to guarantee success, and those who pretend there is are usually basing it on some highly simple-minded scheme of big government.

If a person is hard working, educated (for real) and acquires skills and knowledge that's useful to their fellow man, they stand a much better chance and likelihood of succeeding than someone who wallows in a subculture that places less value on those things, and believes their lack of success is just a conspiracy of "da man" out to get them. And yes, there ARE plenty of people mired in that.

There are different levels to this as well- if you work hard at things that don't pay very well- like being able to wash dishes for example- you can't expect to make as much and do as well as someone who works hard at learning how to build/design/make things. Again, these are just facts, but they're uncomfortable for some that have been told that all outcomes should be equal to make things "fair", while ignoring the obvious reality that the world doesn't work that way.

What I find telling, is that we've devolved so far in so little time, that telling people the best way to prepare for success is to be hard working, and acquire knowledge and skills is some sort of radical, far-fetched idea. Oh how radical!!! And to admit that some groups and cultures focus on that more than others is also supposed to be radical.

Meanwhile, the same people think there's nothing far-fetched and simple-minded about their constant "solution" they push- which is basically just don't hold anyone accountable for anything, push equality of outcome no matter what, concoct grand big government schemes to take money from those that are successful and just give it to those who aren't, and then sit back and pretend that's the magic formula to make everyone's dreams come true, and that there's never any problem with it, nor that it's over-simplistic bullshit.

Waiting around for some government fatcat to deliver your success to you: most rational and "compassionate" idea in the world!

Realizing that being prepared and able to do for self is the only way anything really works: RADICAL IDEA!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!

I agree with all that. I'm just saying that some people are honestly clueless about how all that works. They're willing to work hard, they're willing to learn whatever job skills are necessary, they're wiling to follow whatever rules are necessary for success - they just don't understand any of that or even know how to go about learning.

This is just an incredibly long winded and tedious way of regurgitating the "pull your socks up" spiel.

When obviously the proper response is to demand that government pull up your socks for you.

News flash, only you can pull yourself out of poverty. Clearly some people need help determining which way is up or how to start pulling, but in the end, you have to help yourself. My ex-father-in-law had a profound saying that the old adage about "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime" is bullshit. If that man is hungry and his family is hungry and there are fish, then if there is anything at all to him he's going to be fishing as hard as he can without you. You can teach him how to fish better, you can give him better tools or teach him to make them, you can teach him how to maximize the return for his effort, but if he's not already fishing as best he can then you're wasting your time trying to teach him anything.

To a large extent I blame the school systems our society has forced on us. When the school teaches you that black folk invented the helicopter but not how to balance your checkbook or write an acceptable business letter, when your school teaches you how to cook in a cafeteria but not how to manage the books, when your school teaches you how to be a radio DJ but not how to repair a radio or design or wire a radio station, then you've been badly served. Doesn't mean you're a bad person, but it doesn't mean you're a good person either. It just means you have to change yourself. Thus Jedi's question - how do we get poor people to (A) recognize they need to change, and (B) help them recognize and then get the change they need?

 

[werepossum]

How would all you successful people have even the slightest inkling of what the mentality of the poor is or even the most remote of notions as to what to do about this factually ancient problem addressed now for ages by many of humanity's greatest minds? All you can hope to achieve, in your mechanically instilled pile of programmed garbage is to project your own inner state of unconscious poverty on others in whom you actually se yourselves.

Many if not most of us have been poor. When I was a kid the bathroom was outdoors and supper was pinto beans and potatoes and whatever we had left from the garden. In college, lunch and supper were generally Ramen noodles or something at that price point. Those experiences are hardly unique. We've been poor, we've lived with the poor, and we've known the poor. Stop acting as though poor people are some sort of bizarre unknowable alien species, they are us with a few changes or a little bad luck.

 

[MongGrel]

^ And speaking of the simple-minded.

He's right, though.

 

[Moonbeam]

Many if not most of us have been poor. When I was a kid the bathroom was outdoors and supper was pinto beans and potatoes and whatever we had left from the garden. In college, lunch and supper were generally Ramen noodles or something at that price point. Those experiences are hardly unique. We've been poor, we've lived with the poor, and we've known the poor. Stop acting as though poor people are some sort of bizarre unknowable alien species, they are us with a few changes or a little bad luck.

You misunderstand my point because you do not consider yourself poor. You don't have that station in life. You think of yourself as one of the lucky. Your conclusion, one that I consider to be a programmed response, is that you are lucky. If poverty is bad luck, what is your answer to changing what most call fate?

 

[Agent11]

You misunderstand my point because you do not consider yourself poor. You don't have that station in life. You think of yourself as one of the lucky. Your conclusion, one that I consider to be a programmed response, is that you are lucky. If poverty is bad luck, what is your answer to changing what most call fate?

An economic policy that does not throw the working class of our country under the bus would be a start. Unfortunately both parties have proven to be too invested in the status quo of leveraging past success to create quick wealth in developing markets.

 

[Zaap]

Thus Jedi's question - how do we get poor people to (A) recognize they need to change, and (B) help them recognize and then get the change they need?

To me this question is like the spouse asking "how am I going to change my spouse and make them into the person I want them to be...?"

Answer: you're not. People have to want to change and change themselves.

The exercise is even more pointless when applied to entire segments of the population.

The only thing we can do is stop pretending in equality of outcomes and that there is a Santa Claus that's going to ride to the rescue and make the lives of the streetcorner thug/the immobile couch potatoe /the illiterate busibody (and the various subcultures they're part of ) just as valid and rewarding as the bookworm's/ the developer/ the entrepreneur/the go-getter's lives.

The best thing we could do is teach people reality and stop pushing the nonsense that its compassionate to let political hack dipshits blow Santa Claus smoke up their asses.

 

[nehalem256]

Thus Jedi's question - how do we get poor people to (A) recognize they need to change, and (B) help them recognize and then get the change they need?

You have to create a culture with clear right and wrong; good and bad; etc.

I find it funny that liberals claim to care about the poor. But there are studies that show that poverty causes people to make bad choices. And yet liberals continue to essentially say we should encourage people to do whatever they personally feel is right. Seems to me that encourage people who are likely to make bad choices to make whatever choices they feel like is a recipe for disaster.

 

[Veliko]

when obviously the proper response is to demand that government pull up your socks for you.

News flash, only you can pull yourself out of poverty. Clearly some people need help determining which way is up or how to start pulling, but in the end, you have to help yourself. My ex-father-in-law had a profound saying that the old adage about "give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime" is bullshit. If that man is hungry and his family is hungry and there are fish, then if there is anything at all to him he's going to be fishing as hard as he can without you. You can teach him how to fish better, you can give him better tools or teach him to make them, you can teach him how to maximize the return for his effort, but if he's not already fishing as best he can then you're wasting your time trying to teach him anything.

To a large extent i blame the school systems our society has forced on us. When the school teaches you that black folk invented the helicopter but not how to balance your checkbook or write an acceptable business letter, when your school teaches you how to cook in a cafeteria but not how to manage the books, when your school teaches you how to be a radio dj but not how to repair a radio or design or wire a radio station, then you've been badly served. Doesn't mean you're a bad person, but it doesn't mean you're a good person either. It just means you have to change yourself. Thus jedi's question - how do we get poor people to (a) recognize they need to change, and (b) help them recognize and then get the change they need?

Pull your socks up!

Shout it loud and clear so everyone can hear you!

 

[shortylickens]

Pull your socks up!

Shout it loud and clear so everyone can hear you!

You are doing a reverse straw man.

You have taken a built up person or platform and simplified their position down to the point where you arent actually saying anything at all.

That might also be called marginalizing or trivializing. I'm not sure.