...My wife and I had a long discussion last night about life skills, and it was sobering to think how few folks understand things like the social security break points, what all the line items on a paystub mean, or how to estimate what your take home pay will look like. In that context it is amazing we don’t have even worse outcomes than we do.
Things like IQ and personality characteristics are highly heritable. Personality can be deliberately changed, but how is someone with low
conscientiousness going to 1) recognize that conscientiousness is a trait they are lacking that would make their life better, and then 2) put in the long, slow, disciplined work of cultivating more conscientiousness?
Half of people have below-average intelligence. Half of people have below-average conscientiousness. Those aren't necessarily the same people, so some intelligent people are disorganized under-achievers who never learn "adulting," and some conscientious people are not smart enough to point their careful, organized, discipline in an actually useful direction.
Expecting that more people would "get it" if only they were presented with the right information is wishful thinking. Lots of people are fundamentally incapable of holding down a well-paying job, living below their means, taking care of their own needs, and saving for their own retirement. Saying otherwise is a useful lie, in the sense that it gets people
on the margin to succeed instead of fail. But at the extreme, there is a non-negligible number of people who just can't. I think the widespread questioning of this useful lie has had pretty toxic consequences, as seen on Reddit. Lots of people who can and should be taking care of their own needs are instead complaining about how it's impossible, because that has become a fashionable belief.
Rugged individualism doesn't work. Some people need to be carried. If the highest-functioning members of society are too individualistic to do any carrying, then we outsource the carrying to government through impersonal welfare programs. If we slash welfare programs because we expect those people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, that's how we get more and more addicts in tents by the freeway ramp.
And if anything, the problem is getting worse as the attention economy actively degrades people's capacity for discipline and focused attention. Smart phones are increasing depression and anxiety, and reducing standardized test scores. Amongst the lucky minority born with the cognitive traits for achievement, there's an even smaller lucky minority who can resist the allure of infinite entertainment, optimized to keep people addicted. On the margin, the attention economy is turning people who could have been self-sufficient into social media zombies who don't have the attention span or the discipline to learn valuable skills that would get them better employment.
So yes, it is
amazing that we don't have even worse outcomes than we do. I always try to remember, humanity is just "apes in sweaters." The fact that we have a functioning society at all, with democracy and science and medicine and plumbing and cities and advanced technology... it's
amazing.
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Otherwise, agreed with
@Fru-Gal, so much of "winning" financially is in a handful of big decisions, not in the little $5/day decisions. Housing, transportation, travel. As long as people keep driving big fancy cars, living in the biggest fanciest houses they can afford, and thinking a yearly international vacation is an ordinary middle class expense, they are going to be financially precarious.
Also agree with
@eyesonthehorizon, Reddit is a toxic cesspool of complainy-pants nonsense, and getting the hell away from it has done wonders for me.
