
Unsteady income in young adulthood linked to thinking problems in middle age - EndXA
https://www.aan.com/PressRoom/Home/PressRelease/2750
======
vertis
I went through a few years of unstable income in my early twenties (circa
2000), it wasn't altogether bad, just very very sporadic. When I think back on
those years I had all kinds of bad behaviours that were not rational. For
example, not paying bills because something more urgent might come up. Not
looking at balances because it was easier to not know.

I would go from feeling rich one month because a freelance client had paid a
bill, to not having a cent a month later.

There were times when it felt like I was running a pyramid scheme on myself.
Needing to use money from a previous job to buy computer hardware to sell to
the next client.

In retrospect, I was also too proud to ask for help. I let things get way out
of control before my mother ended up taking out a personal loan to bail me out
at one point. If I had asked for help earlier it would have been a cheaper
problem to solve.

It took years to shed some of the residual behaviours, even after I started
earning decent money. Despite having savings and reliable income I would still
let bills run until they were overdue.

These days I'm a lot more proactive about personal finances and good money
management, but it's hard to tell how much of that is just maturity, and how
much is the fact that I no longer have problems with unstable income.

~~~
Roark66
>It took years to shed some of the residual behaviours, even after I started
earning decent money. Despite having savings and reliable income I would still
let bills run until they were overdue.

You wouldn't believe how many "wealthy" people do the exact same thing
including not paying their subcontractors etc. My dad used to do electric
installations in new built homes. Usually the larger the house and the
wealthier the owner more excuses there would be when the time to pay came.Some
of those "clients" took 2 years to get money out of them. Doing that to a
small contractor you owe is pretty bad behaviour, but at the same time I can
understand prioritising your outgoings if you have let's say an annual gas
bill review and you know they'll not come after you until you're 3 months
late. In such situation paying 89 days late is perfectly reasonable. Nothing
bad about it.

~~~
allannienhuis
> In such situation paying 89 days late is perfectly reasonable. Nothing bad
> about it.

huh? What about the contract you agreed to when you took on the service that
says you'd pay within 30 days (or whatever). I really don't understand the
logic that says as long as you're willing to accept the consequences, it's
ok/moral. It's one thing to have extenuating circumstances that force someone
to choose between two bad choices, but to say that there's nothing bad about
ignoring the due date on your bills just doesn't make sense.

~~~
iNate2000
I agree with you.

But, the terms of the contract are the terms. Pay late, pay a fee, or not,
they’re still abiding by the terms. If we want different behavior, we need to
make those desires known.

~~~
allannienhuis
Not sure what part of my statement you're agreeing with, as the two points
seem contradictory :)

The fees and penalties at 60 and 90 days that are common in contract terms
like we're talking about are there for when the client doesn't pay by the
agreed 30 day term, aren't they? 30 days payment is the behavior that the
company wants, pretty clearly. Yes, they're also agreeing to limited penalties
if they don't meet the original terms, but those penalties don't apply until
they've not meet the terms they agreed to (pay in 30 days). It's not a sliding
interest rate scale - it's limited penalties (likely as a result of consumer
protection efforts over time). Yes, of course paying by 89 days is handled in
the contract. Likely so are additional penalties/repercussions for payment
after 90 days too (ie the debt will be sent to a collection agency at 120
days), but that doesn't make paying on those terms 'okay', because they were
covered in the contract.

I'm calling out the idea that there's nothing bad (immoral/unjust) going on if
someone doesn't pay within the ordinary term expected unless it's been
explicitly agreed to otherwise (not as a penalty, but as an acceptable payment
schedule), aside from other moral arguments about extenuating circumstances,
etc that might mitigate the responsibility for payment.

~~~
speedplane
> I'm calling out the idea that there's nothing bad (immoral/unjust) going on
> if someone doesn't pay within the ordinary term expected unless it's been
> explicitly agreed to

When I first founded my startup, I was vigilant about paying all of my
contractors and vendors perfectly on time or early. As a business owner, I
wanted to provide a great product and didn't want to chase people for money,
and tried treating companies and people I worked with similarly.

What nice thought, and so utterly silly.

My company was largely geared towards large enterprises. When I started, I
naively assumed that our relatively small fees, with easily cancelable month-
to-month terms, would be so easy to stomach that these large enterprises would
pay without issue if they found value, and would simply cancel if they did
not.

But I found that the bigger the company, the more difficult it is to get them
to pay anything. Big companies are more likely to wait until the day to pay,
pay late and ask forgiveness, pay late and then ask for a discount to continue
the service, or drag on a free trial as long as they can. These companies
negotiate harder, spend more time going over insignificant line items, and
generally create far more friction than much smaller companies.

I've had a relatively small $10k/year deals with big companies, where multiple
attorneys negotiated agreements and haggled over price, their fees earning
them multiples of the total contract value. Pushing folks to the limit, using
disproportionate force, begging for leniency, and just generally playing dirty
is the norm for large companies. Assuming morality plays any part in it is
laughable.

~~~
allannienhuis
Right, but all of that behavior by those people is immoral/wrong/bad. I said
nothing about whether moral behavior should be expected at all times (or any
time) from large companies or frankly most of the people we do business with.

I'm trying to point out that people who think there's nothing bad about it (as
the original post I replied to stated) are completely missing something about
the basic definitions of bad behavior. It's like some shared delusion or
psychopathy that people seem to believe, because it's in their self-interest
to believe it.

~~~
speedplane
> It's like some shared delusion or psychopathy that people seem to believe,
> because it's in their self-interest to believe it.

A business is not an individual, it's a collection of individuals each doing a
specialized task that collectively make up a large system. Applying moral
principles that are generally applied to individuals to organizations just
doesn't work. There needs to be a different set or prioritization of moral
principles to be effective in a large organization or system.

In my example (highly paid attorneys spending inordinate amounts of time
negotiating a tiny contract), the attorneys themselves were not bad, they were
instructed to zealously negotiate every contract. The finance folks that paid
late are not bad, they were charged with keeping high cash reserves and to
tolerate a certain level of legal risk.

As a straightforward example for reducing out-right fraud: Most individuals
already know that fraud, lying and cheating is bad. If an individual scams
someone, they are bad. In contrast, for a business to be "moral", it must
routinely audit their work processes to make sure that fraud cannot
accidentally occur, and also provide safeguards when "bad" individuals do it
intentionally. If there are no safeguards (regardless of whether fraud occurs
or not), the company is "bad". Conversely, if stringent and proper safeguards
are in place, and yet someone within the organization is nevertheless able to
devilishly get around them and commit fraud, then it's possible that the
business is still moral.

The point here is that individual morality is not the same as organizational
or systems morality. Lots of moral people can come together and become an
immoral organization. Similarly, a moral organization can withstand lots of
bad people within their ranks.

~~~
allannienhuis
That's an interesting look at it. I guess I still feel that the finance guys
that are paying late are still doing something objectively bad, even if
they've been instructed to do so. 'just doing my job' doesn't seem like a
valid excuse from moral obligations (even if they weren't the ones who signed
the contract). But I agree with the basic premise that you're making about the
distinction between individual and organizational morality.

I personally prefer to think of organizations as being groups of people, each
of which have moral obligations, and leaders have moral obligations to ensure
that their organization as a whole (sum-of-parts) maintains moral behavior. So
not so much the idea that the organization has some moral mandate, but the
individual leaders. That view might fall apart in really large organizations;
so I'm not sure.

Another twist is that large organizations (as clients in some theoretical
exchange) might say : our payment terms will be 120 days, take it or leave it.
That's bad on a different level (taking advantage of power imbalance), but if
the vendor accepts the contract at that point I don't think one could point
the finger at the payment behavior as being immoral in and of itself (assuming
they keep to their stated terms). Some (many??) people would not put nearly as
much moral weight on the act of using their power imbalance ("isn't that what
competition is all about?") compared to the act of breaking their agreement,
just because they can get away with it (another form of taking advantage of
the power imbalance, but seemingly more sinister).

All that said, I'm just a dude in an armchair at his keyboard that finds this
topic interesting, and willing to think about it a bit. I've never studied the
philosophy of morality - although I guess I have a fairly strong internal
sense of it for myself :)

------
jablinski
Oh how I can relate. It's been about a year now since I closed my failed
startup, and still no webdev job after many interviews. After a year of
countless applications, interviews and networking with no result (insanely
repetitive and people can sense the desperation) things start to spiral. I get
this sense from friends and family that they begin to think something's wrong
with me and distance themselves - not to mention being unable to afford to do
much.

There is something about spending too much time on the same problem that may
drive a person insane. I think it might create deep valleys over certain
neural pathways that are shared with other important functions. For example
after a year of grinding on the same problem of "get job" my mind has become
hyper sensitive to patterns and hidden meanings like never before. I'll see a
leaf blowing in the wind and my mind will sometimes slip into interpreting it
as some symbolic message from the universe to help me find a job. In a way I
can sort of understand these homeless guys that walk the streets talking to
themselves - they might just be further along, so deep in this pattern
recognition psychosis from trying to survive that their brains are telling
them the whole world is talking to them directly.

~~~
seph-reed
> I can sort of understand these homeless guys that walk the streets talking
> to themselves

Good for you man. I honestly believe that every person should lose their mind
at least once. Once you've built up some insane reality, it'll always be
there, and the space between is (IMO) kind of special. It's amazing how one
can hold two completely contradictory storylines of the world in their head.
And for me it helps with groking how different the inside of other peoples
minds can be. How real it can feel. How fake my real is. How just as plausible
their real could be.

For those interested, one of the easiest cheapest ways to lose your mind is to
go live out in the woods for a while (bush fever). Seriously, if you've never
had your bubble burst, it might do you some good.

~~~
Blakestr
You are describing what is known as the "dark night of the soul.". (though
traditionally this is a spiritual sense I think the deepness of what you're
describing could be spiritual as well.)

------
ja3k
The article acknowledges that the study does not show causation and it seems a
little strange to think a causal arrow in this direction is more plausible
than the other direction. It seems like people who do better at thinking and
memory tasks should also do better at their jobs and interviews and therefore
be less likely to experience an income drop. To speculate on income drop's
effect on mental acumen one would want to measure intelligence at the
beginning of a career and in middle age and then correlate the delta to number
and size of income drops.

~~~
dekhn
The best thing to do when you see a study that counters your opinion on the
causality of something, just swap the causality, and move on. Many association
papers are just written to confirm the investigator's prior beliefs.

~~~
mrguyorama
"The best thing to do when you see science you don't like, is pretend it
reinforces your already existing biases"

What?

~~~
sbierwagen
There is a _big big big gap_ between an individual newsworthy article, and
science tested by multiple replications.

Only 62% of articles published in Nature and Science actually replicated:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06075-z](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06075-z)
About a coin flip if you can believe a given headline at all.

A single article is a data point, not ironclad unimpeachable argument-ending
fact.

~~~
dekhn
I would argue that the DNA paper by W&C was an ironclad unimpeachable
argument-ending fact. The nice thing is that you could take their structure,
run it forward through the scattering algorithm, and see that the simulated
data looked identical to the measured data. Further, the simple prediction the
paper made (that duplex DNA could form a template for DNA replication) turned
out to be so audaciously true...

(I could quibble and say the W&C structure is technically wrong, because it
was done in non-physiological conditions, and subsequent studies did find very
minor structural details for B-DNA when done correctly...)

~~~
sbierwagen
Did I say that no authoritative papers have _ever_ been published?

------
scotty79
Poverty harms children. It's possible it harms young adults as well. The
sooner we dismiss the notion that we need the poverty to motivate us to work
and adopt some form of basic income, the better.

It might be cheaper too than current system when you consider all the harm
that poverty does to economy and workers.

~~~
Onanymous
Giving money to poor you only create more of those. People should be given a
chance, not money.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Giving money to poor _is_ giving them a chance. A lot of problems with being
able to find and keep a job ultimately stems from lack of money for things
like housing, clothing, transportation, healthcare and decent meals.

~~~
sitkack
Exactly. I have been without before, and it consumes too much of your higher
brain function. Lots of problems evaporate even with a small amount of cash or
cash flow. Conversely it is hard to then use money as an efficient lever after
running on fumes for years. This is often why you see changes in leadership as
an org grows, the person who bootstraps a company has a much different
skillset then the person who grows it into a large powerful org. The latter
should know where to spend much larger sums of money to achieve goals rather
than penny pinching and sinking more precious resources like time or focus.

------
EndXA
For those looking for a summary of the original study
([https://n.neurology.org/content/early/2019/10/02/WNL.0000000...](https://n.neurology.org/content/early/2019/10/02/WNL.0000000000008463)),
here's the info from the abstract:

> Objective: Income volatility presents a growing public health threat. To our
> knowledge, no previous study examined the relationship among income
> volatility, cognitive function, and brain integrity.

> Methods: We studied 3,287 participants aged 23–35 years in 1990 from the
> Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults prospective cohort study.
> Income volatility data were created using income data collected from 1990 to
> 2010 and defined as SD of percent change in income and number of income
> drops ≥25% (categorized as 0, 1, or 2+). In 2010, cognitive tests (n =
> 3,287) and brain scans (n = 716) were obtained.

> Results: After covariate adjustment, higher income volatility was associated
> with worse performance on processing speed (β = −1.09, 95% confidence
> interval [CI] −1.73 to −0.44) and executive functioning (β = 2.53, 95% CI
> 0.60–4.50) but not on verbal memory (β = −0.02, 95% CI −0.16 to 0.11).
> Similarly, additional income drops were associated with worse performance on
> processing speed and executive functioning. Higher income volatility and
> more income drops were also associated with worse microstructural integrity
> of total brain and total white matter. All findings were similar when
> restricted to those with high education, suggesting reverse causation may
> not explain these findings.

> Conclusion: Income volatility over a 20-year period of formative earning
> years was associated with worse cognitive function and brain integrity in
> midlife.

------
situational87
Is sticking a shotgun in your mouth because one doctor visit consumed all your
life's savings a "thinking problem"? Because I'm seeing a lot of that I don't
think it's just a problem some pill will fix.

~~~
neuland
I'm not sure how to parse this. But I do want to say that you can overcome
losing your life savings or losing a loved one or other significant losses.
It's emotionally hard. But it can even be a moment of personal growth. Stoic
philosophy is a good resource for western audiences looking to handle problems
coping with loss.

~~~
bananocurrency
I don't think stoic philosophy is going to do much for financial problems that
break your hierarchy of needs.

~~~
neuland
A starving man can still be happy.

Edit: I'm not saying coping with loss is easy, especially if that is a loss of
your ability to support yourself. The context of this conversation is someone
killing themselves, and I think it'd be great if we came together and tried to
convince people to live.

------
tiku
Well it could be a lot of different things. No money for good food, sports and
a lot of stress that accompanies having no steady source of income etc..

~~~
helpPeople
Sure, eating flour mixed with water is cheaper than vegetables. But I don't
think people do that.

Instead people wrongly think fast food is cheaper than home cooked food.

Not sure your point of "no money for good food"

Source- calories and protein and vitamins per dollar

Edit- fast food is not necessarily faster. Carrots and protein shakes are
faster than waiting in line for example.

~~~
anonuser123456
>Instead people wrongly think fast food is cheaper than home cooked food.

Fast food is cheaper than home cooked food when you factor in time & mental
effort. Cooking at home requires skills that many people do not have.

~~~
AlexTWithBeard
Sorry, this is beyond my understanding.

Morning porridge: pour water into oats. Microwave for 2 minutes.

Dinner: pour water into rice. Boil for 10 minutes. Add a rotisserie chicken
from the grocery store.

My 7yo does it. Do you seriously think there's a non-disabled adult incapable
of pouring water in a bowl?

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Of course rotisserie chicken is just another form of fast food. You're proving
the point!

~~~
AlexTWithBeard
It's as "fast" as bread and instant coffee.

At least it's cheap, reasonably healthy and tasty.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
It's not, actually, since it involves buying a microwave and waiting for
things for cook... But more specifically, the above specifies cooking without
relying on pre-made food like rotisserie, and you're proving the point that
the cheap and healthy and tasty and easy choice is using pre-made food.

------
GGfpc
Why do I feel this will be used to discriminate people with poor backgrounds?

------
azeotropic
Alternative (and to my mind more likely) hypothesis: poor brain health causes
bad decision making and unstable income.

~~~
stebann
I was thinking the same, as an extra ingredient in the recipe. Nutrition and
good health habits (avoid smoking, avoid excessive drinking of alcohol or
sodas, sleep the necessary for your well-being, practice some sport, etc) are
essentials you can't ignore.

------
chr1
Getting low grades on exams is also linked to thinking problems in later
years, we should automatically assign the same grade to all children to help
them to become smarter </s>

~~~
gmadsen
are you suggesting poor people are inherently less intelligent?

~~~
AlexTWithBeard
It's interesting how "poor people are often stupid" triggers an outrage, but
"stupid people are often poor" is seen as a logical statement.

~~~
Dirlewanger
People don't want to face cold hard truths. IQ is not perfect by any means,
but one of the best predictors of overall success in life. Yet when it's
overlapped with socioeconomic standing, it suddenly becomes a racist
measurement.

~~~
yelloweyes
What causes low IQ though? Just going to take a guess here and say that < 5%
of people actually have "genetic stupidity". Most "low IQ" people are low IQ
because they went through traumatizing hardships early in life.

>People don't want to face cold hard truths.

Yeah, no shit. People are too busy trying to survive instead of trying to
figure out life's "truths".

~~~
Mirioron
> _What causes low IQ though? Just going to take a guess here and say that <
> 5% of people actually have "genetic stupidity". Most "low IQ" people are low
> IQ because they went through traumatizing hardships early in life._

I think your statement is unlikely to be true. It will, of course, depend on
your specific definitions, but from twin studies we've found that intelligence
seems to be heritable.[0] It's even a fairly strong effect:

> _The heritability of intelligence increases from about 20% in infancy to
> perhaps 80% in later adulthood._ [0]

Other studies have found a similar effect.[1][2] Due to us observing this kind
of a heritability effect (one that grows stronger as we age), I think it's
unlikely that random events, such as trauma and hardships, are the main cause
for lower levels of cognitive development. They certainly play a role in it,
because they absolutely do affect cognitive development negatively, but I
wouldn't bet money on this being the main reason.

Note that even though [2] favors the maternal womb environment over genetics
as a factor in intelligence, it's still a factor that the individual in
question had no control over.

[0]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/)

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24791031](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24791031)

[2]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9242404](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9242404)

> _Yeah, no shit. People are too busy trying to survive instead of trying to
> figure out life 's "truths"._

I think in this case the parent was referring to people who discuss and solve
these kinds of problems, rather than the people actually going through them.

------
programminggeek
Note that peer groups have a lot to do with thinking problems in general. If
you are poor or broke and hang out with poor or broke people, your thinking
will be different.

Also, people tend to hang out with other people making roughly the same as
them, which compounds the problem.

------
sjg007
This study followed 23 to 35 year olds. This is post college for most people.
Probably a good reason to not go to grad school (income drop) unless you have
a financial buffer!

------
bcheung
Am I missing something? This study just seems to say that smarter people have
more income stability. Doesn't seem all that surprising.

The study doesn't make any mention of doing tests throughout their lifespans
so it's hard to claim that income stability impairs brain function.

At best there is a correlation and it makes more sense to me that impaired
brain function leads to income instability, not the other way around.

------
d--b
This is not a comment to undermine the effect of the hardship of having a
precarious situation, but it must be said that scientifically, it is
impossible to conclude a causality vs a correlation.

I am not saying that this is true, but it is possible that people with
unsteady incomes are more risk-taking, which in itself is a psychological
traits which may be linked to poorer performance in iq-like test in middle
age.

------
sebastianconcpt
_Researchers found when compared to people with no income drops, people with
two or more income drops had smaller total brain volume. People with one or
more income drops also had reduced connectivity in the brain, meaning there
were fewer connections between different areas of the brain._

------
flyGuyOnTheSly
I'm sure there is a correlation, but I can't see how income could possibly be
linked causally to brain function directly.

Eaten nothing but packets of ramen for months on end probably takes more of a
toll on the brain than a light wallet.

~~~
mikelyons
Wouldn't a light wallet be the cause of a ramen diet?

Also, the stress of poverty is known to cause cognitive issues IIRC

------
Teichopsia
This is as good a time to vent as any other.

One of the things I find difficult is sharing. Even to close friends, but I
don't feel the need to. Maybe I just have been hanging out with the wrong
people lately, which I have stopped seeing recently - and to which I have been
feeling better since. I'll have to give some thought into the the word
"difficult" I decided to use - but I'll leave that for some other time.

I have been teaching myself programming on and off for a few years now. After
having had some health issues last year, I ended up five days in a public
hospital and stopped programming until earlier this year when I took it up
again. The experience in that hospital was bizarrely amusing, but I won't
digress. I'm guessing the onset was due to some combination of stress and/or
burnout. After the hospital it took months to recuperate.

In that time I didn't have much energy would do some light reading and came
across an article, right here on HN about sourdough.

All in all, having a hobby helps. And I'm quite fortunate to have a family
that provides food and a roof. But it is taxing on so many levels not to be
able to help out, to provide. And with the upcoming holidays it gets hard. It
hits me hard.

F __*. When I started writing this I did not expect it to take that turn. Let
's get back on track.

Right. I picked up programming again earlier this year. Funnily, things
started to click. I don't know why, maybe the break helped. Anyhow, looking
for jobs is another thing that takes a toll on you. I've never worked in the
industry, nor have I had a job for too long. I try to search for jr. jobs and
when I do find one, the rejection after rejection does not make it easy.

And despite the sorrow sounding note of this, this is just me venting to
strangers on the net. And by the age of the thread, few people will read, if
any at all.

I stopped talking to the few acquaintances. People who weren't contributing
anything positive in my life. And I have to say, I have been more productive
since.

I'm currently learning django. Reading Eloquent Javascript and practicing my
vim skills - which I took up recently out of necessity. Funnily I found myself
trying to use vim keybindings last time I opened up Visual Studio Code.

And that's not to mention all the other tabs that are open. A back-burner of
things I want to learn.

Things may get tough, as they always will. But it's all about knowing when to
slow down. Take a deep breath, and every now and then, vent.

------
known
Why the world should adopt a basic income
[http://archive.li/5QVPj](http://archive.li/5QVPj)

------
known
Poverty reduces IQ by 13 points
[https://archive.is/bmj11](https://archive.is/bmj11)

------
coldtea
Cue the "I was from a poor family and I got into Stanford, everybody should be
able to it" from people who don't understand how life, statistics, outliers,
and relative effort required (for a middle/class rich kid playing in "easy
mode" to succeed, versus a poor kid playing the "extra hard mode").

People who confuse what's possible but 10x more difficult for some income
groups/backgrounds, to be the same as being equally possible and as easy. Or
that think that just because some outliers managed to win the hard mode,
everybody should be able to (and are just lazy if they don't) - while ignoring
lucky breaks and mitigating circumstances in their case, e.g. you might be
poor, but not have a parent sick to take care of. Or you might be an
immigrant, but have parents working their ass off to get you to college. Or
you might have a stable family as opposed to abuse. Or your teachers might not
care at all to encourage you.

This is not about telling people not to try. This is about recognizing that
even trying is not "equally easy", and that outlier success stories doesn't
mean the game is not rigged against those from poor backgrounds. And perhaps
finding ways to fix this issues (e.g. reducing poverty, abuse, stress factors
for poor people, better educational districts, and so on).

[https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/the-wireless/373065/the-
pencilswo...](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/the-wireless/373065/the-pencilsword-
on-a-plate)

~~~
malvosenior
As one of those people (I didn't go to Stanford, but I did move a few rungs up
the socioeconomic ladder), I take issue with your point. It's not helpful.

There is _definitely_ a culture of anti-intellectualism and escapism among the
poor in the US (my background). Sure, the rich kids have it easy and it's
super easy to sit around feeling bad about that but in many, many cases people
could better themselves with a modicum of effort.

I grew up asking everyone (friends, family, neighbors): Why won't you read
book? Why do you "hate" math? Why are computers "for nerds"? Why do you spend
all of your time watching football?

I'm now much more successful than the people who ignored or derided me during
that time period.

Was it easy for me to get ahead? No. But it is possible; oh and I wasn't one
of those people with parents who worked hard, a good family life or supportive
community around me. I was on my own.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's not your place to tell other
people how to live. If they want to spend their days watching football,
instead of learning math or computers: it is their decision to make. A lot of
those people won't care that you are more successful than them. They're
content with just watching football: it's what they're choosing to do, after
all.

~~~
throwaway631673
I disagree. Yes, you should not tell other people how to live their lives.

But if these people who make poor choices and then look for handouts, from
your tax dollars, then you have right to complain about their lifestyle.

I had to support my brothers for a long time. They just stayed with my
parents, played video games all day, hung out with wrong crowd at night, and
complained about lack of money. My parents would guilt me into giving my
brothers some handout. And then they complained about capitalism.

And I would complain about them not working and not able to do thing I wanted
to with my money but my parent always shamed me for being selfish.

After a lot of nagging and many time refusing to give handouts, they slowly
got decent jobs and are doing pretty good. I just wish I had nagged earlier
and stopped supporting their lifestyle with my money.

So based on my personal experiences, I don't agree that we should spend our
tax dollars on helping poor but don't shame them about their unhealthy
lifestyle.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
_" But if these people who make poor choices and then look for handouts, from
your tax dollars, then you have right to complain about their lifestyle."_

But my tax dollars go to handouts for things I think are bad choices all the
time to the wealthy! My tax dollars are used to subsidize industries I don't
agree with to continue in their wasteful useage of resources. If we are to
protest bad decisions begging for handouts, we should first complain about the
lifestyles of board members of companies.

Johnson and Johnson knowingly created abestos-laden baby powder[1] and they
recieved 8 million in federal subidies, 80 million in state/local ones. With
an additional 10 million in federal loans. [0]

0\. [https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/johnson-
and-...](https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/johnson-and-johnson)
1\. [https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-
report/johnsona...](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-
report/johnsonandjohnson-cancer/)

~~~
malandrew
That's not an argument against the point you're replying to. We shouldn't
subsidize wastefulness by either the rich or the poor when they make poor
choices and squander opportunities and resources.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
And I'm arguing that by that reasoning we have much, much bigger fish to fry
than the poor.

~~~
ytNumbers
Here in the USA, we have the best congress money can buy. Politicians are
immensely corrupt and quite beholden to their campaign donors. If any member
of congress dares to refuse a wealthy organization a favor, that organization
can wind up bankrolling someone to primary that member of congress. As long as
the supreme court maintains that money is speech, I can see no way to solve
the problem of money in politics.

~~~
malandrew
Let us not ignore the fact that Congress also uses taxpayer money to buy votes
and that only about 44% of households pay federal income tax, with the top few
percent paying the bulk.

The more I see how the democratic platform has devolved in the last 4 years,
the more I have come to understand and agree with the decision in Citizens
United. Right now, we have at least two candidates talking about a pretty
extreme wealth tax (which is a tax on money you've already paid a ton of taxes
on) all because others are envious of what they have and just want to use mob
rule to steal.

Allowing money to influence votes, in a way is not unlike how a bicameral
congress works. We have one that has equal representation (the Senate) and one
that has proportional representation (the House). Similarly, every one has one
vote (equal representation) and the ability to donate money to influence those
votes and the amount of influence you are able to exert is proportional to the
amount of value you've accrued from mutually beneficial voluntary transactions
with others in that society whereby you provided to them some good or service
they found valuable (proportional representation).

Money in politics is one of the greatest forces for the protection of private
property. Without it, we'd likely devolve into a place like Venezuela where
private property is seized unilaterally without recompense because the people
voted for someone who promised them that they would use the government's right
to licit first use of force to take private property from private citizens.

Had Martin Niemöller been born in pre-Soviet Union Russia or pro-Chavez
Venezuela, he might have started his poem this way instead:

"First they came for the billionaires..."

Eventually, they'll come for the middle and upper middle class like they've
done in many countries that become communist/socialist in the 20th and 21st
centuries.

This is not to say that money in politics isn't a corrupting force, it is. But
a democracy is also corrupting. The two balance each other out.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist
until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public
treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising
the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose
fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a
monarchy." — Alexander Fraser Tytler (possibly Alexis de Toqueville)

------
cellular
Wait...they didn't test them before?!

Maybe their income dropped because of their lower thinking !

------
dlphn___xyz
who doesn't go through unsteady income in young adulthood? if anything it
teaches you how to prioritize with few resources.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I didn't. I was a military wife in young adulthood. We had a steady income
with good benefits.

Unsteady income for me came in my forties when I began doing freelance work
post-divorce to accommodate a health issue.

------
pointerpointer
The lack of money gives people with lower income a problem that the brain
cannot solve. Not everyone can 'just get a job' that easily. I've experienced
periods in my life where I kept thinking in circles to find a way to get some
money for our basic needs. The only solution was to simply keep trying and
waiting for some luck or fate. Of course that fucks your brain! I knew a
professor in Berlin who was living in the streets, homeless. Try to imagine
his mind. After all his work, passion and skill this simple but ridiculous
money problem is in-solvable. And no one will help him, he is lost for life.
Most rich people have no clue about this problem. They think everybody can
work and create a future, while at the same time this professor in the streets
has no chances. Who has a thinking problem here?

~~~
amelius
Doesn't Germany have an adequate social security system?

~~~
fulafel
It's not great after the time limited benefits run out. You can survive on the
400 eur/mo if you're in good mental health & can consistently do good
financial planning ahead, but that's often not the case.

------
kd3
Living in survival mode has a severely negative impact on growth and on the
brain/thinking. This is why poor people often stay poor and make bad
decisions. The brilliant stem cell biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton describes in
chapter 6 of his book “The Biology of Belief” why an organism cannot
simultaneously be in a state of growth and protection:

"By now you won’t be surprised to learn that I first became aware of how
important growth and protection behaviors are in the laboratory where my
observations of single cells have so often led me to insights about the
multicellular human body. When I was cloning human endothelial cells, they
retreated from toxins that I introduced into the culture dish, just as humans
retreat from mountain lions and muggers in dark alleys. They also gravitated
to nutrients, just as humans gravitate to breakfast, lunch, dinner and love.
These opposing movements define the two basic cellular responses to
environmental stimuli. Gravitating to a life-sustaining signal, such as
nutrients, characterizes a growth response; moving away from threatening
signals, such as toxins, characterizes a protection response. It must also be
noted that some environmental stimuli are neutral; they provoke neither a
growth nor a protection response. My research at Stanford showed that these
growth/protection behaviors are also essential for the survival of
multicellular organisms such as humans. But there is a catch to these opposing
survival mechanisms that have evolved over billions of years. It turns out
that the mechanisms that support growth and protection cannot operate
optimally at the same time. In other words, cells cannot simultaneously move
forward and backward. The human blood vessel cells I studied at Stanford
exhibited one microscopic anatomy for providing nutrition and a completely
different microscopic anatomy for providing a protection response. What they
couldn’t do was exhibit both configurations at the same time. [Lipton, et al,
1991) In a response similar to that displayed by cells, humans unavoidably
restrict their growth behaviors when they shift into a protective mode. If
you’re running from a mountain lion, it’s not a good idea to expend energy on
growth. In order to survive — that is, escape the lion — you summon all your
energy for your fight or flight response. Redistributing energy reserves to
fuel the protection response inevitably results in a curtailment of growth."

In other words, living in a constant state of survival (as unsteady income
might cause), severely restricts a person’s capabilities to grow in a healthy
way.

------
droithomme
Study summary opens with a political objective then summarizes a mass
population correlation study, and ends up strongly promoting that correlation
as causative and in support of the author's pet political program objective.

Wouldn't call this science.

------
AlexTWithBeard
TL,DR: Income correlates with mental abilities.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
I assume that's not you summarizing for people and instead saying that you
thought it was too long and didn't read it, following up with a horrid
comment?

~~~
AlexTWithBeard
I wish you were right.

But nope. I read it twice looking for a spark of meaning beyond that I wrote
in my comment.

