Ergo, most American adults are uneducated or willfully ignorant.
It’s more comforting for people to think it’s a choice they make rather than something completely out of their control that may happen to them at any time. And it comes with a bonus that they feel superior “making” the right choices in life.
Failing up accounts for a lot of success.
“Life is fair” is magical thinking.
Was listening to a podcast this morning discussing BlueAnon and why people believe in conspiracy theories so readily. There was a quote discussing actively believing or non-believing being so much more attractive than basic disbelief. The activity makes us feel like we have some power or control over a situation instead of it just being an immutable way things are.
There was a decent bit of sympathy for the conspiracy believers, because many of them just are grasping for some shred of hope, as unbelievable as it may be. If our choices got us into our bad situation, surely if we make better choices, we can get ourselves out. If we think 99% of us are systematically entrapped in an oppressive system led by the most powerful, where is our hope?
The article was not as hopeless as I expected, which is a little reassuring. It was just slightly over half saying homelessness is an individualistic issue, while 40+% said it’s systematic, so we’re not too far off the deep end. The victim blaming leans hard conservative, as you probably suspect already.
Seeing the homeless can be bothersome to people for a variety of reasons, but I’d have to think if you’re also part of the same group that leans against removing those social safety nets while also being in the same group that limits workers protections and preventing us from having healthcare provided to us as a human right, there’s some self-aware part of the subconcious that knows they’re one misstep, accident, or medical event from them being there, and seeing these people can be a painful reminder that those face-eating leopards are out there waiting.
Fancy seeing you here! 😉 I’d be interested that podcast, if and when you have time to post it.
I’m always here, I just only try to post when I have something useful to add that I feel people would likely be receptive to.
Here are some links for you:
It Could Happen Here
BlueAnon: Alt National Park Service (This is the one I think discussed the ideas in my comment.)
BlueAnon: Assassination False Flag and Liberal Election Denial (This is basically the Part 1, but not really necessary to listen to first. I started with the Alt NPS one since that sounded more interesting.)
Is this garrison from behind the bastards podcast?? They were talking about researching blueanon in the Lee Atwater episodes lol
I think the NPS one was Garrison and the other one was Mia. The Atwater episodes were very helpful in seeing how we got to where we are with political news and social media today.
Garrison is the host for both episodes, and Mia is on the first one, and there’s a different guest (AltWatcher?) for the NPS one. Was just listening to these this morning! The Cool Zone peeps do good work
Thank you!
I would be surprised if the percentage was much lower in any country experiencing a surge of the far right currently
The only reason they can gain any ground is there’s a large contingent of people who have been conned into blaming others for what’s actually caused by the failings of the economic structures built around them
US or the World? You would have to argue that with equal opportunities other countries/populations would do the same. Mental health is a issue in the US… but the world too. 2.9 billion people are still offline? They are not even here to give their opinions. Let me guess, you think that’s by choice?
Oh, I
livelove that definition: “actions will necessarily have morally fair and fitting consequences for the actor”. Magic morals on a planet where life devours life just because it is hungry/capableGuess there really are people who think humans are totally not animals
Individual choices, like being born poor, not being able to afford higher education, or worse, having any long term illnesses! They made their bed they can lay in it
/s I guess
The story of Procrustes should be taught from early primary school and studied in-depth through required philosophy courses in secondary and post-secondary education.
Why Procrustes? I admit I didn’t recognize the name at first, but I still don’t know of its philosophical applications.
Edit: but I totally support mandatory philosophy courses (my country had them during high school, it’s great to teach reasoning and “independent” thinking)
They made their bed they can lay in it /s I guess
His story is the origin of the saying.
Well, if it can happen to anybody then it can happen to them, and that’s scary.
But if you can blame choices, then they just never make that choice and live safely in their judgemental bubbles, because it’ll never happen to them.
This thinking also “protects” from a multitude of other terrible (potential) life events.
I mean, why didn’t they just try to not be poor?
They should take their frustrations out on the people who put them there.
I keep saying, we should be encouraging incels to pivot from elementary schools to country clubs.
The world would be a better place.
My family’s income rose by about 300 dollars per month a few months ago. We immediately lost about 250 dollars per month in rental assistance and SNAP benefits. But it’s totally individual choices that keep us in poverty. If we just budgeted better we cou- Wait. No, scratch that. We also get in trouble for having too much money in savings and assets. We’d actually lose all our benefits before we managed to save up any appreciable amount of money.
Silly, all you need to do is set up a shell company in the Caymans to hide all your assets!
(/s if it wasn’t obvious)
They have to, it’s the only way they can justify the system they love so much. If poverty is a systemic failure, then they might have to change something, but if poverty is a personal choice, all’s fair.
In my experience, they think the exact same thing is what makes some people rich, when often it‘s dumb luck. Or, more likely, rich parents.
“Until it happens to them”
I do volunteer work for homeless outreaches and yeah I’m totally sure the women who are homeless right now due to escaping domestic abuse it was totally an “individual choice” to get their faces beat in on a daily basis. The kids who are homeless because their parents abandoned them for being LGBTQ+ - totally an individual choice on their part. The military vets who are homeless because their country ditched to the curb, yup that’s an individual choice because they decided to serve their country and then their country said “get lost”. The ones who end up on the streets because they couldn’t get treatment or help for their mental illness. Why that was an individual choice to go mentally ill in the first place! The Elderly who can no longer afford to pay the constantly increasing rents on whatever fixed income they have, totally an individual choice to not some how make more money at the age of 80+.
I know the bootstrap people. I’ve been around them my whole life. What you’re saying wouldn’t even register with them.
Domestic abuse? You should have made a better choice in partner or chosen to leave sooner. LBGTQ? Well, honestly, there are a lot of people who believe that’s a choice in and of itself, but even more believe that kids can/should just keep it to themselves and “act normal” while under their parents’ roof. Military vets? They believe that the military trains you for civilian jobs and gives you lots of additional opportunities, including putting you ahead of others when it comes to employment, so if you chose to be lazy afterwards or chose to become a drug user, that’s your choice. Mental illness? They honestly believe in the “cheer up” mentality, i.e. if you’re depressed just cheer up. So, that’s all a choice as well. If you’re an addict, just stop using drugs. If you’re schizophrenic, just take the medicines you’re supposed to. Etc. Elderly? Why didn’t they save when they were younger? Why don’t they go get a job as a Walmart greeter? Why live some place so expensive? Literally, those are the types of questions you’ll get, but I will say honestly, this is the group that tends to get the most sympathy from the personal responsibility crowd.
Of course, you and I know these issues don’t boil down to a simple choice, but what I’m pointing out is that others don’t see it that way.
So most us adults are idiots. Checks out.
And cherry on top: guess I am safe to say they are so very not alone
I live here- can confirm vast majority have a terrible education and don’t care enough about things like history or statistics of poverty. Tbh, a ton being in poverty probably doesn’t help them think about these things and there’s just this constant strain trying to live even in the middle class.
Which is something that I can never understand: it is obvious neither of us decided how much taxes we pay, how high salaries are, how much margin the companies are allowed to have etc. So yeah, our choices do have a role in where we are now, but we are far from only players in the game, so to speak. And this line of thought does not require any profound knowledge
Many people are too psychologically fragile to process the thought that we live in an evil world run by evil people, and, like, I almost want to say fair enough, it is kind of a lot, but then they start scapegoating poor and marginalized people for everything that goes wrong and my patience runs out quick
Excuse me have you missed the 75 million people who believe, with cult like devotion, in a “deep state?”
I get what youre saying but like most people have no trouble thinking the world is evil and run by evil people. They just think the evil people are “globalists” (read: da joos) because they are brainwashed Muppets.
There is no contradiction, really. Things are bad because <insert group or bullshit ghost> are actively making it so, and if not for them, all would have been just and fair, as all things should be. The reality of “just and fair are just dreams made up by humans” is still beyond them
U.S. Corporate Capitalism is a cult. Adherents worship the Market as god and believe it is the sole arbitrator of wealth and worth. They believe that if you give your time, money, labor, and life to the Holy Market and follow it properly it will reward you with wealth and importance, but if you do wrong by it, it will punish you with poverty. If you are rich, you must be a good person who should be listened to and emulated. If you are poor, you must have done something wrong and need to do right by the Holy Market by giving it more of you time and labor. The poor must be lazy because if they worked properly the Holy Market would surely reward them.
Thus, welfare, which separates the poor from the consequence of their economic sins, is evil.
Stock brokers are the priests. They commune with the Holy Market on behalf of people in exchange for a tithe (commission.) Billionaires are the saints. They have been greatly blessed by the Holy Market and thus are the best of all people and should be followed and emulated. The U.S. Federal Reserve chair is the Pope and the rest of that board are the cardinals. They represent the Capitalist orthodoxy and are often at odds with the more radical believers.
Donald Trump… is the messiah. The faithful believe he is here to bring in a second coming of U.S. financial greatness. They bring him offerings of gold. He travels the world in a (soon to be golden) flying chariot, wielding vast financial powers in order to extract tribute from other nations.
This is actually very cohesive. Well done.
Sure. So according to most adults, humans are somehow perfectly adapted for this very short and specific period of history. And corporations don’t take advantage of that at all.
About 6 in 10 Americans say personal choices are a “major factor” in why people remain in poverty, while just under half say unfair systems are a major factor and about 4 in 10 blame lack of government support.
I think a lot of people in the comments are acting as if there is only one cause, and individual choices cannot be it because it doesn’t account for everything. Admittedly, the headline does frame it as if people believe it is the sole cause, rather than just the most popular. Personally, I would say both personal choices and unfair systems are major factors.
For lack of Government support, I am not sure how I would answer. The government actually does spend a lot on assistance for the poor relative to other countries, but I believe it is not done so efficiently to lift people out of poverty. It is very reactive and focuses on treating symptoms of core issues, so you end up with a lot of people in a constant state of being just barely able to keep their head above the water. It’s largely half measures that end up with worse outcomes and being more expensive in the long run than proper investment into making things better would be.
The overall idea behind this article, headline and poll is that we have constructed poverty in our society. We have made a system that creates homeless people and children starving.
It’s a false dichotomy created by the wealthy that our only options in life are to fail or succeed, if we all really wanted it bad enough we could build a system that guarantees basic needs and rights for every last person. It’s not personal choice that lands people in poverty, it’s the fact that poverty is allowed to exist at all.
Add in the fact that most welfare literally requires you to remain under a poverty threshold to continue receiving those meager benefits and you get the results we have. If you are disabled and receive disability payments you cannot work or you lose your coverage. There is an income cap of something insane like $1000/month for disability recipients. Its a deliberately evil system that forces families to divorce their sick spouse simply to allow them the access to insurance benefits they otherwise would be disqualified from.
How can anyone honestly recover from that? You make $1 more this month and the half of your income that paid for food and rent is gone, now youre worse off than someone on welfare just because you “arent poor enough.” Its like the exact myth they tell about tax brackets only it actually exists and happens to people in real life all the fucking time.
The day I learned this was the last day I made fun of poor people doing various stereotypical things that are considered “bad financial habits” in middle class upbringings. For example, buying lottery tickets with your welfare money is NOT evidence of poor people being bad at math. It’s a rational financial decision in their existing regulatory environment. A lottery winner can fly right over the welfare cliff, while the people saving up for a car repair get punished and pulled back into poverty. Maybe they’ll enjoy a few years of luxury until they squander it all because they never learned that staying off the dole requires different strategies than getting off the dole.
Individual choices can land you in poverty but poverty does not exist because of individual choices. Ergo, there will ALWAYS be people in poverty no matter what they do who got there for no fault of their own. This is a social issue that should be viewed through a social lense. Yes some people are impoverished because of things they did but poverty should not exist and nothing you do should put you in such a position.
Besides, capitalism has many incentives to keep people impoverished. Desperate people are far more willing to accept dangerous, shitty jobs with low pay if it means meeting just a few of their needs. They are also great for breaking strikes. I see poverty as a condition imposed upon the people and one of the greatest crimes of our time
The government actually does spend a lot on assistance for the poor relative to other countries but I believe it is not done so efficiently to lift people out of poverty
I mean, we’ll spend $200k employing a handful of life coaches to tell poor people they just need to work harder and submit to any abuses bosses want to inflict on them instead of giving poor people $200 to pay their bills, but I wouldn’t even call that “assistance for the poor,” it’s just subsidized hassling. When it comes to actual tangible assistance for poor people (e.g. nutrition healthcare housing etc.) I think we’re actually very skimpy.
I haven’t heard of hiring life coaches for poor people but I agree that would be an example of inefficient spending. I meant things like healthcare. The US spends more on healthcare than any other country, and so when a government program like Medicare or Medicaid covers a bill that means a very large subsidy. College is likewise exceptionally expensive, so need-based scholarships become a big expense.
If there was more of a focus on making these affordable in the first place, the cost for each covered individual would go down for taxpayers. This would free up the budget to expand coverage and offer more quality assistance in other places. Instead, it’s just a reactive policy of paying whatever the bill is when someone does qualify. This creates pressure to restrict who qualifies and what’s covered to keep prices down, while hospitals and colleges get away with charging absurd amounts since the beneficiary doesn’t feel the cost individually.
The thing goes even further back than that:
- The poorer you are born the more choices are bad choices for you because you either can’t afford them or if they fail can’t recover from them and the whole system is far more likely to punish you for it.
If you’re a scion of the rich you can chose to be a totally fucked up Nazi-loving ketamine user and still be wildly successful by this society’s metrics, but try, say, going into the Arts as the child of working class parents with zero connections in that environment and see how well that turns out.
Having genuine Options without massive risks of horrible outcomes is only for rich people.
And this is without going into the whole Mental Health domain and how people who live a life of strife are for more likely than the rest to tend to seek to escape if only for a short while by taking stuff they shouldn’t really be taking.
Our culture doesn’t lend itself to critical thinking or even critical reading, plus it’s hurry hurry hurry, parents’ modeling of skills and availability to children are paramount to the development of decision making skills, even with the best decision makers, and that’s not taking into account trauma, LDs, divergences, etc.
I’ve often thought our educational system would better serve Montessori -style with more in-depth subject study.
This shit makes me want to scream everytime I encounter it
Individual choices of the few keep the many in poverty needlessly, yes, indeed.
You’ve done a wonderful job helping the line go up. But in an effort to further grow, we must innovate further by shedding unnecessary weight. It’s nothing personal, but it’s time for you to go now.
Leonidas spartan kick
The soul crushing machine demands cruelty and suffering for the line to go up.
(All system do, that’s nature, but without having optimisers to change the red line indicator from money to societal progress we for some reason just keep feeding this baby killing machine.)
