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> Understanding poverty starts with empathy. Yes, but understanding the other mindset you're referring to requires some empathy too. There are three paths to poverty: by birth, by bad luck, and by some definition of choice. No one chooses to be poor, of course, but we all have that school friend or a distant relative who consistently made bad decisions (drugs, gambling, skipping school, excess spending, terrible relationship choices, etc) and ended up in a bad spot more or less as a consequence of that. Individuals who think that all poor people only have themselves to blame are bozos, but pretending that no one ever bears personal responsibility for poverty is wrong too. If we're "schooling" someone who has a personal story like that, we're not going to make them see the light. A better position is to say that yes, sometimes people mess up, but it's good for the society as a whole to improve the outcomes for "at-fault" crowd too. This requires tailoring the solutions, because not everything can be solved with cash. |