Poverty Is A Disease

a reply to: Edumakated

If i had a publicly traded company that decided to start paying my people double minimum wage as starting out, minimum skill jobs, i'd likely be sued by the shareholders. Best case scenario, stock valuation tanks and people exodus via divestment.

Unless you think just anyone can go by the bank and raise capital with any stack strategy, and launch a multi million dollar business. Or survive in this market trying to retrace Sam Waltons footsteps. Neither is going to happen.

originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Tried reading a bit. Correct me if I'm wrong...this is nothing more than same old...stress did it. Poverty in this case is (according to your link) just a trigger for the real biology changer. Stress.

But this is hardly a poverty issue. Stress is abound...from impoverished to the multimillionaire.

As for poverty...speaking exclusively for the US...the land of opportunity...no ? well...it appears that some just dont know how to take opportunities or do you claim that the system in place is hell bent against certain nameless individuals ?

Ever been in West Texas? East Tennessee? Anywhere in Kentucky? How about rural Georgia?

There isn't opportunity abounding. When folks on ATS talked about being nearly destitute, i could guarantee them a $20/hr job here in West Texas. Mobility was the limiting factor there. How, exactly, do you travel to the far flung areas where there is work when the 800 mile radius you live in doesn't have work?

I agree. It was out of line for me to insult dogs like that...

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Edumakated

If i had a publicly traded company that decided to start paying my people double minimum wage as starting out, minimum skill jobs, i'd likely be sued by the shareholders. Best case scenario, stock valuation tanks and people exodus via divestment.

Unless you think just anyone can go by the bank and raise capital with any stack strategy, and launch a multi million dollar business. Or survive in this market trying to retrace Sam Waltons footsteps. Neither is going to happen.

That is what should happen unless management can show that paying more might actually increase shareholder value. For some companies it does as their employees are a big part of their strategy. For other companies, it would drive them out of business.

My point though was that there is nothing stopping anyone from starting their own company and paying their employees the way they see fit. Some companies remain private because they don't want the external pressure of having to please the public market.

I just get tired of people claiming companies are evil, they don't pay enough, etc. If anyone thinks they can do it better, they should put up or shut up. Start a business, pay everyone $100k and limit the CEOs salary to $150k if they think it is so easy.

It is easy to criticize when it isn't your money at risk or your life is not invested in a company.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Ever been in West Texas? East Tennessee? Anywhere in Kentucky? How about rural Georgia?

Never been to US.

There isn't opportunity abounding.

I said stress is abound As for opportunity...I dont know man...I go by the meme..."land of opportunity".

How, exactly, do you travel to the far flung areas where there is work when the 800 mile radius you live in doesn't have work?

I dont know man...I would move then somewhere where there is work. One has to adapt to the conditions and the environment...survival 101.

You have a choice...lie and bitch about it...or move. I know...sounds a bit cruel...but life is not about our feelings.

a reply to: Edumakated

well don't look to me. I don't own, but do run businesses. ANd i pay market rates. Im not doing this to make employees rich, they aren't paying my check.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Submitting your will to men in lab coats is a disease.

Can't sell the cure if you can't sell the disease.

a reply to: Observationalist

Should i surmise from this post that you see nothing wrong with generational poverty, and the drain it creates on our capitalist system?

The luxury of leisure time and thought are not something common in poor families. Thoughts and experiences change your mind and body. In addition to this, poor people generally survive on harder physical, demeaning labor and less nutritious food.

a reply to: TonyS

You could well be right that poverty is like a disease. In my day I worked with a lot of very impoverished people and noted that their thought processes were quite impaired as though they were in constant fight or flight mode.

It is definitely a disease. And yes, it has been known for a couple of decades + now that high-stress environments and prenatal stress of the mother carries over to the baby.

A baby is born with all receptors in place. The ones that are needed (like, checking for predators for example) and being on high alert all the time (when a lion might eat you) affects the brain's architecture. Kids who don't have stressors built in to their lives, who have enough to eat, a place to sleep, calm and competent parents, and a sense of security do MUCH BETTER than kids whose mothers are stressed, depressed, abused, etc.

We've known for at least 25 years that a child's brain will "prune" its neurons to keep the ones that are necessary for survival in whatever environment confronts the individual, and lose the others. Same with language. A perfect example of this is the Syrian children who are now in Kindergarten. Or the Palestinian kids who are taught combat when they are pre-K. This is how military "training" is done as well.

A brain that is more sensitive temperamentally can be severely damaged by military training (my husband is an example). A boot-camper's brain is still forming. The human brain is not done developing ever, really, but especially up until about age 25, the pruning and shaping and "training" of the brain by the environment still impacts the individual's cognition and general responsivity to the world.

Kids in poverty don't know any better, and kids who are hungry, frightened, insecure, or abused CAN NOT do well in conventional "school." They learn on the fly - from experience. "Street smarts" are a real thing.

Those Syrian kids will NEVER be "neurotypical" players on the world stage. So few people understand this. And yet, resilience is a spectrum, just like autism, creativity, musicality, kinetic coordination, etc. Every person is different. Goodness of fit between a person and their environment or circumstances is a critical part of social engagement.

Thanks for the thread BFFT. People whose 'creature comforts' are not met can not achieve higher forms of development. They simply don't have the brain focus to do it. They are too busy just surviving.

S/F

originally posted by: neo96
Well I guess the poor could create group therapy sessions where they have coffee and donuts, and talk about their feelings.

Then after a set period of time pass out tokens.

I don't view poverty as a disease.

Every single person has the ability and capacity to change their circumstances, and yes people it can be quite a hard thing to do.

But life wasn't never meant to be easy.

NO. Every single person does NOT have the ability and capacity to change their circumstances. To say so is truly ignorant. Whether or not you view it as a disease makes not one iota of difference to reality, neo.

You obviously are not educated in the matter. Therefore, you are patently incorrect about it.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Spiramirabilis

There are indications that "change" can take 3 or more generations to happen, due to methylisation of DNA limiting gene expression and hardwiring some behavioral traits.

I see this in myself, traits that I know better but am helpless to stop. I know im pretty smart, nd i know i have enormous self control. I exercise both regularly. Yet i find myself behaving irrationally in specific ways that just baffle me. When I read these studies (there are quire a few, as you are aware) it just makes sense of things that I struggle to make sense out of otherwise.

Of course, that doesn't mean its true. So we will need more studies. But the notion of killing 2 birds with 1 stone by paying parents to get their kids to school both enrages and intrigues me.

"Systems Theory" already supports this idea. Yes, "change" is a slow process. In my practice I often used Family Systems to begin a client's journey toward changing their lives. When one understands how their role in the family came to be, and how their parents' behaviors and dispositions were shaped by the grandparents, and so it goes back and back and back, it is easier to not feel victimized, but to recognize the actual possibilities of reframing the narrative one has grown up to "buy into".

It's called narrative therapy. One can learn a great deal about themselves by examining their parents, their extended family and close social circles to discover how their own "identity" has been shaped by their upbringing. This has been known for 40 years or more now.

Maslow's pyramid of survival still holds. If one's energy and focus is on eating, finding shelter, sleeping, and evading danger, there is NO ENERGY LEFT OVER for 'growth'. This is why so many impoverished immigrants don't learn English - they simply are not in a position to explore higher learning. They're too busy just making it from day to day.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

My wife and I put enormous value on things like having a standard place to sit and eat. It may be in the living room....but you sit and eat, not walk around chewing on food and playing. Feeding for our infants was a quiet and private event where the infant and my wife could spend time one on one. I'd typically try to be present as well. It was a chance to create that bond. Humans and food...its important to us, even if we don't realize it. Its a pillar of socialization (often exploited for profit).

Bed time was another ritualistically similar and quiet event. Everyone went to bed. We didn't sit up in the living room distracting the kids, making them want to see what we were doing. We worked our day out so that we were in our room quietly enjoying our evening when the kids went to bed (and got up to change out laundry, etc, quietly once they were asleep). It meant having no friendships for us, as our social life shut down around 9pm for 18 years while we raised 2 boys.

My wife is a genius without realizing it. She doesn't engage in deep conversation with me often....but she blows me away with her innate knowledge about things that actually seem to have strong scientific rooting. Its why i valued her so much early on...she was a nest maker like nothing i'd ever experienced. She's my old bird now....and its been great.

Family Systems Theory

The family systems theory is a theory introduced by Dr. Murray Bowen that suggests that individuals cannot be understood in isolation from one another, but rather as a part of their family, as the family is an emotional unit. Families are systems of interconnected and interdependent individuals, none of whom can be understood in isolation from the system.

... One of the best ways to begin therapy and to gain understanding of how the emotional system operates in your family system is to put together your family genogram. Studying your own patterns of behavior, and how they relate to those of your multigenerational family, reveals new and more effective options for solving problems and for changing your response to the automatic role you are expected to play.

This is no longer just speculation. It is hard social science and has been proven over and over again.

Narrative Therapy

According to Michael White, one of the pioneers of narrative therapy, "The term narrative implies listening to and telling or retelling stories about people and the problems in their lives. In the face of serious and sometimes potentially deadly problems, the idea of hearing or telling stories may seem a trivial pursuit. It is hard to believe that conversations can shape new realities. But they do. The bridges of meaning we build with others help healing developments flourish instead of wither and be forgotten. Language can shape events into narratives of hope."

I've seen another definition, though, which is inaccurate: Dulwich Centre's definition:

Narrative therapy seeks to be a respectful, non-blaming approach to counselling and community work, which centres people as the experts in their own lives. It views problems as separate from people and assumes people have many skills, competencies, beliefs, values, commitments and abilities that will assist them to reduce the influence of problems in their lives.

This above is a misleading explanation of what Narrative Therapy really is. This statement DOES however, accurately describe Client Self-Determination theory. It is what Clinical Social Workers do. The concept of Narrative Therapy is a difficult one for clinicians to wrap their heads around. I know my cohort really had to stretch ourselves to get it (plus our prof wasn't good at explaining it). But, we eventually did figure it out.

The assumption that client knows themselves and their needs and objectives is accurate, however. CSWs do not approach clients as "broken", but as colleagues. A CSW's job is to help the client LEARN the skills they need. It does NOT assume the person has the skills they need to achieve their goals, but only that the person has the skills they have acquired during their 'coping' with life.

Often, learning new "coping skills" is the only way to change one's life. What once worked well enough can eventually become counterproductive, and that is when a person needs counseling to help them learn different ways of dealing.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Here's the problem with that idea of "poverty genes" though. Genetics are incredibly complex. There are diseases and conditions that we have studied for far longer than the idea that our genes can predispose us to "poverty" (whatever that means or will turn out to look like -- isn't that going to be an entire complex of behaviors? That's a LOT of genes) that we still can't tell for certain if it's just one or a few or genes acting with environment that create those conditions.

But BOOOM! They do a handful of research and they *know* that they can tell for sure that your poverty destiny is now genetic?

a reply to: ketsuko

It is not genetics alone. It is genetics plus circumstances plus temperament plus level of nurturing (abusive or supportive) plus goodness (or poorness) of fit plus nutrition and health care.

There is no arguing any of that. It's solid social science. Yes, we know. It is fact.
No one is saying that a certain "gene" causes poverty. It is a deep-ecology system. You have to look at the whole picture.

Resilience depends on temperament and other genetically influenced personality traits, and that is why not every kid who grows up in crap households turns out to be an underachiever, but everyone in brain development and family systems and social science knows that human behavior is influenced profoundly by the circumstances into which one is born.

Everyone knows this who is educated in husbandry or systems theory.

originally posted by: ketsuko
There are diseases and conditions that we have studied for far longer than the idea that our genes can predispose us to "poverty"

This sentence tells me that you have not understood the OP.

You are mixing it up pretty badly. It is more correct to say that poverty impacts your genes, or gene expression, causing you to be biologically prepared for challenges that likely will not be faced in your day to day life if you weren't poor. And which create inappropriate coping mechanisms if the goal is to get out of poverty, such as preventing instant gratification desires.

Its not that there is a "poverty gene". That sounds like some journalist oversimplified it to publish in USA Today. The reality is that poverty seems to impact genetic expression, and causing maladaptive behaviors when considered in modern societal needs.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

I want to encourage you to review the body of work in social science and look for studies done in the "settled science" categories that showed null values. If there were other studies, and non had null values...then ok. If there were no other studies done (and published), be very suspicious.

p-hacking threatens to bring social science to its knees. Im very interested in seeing that the baby doesn't get thrown out with the bath water.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

It flips your epigenetics so your children are born predisposed to poverty, but again, we see the conditions cause changes, but do we really understand those changes as much as we think we do?

How much of the generational poverty is nature and how much nurture?

I think we want to explain away entirely too much through other things than our own behaviors and choices we make.

Look! That region of the brain lights up ... so it must mean this person really does feel like a woman.

When brain scans can only show you where the activity is and not exactly what or why it is, so we're basically only reading tea leaves here.

Oh, this person lived in poverty and it caused these epigenetic changes in the children who also grew up to live in poverty. So, these behaviors we observe must have something to do with that and the changes pass unto a third generation.

It's too overly simplistic.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

It flips your epigenetics so your children are born predisposed to poverty, but again, we see the conditions cause changes, but do we really understand those changes as much as we think we do?

Nope. And even more, with some of the issues we've seen in social science, there may be even less that we know.

It'll piss off some folks im sure, but it needs to be pointed out: social science isn't really science. Its psychologists trying to figure out how to move out of liberal arts and into the sciences. I think they are on the right track, even if people poorly trained in statistics and the scientific method keep screwing up.

I think we want to explain away entirely too much through other things than our own behaviors and choices we make.

The gist is that todays beliefs tie behavior to neurochemicals. Unfortunately, they beat serotonin to death, ignoring basic things like the ability of a neurochemical that will be censored by the site (keta) to almost instantly reverse suicidal ideations when given in microdoses. I think the focus on serotonin is a terrible disservice to human psychology. And it seems that it may have some negative side effects as well...which may inform us that we are using serotonin to create changes through chain event situations. We don't know how to do something down the chain of action, but know that we can usually make it move by altering serotonin availability.

Cannibinoid receptors are another MAJOR area where we completely miss the boat. And you can cannabinoid receptors everywhere, from your brain to your skin. The interaction with CB as a compound and humans seems to be very deep seated in our neurochemistry.

Look! That region of the brain lights up ... so it must mean this person really does feel like a woman.

When brain scans can only show you where the activity is and not exactly what or why it is, so we're basically only reading tea leaves here.

Im actually going to write a thread on this, but the challenge is that we do not have any real mapping of what happens in the brain. we have general mapping of regions for some stuff....but beyond motor control and the visual cortex, our mapping is pretty bad. The action seems to be more sublime, and even more you have vast variability from person to person. For example, when 2 people each think of "mom", that concept is stored in 2 different parts of the brain. So reverse engineering the brain may be far more complex than we imagined.

But it will happen. Probably in our lifetime, at least for motor, auditory, and visual centers (the tech will help the disabled first, so we will understand that first).

Oh, this person lived in poverty and it caused these epigenetic changes in the children who also grew up to live in poverty. So, these behaviors we observe must have something to do with that and the changes pass unto a third generation.

It's too overly simplistic.

Well, if you know that failure to fully express a specific gene can cause a specific neurochemical response that is then tied to specific conditions, you can make a reasonable guess than the failure to fully express that gene was causative in the condition.

And that is where methylation comes in. We have a pretty solid understanding of methylation, and a pretty well mapped human genome. We can make pretty good guesses at what genetic expression difference will look like practically, at least in isolation of that particular gene. We may struggle to understand the impact as it ripples across the biome, mostly because gene expression can vary widely from body part to body part. In fact, it is common for your nerve cells in the brain to have DNA that is wholly alien to the rest of your body, in fairly large concentrations actually. Upwards of 60% of your brain can have DNA that would never be ID'd as "you" in a DNA test.

The reality isn't over simplistic. Nor is the understanding of it. However the explanations of it in popular magazines is pretty overly simplistic, mostly because no one will spend $10 on a magazine full of jargon they can't understand.

Ill add, as i've stated before, that much of what is "settled science" in the world of social science may be a bunch of hooey. There are some weeds to pull in the discipline before we can proceed. But in the world of genetics....its pretty well conducted and reviewed.