[malandrew]

I think saying poverty is the issue is heading in the right direction, but I would even go further and say that poverty is not the issue, but that conditions not improving over time is the issue.

Most humans (except maybe Buddhists and Daoists) are on a hedonic treadmill. So long as their condition today is better than it was yesterday, they generally derive greater contentment than being better off in absolute terms and then plateauing.

This "most people were better off over time" is the stuff stable societies are made of. It's why post WWII America did so well. It's why China has been doing well for 20-30 years now. When most everyone is doing better today than yesterday and believes they will be doing better tomorrow than today, they are content.

Even poverty is tolerable if things are improving over time because you adjust your expectations.

The lack of improvement over time is what makes prisons for example such an awful punishment. You're placed in a state where your conditions are not only worse in absolute terms but there is no prospect of it really improving until your really.

[tosers4]

I see, it does make perfect sense, thank you.

I also think that too much information or mis-informations, or simply bias or selective information can damage the way you perceive if thinks are getting better or worse, but that's another topic.

[mhoad]

I worry this question will sound snarky and it's not my intent but have you ever actually experienced what real poverty is like?

[malandrew]

I guess that depends on how you define poverty. When I first moved to San Francisco, I slept on an air mattress for about 8 months and ate for about $2-3 a day and spent about $200 a month for health insurance. I walked most places at the time with the occasional muni fare. So my total monthly expenses was about $300 to $350 month once you include necessary incidentals. I don't think I had more than $300 in my bank account at one time. The only large purchase I made in that time period was a $200 pressure cooker, which I used to cook the beans I ate. I would buy black beans, kidney beans and rice in 20lb bags.

Would you consider this poverty? Cost-wise and earning-wise most people would consider it poverty, but it didn't feel like poverty because I knew what I was doing and I adjusted my expectations accordingly. I reckon I lived on about $2700 over those 8 months in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Would I want to do it again? No. Could I do it again if I had to? Yes.

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per-yea...