
Impulsive Rich Kid, Impulsive Poor Kid - ryan_j_naughton
http://priceonomics.com/impulsive-rich-kid-impulsive-poor-kid/
======
r00fus
Interesting takeaways:

* They mentioned some degree of "mentorship effect", but didn't clarify how they controlled for this.

* Cash handouts (ie, basic income) prevented desperate measures. The societal cost of the cash could be less than the aggregate cost of the crimes.

~~~
mason55
> _The societal cost of the cash could be less than the aggregate cost of the
> crimes_

This is the idea behind a basic income.

Some experiments are also finding it cheaper to just give people houses than
to continue to run homeless outreach programs.

~~~
swombat
It's _part_ of the idea behind basic income. There are two major angles I
think: economic and moral.

Economically, there are a lot of costs that are taken out of the system if we
implement basic income, everything from means-tested support (the means
testing is very expensive and prone to fraud, etc), to crime that you mention,
to the terrible and yet unmeasured opportunity cost of still having the
majority of the population working in jobs they hate but need to survive.
Imagine a world where everyone is working on something they've chosen to do,
which they can feel passionate about (and yes, I do believe people can feel
passionate about any job that has a useful purpose, including picking up
trash, cleaning the streets, and all those other currently low-status jobs).

The moral side is equally important, though. We live in a society where we
don't need everyone to work, not even close. A great many people today work in
jobs whose only purpose is to exist as jobs, which don't actually have a net
benefit to society other than keeping people out of unemployment. Many others
are unable to contribute to society because their skills are not in demand,
thanks to automation, outsourcing, etc. Those people are currently made to
feel morally guilty for not working, their self-worth as human beings is
attacked, debased. This is fundamentally wrong, and is the major challenge of
our generation: transforming from a society that liberally distributes shame
to people who are not in a position to work for money, to a society that
accepts that paid work is just one of the activities a human being might
partake in in their life, and neither necessary nor the highest.

If we fail at this challenge, the cost will be unrest, perhaps revolution,
probably a regression in the progress of mankind.

We have a tough few decades ahead.

~~~
wslh
I agree with the premise that there will be fewer jobs but not that basic
income is _the solution_. Not working can be very unhealthy for most people
and I imagine people doing nothing instead of being "artists and scientists".

~~~
polymatter
I'd be interested to hear any other potential solutions. Seems to me the
choice is either:

a) basic income, or

b) all the unemployed who can not get a job in the new economy are given a
government job. The work in the job doesn't matter, as long as it provides a
fig leaf to allow the government to give them the money they desperately need
to live.

If its not entirely clear, I think that these non-jobs are are an unfair and
incredibly expensive way of giving out benefits. The richer would be better
off with a basic income (free money! smaller more efficient government meaning
taxing the rich less!). The poor would be better off with a basic income (no
social workers or benefit admins judging you! future is predictable so able to
start investing for the future!). Its only annoying for those of us in the
middle, those who will not benefit much from a basic income (because it won't
be a huge amount of money, our taxes are unlikely to decrease) but will also
not see much benefit from it (I probably already had a safety net in terms of
friends and family, and the basic income will be too small to support the
lifestyle I am used to anyway).

~~~
lukeschlather
We should pay people to study and provide higher compensation for better
grades. (However, failing can't be allowed to compromise basic shelter/food
needs.)

~~~
mangamadaiyan
Ouch. What if the grading system is unfair and allows students to game the
system by memorizing facts instead of actually understanding what they're
studying? (Not quite a rhetorical question, this is pretty much how the
educational system in many parts of the world works)

------
vonklaus
I read this article twice and I did find it interesting. However, this title
doesn't make sense within the context of the article. Other than a contrived
example they made up about rich kids possibly submitting to criminals while
poor kids may not, this article focused solely on poor communities and
mentorship programs.

On balance, the programs seem to work well in helping people get their lives
together by giving them information, mentorship and resources. This does beg
the question though: Are people being arrested because they are impulsive or
disadvantaged as they did not provide contrasting evidence.

Also, in America nearly 50% of the population are in for drug offenses
according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons data current as of may 30th,
2015[0] If all drugs were legal, and convictions on all other crimes
collectively didn't double, less people would be in prison.

[0][http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offens...](http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp)

------
solson
To one degree or another authority implies the threat of violence. For the
person confronted with violence, subconscious automatic action is required for
survival. Mistakes may be made, but trust in your training is essential. It is
the same in sports (football, basketball, ice hockey, tennis), if you have to
hesitate and consciously think, you are "in your head" and you'll be beaten.
Some of us have been trained to react automatically by our environments. The
best training ground for criminal behavior is juvenile detention and other
forms of incarceration where hesitation will get you in trouble quickly. Our
system is creating these kids who act on auto pilot. If they lose respect they
have lost nearly everything they have.

------
eruditely
Impulsiveness and Executive Functioning deficits contribute an extreme amount
to crime, one of the primary sources of executive functioning ADHD has a
number of great treatments. XR Stimulants work, many people in prison have
ADHD and wouldn't have been there if they had taken their meds, recently it
has become popular to doubt ADHD(See barkley for evidence) it's real and a big
deal. The fact that it is so treatable is a miracle. Stop the nonsense.

------
hristov
This is interesting. I want to try CBT myself. I am not prone to violence
(thank god) but I do have some bad habits I want to get rid of, such as
procrastination.

~~~
StavrosK
Are you putting off trying CBT?

------
lifeformed
> Of course, evaluating whether the therapy itself was the relevant factor
> here is pretty messy. There’s a lot to these classes other than CBT, and on
> the surface it looks like a lot of these things could have impacted the
> results: The programs were administered by adults, who could have created a
> “generic mentorship effect.” Or maybe simply requiring that they show up to
> class week after week taught participants self control.

Couldn't they control this by having the other group go to a class, but not do
anything?

~~~
drxzcl
I was thinking the exact same thing reading the article. It would have to be
an actual class, preferably taught by the same person (to control for personal
charisma etc) that does not directly translate into behavioral modification
but does teach something useful (to avoid dropout/motivation differentials)
Music? Sports? I'm not sure.

------
ajcarpy2005
Meditation, mindfulness, respect

------
huuu
Maybe a solution would be:

    
    
      JailTime = MinJailTime * Last7YearsConvicted

~~~
Sammi
The whole point of the article is to educate you on the fact that people most
often don't think of the consequences when doing crime. That's partly why
punishment works so badly.

