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from the better-than-growing-up-to-be-a-sink dept.
Scientists at Kings College London performed a longitudinal study to test the 'Pareto principle' and found that adults who were greater users of public services were most likely to have had a low score on the intelligence and impulsivity test administered at age three.
"About 20 per cent of population is using the lion's share of a wide array of public services," said Prof Terrie Moffitt, of King's College and Duke University in North Carolina. "The same people use most of the NHS, the criminal courts, insurance claims, for disabling injury, pharmaceutical prescriptions and special welfare benefits.
"If we stopped there it might be fair to think these are lazy bums who are freeloading off the taxpayer and exploiting the public purse.
"But we also went further back into their childhood and found that 20 per cent begin their lives with mild problems with brain function and brain health when they were very small children.
"Looking at health examinations really changed the whole picture. It gives you a feeling of compassion for these people as opposed to a feeling of blame.
"Being able to predict which children will struggle is an opportunity to intervene in their lives very early to attempt to change their trajectories, for everyone's benefit and could bring big returns on investment for government."
Full Paper: Childhood forecasting of a small segment of the population with large economic burden DOI: 10.1038/s41562-016-0005
(Score: 4, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:14PM
Can society do anything useful to break these cycles? So far, the answer seems to be "no".
I wouldn't be so quick to jump to that conclusion. How many people do you know in your own circle of educated working friends who came from less than wealthy backgrounds? Chances are, quite a few. In my own circle I can think of plenty of people raised on benefits, but now working as engineers, nurses, or with decent jobs in business. Once upon a time those humble beginnings would have had a FAR lower chance of elevating themselves. You can also look at statistics like violent crime and teenage pregnancy, which have been trending in the right direction for a long time.
The last fifty years of the 20th Century were unprecedented in terms of social mobility in the Western world. That's not to say that everybody who is born to poverty or shitty parents or whatever is going to make it good, but a larger proportion of them than ever before were doing so. The reason for this? Free, compulsory, universal education (along with public libraries) is almost certainly the main one, because it means that even if your parents can't or won't help you reach your potential, you have a chance anyway. That's why 3rd world families make such sacrifices to get their kids to school.
Accessible healthcare is probably number two, since it means that peoples' lives don't get completely derailed by an injury or disease. Contraception and sex education fall under this category too.
The welfare security net probably ranks number 3, since it means that a promising kid from a poor background can at least get enough calories to his/ her brain to make the most of that free education, and doesn't have to skip school to earn money for the family.
We CAN do it. We HAVE been doing it. Thing is, these are generational cycles, so they take decades, even centuries to break. The post-war period really moved things in the right direction. Sadly we are now entering an era where the mega-rich would like to tear all of that back down, and are in the process of doing so. The alt-right attack on welfare, the constant attack on science & rational thinking, the reduction of human values like compassion to cold finances, the banks and governments with their "austerity": These are all attempts by the rich to usher in a new Victorian age where the wealthy frolic carefree in vast manicured gardens, while on the other side of the wall barefoot street urchins fight over scraps in the polluted streets.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:38PM
I wouldn't be so quick to jump to that conclusion.
I would.
How many people do you know in your own circle of educated working friends who came from less than wealthy backgrounds?
The operative words from the previous post were "screwed-up backgrounds". "Less than wealthy" doesn't necessarily mean "screwed-up". There's even wealthy people with screwed-up family lives, though usually this means the wealth evaporates over time, though it might take a generation or two.
Remember, it wasn't all that long ago that most people were lower-class; that doesn't mean they all had totally dysfunctional families, only some of them did. Thanks to modern technology and policies and education and such, much of the lower classes have been able to move up, as you pointed out, but most of those were likely coming from backgrounds where they had to live very modestly, but they weren't plagued by lots of abuse and dysfunction. Those patterns are very, very hard to change because they're programmed into kids from birth, by being raised by parents who repeat those patterns. There really isn't any way of stopping it, short of taking kids away from their parents, which admittedly our society does do now in extreme cases, but usually it's too late.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:26PM
The operative words from the previous post were "screwed-up backgrounds". "Less than wealthy" doesn't necessarily mean "screwed-up".
I'll grant that, but they are strongly correlated. Poverty leads to desperation, illness, frustration and depression, all of which result in more desperation, illness, frustration and depression, all of which tend towards poor life choices.
Poor or not though, a decent welfare system can step in to screwed up families and make things better: Counselling and healing kids, educating and supporting parents, prosecuting abusers and (in extreme cases) taking kids out of those settings and placing then in healthier environments. 99% of the time "bad parents" aren't doing it because they are evil monsters, but because either they don't know any better or because their own circumstances force them to make desperate decisions. If you can get that alcoholic father access to an addiction counselling service then you can change a kid's life. If a single mum has to work 60 hour weeks to pay rent and put food on the table and so leaves her 3-year old home alone, then free childcare or a some kind of cash benefit could be the turning point.[1]
Again, I know people from "screwed up backgrounds" (abuse, crime, abandonment - and not always poverty) who have turned out OK. Better than OK, in some cases. Left to their own devices those families would almost certainly have ended up repeating the same cycles, but with the right support they managed to make things better for the next generation.
Those patterns are very, very hard to change because they're programmed into kids from birth, by being raised by parents who repeat those patterns.
Agree.
There really isn't any way of stopping it
No. Heal the kids. Expose them to other, more positive influences. Teach the parents new patterns. Persuade them that there is a better way for their children, and this is it. Be kind and persistent. When you fail, try again. When a parent tells you to fuck off and stop meddling, try again. It can be done. It's slow, hard and expensive, but it's worth it. Even if you only make it 1% better with each generation, it's worth it.
Also, it's a cumulative thing. A family is the biggest influence on a child, but not the only one: If a child's peers at school are all behaving differently to him, then his behaviour will follow. Neighbours and family members who aren't themselves caught in desperate circumstances have resources to help, support and heal. Eventually it will reach a tipping point where society is able to heal itself without external influence.
Finally, I find the idea that we can't "reprogram" people in the golden age of mental hacking (aka "advertising ") totally ludicrous. People are mentally manipulated by the billion every second of every day, it's just that these tools are rarely (or insufficiently) harnessed for the power of good.
[1] Decent wages would be better, but that's another argument.
(Score: 1) by charon on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:26PM
It's unfortunate that the story is couched in terms of "return on investment" and "drain" but that is the language of policy. From what you have written here, I would expect you would support the findings of this study. They did not just give a three year old an intelligence test and then decide he was worthless for life. From the study:
The point is to find and help the kids who are at risk, preferably before they become problems that the less compassionate would suggest we "get rid of". This study was just published, of course we cannot have acted on its results in the past. Our best chance (unless any soylentils are themselves policy makers) is to make people aware of the results of the study, and encourage the proper placement of limited resources to people who need it most. Poor kids are more likely to be at risk, but not all of them are. Unintelligent kids, but not all. Kids who are abused need strong intervention, and not just "force parent to take a class and then ignore again".
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:31PM
The operative words from the previous post were "screwed-up backgrounds". "Less than wealthy" doesn't necessarily mean "screwed-up". There's even wealthy people with screwed-up family lives, though usually this means the wealth evaporates over time, though it might take a generation or two.
No, those are not the operative words. You've done that reductive thing where you focus on the most narrow definition in order to avoid the writer's actual point.
Wealthy people with screwed up backgrounds have a different set of problems and they have resources to address those problems. Being poor is highly correlated with a specific set of problems and by definition no resources to cope with them. Poverty does not explain all of their problems, but it sure as shit creates a lot of problems that simply do not exist for the wealthy or even the middle class.
There really isn't any way of stopping it, short of taking kids away from their parents
That's utter bullshit. Few parents want to be shitty. But being poor leaves them with much less choices - less time to spend caring for their children, less energy to think long-term and less money to provide for their children's basic needs. We recently had the story here about a school district that installed washing machines and increased attendance. [soylentnews.org] That's an improvement that does not require your fatalistic "taking kids away from their parents" excuse for doing nothing.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:39PM
As the poster who wrote the original words, I agree with his interpretation.
"Few parents want to be shitty."
No, it's worse than that: too many parents fail to give a shit at all.
Middle-class family with an abusive parent? The abusive parent may pretend to care about the kids, but they generally don't care enough to get help, so they can stop being abusive. Insufficient shits given.
Are you in the US? Consider an inner-city black mother raising kids from five or six different baby-daddies. The fathers, as often as not, haven't even met their kids - they sure as hell don't invest any time or effort in raising them. No shits given.
I'm not in social services, but I have worked with kids, including a few problem kids. It's sad as hell when you can tell that they are basically decent human beings, but have been warped out of shape by screwed-up parents. As an outsider there is almost nothing that you can do: your influence is minimal.
Anecdote: A blue-collar white family; both parents with jobs, so they weren't poor. One child. The parents taught the boy that he must remain quiet and unnoticed in his room; anything else was unacceptable. He bothered his parents. They liked it best when he was at school, or at some activity, because he was gone. I worked with him in a martial arts class; that's a pretty good environment for troubled kids, and we helped our share. For this boy, we had to give up after a year or so, because he was uncontrollable and a danger to the other kids. He's all grown up now; what kind of parent is he likely to make?
Parents may not want to be shitty, but sometimes they can't be bothered to be anything else. Taking the kids away isn't realistic, or particularly helpful. The kid in my anecdote was taken away, but it was too late. So what the hell do you do???
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @11:10PM
There are instances where there is nothing you can do. There are rich kids who have neglectful parents, and they also end up with problems.
The only thing we can do is try and eliminate as many factors as possible to give families the best chance of success. All of the possible problems humans go through are exacerbated by poverty and lack of services.
What we have here is a fundamental disagreement on how to fix these problems. One group wants people to fix themselves, bootstrapping is the common term. Another group wants to offer assistance to make sure people are given the resources to succeed in life.
So far the best results for human happiness occur when a large percentage of individual income is redirected into social programs. The cost isn't even as high as it appears, with socialized healthcare businesses and individuals would save a lot of money so it isn't just a net loss. All we have to do is look at the successful programs. History seems to favor the socialist viewpoint, although it also shows that a pure socialist society (government run everything) also fails pretty badly. Social programs funded by independent free workers (capitalist business structure) seems to be the winning move. Support the people, allow them freedom to pursue their desires.
So why is that so scary? Why do you look down on social programs? Is it just the feeling of being "robbed"?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday December 16 2016, @05:59PM
The problem isn't a lack of social programs. We've been trying social programs for ages, and they only have a certain amount of impact. Just look at Europe: they have social programs and services galore, and yet they have all kinds of problems with problem kids from immigrants, radicalized youth, etc. Throwing money at the problem doesn't fix it; the problem is their upbringing, and the only way to fix that is to seize kids very early on, and then sterilize the parents so they can't have any more. Obviously, society isn't willing to do the latter and almost never does the former. We have plenty of foster care here in the US and it really doesn't work; my ex worked in foster care for a while and had all kinds of stories; it was really sad, but it was pretty clear these poor kids were already too broken and were unlikely to get very far in life. By the time the state intervenes, it's just too late, and worse than that, they end up getting placed with people who don't help or even make it worse. It's not like there's a huge number of wonderful, loving families begging to take in kids with serious mental and emotional problems, so what happens is you get low-income jerks who just use it as an income source and do the minimum required, and don't really care about the kids (or worse, abuse them, just like they went through with their real parents), or they get put into a group home which isn't much better and basically they're just a way for a corporation to get revenue from the government.
Social programs would be great if we could find plenty of great, caring, selfless people to actually *do* the work needed. There just aren't many of those out there, and this stuff costs a lot of money (social workers need to eat too), and there's only so many resources to go around, and no shortage of screwed-up kids, plus a legal system that makes it very very difficult to take kids away from their abusive parents in the first place. It's even worse now in many ways; now the courts have given too many rights to natural parents, so a lot of people don't even want to bother getting involved with foster kids with the intent to adopt, because the natural parent can pop up at any time and demand custody, and the court will give it to them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:40PM
In twenty years 90% of people will be unemployable, unable to compete with automation. Attempting to educate people to better compete for the small number of remaining jobs will be futile. Only the small percentage who own and control the means of production, or those who are extraordinarily talented, will be able to support themselves. Not saying I know the answer.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday December 16 2016, @04:51AM
Impossible without government stupidity that would probably quickly collapse and thus self correct. Barring true AI, all bets are off then as we likely hit the Singularity and by definition no useful thing can be discussed from this side of it, so we will assume no AI.
Why would people have all these machines, vs hiring lots of people? Because they produce goods far cheaper. So it follows that the goods so produced will be CHEAP but still require expending effort and resources to keep making the goods. Why would they make goods nobody can trade them anything for? Why indeed. But people would want them, in the case of some, obtaining them would be a matter of life and death. So would we see a dystopia; where armies of robotic farmers sit idle as hungry people turn to subsistence farming on substandard lands not owned by big agribusiness because the owners of the machines wouldn't put the machines to work, deeming the pitiful coins the starving masses offered to not be worth the effort? Does that really seem like a likely outcome in a sane world?
Capitalism is a willing buyer and a willing seller coming to an agreement. Well the goods are now CHEAP, remember? So the service provided in exchange need not have an especially high value, at least when viewed from our viewpoint. Rich people will be able to hire people to indulge their every whim, to do all the things their machines can't yet do. Surely you can think of a hundred possibilities without effort. Maybe vast hordes of humans find work as NPCs in a super MMOG and trade ingame gold for the food and shelter needed to sustain themselves in the real world; all so a few super rich people can enjoy more realistic games. We will more likely see even stranger than that, but who cares? Maybe being carried around on the backs of servants like in ancient times will become a custom, as a way to demonstrate wealth.
Economics is about humans exchanging goods and services between themselves. Robots and other automation are just capital goods, nothing more. Their existence hasn't rewrote the basic rules of economics yet and aren't likely to. An economic transaction must always have a acting human on both sides and if we are still using Capitalism both sides must value the item received in the trade above the item traded. Always. Again, barring AI from the discussion.
(Score: 1) by charon on Friday December 16 2016, @11:25PM
(Score: 1) by ilsa on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:42PM
The last fifty years of the 20th Century were unprecedented in terms of social mobility in the Western world.
Don't worry... The elite are working overtime (not like real overtime, but overtime for them), to correct that imbalance. We'll all be poor serfs again before you know it.