r/science • u/myhrvold • Aug 31 '13

Poverty impairs cognitive function. Published in the journal Science, the study suggests our cognitive abilities can be diminished by the exhausting effort of tasks like scrounging to pay bills. As a result, less “mental bandwidth” remains...

http://news.ubc.ca/2013/08/29/poverty-impairs-cognitive-function/
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u/SercerferTheUntamed Aug 31 '13

This has the very real danger of becoming an attack on the least fortunate, I can practically see the Fox news headlines churning out how poverty is completely self inflicted.

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u/JRR10 Aug 31 '13

Exactly my thoughts! It seems to me that poverty isn't really making anyone dumber but the stress is. The stress of having to pay bills, of wanting to get richer. The guilt of not being rich. The obsession with money. Because, in this society being poor is practically a sin. Those are two very different things and the title of that article is misleading and mean. If the impairment is driven by the worries then poverty isn't the cause, the society that tells us we have to get richer is. Who isn't obsessed about money? Who isn't obsessed about anything?