> anecdotal example of how this could come to be without some fault in Brown's decision-making process?
You've really never made 1 bad decision, or 10, in your life?
I have plenty of bad decisions, total screwups even, in my history. Some of them were from being petulant, or naive. Some because I was depressed. Yet I'm a white collar educated professional, I'm part because I made some good decisions, and also because that's the environment I was born into, so I was taught how to succeed in that world.
Why do we expect the poor to be paragons of perfect decision making, when the more privileged can make a normal human level of mistakes and still retain their position?
I make bad decisions every day. How does that have to do with anything? Ms. Brown has had 14 years to come up with a career trajectory. I don't think she has ever bothered in that time to visit a career consultant after realizing she couldn't figure it out on her own.
Random fluctuations in decision quality average out over time to reveal a smooth function of decision-making prowess.
When would she have time to do this? Also (and I feel like I'm grasping at straws getting this point across), when your whole existence revolves around just getting to work and back, is it fair of us to require people to have the horizon and insight to understand how to progress their situation? The underlying problem is that exploitation of poor people by these massive corporations lines the pockets of the already extremely wealthy, while it keeps people like Ms. Brown in a constant struggle to keep her head above water.
when your whole existence revolves around just getting to work and back, is it fair of us to require people to have the horizon and insight to understand how to progress their situation?
The implication is that I expect people of reasonable intelligence to do whatever, and I mean whatever, they have to do within ethical boundaries in order to increase their economic opportunities. I don't need a crash course in the history of racial socioeconomic exploitation in the US.
Ask any successful black entrepreneur in the US if they agree with me.
How about people without "reasonable intelligence"? Do they deserve the hardships of perpetual poverty? Why should genes and a genetic lottery decide if you can live a decent life or not?
It is up to successful people and organizations to care for those who cannot provide for themselves, and up to our government to enforce this. I am not a free market capitalist and I believe in UBI.
But we're only here to discuss those who are capable, and why it is they might not be taking advantage of upward mobility.
I'm not sure I understand. How can you believe in UBI and still believe that it's up to private initiatives to care for those who can't provide for themselves?
As for your second point: I wasnt aware we're only here for that? That's in any case not my agenda.
I wasnt aware we're only here for that? That's in any case not my agenda.
That was the discussion my post opened up. So if we're going to discuss anything here together, it's going to be that.
How can you believe in UBI and still believe that it's up to private initiatives to care for those who can't provide for themselves?
UBI does not currently exist, and the only reason it will ever come to exist is if we all take personal agency and revolt against the current status quo maintained by CorpGov.
Until people like Ms. Brown are provided the education and motivation they need in order to fight for a secured future for posterity, these problems will continue to get worse.
It's not easy. It's not fun. It's not ideal. But life and liberty come at a cost, sweat and blood, and if you are not willing to pay those costs or assist others in paying them, you do not necessarily deserve life and liberty.
I'm not talking about daily bad decisions. I'm talking about things like: failing a college course needed for my degree program because of a bout of depression, but having parents who would pay for me to take the class again to pass it. I did that. A lot of people with professional parents have done that.
The poor and the working poor don't have that kind of safety net. The personal consequences of failure are far greater for them, and they experience those consequences at high rates, which one way they can get stuck in the rut of poverty for a long time.
If you are poor, you don't have the option to fail. That's the reality. So you simply don't. You rise above the rest with determination. You don't drop out if you're determined because dips in your mental health come second to your success.
Just last week I had someone explode on me Thanksgiving night and physically assault me for a prolonged period of time, while saying things about my poverty and how I was born in poverty and would die in poverty, and trying to blame me for every bad thing that has happened in my life.
This is a person who has been to jail twice for federal property damage and a DUI, who has had several cars given to him by his parents, and who had to resort to a contract with the military in order to straighten himself out. He couldn't hold a job for the longest time and would steal from everyone around him. His parents have helped him again, and again, and again, while mine were just not there.
When a meth-dealing police officer who often stalked my friends and I planted drugs on me at the scene of an accident, I didn't have parents to back me up. Probably a dozen friends who had a parent that was a lawyer, but no one offered to help. I was railroaded by the system and received the maximum possible incarceration time. It didn't matter that I had witness testimony; I didn't have money.
So I am aware of how a socioeconomic safety net works. I am aware of the classist mentalities which keep these systems in place. If you aren't going to provide meaningful anecdotal data or answer my question, then please refrain from giving me a crash course in socioeconomics like the other couple dozen posters who beat you to the punch.
Without examples, it's impossible to imagine something different for many people. We tech workers job hop because our experience is valuable and we make more money, but in crappy jobs the only way to more money is to put in more time. It makes sense for people in these sectors to stay at the same job.
You've really never made 1 bad decision, or 10, in your life?
I have plenty of bad decisions, total screwups even, in my history. Some of them were from being petulant, or naive. Some because I was depressed. Yet I'm a white collar educated professional, I'm part because I made some good decisions, and also because that's the environment I was born into, so I was taught how to succeed in that world.
Why do we expect the poor to be paragons of perfect decision making, when the more privileged can make a normal human level of mistakes and still retain their position?