[biren34]

In most every discussion I've come across that touches on money advice, I've see a variant of this comment "This world view doesn't incorporate (my) reality of the poorest of the Western world and is so in invalid and offensive".

I'm not sure what motivates this. If you invert the situation and someone made a list with stuff like "use coupons", would rich people come by and say "this is dumb because it only saves you $0.50 and I (as a rich person) don't care about $0.50"?

People have different starting conditions and different current situations, if what's described isn't relevant to yours--why does it bother you so? Let the people who find value in it find value in it.

[monkeydreams]

> I'm not sure what motivates this.

Privilege and meta-privilege, mainly, and the underlying assumption this privilege engenders that the poor are morally or mentally deficient.

An example: there was an article posted on hn recently titled (and I'm paraphrasing here) "How to be rich". To utilise this advice one had to be already financially comfortable, with safety nets and backups and whatever to begin with, and, from this position of comfort, to rationally accept and take large risks. The article carried with it the implication that, now that you have the advice in your hands, only the willfully stupid or lazy will remain poor.

So, in the end, a) one feels judged, b) one has wasted one's time on an article/video/etc that c) promised and failed to relieve the crushing stress burden and mental load that poverty brings.

Being poor, particularly during your formative years, carries with it a debt that is never paid. If you are poor and have issues with health (physical and mental) you are very, very unlikely to ever be rich in any objective sense. Being poor affects your patterns of thought, your behaviours, your language, and your culture. But the worst of it is that poverty robs you of the opportunity to do things like "move fast and break things" that folk on hn seem to think is so simple and easy. If you are poor, you only get one roll of the die.

[biren34]

Many poor people have totally different experiences. My mother, for example, was only able to continue past 4th grade in India because one of her uncles supported her while making her create a budget for the entire school year down to the last pencil. This was while she helped her mom care for her 6 brothers and sisters in a house that didn't have running water or paved streets. She and my dad (who grew up not-quite-so-poor-but-still-pretty-poor) moved to the US and built up a very nice life for me and my sister.

Not that their experiences are any more representative of "poor" than what people here write about, but there are clearly different experiences and different outcomes. Again, this is not to shame anyone--but the fact that I have to caveat an accurate description of my parents' life to assuage some unknown reader's sensibility is just crazy to me.

But for the sake of argument, I'll concede everything you've described about the "poor experience" and the emotional consequences faced by this group.

Given that, does that mean that any and every discussion among the people not in that group must be couched in ways in order to not offend the sensitive group? How / where should non-deprived people discuss the best way to play the cards they were lucky enough to be dealt?

In extremis, do we need to segregate ourselves away from the sensitive group in order to protect their delicate constitutions?

Complaining about the the "privilege" that the median HN reader/commenter is born with is like if I stumbled on to a message board for 6'8" super-athletic 18-year olds and spent all my time lecturing them about how they need to consider 5'8" kinda-athletic-once-but-now-middle-aged-me in all their discussions. Of course a programmer-centric newsboard is going to have a bunch of well-off people in it.

Now, people shouldn't be jerks--but nothing in the posted article can be construed in the least-bit mean-spirited. The goal posts seemed to have moved from "don't be a dick" to "pretend you're in a support group for X all the time". Is this where we're going?

[monkeydreams]

> Many poor people have totally different experiences. My mother, for example, was only able to continue past 4th grade in India because one of her uncles supported her while making her create a budget for the entire school year down to the last pencil. This was while she helped her mom care for her 6 brothers and sisters in a house that didn't have running water or paved streets. She and my dad (who grew up not-quite-so-poor-but-still-pretty-poor) moved to the US and built up a very nice life for me and my sister.

I get what you are saying. I think good luck plays a huge role in escaping poverty and that it rarely gets the thanks it deserves. It has certainly helped me in my life, far more than perhaps I deserve. I grew up, not as poor as your mother, but quite poor by the standards of my country (ditch toilet, rigged running water, etc) at the time. I have no problem in ascribing my meagre success largely to luck, but I can't pretend it doesn't hurt a little when my private-school, politically-connected colleague (and heir to a $20,000,000+ fortune) asks me why I'm not a millionaire and I have to explain that I began by having to unlearn the habits of someone who grew up poor.

> In extremis, do we need to segregate ourselves away from the sensitive group in order to protect their delicate constitutions?

Replace 'poverty' with race, gender or any other form of privilege and then ask the same question. I could argue that poverty is probably the most pernicious of dis-privileges in that if you compared a rich person who was encumbered with every other common dis-privilege (gender, race, religion, gender, etc) they would be likely in a significantly better position that a white, Christian/atheist, cis-male poor man.

> Given that, does that mean that any and every discussion among the people not in that group must be couched in ways in order to not offend the sensitive group? How / where should non-deprived people discuss the best way to play the cards they were lucky enough to be dealt?

I can only give my personal view here - no, I don't think you need to avoid talking about "how to get rich" any more than we need to avoid the topics of race, religion, gender, etc. The BIG problem we have is that we talk about things in absolute terms, and only in terms of what we, ourselves, don't possess or claiming that something we do possess had no impact (and that it was all down to our hard work).

We talk about privilege as a currency, when it is only a tendency, a weighting on the probabilities of life. The lack of privilege is not a prison sentence, but life is much easier if you are privileged and, if you fail or fall, the path back to normalcy is much shorter and easier if you have the safety net that privilege provides.

> The goal posts seemed to have moved from "don't be a dick" to "pretend you're in a support group for X all the time". Is this where we're going?

I hope not. We can only fix these issues by reaching agreement and moving forward. If we start by berating people, that makes moving forward soooo much harder.

[googillionaire]

"Replace 'poverty' with race, gender or any other form of privilege and then ask the same question."

Yes, even for race and gender it is ridiculous to claim people thus "affected" have no chance in life whatsoever. You had a black president not that long ago. There are several black billionaires.

Is this really accepted canon that underprivileged are going to be underprivileged, no matter what - so much so that there can be no useful discussion about it?

[ajb]

No, the point is not about 'not offending' a 'sensitive' group. It's about not spreading lies about that group.

[DougN7]

I didn’t see any lies about the group. Did I miss it?

[WalterBright]

> Being poor affects your patterns of thought, your behaviours, your language, and your culture.

Yes, and being an adult gives the opportunity to change your patterns, behavior, language, and culture.

I've had a lot of destructive attitudes and behaviors formed young that I've discarded because they don't work. It's not easy, but it can be done. I still have a number of bad habits to work on :-/

> If you are poor, you only get one roll of the die.

In America, there are more rolls. For example, migrants walk a thousand miles to get in, have nothing, then they start businesses. Oprah went from welfare to billionaire, for example.

[googillionaire]

If "how to be rich" requires you to be comfortable, find an article on "how to be financially comfortable" and act on that advice first. Then come back to the "how to be rich" advice. It isn't rocket science.

And your ramblings about having no opportunities when poor are simply not true anymore. Even poor people can get a cheap computer and internet and have access to all the information in the world. Running a web site only costs 1$/month.

Many startup founders famously slept on the floor in cramped offices while starting up.

And if you really live in such a shitty place, you can still sell drugs and become rich that way.

I sympathize with the poor, but I am tired of these "poor people are such victims, there is nothing they can do to change their condition, ever. They are just victims" type of comments that pop up in every discussion about wealth.

[mhitza]

What the heck are you talking man. A cheap computer can't run the modern web, even less so the development tooling necessary to build it.

And recommending drug selling as an alternative...

Your name is appropriate for your comment.

[googillionaire]

Of course a cheap computer can run the modern web. Even a cheap phone can run the modern web. What are YOU talking about?

You can get a Raspberry Pi 400 and do stuff, for example. With a used computer you could get there even cheaper, presumably.

If you really, really claim you can not even afford that, ask for donations. There are many people who are willing to help, if you are making a credible case of really wanting to learn.

Maybe going into IT is not an option for everybody, but it shows that the broad claim that "poor only get one shot and have now chance whatsoever" is not generally true.

As for tooling, you can still create websites with vim on the command line.

I don't recommend selling drugs. But people growing up in very poor environments got rich selling drugs. Another case showing that poor are not condemned to remain poor simply by virtue of being poor.

Maybe if you are in such a poor environment, and you don't want to sell drugs, sell counselling for drug addicts.

You already seem to have a computer that runs the modern web, or how are you commenting here?

If you can't afford a computer, go to a public library. Or ask at a school. Or ask a local business if you can use their office computers after hour. Or whatever. Do something!

Another idea: since you already seem to have a computer, help out a homeless person by giving them your computer over night, while you sleep. Most modern computers are capable of multiple user accounts. Most computers are idle for 99% of the time (or something).

I'm sure you are aware of the story in India where somebody installed a computer terminal in a wall, and the kids taught themselves how to use it.

Why is it so important to you to believe that everything is hopeless and nobody has a chance in life, unless government rises the minimum wage and instates a UBI?

[dTal]

Wow. Did you seriously just argue that poverty traps aren't real because you can always get rich selling drugs?

(And yet, in the same breath, say you don't recommend it? And yet still fail to connect those dots into "systemic disadvantage"?)

[smaudet]

Maybe take your head out where it don't shine and actually learn a thing or two about scarcity economics and positive feedback systems.

Also quit with the fantasy that people have unlimited life - sure you can always get lucky, there is hope, but that's what it is, luck. It's not even hard to see - the financial landscape depends on people mortgaging over half their lives.

People like you absolutely disgust me.

[andi999]

Rich people might just follow your advice.. Warren Buffet bought Bill Gates lunch at McD with coupons. https://www.pinterest.de/pin/837880705644592185/?amp_client_...

[Baeocystin]

Because downplaying the absolute reality that is the importance of money to survival is terrible advice, no matter what a person's current financial status.

[biren34]

I have no particular beef with you, so please don't take it that way--but "the absolute reality that is the importance of money to survival" is a subjective assessment that does not have to be (and is not) shared by 100% of the population.

Again, in extremis: Buddhist monks. And if Buddhist monks exist (and don't care about money), then surely there can be a spectrum of what money means to different people?

Maybe there's even a more successful attitude for earning money than maintaining a singular focus on monotonically-increasing your inventory of it? Maybe past a certain point, the best thing to do with money is to risk it? (Which doesn't even imply forgetting or debating its importance?)

You would be fair to say "this advice doesn't apply to me" or "this advice only applies when conditions X, Y, and Z have been met" or even "this advice is wrong". However, the statement that this advice is "insulting" creates a toxic environment.

No one will ever be able to anticipate all the ways they might cross/deny/fail to recognize someone else's experience or what they "know to be true". Nor is that anyone's job. After all, we're all just stumbling through this thing-called-life trying to do our best. If people persist in taking offense to comments made by strangers on the internet who have never heard of them, the only logical outcome is to exclude those people from the discussion. Is this what you would choose for yourself?

At best, this makes it harder to for me to find like-minded people to have the discussions I want to have--and at worst, it deprives people from being exposed to things that they might find valuable in those discussions, because those discussions are no longer being had in the open where they could be stumbled upon.

Whatever you choose to do from this point forward is no skin off my back. My point is that, in the face of such reactions, my response is to take my very important (to me), real-world discussions about maximizing my life-given-my-circumstances away from the people who would comment in this way.

Anyway, this is not a debate I need to win. Maybe you want to hear this stuff, maybe you don't.

[smaudet]

This is all an argument predicted on 'oh I can't do everything right'.

No. There is an extremely common tendency for the wealthy to pass on advice...for the wealthy, and pretend like its good news for everyone.

The wealthy are by definition the minority, the advice they give is mostly wrong in this regard (unless you are rich/lucky), the posturing about minorities and such is so much hot garbage.

In fact even the argument that it might work for the middle class is an oxymoron - anything serving to bring more people to wealth and out of middle class-dom necessarily reduces the number of middle class, and mathematically increases the likelihood of the being poor.

Such advice is never presented as 'wise ways to keep the middle class around' it is usually always framed as 'do this and you will reap rewards!!'.

Need money to make money, as they say.

[andi999]

Exactly. Would the advice 'listen to a beautiful peace of music' insulting to deaf people?

[andi999]

Addition: As a direct advice to deaf people, this would be of course offensive.

[tommica]

For what it's worth, you making a lot of sense.

[johnchristopher]

> People have different starting conditions and different current situations, if what's described isn't relevant to yours--why does it bother you so? Let the people who find value in it find value in it.

Those advice are most of the time given as being universal, that's why.

[nine_k]

Explicitly denied in the text:

> Advice like these are not laws. They are like hats. If one doesn’t fit, try another.

[johnchristopher]

I am referring to this, not the article:

> In most every discussion I've come across that touches on money advice, I've see a variant of this comment "This world view doesn't incorporate (my) reality of the poorest of the Western world and is so in invalid and offensive".

[guerrilla]

I think you missed the point which wasn't to express offense but to disagree based on differential priorities. It's a Maslow's hierarchy of needs thing: if lower needs are not meet, some of the advice would be detrimental if followed. I think it's a fair criticism when the audience is not delinieated like it isn't in the OP.

[biren34]

The comment was that the points about money "are, frankly, insulting".

I'd call yours a radical interpretation of the text.

[guerrilla]

Well, it's apparently the correct interpretation according to the author (see sibling comment.) I don't think expressing sentiment in addition to the point makes that sentiment the point.

[biren34]

Fair enough.

[Baeocystin]

For what it's worth, yours is the interpretation I was going for.