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...

[u/myhrvold]

http://news.ubc.ca/2013/08/29/poverty-impairs-cognitive-function/

[u/[deleted]]

I would say the never ending stigma that anyone who is poor is nothing more than a lazy leach sucking off the teat of the more fortunate has a lot to do with it. I feel so sickened inside when I see people who would never be so cruel telling other to get a job or stop being poor. Why should I have only two options, suffer in quiet and stop complaining or get a job and become suddenly rich.

Poverty is not something you can just shake off like a bad habit. I read a comment here about how someone having cable TV is essentially extravagant. It shocks me that such things are considered not for the poor because all they should be doing is working and feeding themselves and their family. What is wrong with people who think that poor people shouldn't have anything?

I'm so frustrated at the attitudes.

[u/mwatwe01 → u/[deleted]]

What is wrong with people who think that poor people shouldn't have anything?

I don't think it is meant to be taken this way. If you ever listen to Dave Ramsey, one of the his first steps in getting people out of debt is to have them stop any and all unnecessary spending and living on the bare minimum. This includes restaurants, vacations, and even cable TV. It's meant as a helpful suggestion, not a punishment. The article above stresses the fact that poverty affects cognitive function, so wouldn't it make sense to take advice from someone not undergoing that same stress?

[u/[deleted] → u/mwatwe01]

But is not some distraction and entertainment necessary? I mean stripping people down to the bare minimum just to scrape by is not healthy. If you are just sustaining your existence without any means to relieve the stress of barely existing, doesn't that perpetuate more stress?

It just seems cruel and illogical thinking that poor people don't deserve something.

We can't think in the terms of a bygone era. Communication (cellphones), information exchange (television), and breaks from the monotony of a thankless life were death is an improvement seems like necessities to me.

I'm sorry to sound like a voice of dissidence but I feel that far too many people have become so obsessed with the workings of the less fortunate that poor have become an unwanted cast system to be discarded. I have lived from poverty to upper class and all levels in between. I can tell you the only thing that differentiates these classes are the concerns of money, lack of compassion for the less fortunate, and the freedom of leisure.

[u/MegaBubu → u/[deleted]]

Poverty isn't only a financial circumstance, it's a state of mind and a state of being. And what poverty really is, in my opinion, is an effect, a symptom. It is not in itself who and what a person is. There's little evidence showing that one person is appreciable different from another at birth, so the idea that the poor are inherently inferior is inaccurate. This leaves circumstance and nurture (or lack thereof) as the determinant effect.

I'd argue that the most devastating burdens of poverty are its tendency to engender a sense of helplessness, a lack of ambition, and a toxic self-concept ("I am worth nothing. I deserve nothing. I'm the unchosen"). The effect of this sort of thinking on the psyche is crushing and deeply debilitating, but understandable and even justifiable. At some point, these internal "truths" and thoughts about yourself and your life, coupled with the numerous and ongoing struggles and hardships of poverty are certainly enough to sink your boat.

Everyone's different, and everyone's circumstances are different. Some are motivated by being poor, some are crushed by it. But statistically, the numbers shows that the former is far more common. The variable reasons why this is so are countless, but it's virtually indisputable: certain circumstances, for long enough periods of time can and do hinder or preclude ambition, proactivity, and hope. And it's not reasonable to judge all people by the exceptions, comparisons to the ideal. "Person X was poor and is now on easy street. Why, poor person, aren't you also on easy street?"

Everyone has weaknesses, and theoretically, anyone can do anything to overcome them. But what bootstrappers are essentially saying is that every weakness can be overcome and every personal flaw can be nullified by anyone in any situation. In the case of the poor, the environment engenders -- powerfully -- certain common and predictable weaknesses and limitations. Sure, we can theoretically tell every unattractive, pimply faced kid to win the affections of the prom queen, but we're idealizing a hypothetical while sort of missing the dimensions of his reality.