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Comment by notacoward | Hacker News Reader

> poor families have a lack of self-control/discipline

I know you said that was just a theory, but it's a variation on a too-common theme that I - and many others - find offensive. The experiment specifically involved people who have the same current socioeconomic status. Some had been affluent all their lives, while others had become affluent from poorer beginnings. If self-discipline is what allows some to become richer than others, don't you think those who became wealthy by their own efforts might know a bit more about it than those who had their wealth handed to them? Why, then, would they still exhibit this distinct reaction to offers of food? I don't think your theory has any explanatory power at all.

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Self-discipline isn’t binary, it’s fluid. Some people that obtain their own wealth lose the edge they once had that got them there in the first place...and end up poor again.

It also isn’t a guarantee of success (nothing is). It’s a way of stacking the deck in your favor. It’s really one of the only things you can do if you want to move to a better socioeconomic status.

Frankly, I'm tired of this new pervasive idea that the system will always be against anyone that isn't rich and there's no point in even trying if you are poor. Ironically, this victim menality will continue to keep many people in poverty

We now live in an age of free information. There is free Internet access in almost every library in the country and you can learn many new skills from free video tutorials, college courses, and web pages. There are no more excuses.

You didn't answer the question. Instead, you made up something about the "pervasive idea" that "there's no point" etc., which nobody here even remotely hinted at. It's a huge strawman. The "age of free information" blather is even worse. The US is not all of the world. In much of that world, there is no free internet access in almost every library. Even in the US, it's less pervasive and often less truly free than you seem to think, and learning those many new skills requires a certain baseline education that many do not have. Someone would have to be really deep in a privilege bubble to be so totally oblivious to how life is for the truly poor.

But that's not even the point, really. The point is that, even if I were inclined to blame the poor for their own situation as you do, your theory would still have no explanatory value when comparing the previously-poor to the never-poor. Your "theory" is simply counterfactual and illogical. The fact that it's also offensive is just the icing on the cake.

> The experiment specifically involved people who have the same current socioeconomic status

Where did you see that? I can't find it anywhere in the article, the article the article is based on, or the abstract the article the article is based on references.

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