Many poor people are actually ashamed to ask for money, or even to accept it when it is freely offered. The latter is somewhat mysterious to me, especially in situations where it is already established that they are poor and in dire need of money (so it is not like they would reveal this fact by accepting the money).
Does not seem so mysterious to me. Even if everyone already know that you’re poor, deliberately asking for money (or even accepting charity) moves you to Officially Poor People™ and strongly increase your risk of feeling like a burden. Also, unless you’ve been poor all your life, I suppose that local gossipmongers can be quite nasty if they catch you accepting charity (“I never thought they would stoop so low!”).
Some people are willing to kill themselves rather than being ashamed to ask for money (this is quite mysterious even to me)
The evolutionary explanation is that if you’re a burden on enough people who are genetically close to you, then by reducing their chance of passing on their genes you also reduce the chance of passing your own. So if it’s unlikely you will pass your own genes by yourself, or if the group can’t support everyone when it includes you, then the optimal reproductive decision might be to leave the group and alleviate the burden, and one way to do that is suicide.
It’s one of those sad evolutionary adaptations that are no longer relevant in the modern world and now only cause harm. Today even if you are a burden on someone it’s never so drastic that killing yourself helps anyone.
These are statements whose truth can’t be discussed, only claimed with filtered evidence. Like politics, this requires significant reframing to sidestep the epistemic landmines.
Can you elaborate? I agree this a difficult risky topic to discuss, and I tried to evade the landmines while writing it (like accidentally implying that this evolutionary instinct is somehow good), but though I very much like and agree with Yes requires the possibility of no, and know what filtered evidence is, I don’t really understand the first part of your comment. Also I’d be interested to hear what you think are the epistemic landmines.
If you are about to say something socially neutral or approved, but a salient alternative to what you are saying comes with a cost (or otherwise a target of appeal to consequences), integrity in making the claim requires a resolve to have said that alternative too if it (counterfactually) turned out to be what you believe (with some unclear “a priori” weighing that doesn’t take into account your thinking on that particular topic). But that’s not enough if you want others to have a fair opportunity to debate the claim you make, for they would also incur the cost of the alternative claims, and the trial preregistration pact must be acausally negotiated with them and not just accepted on your own.
See this comment and its parent for a bit more on this. This is a large topic, related to glomarization and (dis)honesty. These contraptions have to be built around anti-epistemology to counteract its distorting effects.
Does not seem so mysterious to me. Even if everyone already know that you’re poor, deliberately asking for money (or even accepting charity) moves you to Officially Poor People™ and strongly increase your risk of feeling like a burden. Also, unless you’ve been poor all your life, I suppose that local gossipmongers can be quite nasty if they catch you accepting charity (“I never thought they would stoop so low!”).
Of course, things can get even worse. According to Wikipedia, the second most commonly listed motive for suicides in Japan is “Financial/Poverty related issues” (17% of suicides). Some people are willing to kill themselves rather than being ashamed to ask for money (this is quite mysterious even to me).
The evolutionary explanation is that if you’re a burden on enough people who are genetically close to you, then by reducing their chance of passing on their genes you also reduce the chance of passing your own. So if it’s unlikely you will pass your own genes by yourself, or if the group can’t support everyone when it includes you, then the optimal reproductive decision might be to leave the group and alleviate the burden, and one way to do that is suicide.
It’s one of those sad evolutionary adaptations that are no longer relevant in the modern world and now only cause harm. Today even if you are a burden on someone it’s never so drastic that killing yourself helps anyone.
These are statements whose truth can’t be discussed, only claimed with filtered evidence. Like politics, this requires significant reframing to sidestep the epistemic landmines.
Can you elaborate? I agree this a difficult risky topic to discuss, and I tried to evade the landmines while writing it (like accidentally implying that this evolutionary instinct is somehow good), but though I very much like and agree with Yes requires the possibility of no, and know what filtered evidence is, I don’t really understand the first part of your comment. Also I’d be interested to hear what you think are the epistemic landmines.
If you are about to say something socially neutral or approved, but a salient alternative to what you are saying comes with a cost (or otherwise a target of appeal to consequences), integrity in making the claim requires a resolve to have said that alternative too if it (counterfactually) turned out to be what you believe (with some unclear “a priori” weighing that doesn’t take into account your thinking on that particular topic). But that’s not enough if you want others to have a fair opportunity to debate the claim you make, for they would also incur the cost of the alternative claims, and the trial preregistration pact must be acausally negotiated with them and not just accepted on your own.
See this comment and its parent for a bit more on this. This is a large topic, related to glomarization and (dis)honesty. These contraptions have to be built around anti-epistemology to counteract its distorting effects.
I also saw you saying a similar thing here. I think there’s a top level post here waiting to be written. I’ll be glad to read it if you write it.