Worth Reading

So amazing man. Thanks

All of that makes sense, and i'm trying to have some sympathy...but rationalizing bad decisions with stupid limiting beliefs is why the poor stay poor. Spending money on pot every week is just ridiculus, yeah it may increase the chicks productivity, but ultimately she's just getting trapped into another habit that has no benefit to her life.

The smoking thing kinda just pisses me off. I've got a buddy whose got a pretty bad weed addiction, the kid scraps for money, and gets involved with the wrong people just too get his damn pot. He claims he smokes a lot because his parents don't respect him, but truly his parents don't respect him because he smokes too much! In his particular situation the weed really does fuck up his life.

but what do I know? I'm a well off white kid and im sure grateful for that

I don't think this is amazing. I think it's sad. Her problem isn't that she's poor. It's that shes taken on being poor as an identity and nothing else seems real to her. She can't see her own rationalizations/fix her flawed paradigms of the world. And since she's that kind of messed up, it's pretty much guaranteed that she's never going to get out of poverty.

I understand that she is just doing the best she can with the resources she has.

With that said,  I do believe that some people do deserve to be poor.

@Meow

That's a pretty limited perspective of the situation. She didn't even say she smokes pot, you just jumped to that conclusion. She smokes cigarettes (which is worse in my opinion).

I mean, think about it. If you were 100% in her shoes; fucked up beliefs systems/emotions, lack of proper education, lack of healthy food to provide yourself with proper energy, lack of willpower to eat said healthy foods since they taste like shit and you're addicted to instant gratification, in depression, responsible for a family, brain and body not functioning properly... The list goes on. Without a massive drive (which she obviously doesn't have), she has NO chance of fixing her situation. Do you really think you could do that if you were in her shoes? I don't think I could do it.

Great piece.

Rezz I don't understand how you seemed to understand where she was at when addressing Meow but are cockslapping her in the first paragraph. You explained the situation later on. Her brain doesn't function "correctly" because.. there's no point for her. And "correctly" is relative. She's saying that for her situation, she's doing what makes sense. She's trying to get what enjoyment she can out of life

Manwhore understands the piece corrrectly. This is a practice in compassion. It is not logical, it is not rational. it is smply- "this is how it works for people in this situatuion"....

Well, I'm saying that she's fucked and explained why I think so. I guess it wasn't necessary for me to say that about her. I do have a tendency to look down on the poor in the way she's describing in this article.

On the one hand, I'm trying to overcome it and understand/accept other people as they are, knowing that if I had their life experience I would be exactly where they are.

On the other hand, I look at this article and think to myself "bull shit, just from reading this I can see that you could do this, that, and this other thing to get out of your situation. And thats not even including other parts of your life that aren't even being discussed in this article. Pathetic." The reason I have the tendency to do that is thats how I talk to myself and if it was me I would be thinking, "If I'm not doing 100% EVERYTHING I can be doing to escape this situation, I have no right to complain."

That's where the cognitive dissonance is coming from. I'm trying to reconcile empathizing with her situation and accepting her as she is, while simultaneously judging her based on my own standards for myself.

With that said, I probably wasn't clear about one thing. I don't think she deserves to be in the situation shes in simply because she accidently got knocked up and probably made a few other mistakes when she was young/didn't know any better. Furthermore, she's making an effort. I do believe there are other poor people out there though who could get out of poverty. But, they just aren't trying and they DO deserve to be in the life situation they are in.

The point of the article is simply to see her pov, free from judgment. And you basically are just shitting on her. She who has nothing, and also who hasn't done anything to you. Why do you judge the poor? Fyi some poor people are trying and still can't make it out. Some do not have the mental faculties, knowledge, or resources. Also, you come across as a very narrow minded individual who hasn't really struggled in this area in life. Ever. ( $$$$$$$ )

yeah that was fucked for to me assume it was pot, but either way cigs or pot are expensive.

To answer your question, no at this point in my life I couldn't get myself out of poverty. I've never experienced anything even close to this woman, sure I get a little anxious when i'm running low on cash but I always have a sense of security that my rents would provide for me when needed. 

I think Rezznt has a point, he simply wrote his own self-talk down as a reply and we're clawing at his throat for it lol. He was seeing both sides and holding onto each idea simultaneously separate from each other. Say that three times fast.

We're seeing it purely from a sense of compassion, he's seeing it as something that he would have to figure out how to work through if he was in the same situation. I get it

You're a fucking faggot.

Where do you think my self talk came from Mr. Aequitas the Almighty? Does my self talk, expressed as a judgment on her, sound like the self tak of someone who has never had to struggle for something? Do you really think that someone who has never had to fail over and over and over, would sit here, read this article and instantly have their RAS tee'd up on solutions, rather than self pity if they hadn't trained themselves to see the world that way?

You're wrong. Simple as that. I know it. Manwhore knows it.

Furthermore, I explained/apologized for basically directing my self talk at her.

Honestly, did you even read my post, or did your RAS just immediately see the negative? That was rhetorical btw, incase you missed that. Your post obviously reveals the answer.

inb4 "derpa durr RezznT is sooooo reactive"

inb4 "derpa durr RezznT is sooooo reactive"

lol

I think another factor that goes into the "bad decisions" is our society making bad decisions the easiest decision.

I know in terms of nutrition, they cheapest food is always the shittiest. It's fucked that a bag of doritos that had to be processed and shipped is more expensive that local grown vegetables. That's just fucked

Monopolys on monopolys...

I think that's part of it, but I don't think it's some conspiracy theory or whatever. Just economics. Processed food by it's very nature takes less time to create and you get more of it.

Plus the whole group think deal makes it hard for people to break free of bad habits. I mean, if everyone you know is making terrible decisions and you yourself eventually realize that you've been fucking up, it's still going to be hard to fix your problems. Especially if people see you trying to improve yourself, then try to stop you from doing so since it makes them feel bad about themselves. That or they'll just think you're an arrogant elitist douche.

hahaha oh exactly. 

Just last week some kid goes, " oh you eat healthy foods, you must be perfect...douche"... liek really you care about me that much bro? lol

Thanks for the compliment, but I prefer to be just called Aequitas on the forum. Since you OBVIOUSLY missed what my argument was I'll spell it out for you: I don't think you grew up poor nor ever had any hardships on or near this level with money growing up. Could I be wrong? Absolutely. The rest of your post is irrelevant to my argument aside from the apology you made for judging her. Which your post ironically ends with you judging others who don't meet a certain threshold with effort. So yes, I do think you're narrow minded. And my post then ends with me judging you for judging others. Hah. Just pointing shit out. Nice to notice I struck a nerve though.

Before I say anything else, Aequitas (and everyone else on this forum), I’d like to say something, ask you something, and if you can honestly convince me I will change my world view. Apparently I’m on a different wavelength from you guys and I’d like to see why you guys are thinking the way you are.

-I think people who don’t give life 100% of what they’ve got, who can do better, but are choosing not to because of fear, laziness, or some other equally weak emotion as fucking pathetic.

-This woman obviously can’t do better than she is right now (actually she probably could if she had enough leverage, but whatever)

-Why shouldn’t I judge these people as being fucking pathetic?

I pretty much come from the same mindset Alex does in this video at around 9:30

Because they're human beings, bro.

Well, just to be clear. I'm not running around being a sociopath insulting/making people who don't live up to my standards feel bad for no reason at all.

With that said, I guess I just don't give a fuck/subscribe to the whole all life has value deal. I think people should have to earn their value.

Yeah, obviously. I never took you for that. I'm not here trying to be the champion for the little guy either. The whole point of my original post was to highlight that ANY judgment has no business with that womans' article. Doesn't make it right, nor am I trying to justify her behavior at all.

I have some questions for you:

1) What is value to you?

2) How does a person "earn" value?

3) Do you judge women for being sexually liberal?

Ok, why does judgement have no purpose in this article?

1. I don't really know how to answer this without giving it some serious thought, so I'm not going to. I just think that anyone who doesn't give life 100%, everything they've got, who makes excuses and gives into to weakness when they're not getting everything they want out of life is pathetic and a loser. If they're honestly doing the best they can thats cool and I respect it, but if not then they can go fuck themselves.

2. See #1

3. No, honestly, until I joined the pickup community the whole madona whore/slut wasn't even a part of my reality at all. Any time I heard someone use words like slut or whore it just sounded so fucking retarded to me that I just kind of disconnected it as something real.

Are you trolling me or is that a serious question? As it has been answered extensively throughout this thread.

Ok right, I wasn't thinking when I typed that.

I have a mental habit/instinct of just immediately thinking that poor people deserve to be poor. It's just the way I was raised. It's obviously not true in the case of this woman as she couldn't really be doing better so obviously I need to get better about immediately judging poor people negatively.

My thought process about this woman is kind of like this:

-Ok, yeah, she has all that stuff messed up in her life. But if she had enough leverage then she could get herself out of that situation.

-Well, what if she doesn't even know how to get leverage on herself and doesn't have access to internet to learn about leverage and educate herself about improving herself/life situation.

-Right, I guess she really can't do any better right now.

So, I don't really think badly of her since she's giving life 100% of what she has. Any judgement on my part is just pure mental habit that has been conditioned into me that I'm trying to overcome. With that said, I definitely think that a lot of poor people who aren't giving life 100% and could escape poverty, for sure deserve to be poor.

I think a lot of this has to do with the decline of masculinity, for whatever reason, in our society. This woman has probably never seen a man of substance in her entire life. It's probably been a solid succession of failures from her grandfather, father and on down to her babydaddies.

Consider the African-American community. One of the highest rates of poverty, also highest rate of single mothers. Black kids growing up without the benefit of masculinity in their lives, and they end up in poverty, turning toward gangs etc to fill that financial and emotional need. It's nothing less than the decay of a culture. Things like teaching your children how to think, how to protect yourself, how to make good decisions, how to behave with strength of character are the domain of masculinity.

Oh yes. This may sound stereotypical, but notice how masculine and aggressive some black women are because of the lack of male guidance. I just feel like these women were forced to fill a frame that isn't necessarily fun. furthermore, this persona is too "ghetto" for many employers as the article suggests.