
Rich Kid, Poor Kid: For 30 Years, Baltimore Study Tracked Who Gets Ahead - acalmon
http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/08/07/335285098/rich-kid-poor-kid-for-30-years-baltimore-study-tracked-who-gets-ahead
======
rayiner
Not so surprising punchline:

> Just 33 children — out of nearly 800 — moved from the low-income to high-
> income bracket. And a similarly small number born into low-income families
> had college degrees by the time they turned 28.

What bothers me is not that the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. That's
pretty much the history of the world, and it's unlikely to change any time
soon.[1] What bothers me is how people rationalize the very imperfect world we
live in. A great example of this is how often people point to outliers in
discussing the structural barriers holding back poor kids. It's not rational.
Obviously the relevant question is the plight of those with median-ish
determination and drive, born into different circumstances.

I've worked a little bit with inner city students, and what just kills me is
meeting kids who are like 90th percentile of determination and drive. Not the
99.9th percentile kids that will go to Harvard on a free ride despite growing
up in the ghetto, but the kids who are a notch below. Those kids are one wrong
step away from never making it out of the ghetto. Their counter-parts, born
into well-off families, on the other hand, have a great shot at ending up at
the upper end of the income spectrum.

[1] One of the things that really messes with my brain is how hard I'm trying
to make sure my daughter has an unfair advantage in life. Not just in terms of
education, etc, but even in terms of expectations and aspirations. How do you
tell your kid to work hard so they can be anything they want to be, when you
your own circumstances belie that assertion?

~~~
bedhead
Why exactly do you describe trying to best position your daughter for a happy,
healthy, successful life as "unfair"? Is this what the world has come to, is
this the degree of our guilt, that simply being a good parent and using money
where possible to better their children is an "unfair" act worthy of shame?

Maybe something got lost in translation but your inclusion of this one word
"unfair" depresses me.

~~~
rayiner
Our goal is literally to try, through the expenditure of money, to make sure
she gets more success per unit of her own effort and ambition than other
children do. How is that anything other than unfair? I'm not ashamed of it,
but that doesn't mean I need to pretend it's fair and just.

~~~
seanflyon
I see your point, but it is not a zero sum game. The goal is not to make sure
she gets more success than other children, but to make sure she achieves a
high degree of success.

~~~
dnissley
Though we live in an age of economic acceleration, it is still to some degree
a zero sum game. There are only so many good jobs and though the potential to
create more of them seems infinite, in reality we know that the demand for a
comfortable lifestyle still vastly outstrips supply.

~~~
shrnky
The statement above is the very reason there aren't more of these good jobs.
Seems a very defeatist attitude.

Start a business and employ some people.

------
e40
_They found that a child 's fate is in many ways fixed at birth — determined
by family strength and the parents' financial status._

This is what is so frustrating about most of the debate in this country. Time
and again it comes down to people arguing over laziness and people wanting to
be _takers_. Until we realize the import of the above statement, we'll be
trapped in a vicious cycle.

~~~
ronnier
I always subscribed to my grandfather's words: be honest, work hard, do your
best or don't do it at all. It's really paid off for me. I grew up as a child
in government run project apartments in Texas. I was able to escape that and
do well through hard work.

I notice those around me who fail, they tend to:

-Party instead of study

-abuse drugs and alcohol

-spend instead of save

-put themselves in situations that lead to bad outcomes

-surround themselves with others who are not uplifting nor motivating

-desire some level of drama

~~~
craigyk
success = hard work * luck

0.0 < hard work < 1.0

0.0 < luck < inf

you should be proud of yourself, but not be so judgemental.... after all you
were lucky enough to have a grandfather to serve as a good role model. I'm
sure if you examined your life critically you'd find many other instances of
luck.

------
fred_durst
_> And by age 28, 41 percent of white men born into low-income families had
criminal convictions, compared with 49 percent of the black men from similar
backgrounds._

Both of those numbers are insanely high. Especially when you realize that in
the modern era of online background checks, their future employment options
practically drop to zero at that point. By 28 close to half of the men from
low income families were essentially unhireable for the rest of their lives.
How is that sustainable for a country as a whole?

~~~
dfxm12
You're operating under the assumption that men with criminal backgrounds can't
get work. Unfortunately some people _do_ discriminate, but not everyone does.
There are ways to combat this.

1) we learn that it is OK to hire people with previous criminal convictions 2)
we change the prison system to successfully assimilate criminals back into
society

Probably most importantly:

3) we change drug laws so that holding small amounts of certain drugs becomes
a misdemeanor

~~~
wavefunction
I'd go further and say that holding small amounts of certain drugs becomes
legal.

------
ChuckMcM
Interesting conversation, and an important one. Re-iterates the importance of
family, or group action. In college I volunteered for Big Brothers and met a
number of young men for whom the deck was stacked against them.

One of the interesting things that correlated with success but I've not seen
any definitive studies on it was church membership for the family. The young
men were primarily hispanic, first generation, and if their family went to
church the church community often helped cushion incidents which were
disasters in non-church goers. Mom has to go to the hospital, the kids are
fending for themselves, with church membership came folks who could (and
would) step in and help.

The other part that made a big impression on me was that we also got a large
influx of Vietnamese refugees and one family in particular the father told me
that he knew his children would be poor like him, but his grand children would
not. He was taking a very long view on things which at the tender age of 19 I
was left wondering "Am I just a stepping stone toward a more successful clan
of kids?" That was sort of the model back then of each generation does better
than the last, I've done better than my parents, but lately I haven't felt
that this will hold for my kids generation.

------
krupan
"The kids who got a better start — because their parents were married and
working — ended up better off. Most of the poor kids from single-parent
families stayed poor."

So we should be encouraging people to get married, stay married, and stay
responsible enough to hold down a job if they are going to raise kids. Not a
new idea at all, but that's cool to have a study to back it up.

~~~
anon1385
No. [http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/confusing-cause-
and...](http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/confusing-cause-and-
effect.html)

------
pnathan
One thing that I have observed and learned is money management "strategies" or
"styles" vary between socioeconomic brackets.

E.g., tradespeople don't always futz with stocks; they don't have the appetite
for risk and volatility that stocks introduce. Long-term investing tends to be
not done (maybe 401(k) or an IRA is used). Some of that is due to a lack of
discretionary income, some of that is just culture.

When you cross a certain barrier upwards, financial understanding of stocks
and so forth increases, and money is leveraged to produce, e.g., use of index
funds and their return on investment.

Moving downward in the socioeconomic classes and passing another another
barrier, money saving becomes less common, and impulse purchases appear to
become more common.

\---

Some of this is definitely familial: I never learned about investments growing
up and had to self-teach. That has limited my total financial situation to
date. I did, however, learn about self-control, discipline, and self-teaching,
which has helped me move forward financially.

Another aspect is behavior expectations of the successful - How to comport and
present yourself in a way that signals that you are a professional, capable
and trustworthy individual? I feel comfortable saying that most anyone from a
poor/blue-collar background and who has now made it into the white-collar
ranks can join with me in saying that _that_ is a big deal. (n.b., I would
totally pony up cash for a local course in So You've Made It Now Past The
First Job, Now How Do You Act?)

~~~
bane
> Some of that is due to a lack of discretionary income, some of that is just
> culture.

What's interesting is that you'll find the same group of people often purchase
weekly lottery tickets. Which, if added up over time might make a small, but
solid stock portfolio.

~~~
Natsu
It's easy to understand how a lottery ticket might make you rich and hard to
understand how unlikely it is to do so.

Something close to the reverse of this is true with a portfolio of stocks.

------
kelukelugames
I firmly believe we are products of our upbringing. Here is my personal
example.

One of my facebook friends is a D-1 college basketball from the 80s.
Throughout the years, his updates were about running laps and shooting baskets
with his two sons. He groomed them to become basketball players. And no one
was surprised when the boys made the varsity team in high school.

Replace basketball with programming or financial success. Acquiring a skill is
infinitely easier with access to role models.

~~~
nesyt
>One of my facebook friends is a D-1 college basketball from the 80s.

Raising kids at all seems like a huge success for a basketball.

On topic, I agree - my parents were very frugal and it sure has rubbed off on
me.

------
erikb
Did I not understand something correctly here? At first the text says people
don't get ahead by education and hard work, and then it lists examples of the
(few, of course) example who did get ahead and all of them got ahead by hard
work and education?

Of course most people don't get ahead. We are wired to keep the same level of
things we know. If we want to study how to get ahead we must study those few
who do get ahead, or at least analyze why the ones not getting ahead didn't
get or take their chances.

Another point I want to discuss:

I grew up in a village where people also live on the lower social end. Only
thanks to my mom I was able to get away from there (education and hard work).
And I can say that it's not just all unfair to people who end up in the same
low situation as their parents (drugs, alcohol, no job, single parents). In
fact teachers, social workers, police officers, old people on the street, the
super market cashier,... many people try to support them and give them
chances. But many people simply don't take the chances. They can choose the
math teacher helping them passing the exam in his spare time without pay (and
where I come from teachers already work unpaid overtime in their normal jobs),
and they can choose to sit all day at the bus stop, get drunk, use drugs, etc.
Many simply choose the second option, because they don't know how to think
long term. It's not all unfair just because poor people often stay poor.

Third point:

Assuming my observation is correct, then what can the government do? If people
already get chances to work their way up, but they don't take it, what are the
options? Force them to not take drugs? Force them to study 6 hours every day?
We live in a free country. Hard to convince anybody that this might be a good
decision. But if you let people have a free will, to some degree you must
accept that people are very lazy.

------
SnowProblem
Nobody chooses which family he/she is born into, and nobody ever will. Each of
us is randomly awakened, empty and dumb, on this Earth into a specific family
and community outside our choosing, with its own mentors and values. This
group will fill us with thoughts for 18 years. So yes, it is unfair that some
of us are awakened to find we are poor, without good mentors or educators, and
will be hindered for the rest of our lives. Unless society embraces something
akin to complete communism or a Brave New World, which to me sounds incredibly
boring, this will always be the case. We can't completely solve this issue at
an individual level. But the problem is not just an individual problem. The
path from rags to riches rarely happens in one generation.

Consider the family as an institution that competes with other families for
life's rewards. There are going to be differences in values between families
with 10M and families with 10K. Each family will prioritize life's rewards
differently, whether that be riches, a passionate vocation, strong
relationships, travel and experience, etc. When looked at from the unit of the
family, why would we not want to financially reward families that acquire
riches more than those that don't? As long as we can maintain a balance, where
an individual who so strongly wants to escape their birth family and make it
on their own can do so, isn't this the right thing to do?

------
trustfundbaby
The researchers found that more affluent white men in the study reported the
highest frequency of drug abuse and binge drinking, yet they still had the
most upward mobility.

"The extent of what we refer to as problem behavior is greatest among whites
and less so among African-Americans," Alexander says. "Whites of advantaged
background had the highest percentages who did all three of those things —
that was binge drinking, any drug use and heavy drug use."

\-----

interesting

------
bane
Upward mobility is constantly on my mind. After I was 10, I grew up pretty
poor and rural, at one point my family was homeless for a few months and
living in a motel. Despite that unpromising beginning, I was able to work my
ass off and get comfortably ahead. It's been a tremendous struggle, but I'd be
a damn liar if I said I didn't receive help from people from time-to-time,
opportunities that helped keep me on an upward path. But also being positioned
to take advantage of those opportunities when they appeared was something I
like to think was my own doing. _I_ went to school, _I_ worked 100+ hours a
week, _I_ applied for better positions and better jobs and fought for pay
raises.

My mother and father both came from large families and it's interesting how
they and all my cousins have turned out.

On my father's side, it's pretty apparent that none of the siblings could
really stand each other, over the decades they moved all over the country,
away from each other, and into wildly different walks of life. They all
independently did their own thing and usually ended up in some kind leadership
position (foreman, shift manager, etc.) or ended up owning small businesses
(with all the risks that entails which is how we ended up homeless). They all
grew up in extreme poverty in the mid-west at the end of the great depression.
Of them, only my father went to college. But they all became more or less
successes if you define success as "able to cover your living expenses while
saving some for later". None of them became wildly rich, but all of them share
the trait of stubbornness and an unbelievable work ethic.

Their kids are all generally doing fine or reasonably successful. No multi-
millionaires, but all productive members of society. I'm the first person from
this side to get a Masters Degree, but there are a few other college educated
folks on that side. Measured by my father's side, I'm a slightly above
average, but otherwise typical story.

My mother's side is a mixed bag, my grandfather was some kind of salesman and
for most of my mother's generation they grew up well fed and cared for. He was
a "success" by my earlier definition. But severe mental illness later in life,
combined with alcoholism eventually put an end to that and my mother's teenage
years was basically a collection of episodes dealing with an increasingly
wildly out of control father and a deteriorating home environment. One of my
uncles eventually also succumbed to the same kind of madness that took my
grandfather, but the rest more or less went on to lead normal lives. But I
think, looking at their lives, lots of what they chose to do was a reaction to
the home environment they grew up in. One uncle ran away and joined the Army,
never to return home again. Another became a minister and married into money.
One took a decent blue collar job, moved away from home and worked it until
retirement. Later on, they all ended up moving back into the same region in a
different state (except for the military man).

The kids are mostly a disaster. Rampant alcoholism, drug-use, abusive violent
ex-husbands and more. Only one went to college and she dropped out of the work
force as soon as she got married right after college. Most of my cousins on my
Mother's side hang out together, and all of them party together. At 30, the
next oldest cousin, who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, has spent
his career setting up chairs in hotel ballrooms making slightly better than
minimum wage when he works. He went to some community college classes at some
point, but eventually spent too much time drunk or drugged out to complete
more than a semester. His sister, also born into money, is even worse. At
almost 30, she can barely hold down a job for longer than a couple weeks. Co-
dependent behavior is a way of life and they all ultimately co-support each
other's bad habits. I try to avoid most of my Mother's family at all costs. I
stay awake at night terrified I'm suddenly going to start getting phone calls
asking for money or a place to crash "for a few days" \-- because I know that
will turn into a never ending drain on my family and our resources.

Measured by my mother's family I'm a wild success story - a single point of
light in a dark pit of failure.

Ideally, you'd think that my mother's family, with the close family links and
the availability of money through one of my uncles would have set them all up.
My cousin's parents were all "success" in terms of supporting their families,
but yet most of my cousins are objectively life failures.

I have people closer than my family in my life, old friends I grew up with.
All of us being poor, _most_ of them did not become successes, but it doesn't
seem to me that in any case it was as a result of their parents doing more or
less for them, but about their own consistently poor life choices. Ones with
obvious negative outcomes, but chosen because they provided immediate positive
emotional return. In other words, their decision flow chart tests if a choice
feels good or not, not if it provides them with a successful outcome. Looking
at my mother's family, their co-dependence and substance abuse issues, it
appear they're using the same decision making process. One of my drug addled
cousins suddenly deciding to stop using drugs, and move away from his group of
co-dependent family and friends, and get a decent job, would be a fantastic
change in behavior that I'm not aware ever happens with any frequency in
reality.

It's obvious that becoming successful is complex, but I think parent's
financial status is more of a correlation than a causation for future success
(even though it might designate a probabilistic cap for how successful a
person can become). It seems that good parenting combined with a natural
desire to succeed is what happens. But when somebody doesn't have a desire to
succeed, it's likely they also won't be good parents. Children pattern after
their parents and also inherit the same lack of desire, from both behavior and
genetic factors. Nobody has really figured out how to change that central
decision point from "does it feel good" to "does it make me successful" with
any sort of reliability. It seems to have to come from inside the person
somewhere.

~~~
liber8
Delayed gratification never gets talked about enough. It is the heart of
capitalism. It's also, without a doubt, the most important contributor to
success.

But, I don't think it's fair to say it has to come from inside the person
somewhere. Obviously, you're right in the literal sense, as you can't impose
delayed gratification on a free adult. But, that doesn't mean its inherent in
someone's genetics. I think the far more likely reality is that people learn
delayed gratification by watching those around them. Even if you do have some
preternatural foresight as a child, it's extremely difficult to see how
delayed gratification makes you successful in life if you never see anyone
that's successful due to their practice of delaying gratification.

This cuts across wide social divides as well. I grew up in a wealthy family,
in a wealthy suburb and had wealthy friends. Everyone had wildly successful
parents. Guess which kids ended up losers (and there are a lot of them)? The
ones whose parents were too busy with their careers and placated their guilt
by trying to buy their children's happiness. These were the kids who got
everything they wanted, any time. These were also the first kids to smoke, try
drugs, have sex, and play video games instead of do homework or go to football
practice. Now these people are working minimum wage jobs, if they're working
at all. The few who used their family connections to get into sales gigs, or
similar, are generally broke. They make a little bit of money, then blow it
all in a weekend.

I can only imagine how this effect is amplified growing up in the lower socio-
economic classes. My friends at least knew people that became successful, and
saw that it was possible. I'm sure it's easy to think that improving your life
is impossible if you'd never met anyone who did it, or if your parents,
family, and friends were impoverished, or alcoholics, or drug addicts.

~~~
bane
Yeah good points all. I say this as somebody who generally is supportive of
various kinds of welfare programs, because I've seen how they _can_ be actual
safety nets for people in trouble. I think these programs don't address this
point at all, and don't really want to face it.

There's a kind of mythology in welfare advocacy circles, that people just need
to have that safety net, and some sort of kernel of desire will bounce them
right back out of it. I know that's true for some people, but there really are
quite a lot of people for which it isn't. And addressing this is a tremendous
social problem. The problem in my eyes is that advocacy circles don't want to
recognize this and thus haven't really done any real work in addressing.

On the other hand addressing it might also undermine most of modern consumer
culture which is a fundamental driver of modern capitalism.

This might translate into a general lack of research dollars and interest into
actually solving this problem on the low success end of the bell-curve.

~~~
goldfeld
I think you neglect to consider that not all people are success-minded, that
some, even given all the good influence and knowledge and skills, would rather
not use that to pursue things that are usually defined as success--except for
the very very few who make it as cultural big names.

These people are usually artists, intellectuals and researchers and their
priorities are a far cry from money (and sometimes stability.) Some good
decades ago they could get by with a variety of part-time jobs and work on
what they believe on the side, and live their whole lives this way and be
happy (even by the process of life itself, as opposed to goals and results.)
Nowadays that's getting much harder to do of course, and people with this
mindset are struggling to make ends meet, let alone live in a bustling city.
Add to that student debts and all that--I think it's no wonder quality
cultural production has somewhat declined in the views of many, especially in
comparison to the 50s, or the 70s. New York used to have a bunch of these
people, and it allowed artistical serendipity to take place easily, so dense
were their ranks. Nowadays living there, for these people, is no option unless
you can live with well-off parents.

These kinds of people might be labeled the cultural elite, and historically
they have created most of our art, either through making ends meet somehow
(which was more possible) or being supported by patrons or parents--hence why
I think 'cultural elite' is befitting, they're supported by an elite who tends
to be success-minded or power-hungry (or rent-seeking, which used to be way
more prevalent), but they themselves are not.

They're somewhat carefree people, the saner of whom also do not need a lot to
live on and don't want to raise a family, so those could conceivably live off
basic income. I think that would be good for society, because the success-
minded people who naturally come to control decision-making and run things
around don't seem to care much (or don't grok) that there's this other side of
mankind who don't quite fit in what they build. At least culturally these
people still get a say, they do shape culture after all, but I'm afraid that's
gonna be less and less so, at least when it comes to the masses. The internet
helps give them voice, sure, but when those who are like this and have a
cosmopolitan view can't afford a like-minded city, we lose scenes and
movements and all these beautiful artistic expressions of a time and place and
group of people.

In the field of software development, of course, there are many, who usually
devote their lives to open source or learning materials and don't really mind
not having money (except when it starts pressing hard.) Richard Stallman could
well be considered a great example who went on to make amazing contributions
for our collective good, and his patron was the US Military. Alas, research
budgets are being cut and cut, especially long-term research without sure
profitability, and universities are on their way to bankrupcy, and times like
that don't look like they're coming back again.

~~~
bane
Well, I did broadly define success as "able to cover your living expenses
while saving some for later".

As a former wanna be professional violinist, I definitely don't think becoming
a billionaire is the only mark of success. But I also think that if you can't
cover your basic living expenses no matter how modestly you've sized them
you're doing it wrong.

Outside of that narrow definition, I'd encourage everybody to do whatever it
is they wish to do and gives them fulfillment.

I knew a guy who quite a mid six-figure job to open a Tae Kwon Do school
because he enjoyed the art and liked teaching people better than what he was
doing. He didn't make much money, sold his house to buy the school and lived
in the back of his school for a few years, but he always made rent, paid his
bills and didn't miss a meal.

I think that's cool. He did what he wanted to and didn't fall into some kind
of sense of entitlement that he should be taken care of by other people
because he was pursuing his passion.

I have another friend who graduated with a degree in digital media right at
the top of the 90s .com boom, when people were throwing wheelbarrows of money
at anybody who could operate a keyboard, and turned it all down to go play
guitar in Irish folk bands. He made enough to rent a basement apartment and
feed and clothe himself, and got to see lots of the world going on tour.
That's fantastic and I love that he got to follow his desire. He still does a
version of this, but now he's a also a professional staff guitarist for a
major guitar maker and does professional guitar soundtracks for commercials.
That's awesome to me.

I totally think of these people as successful.

------
morgante
I wish we could find a more comprehensive measure of "class" than income,
because I think this broader measure has a much larger effect than income
itself.

Technically speaking, you'd put me in the mobile group. Growing up, my parents
never earned more than median wage and were consistently in the bottom third
of the income bracket. Thankfully, I've been lucky enough to leap into the top
5%. I'll be buying my dad his first house soon.

Yet, I've never felt particularly mobile. My parents were both college-
educated, and my aunts/uncles are decidedly (upper) middle class. It was
always expected that I'd go to college and succeed in careers. By this
measure, I haven't moved at all.

------
mililani
I would like to see a study that follows the kids of poor immigrants. Almost
everyone I know who came from poor immigrant families, including my own and my
wife's, is doing well. We're all middle to upper middle class now. In fact, my
family and relatives were so poor, they literally came to American with zero
money. My wife's dad came here with only $50 to his name.

It would be interesting to see some statistics on that.

------
Shivetya
Rich doesn't always mean squat, culture can sink you more and most likely does
even in the Baltimore study.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/30/arts/why-are-black-
student...](http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/30/arts/why-are-black-students-
lagging.html)

------
netcan
Ironically, one of the books that shaped my ideas on topics like this early on
was the fictional _' The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism' by
Emmanuel Goldstein_ in ' _1984._ ' Orwell's perspective as a dissident
socialist is very unique and made for a lot of nuance. This is one of the
places where it shines through, in my opinion.

In any case, in 1984-world there is an exam for moving the most talented of
the middle classes into the upper class and least talented of the upper class
to the middle. I think Orwell's thinking here was a 'keep the dangerous ones
on the inside" strategy. But, I think there's another mechanism at work.
Release valves and the creation of ambiguity.

A member of the underclass with undeniable talent and force of will is very
dangerous to the order of things. If there are several of them pushing hard
against a glass ceiling then pressure builds up. It also becomes very obvious
the the ceiling exists. That's where Malcolm Xs come from.

Malcolm X recalls in his autobiography about an incident where he told his
teacher he wanted to become a lawyer. The teacher responds that this is "not a
realistic goal for a nigger". If he had become a lawyer he might have become
one of the (as he saw it) one of those despicable, integration seeking middle
class negroes. Blue pills.

Hitting a hard ceiling made the existence of the ceiling undeniable and the
incredible force of his personality had no other outlet than pushing against
this impenetrable ceiling.

I don't know if how obvious it was at the time that Malcolm X had the
potential in him that he obviously exhibited as an adult. But let's imagine
that the 12 year old Malcolm X was a 12 year old version of the 35 year old
Malcolm X. A system that embraces that kid, makes him a lawyer. Gives him an
outlet whiten it and celebrates him as an example of crossing class barriers
or even proof for the non existence of those barriers is a more robust system.

BTW, I think it's wrong to read 1984 as a description of a conspiracy. The
conspiracy is more of a metaphor, a way of easily explaining how things work.
In reality, societies are memoplexes, evolved. To paraphrase Douglas Adams. "A
memoplex that survives is a memoplex that survives." They are made up of
surviving memes. Memes preventing class movement entirely are likely to bring
down the memoplex. I think airtight class distinctions (such as a system of
race based slavery) are fundamentally unstable for this reason.

There are interesting datapoints in accounts of ancient slavery. The Hebrew
Bible describes a system of slavery with ways out existing in the ancient
Middle east. Earning freedom. Sabbatical amnesties. Jacob came to Egypt as a
slave. He rose to become a sort of chancellor to the Pharaoh. Ancient Greek &
Roman systems of slavery had ways for exceptional slaves to earn freedom or
even rise in rank within the institution of slavery. If Spatacus' leadership
abilities had caused him to be ejected from slavery, his uprising would never
have happened. He might have been a general enslaving barbarians and
contributing gainfully to the system.

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freedom123
I will summarize real quick. "Rich" and "Poor" are 2 variable of millions -
And no matter how many variables you address you cannot escape one simple fact
about "who gets ahead" \- "If its important to you, you will find a way, if it
is not, you will find an excuse."

~~~
hackuser
> no matter how many variables you address you cannot escape one simple fact
> about "who gets ahead" \- "If its important to you, you will find a way, if
> it is not, you will find an excuse."

Do you have evidence for that? All the evidence I read, including the research
discussed in this HN post, says that it depends heavily on where you start,
including factors such as family income.

Are you saying that children born into poor families or who face other such
disadvantages achieve less because they have less willpower than children born
into wealthier families? If so, perhaps we should look at the relationship
between family income and willpower.

EDIT: Minor clarification

