[NT!]

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NT
Honestly curious- what percentage of poor unsuccessful people (sorry best phrase I could come up with) are that way because they are lazy pieces of [censored] and what percentage would you say could work hard forever but due to horrible circumstances would never be able to be successful on there own?

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i don't really think there is any way for me to accurately answer this question, or anyone else really. there are people that are at both extremes of the spectrum - people who are just lazy and dumb and have wasted many opportunities that were laid right at their feet, had a stable family but [censored] it up, etc. there are also a lot of people like the kids i was talking about earlier, who really never had a [censored] chance in hell.

both of these cases are much more rare than people who are a mix of the two. they have some personal deficits and some systemic bad luck / disadvantages, and the combination of the two causes them to fail in certain areas of life. these are the people who you have a chance to help.

in general i would say that most people - even bleeding hearts who blame big business for everything wrong in the world - underestimate the various systemic pressures on the urban poor. at the same time, a lot of those bleeding hearts also minimize the personal deficits that people have to overcome.

a lot of people don't know how bad it is in certain places. how really, legitimately awful it is to live there, and yet some people are proud to have grown up there. this brings to light something else that a lot of people don't realize - in spite of how bad some neighborhoods are, the majority of people are getting by, and busting their asses to do it. even in some of the worst neighborhoods on the census map, the majority of income in that place is coming in through legitimate work, not welfare.