I don't think the comment to which you respond is arguing it's never really their fault, or anything like that, so much as accepting the fact, backed by research (and yes, if you insist, I will find the citations) that there is an intense cognitive burden to managing one's resources when one is sufficiently poor.
As we all - assuming we all here on HN do relatively intellectual work - can attest, thinking and deciding have energy and exhaustion costs and we have a finite capacity after which we must recharge and rest.
And many of us are familiar with how stress (deadlines, conflicts at home, weather, etc.) tax us even further, reducing our ability to think well and decide well, and leading, sometimes, to poor decisions...
...that bring their own stress and workload.
Imagine if everyday the bulk of your decision making was literally about every dollar: heat and lights or shoes? Shoes or food? Food or healthcare? Healthcare of rent? Rent or heat and light?
You would do the same thing we do when we are coding something complex and need to make progress. You would pick a thing, do something simple that isn't really enough but is enough for now, slap hic sunt draconis in a comment, and move on. Hopefully you will get back to it.
People choose the easy, convenient, less good for them food because that gives more time to consider their other trade offs, maybe even to breathe long enough to reduce some of their stress.
And they may never get back to that choice, because the choices, the strains, never end.
Poverty is a vicious circle of stress and decline. Yes, there are people who make it out, just like there are people who make the NBA or the NHL. Most people, though, suffer. Literally.
It doesn't matter how people get poor. What matters is that poor is hard, harder than most anything most of us will ever face. What matters is that we respond with compassion and consideration and perhaps try to see beyond fault and responsibility and instead try to do something to amend those situations.
Being poor is agonizing. Having an overdrawn bank account or no bank account and more bills past due then I’ll be able to pay with my next two checks while worrying about my empty fridge, my gas tank on e, my lapsed car insurance, the donut that’s been on the car for 500 miles, the pile of dirty clothes, and on and on and on. Just listing everything is exhausting and physically painful. It hurts to know so viscerally that there’s nothing I can legally do in a sane timespan to fix these problems. Trying to think even two weeks out is impossible because something else is going to happen that destroys any progress I made. So I’ll tackle the most pressing first. Scrounge couches, the car, and spend a sleepless night wandering the city collecting cans so I can wash my nasty clothes so I won’t get fired. Hopefully I won’t have an accident at work that’ll cost way more than I got for a nights work.
> Imagine if everyday the bulk of your decision making was literally about every dollar: heat and lights or shoes? Shoes or food? Food or healthcare? Healthcare of rent? Rent or heat and light?
Again, I haven't met these people you talk about among any of poor people I grew up around. I think the "research" you center your worldview on is a fiction. Propaganda of some sort? Maybe meant to make you slave away for more money than you need and to fear being destitute?
The poors I grew up would do things like buy a TV they couldn't afford, then trade it to someone for several ounces of weed that they planned to sell. Then smoke too much of the weed themselves and have no TV for a month or two.
As we all - assuming we all here on HN do relatively intellectual work - can attest, thinking and deciding have energy and exhaustion costs and we have a finite capacity after which we must recharge and rest.
And many of us are familiar with how stress (deadlines, conflicts at home, weather, etc.) tax us even further, reducing our ability to think well and decide well, and leading, sometimes, to poor decisions...
...that bring their own stress and workload.
Imagine if everyday the bulk of your decision making was literally about every dollar: heat and lights or shoes? Shoes or food? Food or healthcare? Healthcare of rent? Rent or heat and light?
You would do the same thing we do when we are coding something complex and need to make progress. You would pick a thing, do something simple that isn't really enough but is enough for now, slap hic sunt draconis in a comment, and move on. Hopefully you will get back to it.
People choose the easy, convenient, less good for them food because that gives more time to consider their other trade offs, maybe even to breathe long enough to reduce some of their stress.
And they may never get back to that choice, because the choices, the strains, never end.
Poverty is a vicious circle of stress and decline. Yes, there are people who make it out, just like there are people who make the NBA or the NHL. Most people, though, suffer. Literally.
It doesn't matter how people get poor. What matters is that poor is hard, harder than most anything most of us will ever face. What matters is that we respond with compassion and consideration and perhaps try to see beyond fault and responsibility and instead try to do something to amend those situations.