
Die young, live fast: The evolution of an underclass - redoacs
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727692.100-die-young-live-fast-the-evolution-of-an-underclass.html?full=true
======
brondaire
Anytime an article hits Hacker News such as this; that is, with explicit
references to class and socioeconomic status, I cringe as I read the comments.
The comments are both predictable, and utterly devastating.

Psychology is largely at play here, since both the Fundamental attribution
error (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error>) and
cognitive dissonance (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance>)
have extremely strong effects. For the most part, the readership here often
seems to be completely unaware of the daily realities of a very real
underclass in western societies. Environment has a profound effect on our
individual development.

I've lived a privileged life. I have many close friends who were not so
fortunate. I could not possibly imagine my life circumstances today if I had
to face what some of my friends did.

~~~
todayiamme
It's not their fault. Most people simply don't know what bottomless despair is
like. Even fewer know what it's like to have no resources whatsoever to deal
with it.

I sometimes still cry and question why I wasn't born normal like others. It
doesn't matter what I know and understand. It doesn't matter what I tell
myself. I still feel that stab. I couldn't have imagined what this felt like
until I had to go through it, and herein lies the problem. The people who
often try to erase social injustices are those who have lived a life of
privilege and have absolutely no idea what it's like on the other side. A lot
of them rely on second or third hand sources, but they often fail to get the
gist of things. This isn't something wrong on it's own, but whenever people
are frustrated they tend to grope for explanations and a lot of people fail to
give this any thought whatsoever.

Even though this article seems to be well intentioned, but stuff like this
hurts people in the longer run. Take a look at this;

>>>It is not simply a case of teenage girls from deprived backgrounds
accidentally becoming pregnant. Evidence from many sources suggests that teen
pregnancy rates are similar in poor and affluent communities. However,
motherhood is a choice, as both Geronimus and Johns are keen to point out.
Teenage girls from affluent backgrounds are more likely to have abortions than
their less-privileged peers. In terms of reproduction, the more affluent girls
are best off concentrating on their own career and development so that they
can invest more in the children they have at a later stage. "It seems that
girls are assessing their life chances on a number of fronts and making
conscious decisions about reproduction," says Johns.<<<

The reason why they don't have pretty often is because they can't afford
abortions. Even if there are clinics that perform this for an extremely low
cost. Most people lack access and awareness in the ghetto, which is just
another side effect of growing up there. Affluent children can think about
their life choices because they have the luxury of doing so. Most children
from the ghetto don't.

The very idea that such behavior is driven by genetic impulses is something
that shows a flawed understanding of the entire concept at some stage by the
writer. I am not an expert on it, but Richard Dawkins surely is and he takes
the pains to point out that genes are like a coder who writes a complex AI
program. After her/his job is finished the program is on its own. If you think
about it everything comes down to genetic impulses and the environment plays a
crucial role in determining those impulses, but in humans another paradigm
also comes into the equation; the ability for us to make a conscious choice.

What I am trying to say is that the expert who wrote that paper is trying to
get an extremely valuable point across, but the way it is used to explain
everything is demeaning and flawed. There is no magic bullet for such
problems, and you really need not resort to such things. Good ole' hard work
with dedication and understanding ought to do.

[edit: I forgot to add "flawed understanding _by the writer_ " the expert who
has been quoted is spot on, but the general conclusions derived seem to be
pretty shabby.]

~~~
frossie
While I do respect your larger point...

 _The reason why they don't have pretty often is because they can't afford
abortions._

A lot of the research in that article was done in the UK, where cost is not
really a factor. Abortions are covered by the national heath service. Also,
there are no parental notification rules or any similar barriers that make it
so hard in the US.

Contraception is also free, and so I don't think it is completely unreasonable
to speculate that many of these births are actually wanted and to examine the
reasons for them, as the researchers are attempting in the OP. Whether their
theory is actually correct, I don't know.

~~~
nmftt
I don't think the reason teenagers don't use contraception is because they
want to get pregnant, but because they don't clearly see the implications. I
know abortions are emotionally hard and if you don't see yourself having a
future to protect it's harder to make that decision. Still as far as I know
abortions are very accepted in Europe and it probably more likely that you
have an abortion if your parents know you're pregnant. Especially if you have
successful parents that can see the implications of having a child at an early
age, which many underprivileged teenagers don't have.

~~~
rdtsc
> because they don't clearly see the implications.

I think you hit the nail on the head.

A lot of policy makers who make rules and laws about how to fix poverty always
assume they deal with rational, clearly thinking, autonomous agents. They
assume there is some logical planning taking place in teenagers' heads before
they get pregnant: "...Having sex will lead to pregnancy which will lead to
having a baby, who, even though I can't support, the state will take care of
it, my boyfriends will be forced to pay child support therefore it makes
perfect sense to have a baby." Something like that.

A 16 year old guy will think he can support all the babies in the world when
having sex. The girl might think it will make the boyfriend love her more,
they'll get married, find jobs, move out and have a happy your family and live
happily every after. That is a very different thought process than what policy
makers usually assume goes on.

Teenagers who are privileged end up making a lot of stupid decisions as well,
but their parents, hover over them, guide them, fix their mistakes for them
and wait for the kids to mature and start thinking rationally and maturely.

Many poor teenagers never have that. They don't get a second choice, a do over
for small mistakes. Many are from a single parent family, or their parents are
working 12 hour days to make ends meet, perhaps one or more parents are drunk
or on drugs and there is just nobody to guide, to teach and to iron out the
consequences of small and large mistakes. Consequently the teenagers grow up
but mentally never mature. Then they become the next generation of parents.
Then the cycle repeats.

Overall I think all the teenagers would end up procreating as soon as they can
if they just grew up in the wild without any parental guidance. The ones that
lead privileged lives have parents who teach, guide and iron out mistakes
("read : trip to the abortion clinic"), and this leads to a delay in
procreation until some arbitrarily chosen "life event" usually : marriage +
first job + new house.

I think taking this problem and turning it into some kind of evolutionary /
genetic issue is pointless if not plain dangerous.

------
yummyfajitas
The article is seriously flawed, because it completely discounts the
possibility that the fast lifestyle is the cause of the pathologies of the
poor.

It mentions the oft-cited statistic that 2000 calories of junk food is cheaper
than 2000 calories of vegetables. The fact is true, but irrelevant; if you are
overweight or obese (as most of the poor are), you can reduce your caloric
intake and increase food quality for the same cost. A few of the poor may be
working dangerous jobs, but the vast majority of the poor are simply not
working.

When you subject individuals from affluent (or poor, but foreign) backgrounds
to US poverty-like conditions, they rarely exhibit the same pathologies.
Graduate students earn very little money, but don't become obese. Indian
immigrants in Jersey City, which includes guys working at fast food places,
don't turn to crime, teen pregnancy [1] or exhibit the poor health that
Americans do. That isn't what you'd expect if environment, rather than
personal choices, were the driving factor.

[1] They do reproduce fairly early, but this is caused by different
pathologies (forcing girls into arranged marriages at an early age) and it
occurs even among affluent Indians.

~~~
Unseelie
You're discounting the argument that the fast lifestyle isn't a response to
poverty, but a response to expectations of poverty.

Environment as it affects someone born into poverty without examples of
persons who grow out of it, rather than a grad student(really a laughable
argument that a grad student is 'poor' considering the value of their
education.) or an immigrant to the nation, come to find opportunity...

~~~
yummyfajitas
The theory that people respond to expected future "poverty" [1] rather than
their current circumstances is certainly harder to falsify.

But I definitely dispute the assertion that people living in poor regions lack
examples of people who grew out of it. It's certainly not true in the poor
neighborhoods I've lived in (and currently live in). There are plenty of
people who stayed in school, kept their heads down and achieved a solidly
middle class lifestyle. They often remain involved with the local community,
typically the church and extended family.

[1] I find it very difficult to use the term "poverty" to describe the bottom
10% of Americans, seeing as all their material needs are met and they consume
more leisure than any other group.

------
joe_the_user
How much validity is there in positing the evolution of different contemporary
human subgroups when these change at a fairly rapid rate and intermingle quite
readily?

The modern "underclass" has probably only existed for at most, 100-200 years
in various places. That's 3-10 generations with plenty of gene-movement in and
out of the group in the meantime.

It seems a bit more plausible to me to argue that humans already have a
variety of strategies for reproduction and different circumstances bring out
different strategies.

My impression is that in peasant societies, teenage pregnancy is very common
and families try to maximize the production of children. However, in hunter-
gather societies, which pre-date peasant societies, my vague understanding
that is teen-pregnancy is less common and there is less maximization of
reproduction since population is often consciously consciously kept in the
bounds of the land's productivity.

~~~
SandB0x
> _How much validity is there in positing the evolution of different
> contemporary human subgroups when these change at a fairly rapid rate and
> intermingle quite readily?_

The article doesn't suggest that _subgroups_ have evolved, rather that we have
evolved to produce offspring sooner and faster in _response_ to harsh
conditions.

(So basically what you write in the rest of your post agrees with the article.
I think!)

~~~
sethg
Do we even need to hypothesize this as a specialized evolutionary response?

“My life sucks; studying hard and looking for a job will not make it suck
less, because even if I get good grades, nobody will hire me; however, if I
have a baby, then there will at least be something cute in my immediate
environment that loves me” looks like a straightforward chain of logical
reasoning to me.

~~~
SandB0x
It's _one_ factor - there are going to be a whole host of influences.

But remember even cuteness is an evolutionary response. Nature selects for
mothers who care for little things with wide eyes and big heads.

If you're interested in evolutionary psychology and the nature-nurture debate
I highly recommend _The Blank Slate_ by Steven Pinker.

------
dkarl
The article seems to confirm the idea that we can't improve the life of the
underclass, we can only shrink the underclass by moving people out of it.
Unfortunately, not many people who are magically plucked out of their culture
and society (via scholarships or employment) can bear to alienate themselves
from their roots forever, so that isn't a solution, either. Even if we
consistently skim off the exceptional individuals who are capable of handling
that kind of dislocation, the underclass will sustain itself.

Personally, I think the solution is to provide a minimum guaranteed standard
of living, no questions asked, no silly ragged patchwork quilt of programs,
just a minimum standard of living. Not enough to remove the stigma of poverty
-- we don't want people to be _comfortable_ or _satisfied_ on the dole -- just
enough to make it worthwhile for people to invest in themselves and avoid
anti-social behavior.

What we will then discover is whether an absolute level economic subsistence
can transform behavior, or whether it is the stigma of relative poverty that
causes people to behave antisocially.

~~~
henrikschroder
Belonging to the working class or underclass means not only that you lack the
money and resources of the classes above you, it also means that you have a
completely different outlook on life. What you suggest would take generations
before you get any real results.

~~~
yungchin
Yes, intuitively I'd also expect it to take many generations. But the
article's examples - Sweden, Japan (both effects established post-WWII I
suppose), the North Carolina district (1990s!) - surprisingly suggest
otherwise.

~~~
henrikschroder
There is still a substantial working class in Sweden, and although the income
gap between the social classes is much lower here than elsewhere, the
different mindsets are the same as everywhere. I have friends that are working
class through and through, even though some of them make about as much money
as I do. It's not about standard of living.

In my own case, I can thank our free university system for helping me drag
myself from middle class to upper middle class, but then again I started with
the middle class sentiment that education is always good. If you're working
class, everyone in your environment will tell you that university is a huge
waste of time, and I don't know how to address that. Throwing money at it
won't do anything.

------
greenlblue
Not much new here but I'm always suspicious of anything with an 'evolutionary
psychology approved' sticker. I know that the basis of the theory is that most
behavior is a response to maximizing gene propagation but I haven't seen the
theory used to rule out any behaviors. It basically justifies whatever is the
status quo with what sounds like science because the initial hypothesis sounds
reasonable and scientific.

~~~
davnola
> I haven't seen the theory used to rule out any behaviors

The article itself includes more than one example. E.g. the researchers
hypothesized that, given some premises about evolution, poor women would have
more kids earlier. This rules out them having fewer kids later.

Then they went and tested it.

~~~
greenlblue
If evolutionary psychology explains why poor people act the way they do then
it should be able to do the same for rich people as well. But I never see any
papers or popular articles in evolutionary psychology explain why rich people
have fewer kids. After all if people just want to propagate their genes and
all our behaviors over the eons evolved for such a purpose then why do rich
and educated people have fewer kids? It seems to contradict the basic premise
of evolutionary psychology but no one seems to address this or just waves it
away by saying "Oh, well humans are more complicated when it comes to learned
behavior except of course when those people are poor in which case evolution
and selfish genes rule". This double standard in an obviously symmetric
situation is what makes me suspicious of evolutionary psychology. In fact it
seems that according to evolutionary theory the rich would have a lot more
kids since they have the resources to support those kids but that's not what
happens.

~~~
REALLYHUGENEKO
I assume that the poor create resources when they have kids (more hands), but
the rich divide resources when they have kids. IANAP.

~~~
greenlblue
Not really. The resource investment should be the same in both instances, in
fact the rich would have an even easier time raising a kid to maturity which
is when a child becomes a resource to their parents so I still don't buy it.

------
jdietrich
I worked for two years as a welfare advisor in one of the poorest towns in the
UK. What nobody ever thinks about in this debate is the economic incentives
created by our welfare system. In that work, I spoke to numerous young women
who were planning on getting pregnant in order to improve their income and get
access to better housing.

If you're poor, British and female, having a baby is a good career move. As
soon as that child is born, your income effectively doubles. The state pays
you more cash benefits, your allowance for rent payments increases
significantly and you become eligible for an array of other benefits, starting
with a £500 ($770) payment before the birth. You become "in priority need of
housing" and therefore gain the legal right to accommodation, jumping the
queue for social housing.

Reproducing early may or may not be rational in Darwinian terms, but if you've
just left school at sixteen with no qualifications and your community has 20%
unemployment, it's certainly economically rational.

------
KingOfB
The title to the article is a total troll. The real interesting factor is that
an 'upper class' has evolved that reduces birth rates in exchange for power
(education/money). The underclass has always been there. It might be
interesting to compare growth rates of the two, but neither are a new thing.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
Single page:

[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727692.100-die-
young...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727692.100-die-young-live-
fast-the-evolution-of-an-underclass.html?full=true)

------
waratuman
"There is no reason to view the poor as stupid or in any way different from
anyone else, says Daniel Nettle of the University of Newcastle in the UK. All
of us are simply human beings, making the best of the hand life has dealt us.
If we understand this, it won't just change the way we view the lives of the
poorest in society, it will also show how misguided many current efforts to
tackle society's problems are - and it will suggest better solutions."

I strongly disagree with this statement. This view means that humans are
taking the passenger seat when they can in fact take control of their lives.
If you live by the motto of "well this is what life gave me" you will never go
anywhere.

------
jgg
This article reminds me of one of my "favorite" fallacies that people fall
for: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Just-
world_ph...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Just-
world_phenomenon)

------
ams6110
Could it be as simple as, in most societies, if you are poor, the more kids
you have, the more welfare you receive. Also if the father is not around, you
are more likely to qualify for welfare.

When you reward a behavior, people tend to do more of it.

------
chopsueyar
Am I the only one who read this and thought there is only one way to prove
this?

Find several thousand wealthy couples.

Take away their wealth, reducing them to poverty.

Watch them make babies.

Evaluate empirical data.

Maybe we should look at former and current US mortgage brokers over the past
decade?

------
aarp
sometimes i cry when i think about poor people.

------
earth
I personally believe that your environment makes all the choices for you. If
you were locked in a blank box from birth, what choices could or would you
make?

Poor people are not stupid and if you think that I guess I would label you
stupid. Before you jump on your horse and say I would work hard and study hard
to get out of a shit life, what do you even mean by that? You would be an
entirely different person raised in those circumstances.

Also some people make it out of the vicious cycle but I believe thats only
luck based and they've just happened to meet some people who have said some
useful things.

The article itself doesn't really mean anything and I wouldn't say teenage
pregnancy is related to evolution. In third world countries having more
children is probably the best solution if you lack an education and survive
off labour.

------
c00p3r
Wanna proof? Visit Russia (or any ex. East block country)! ^_^

