In your explanation I see the feedback loop that makes it easier for you and your children to stay out of poverty if you're already successful.
I don't see a feedback loop that makes it hard to escape poverty. Why did the high school dropouts drop out in the first place, and why does that make their kid more likely to drop out? Ideally their kid should still have access to public school education, with all the tools needed to go on to become successful themselves.
To be clear I'm not saying there is no poverty feedback loop, just that even taking what you've said about fundamental human preferences at face value it is not inevitable that it stay this way. We can improve our systems to make it easier for people to escape poverty. But this doesn't really have anything to do with billionaires. Many of the issues in these systems are not even for lack of funding, but inefficiently spent funding or other poorly designed incentives or bureaucratic rules that make things more difficult for poor people.
> Ideally their kid should still have access to public school education, with all the tools needed to go on to become successful themselves.
> just that even taking what you've said about fundamental human preferences at face value it is not inevitable that it stay this way
You're not wrong, but funding education is _expensive_, and education is only part of the puzzle, access is another large part of it, and so are the social norms you develop. My family and I grew up in "poverty-lite", and while I did manage to get into a great college, the adjustment was quite difficult. In high school I would show up to regional science fairs, and would often come in 2nd or 3rd place, and would lose to kids who used their high school's teacher's Masters thesis as a science project (for reference, in my school nobody even had a Masters degree.) Socially, I grew up very different from them. Where I grew up, you kept your head down and got in line. Disputes were aired out publicly, and often descended to fistfights if you were under 21. Textbooks were expensive, and my school often couldn't afford enough for everyone. I was constantly begging the librarian to borrow math books, but I never could because we didn't even have enough copies for the students in the actual class, let alone me, an interested kid.
For my college peers money was never an issue. I used my good grades to become a TA as soon as I could, and I worked as many hours as I could so I could pay rent and make expenses while my friends seemed to have endless amounts of time to go to social hangouts and parties, which certainly blocked the connections I could make.
Over the years I've made a handful of friends in tech who grew up in a similar income bracket as mine, and they remain comforting to me because even now, I have a hard time relating to the average Silicon Valley tech worker whose life started in upper-middle class gated suburbs.
> I don't see a feedback loop that makes it hard to escape poverty
Really?
You’re 16 years old, you’ve a high IQ and a passion for programming.
Your parents are alcoholics. You don’t have nice clothes. You don’t have perfect manners because it’s just not the world you live in.
How do you get to the university admissions interview in the next town? How will you compete against the mannerly, well turned out student with no record of truancy. All you have is a high IQ and a passion. Will that cut it?
> incentives
Actors are sometimes irrational, you can’t rely on incentives.
Bill Gates has openly admitted how much his environment helped. Being genetically gifted as he is is only part of the equation. He also grew up in an affluent enough area to have early to computers as well as the time and supportive environment to pursue it. I wonder if people who claim environment doesnt matter have spent any appreciable time in poor neighborhoods.
The absolute best will usually find their way out. I think a society should optimize for beyond those who are just in the vanishing tail of the curve
> Bill Gates has openly admitted how much his environment helped. Being genetically gifted as he is is only part of the equation. He also grew up in an affluent enough area to have early to computers as well as the time and supportive environment to pursue it.
Not to mention the role his familial connections had in his landing that sweetheart deal with IBM.
For the unaware, his mom was an acquaintance of the IBM CEO by virtue of both serving on the board of United Way, and Microsoft came up in conversation between them. A few weeks later IBM contracted Microsoft to write the operating system for the first IBM "personal computer".
He also promised to deliver the operating system within an insane deadline. He did so by by purchasing 86-DOS [0] (also known as QDOS) for $50k ($148,931.42 today) and porting it over to IBM PCs.
He got business connections with IBM, he is a skilled negotiator, he got an expensive education paid by his parents, founded his own business with his parent's money (do you have a $150k allowance?) and knew intelligent but "poor" people who were even more skilled than him who he then could hire to actually do the important work.
These days, you can start a successful internet business in your basement with just a computer. Nobody has to see you, your clothes, or your bad manners. You don't need a university education, though you can get one for free online as needed.
How the hell are you supposed to learn to code when you’re working 50 hours per week just to make rent and eat? How can you afford to deploy? And how can you market your product if you don’t know how to talk to your audience?
Sure, you will be able to point to many people who have managed to do it. But many, many others have tried and failed - through no fault of their own.
I mean, sure. I grew up poor and without much in the way of access to education, and the internet was really a saving grace for me, in terms of self-education, income, and simply finding community.
At the same time, do you think the average income of a given internet business--let alone the segment that are run by solo entrepreneurs in their basement with just a computer and a $5 droplet--compares positively to the salary of the average CS graduate? Because we're talking about inequality, not asking "can poor people possibly make money online?"
The fact that the internet has made things better does not mean the problem is solved.
I happen to know several people who did just that (grew up barely above what would qualify for welfare, did not go to college) and became millionaires.
Even if you fail (and you probably will) what you learn from it will position you much better when trying again. It often takes multiple failures before making it work. (Even Gates/Allen had business failures before starting Microsoft.)
> does not mean the problem is solved.
Most people don't recognize opportunity because it comes disguised as hard work :-)
No, starting a business takes capital. You can build a Django website from your basement for free, but to turn it into a profitable business takes cash.
It does? A $5/mo droplet can serve a good amount of traffic. And there are lots of free ways to get some initial users, they just take time. I know because I’ve done exactly that.
This kind of can’t-do attitude really saddens me. I see it all the time in these discussions about wealth inequality.
I know. I've set up websites before; I am aware that it doesn't take that much money to get it running.
But what about advertising? Branding? Anything that a $5 droplet can do, someone else's product can probably do too -- you don't have the tech advantage. Do you stand out with UX? By doing the legwork yourself? All of these take manpower, and that means capital.
It's not the website that costs money to make; it's making that website profitable.
Yeah, if you don’t have any resources, you do everything yourself. Paid advertising can be useful for scaling, but you don’t need it for getting the first few users, and usually you’re shooting for being good enough to get word of mouth spread.
I think you may have a few competitive advantages that a 16 year old may lack, like a quiet place to work, an internet connection, a network of people, etc. etc. You’ve got such an advantage that it’s utterly pointless to draw comparisons.
The idea that someone somewhere can probably maybe might be able to make this work does not make the case that people have opportunity.
We were talking about needing startup capital to get the business off the ground, so this is kind of moving the goalposts.
But if you have a library nearby, that can take care of a lot of the concerns you’re talking about. Before the pandemic, I frequently worked out of one. Your hypothetical 16 year old likely has a suitable spot at their school.
You really don’t need an existing network to get a business started. You can find initial users on Internet forums, or reach out to people on LinkedIn.
It's a business in every way (be sure to register it with the government as a business). You can turn it into leverage by finding gigs for your programming friends, handling the negotiation, billing, and payment and thereby collecting a percentage. In fact, you can become quite wealthy doing this.
> Ideally their kid should still have access to public school education, with all the tools needed to go on to become successful themselves.
Ideally, but in reality public education is not an equalizer like that. Wealthy parents give their students advantages that school can't provide in our society: e.g. upper class culture and habits, resources for extra education, connections, etc.
Even the institutional bits aren't equal: local property tax based funding mechanisms mean richer people live in better-resourced school districts than poorer people, with better educational opportunities.
When children have a rough family/home life growing up, that can create some big obstacles to overcome later in life. If their parents don't see a value in education, then the children tend to inherit that outlook took, thus continuing the cycle. Of course, some will work there way out of it, but I'd imagine that number is small compared to those who get stuck in it.
I don't see a feedback loop that makes it hard to escape poverty. Why did the high school dropouts drop out in the first place, and why does that make their kid more likely to drop out? Ideally their kid should still have access to public school education, with all the tools needed to go on to become successful themselves.
To be clear I'm not saying there is no poverty feedback loop, just that even taking what you've said about fundamental human preferences at face value it is not inevitable that it stay this way. We can improve our systems to make it easier for people to escape poverty. But this doesn't really have anything to do with billionaires. Many of the issues in these systems are not even for lack of funding, but inefficiently spent funding or other poorly designed incentives or bureaucratic rules that make things more difficult for poor people.