zlacker

>I know people who profess to be victims, too. I'll tick off the choices they made that got them where they are. Of course, they get angry with me. Nobody wants to hear the truth.

Who told you poor people are capable of as good choices as richer people?

When you live life in easy mode is easy to make the right choices.

It's also easy to see some people who managed to play in hard mode and win, and extrapolate to everybody (especially if you don't account for lucky breaks and mitigating factors in their course).

But because a handful managed to win in hard mode, it doesn't make it as easy as those who play in easy mode, nor it makes it any more statistically possible for the masses to win the hard mode gameplay they were dealt.

>Where I am, the good and the bad, is nearly entirely the sum of my choices.

LOL. http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate

(One is even tempted to wish upon people saying hat a couple some serious accident or decease that kills their savings or takes their job, or puts them into depression, or have them tend to another family member, and such, to see whether their tune will remain the same...)

>>coldte+(OP)
> Who told you poor people are capable of as good choices as richer people?

The first step in making better choices is to realize that one is making choices.

>>coldte+(OP)
> nor it makes it any more statistically possible for the masses to win the hard mode gameplay they were dealt.

You don’t have to go back many generations to see that compared to today almost everyone played on hard mode.

>>sheepm+qb
How does that apply to today’s people, who are dealing with today’s problems and today’s struggles? Is it okay that a child in America is malnourished today because malnourishment existed?

>>sheepm+qb
>You don’t have to go back many generations to see that compared to today almost everyone played on hard mode.

Hard mode is comparable across the same game. Those in 1800 played 1800s game, those in Nigeria play the Nigerian game, etc.

You wouldn't consider it much of a success if a person with huge work, skills, and effort got themselves to 1800-era middle class possessions TODAY, would you?

>>skooku+z6
The first step in being rational though is to realize that choices are made under certain conditions, and are affected by them, not by some external agent that is totally neutral and impartial to the body's material conditions and social circumstances.

In other words, you "make" decisions only partially, and your choices are shaped by your status in life, before your conscious self can "chose".

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/338/6107/682

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-br...

https://qz.com/964920/data-show-poor-people-make-better-fina...

http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/03/02/anxious-people-decisions...

>>coldte+kg
> Hard mode is comparable across the same game.

Our ancestors struggled in a much harsher world and got us to a point where we can enjoy easy mode.

Why can’t the poorest Americans do the same?

>>sheepm+0m
Because those ancestors "struggled in a much harsher world" in easy mode.

They struggled in an era of economic upward momentum, much mobility, job creation, with a population boom, and when the US emerged as global leader. And from 30s to 70s, in a much more labor and working class friendly climate, when lots of protections and rights were established (the 8-hour work day, pensions, minimum wages, equal rights for women and foreign workers, work safety, etc).

Not on an era of stagnant wages, job outsourcing, automation, over-concentration of money to too few hands, precariousness, eroded labour rights, when other countries emerge as global leaders, and so on.

When playing life's levels, it's not just the conditions you meet that matter, it's the momentum of the whole game environment too. If the game environment constantly upgrades, gives you more guns, ammo, etc, it's easier than playing easier initial conditions but seeing very slow or negative game environment progress.