Traits like ethics? Yes, that was my point.

gottorf 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm talking about traits like high time preference and poor impulse control.

Ethics make people live in poverty? That would be news to a lot of people.

It’s a really good article if you read it. The people who got rich were not the poor people.

	▲	gottorf 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		We must be talking at odds here. I'm neither claiming that being ethical is a sufficient condition to getting rich, nor that the ethics of the poor people described in the article played a significant part in their being and remaining poor. The article seems replete with unethical behavior at every level of wealth. > the American shift from “a hard day’s work for fair pay” to what I’m calling the lottery economy My point is that people with high time preference and low impulse control, who naturally will tend to be poorer than people without those traits, will also naturally be more drawn to the "lottery economy", whether or not bad actors exist who will take advantage of that. Just look at who buys literal lottery tickets!

Thegn 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

‘Pride is all very well, but a sausage is a sausage,’ he said.

- Terry Pratchett

The poor have ethics just like the rest of us. They just can’t afford to keep it.