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Comment by kstrauser | Hacker News Reader

My mom, who grew up in a log cabin and had no running water, was very clear to distinguish between "poor" and "broke". In her family, "broke" was a temporary state of being while "poor" was a state of mind. It was OK to be broke because everyone was in those days, but being poor was unacceptable. Broke people made their own soap and patched clothes so that kids could be clean and dressed in school. Poor people didn't bother with either - they'd given up on the idea of things getting better.

This led to a regionally common saying: poor people have poor ways. The idea was that broke people saved up for things they needed, while the poor said "I don't have enough money to pay rent, so I better buy some lottery tickets".

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The "broke vs poor" distinction is a good one but many poor people remain so, at least in part, because they gave up on being anything else a long time ago. In a sense, they have accepted their place in the universe and made their peace with it. It takes a lot of energy and discipline to become "not broke". There is another part to the story:

I think many people do not fully appreciate the prejudice faced by people who were born into poverty. Growing up poor marks you with affectations of the underclass that you do not even notice but which everyone else does. These tend to cause people to discount you regardless of your intelligence or work ethic, even if you are no longer poor, because they can tell you were "poor white trash" or similar. Even if you are financially middle-class, you are still treated as low-status individuals across broad parts of society at large in many respects. And they know this. If you look at it from the perspective of someone in poverty, the effort to change your financial position does not come with a concomitant change in social status and respect.

One of the most consistently successful strategies I've seen for people from the underclass to greatly expand their opportunities in life is to carefully and systematically erase any affectations, behaviors, and preferences that mark them as a member of the underclass. As a society we like to believe that intelligence, discipline, and hard work are enough for anyone to "make it" but the reality is that for people born into the underclass you often have to spend a lot of time finding ways around social prejudices as well.

The classic movie "My Fair Lady" is all about how accent and mannerisms mark social class.

The social ladder is definitely different from the economic ladder; though often seen together.

You also don't need to climb the social ladder unless you desire to. The social ladder (also depending on which one you are climbing) can lead to matched income poverty unless you're careful, the state in which your spending / debts increase linearly with your income. That one people not born into wealth or high social class often mess up because it's psychological conditioning you have to usually figure out for yourself. Which is very hard.

"In a sense, they have accepted their place in the universe and made their peace with it."

WRT that topic, the article misquoted Orwell pretty badly, the comments explain why, and how it relates to serenity vs stress.

Probably the best analogy I can provide for HN, is I have no impact on celebrity news or professional sports. Its not that I'm struggling stressfully with it despite endless failure, I just no longer identify as part of that group. Disenfranchised. I feel serenity about pro sports and celebrity news.

Once you internalize and self identify that you're permanently kicked out of the economic system, perhaps inaccurately, perhaps accurately, arguments about how great the system is and how easy it is to rejoin the grind game and start leveling up, as told by folks who were born on 3rd and think they hit a home run, tend to fall flat.

Even successful people often regularly get coached on their body language, gestures, and speech tone and cadence. Bill & Hilary Clinton are famous for doing that.

There isn't anyone who cannot get better at this, and successful people recognize that and make significant efforts to improve themselves in this way.

Reminds me of a quote from 'Freakonomics' [1]: "After a New York livery-cab driver named Michael Goldberg was shot in early 2004, it was reported that Mr. Goldberg was in fact an Indian-born Sikh who thought it advantageous to take a Jewish name upon immigrating to New York. Goldberg's decision might have puzzled some people in show business circles, where it is a time-honored tradition to change Jewish names."

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden...

A guy at work traced his family back to the first Millers that immigrated from Germany to the US. When they came to the U.S. they adopted the most American name they knew of at the time. George Washington Miller and Martha Washington Miller. :)

Interesting. I wonder how many people in India change their name in order to appear as a different caste.

Quite true. I went to elementary through high school in an area where you saw people from a wide range of economic backgrounds. One thing that was a common feature of poorer students is they would show up for class less, take easier classes, rarely bring their book bags, and clustered together. They had the same opportunities as the more well off and could have made something of themselves, but they chose not to.

I was very poor as well, but parents had some foresight. I ended up in a mathematical biology phd program, one of the kids I used to ride the bus with shot two people in a robbery.

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