How about making it so that the poor people aren’t all that ‘poor’ anymore? Those in abject poverty often find themselves trapped there.
CAREFUL! We don’t want to learn from this!(Calvin and Hobbs)
Oldscratch, yes you can become “stupid” from malnutrition. Your entire body does not develop fully/correctly without proper nutrition, especially in the very early years. I would say you can’t get smart after youve been mentally and physically stunted from lack of proper nutrition.
“I am so smart, I am so smart, s-m-r-t, i mean s-m-a-r-t”
There have been some schools testing breakfast programs and having positive results. They found that those children who weren’t eating a proper breakfast would be lethargic or irritable.
A little off topic here.
Why is it when discussing poverty and stupidity, race always comes up? It’s as if people hear “poor” and substitute “black” and “stupid” sounds like “hispanic”.
I know a larger percentage of the black population lives in poverty. However, in total numbers, there are much more whites living in poverty than blacks.
As for intelligence, I don’t have any citations (only because I don’t have an extensive reference library at work), but social factors are a much better indicator of test scores than race.
Now, back to the original aurgument.
O.K. being poor does not make you stupid, however, being stupid can make you poor. Happy andros?
The most dangerous words in the English language, I think - it leads to way too much intolerance and, of course, completely and utter ignorance. (How appropriate it was uttered in a thread about stupidity.)
And, I might add, it will get you a filleted ass on this board.
Esprix
Evidently, I rock.
Ask the Gay Guy!
Do you really think this would cause a massive reversal of fortunes?
It seems that many of the problems in poor public schools are brought from home. Inner city schools get way more funding than suburban schools, but have to pay for metal detectors, security guards, higher-salaried teachers willing to dish out discipline and accept the risk, etc.
Putting rich kids in public schools is not going to drive them to gangs. Similarly, putting all the poor kids in private schools is not going to cure the other fundamental problems in their lives.
It’s true that the average rich person is smarter than the average poor person, but I would tend to agree with those who focus on “ignorance” rather than “stupidity”. I think the actual intelligence differential is greatly exaggerated by circumstance, any is never reliable on an individual scale. Poor kids have a lot more to worry about than books, regardless of their brain power. Stupid rich kids can get tutors to help their grades.
meara says:
Inner city schools get way more funding than suburban schools, but have to pay for metal detectors, security guards, higher-salaried teachers willing to dish out discipline and accept the risk, etc.
Where I live (NYC), inner city schools get much less funding than suburban schools. Which is really unfair since the city contributes more money into the education fund than the suburbs.
I don’t know about a massive reversal of fortune, but all inner city students are not in gangs and not even the majority of them come from bad homes. The rich kids will still have the advantage of being rich. Still, their education would suffer.
Tom:
It was indeed. Very cheap. 's a good thing we’re in the pit, pal. 
Apologies, though–I should have been paying closer attention. I saw Eysenck’s name and didn’t even think about Jensen’s being involved. 'Course Eysenck has his detractors, too, but his findings have been corroborated. Even a 30% heritability in IQ scores is signifigant, IMO.
Sentinel:
No problem. It’s called “socialism” and I’m a big fan of it.* Or were you being faceitous?
(* Actually, I’m not–I just wanted to annoy Boomer)
Biggirl:
My apologies, I should have known it would have; the links I posted didn’t help.
I think there are two reasons, though. First is fundamental and deeply-rooted, even institutionalized, racism.
Second is the regretable fact that there are, in this country, correlations between race and soccio-economic status. Blacks as a group are less wealthy than whites. I’m not pleased about it, but it’s the case. So even though race is irrelevant to a discussion of poverty and intelligence, some people see the correlation between race and money and assume there’s a correlation between race and intelligence or whateer. It’s completely fucking stupid, IMO.
Quite, thank you.
So we’re agreed, then, that stupidity is one of the causes of poverty?
Then the question is, if stupidity decreases, will poverty will decrease?
-andros-
Stupidity does not cause poverty, darn it, and stop trying to make me say it! And since stupidity does not cause poverty, then getting rid of stupid people will not decrease poverty.
meara has obviously never attended an inner city public school. I have. And let me tell you, I’m damned lucky to be sitting here at an expensive private university now. The schools are grotesquely underfunded. A corrupt board of education is willing to spend (waste) money on added security, metal detectors, suveillance cameras, and a big, ominous metal fence, but is ever reluctant to get new books, new lab equipment, to fund after school programs or more AP courses (fuck, more courses period.). A school system whose negative expectations of inner city youth creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. These kids certainly do not lack the talent. They simply lack the opportunity. Heap onto this the dangers they face everyday that suburbanites don’t even have to think about (except to tsk tsk at the 6 o’clock news), and you’ve got a recipe for “stupidity”. Regardless of whether you are born with a low IQ, if you aren’t in a conducive environment, you aren’t going to go very far in a society where the decks are already stacked against lower income people. The American Dream that anyone can succeed “if they work hard enough” is bullshit.
Then there’s the reality that tests are biased. Psychologists have done experiments where they take a set of children from a middle class background and a set from a low-income household. They give them an intelligence test of sorts in two varieties. One is the basic test. Both groups do about the same. Then, they are administered the same test dressed up in a nice little fictional story. The upper-income kids do about the same, but there is a significant decrease in performance on the part of the lower-income kids. These tests are designed for people with a certain upbringing. If you fall outside that middle to upper middle class lifestyle, you’re screwed.
meara has obviously never attended an inner city public school. I have. And let me tell you, I’m damned lucky to be sitting here at an expensive private university now. The schools are grotesquely underfunded. A corrupt board of education is willing to spend (waste) money on added security, metal detectors, suveillance cameras, and a big, ominous metal fence, but is ever reluctant to get new books, new lab equipment, to fund after school programs or more AP courses (fuck, more courses period.). This is a school system whose negative expectations of inner city youth creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. These kids certainly do not lack the talent. They simply lack the opportunity. Heap onto this the dangers they face everyday that suburbanites don’t even have to think about, and you’ve got a recipe for “stupidity”. Regardless of whether you are born with a low IQ, if you aren’t in a conducive environment, you aren’t going to go very far in a society where the decks are already stacked against lower income people. The American Dream that anyone can succeed “if they work hard enough” is bullshit.
Then there’s the reality that tests are biased. Psychologists have done experiments where they take a set of children from a middle class background and a set from a low-income household. They give them an intelligence test of sorts in two varieties. One is the basic test. Both groups do about the same. Then, they are administered the same test dressed up in a nice little fictional story. The upper-income kids do about the same, but there is a significant decrease in performance on the part of the lower-income kids. These tests are designed for people with a certain upbringing. If you fall outside that middle to upper middle class lifestyle, you’re screwed.
Hmmm, let’s see…
Poorer kids have to deal with a stressful, if not downright crappy home life, aren’t afford some of the nicer things to make them feel a little better about their life, go to underfunded schools, and take unbalanced standardized tests.
Richer kids have a more stable home life, can afford some of the luxuries, go to well-funded schools, and take tests balanced in their favor.
I can’t imagine why poorer kids might be “dumber” and richer kids might be “smarter.” :rolleyes:
Esprix
Evidently, I rock.
Ask the Gay Guy!
Way to go Exprix. I do believe that poorer people are “supid” when you define stupid as a general ignorance and a lack of desire to learn. Why, because they’ve been told they were stupid their whole life; because they weren’t given an education. I also think that this whole deviding line between smart and stupid is largely artificial. I believe that given the right circumstances and the right encouragement, that any “stupid” person can rise above. Not in this society, they are not given the chance, but in an ideal world they could.
Now I’m not talking about Gross stupidity and Brilliance, obviously there are some born disadvantaged in the mental department and some born with a gift. I’m talking generallities here.
It’s not the quantity of posts, it’s the quality
Now, now, Biggirl.
Oh, but you already did:
I take that to mean that being stupid is one of the myriad causes of being poor. Where’s the problem?
(we’re having fun here, remember?)
-andros-
heres the cycle:
stupid/poor people are forced to recieve worse education. They grow up and get jobs that do not require great intelligence and are coincidentally low paying. Their children (usually) grow up and are not able to get a good education, beign restricted by their poverty. The cycle continues. Capitalism sucks. But socialism sucks harder.
andros:
Incidentally, no, it doesn’t. I agree with you here on everything else, but if there’s one thing that we’ve learned throughout history, it’s that (especially in a capitalist system) the ratio of upper class to lower class remains more or less a constant in a large society, with the middle class making up the bulk of the population. If America wiped out all the stupid people in this country tomorrow, we’d end up with just about the same amount (by percentage, of course, since such a measure would reduce our population by a considerable amount) of poor people. We’d just have the smartest indigents in the world.
And, while I’m on the subject, to deny the fact that there’s a correlation between wealth and intelligence is asinine and relatively transparent in its unabashed PC-ness. How many members of Mensa do you suppose are eating off of food stamps? How many morons do you think are certified MD’s? In a world where intelligence is becoming more and more valued (economically, at least), there’s a reason why successful people are successful, and for the most part it isn’t luck. Yes, poverty begets poverty, and that’s too bad. But you know what? It is possible to pull yourself, and especially your children and grandchildren, up out of poverty. It’s happened, believe it or not. Know how it happens? Nine times out of ten, intelligence.
Back to the point, I don’t believe that standardized tests are at all “culturally biased” to begin with (and this is an area where none can question my experience). So maybe the math word problems are about, say, stocks or croquet. WHO CARES? It doesn’t change the important part of the problem. “But oh, the poor urban students don’t know anything about croquet!” IT DOESN’T MATTER. So you say that the kids who go to school in more affluent areas get a better education, and so they have a better chance on the tests. Sounds to me like the tests are doing a pretty fine job, then, and your beef should be with the education system in poor areas. If poor kids aren’t getting a good education, it’s not the fault of the people going to the good schools, and it sure as shit isn’t the fault of the people who make up standardized tests. And as for the assertion that the test is a racist tool, made by the racist white man in his (never-ending) racist efforts to keep the minorities down (all part of the racist master plan), have you perchance ever been to Appalachia? Or some of the really disgusting parts of the South? Cause I guaran-damn-tee you that a given urban public school will prepare its students better for those tests than a given public school in the aforementioned regions.
“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” -Winston Churchill
Does it make sense to say that intelligent people can come from any background, but the opportunity to develop that intelligence has to do with economic status (in a very general way - there are always exceptions)?
Give more people the opportunity, we develop more smart people. IMHO.
Esprix
Evidently, I rock.
Ask the Gay Guy!
Nobody offers you a ton of money just because you are intelligent. If that were the case employers would hire based on something like teh SAT or an IQ test.
One gets hired based on hard work, experience and ability to “fit in.” Some of this does come from one’s social upbringing. A rich person has certain advantages. I have seen it time and time again.
But to try and reconfigure society in order to erase one’s inherent advantages is harmful and insane. Not all people are equal in terms of their advantages. Tough shit. You can’t go around making the strong weak so that the weak don’t feel bad. Take a look at the “fair” system created by communist and socialist countries. Making everyone miserable to avoid “unfairness” is a detrimental option.
Life is hard. It’s harder if you’re stupid. – John Wayne
Oooh, that’s going in the sig line.
“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” -Winston Churchill
“You can’t go around making the strong weak so that the weak don’t feel bad.” - Mr. Zambezi