This is a teenager

https://pudding.cool/2024/03/teenagers/

by gmays • 2 years ago

1445 770 2 years ago

rideontime• 2 years ago

Not to distract from the important content of this piece - which I simply can't devote any attention to in the middle of my workday, lest I ruminate for the next few hours - but for those interested in its development, here's a dev diary: https://bigcharts.substack.com/p/behind-the-scene-this-is-a-...

numlocked• 2 years ago

Very cool site, however...

...my takeaway is a little different than what is in the commentary box (for the year 2017 in particular). The distribution of incomes don't actually look that different, to my eye.

If this is the grand reveal -- showing that childhood heavily influences future financial mobility -- it's not super obvious. I mean, yes, there seem to be a bit of a skew towards low earners in the bottom tranche -- but really it looks like the group that has had some astounding headwinds is kinda sorta doing about the same as the 'no adverse experiences' group? That is amazing as well!

It'd be nice to be able to get to the underlying data more easily, and drill into see the statistical conclusions. The horizontal bands not being of even length doesn't help either.

Edit: I don't think I was correctly taking into account the "no data" group, which makes the skew much more obvious (that the "many adverse experience" group has substantially lower earning power). I wish that the horizontal groups were of the same length, and the "no data" group was simply removed. I think that would make a transformative difference in terms of actually being able to understand this visually and intuitively.

Edit 2: Also how amazing is it that this study got done! The link to the study is very hard to find on this site, and also is wrong. The correct link (I think anyway) is https://www.bls.gov/nls/nlsy97.htm

unyttigfjelltol• 2 years ago

The visualizations suggested the differences were very marginal. Some people with no adverse experiences struggle; some with many adverse experiences thrive; and while the reverse is more often true there appear to be other factors more strongly determining outcomes.

WesternWind• 2 years ago

the best determinant, statistically, is what zip code you grew up in.

ianbicking• 2 years ago

I noticed that too... the effects didn't look nearly as dramatic from the visuals as the text would make me believe.

The exception was health, that was a much more dramatic correlation than income/etc. It reminds me of a study recently of homelessness in California, and people made a big deal about housing availability and affordability as the prime factor, but seemed to ignore the very notable health correlation in that study.

philsnow• 2 years ago

If this is the grand reveal -- showing that childhood heavily influences future financial mobility -- it's not super obvious. I mean, yes, there seem to be a bit of a skew towards low earners in the bottom tranche -- but really it looks like the group that has had some astounding headwinds is kinda sorta doing about the same as the 'no adverse experiences' group?

This was my takeaway as well. My expectation was that the longitudinal study would show that bad experiences compound much more dramatically over time than the video appears to suggest.

Another issue I have with the presentation is that I had to keep pausing and carefully considering what each slide was saying, because the first several slides start by

  - categorizing people according to whether they had bad experiences or not,
  - arranging them spatially in one big group on the "bad experiences" axis,
  - and coloring them according to the severity / occurrence.

So now my brain thinks "okay, warmer colors mean more/worse childhood experiences. got it.", but then all the following slides

  - categorize people on lots of different dimensions (income, health, etc)
    - but always grouped spatially by no/some/many bad experiences
  - color them according to the dimension being measured
    - some of them are arranged spatially in reverse order compared to the
      legend, see 4:50 in the linked video / the slide on "general health"

So the entire time, I'm fighting my brain which is telling me "warmer colors -> bad experiences".

I wonder if it would be clearer if the measurement slides were instead grouped / arranged spatially by outcomes and colored according to the childhood experiences.

edit: it's ugly as heck but this is kind of what I mean:

their slide: https://snap.philsnow.io/2024-04-16T10-16-25.uifh7bss3d5f66b...

proposed rearrangement + recoloring: https://snap.philsnow.io/2024-04-16T10-45-19.n7ft281jipgv3tx...

Like I said, it's ugly, I obviously just copy/pasted regions around, but it should get across the idea that this would make it easier to see the proportions of each measurement class (income bucket, health bucket, etc) according to childhood experiences.

pc86• 2 years ago

A large proportion of the time -- I hesitate to say "most" but that is my inclination -- the people making these visualizations have an agenda, and it's usually increased funding for their pet cause. So any time you're looking at this sort of thing especially when they're making broad over-arching generalizations (more "trauma" as a child makes life harder) it's important to read critically, interrogate the validity and bias of sources, and try to see if and where they may be skewing things with visualizations, omitting or lessening the perceived impact of damning data that disagrees with them, and/or making things that agree with their point more prominent than they probably should be. I usually don't even try to figure out what their "pet cause" may be before doing any of that because I don't want my own implicit biases to influence me more than they already do.

It's hard to be sure but I also think several of the folks earning the most as adults came from the "bottom" tier with the most adverse childhood experiences.

subpixel2• 2 years ago

Positive relationships with adults is shown to be means of counteracting adverse childhood experiences.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8237477/

I volunteer in a local school. It's not always fun, but something has to change.

toomuchtodo4• 2 years ago

Less kids in households that don't want them. This is a pipeline problem. Intentional children only. Hard topic to cover online, nuance and emotions on the topic.

I volunteer in a local school. It's not always fun, but something has to change.

You're a good person doing necessary work. There aren't enough humans doing it, but it matters to who you're helping.

bumby2• 2 years ago

Related, and equally hard to cover online:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_e...

throwway1203854• 2 years ago

It would also help if more people that are doing marginal work could receive a wage that they felt secure with. Money is one of the biggest stressors for couples and families.

smeej• 2 years ago

You can change up the emotions on the topic pretty quickly if you change the framing to "intentional sex only" rather than "intentional children only," even though the former accomplishes the latter.

It's fun, because you can get virtually everyone to agree that people should only have sex they mean to have, but as soon as you suggest they should only have sex when all parties involved have carefully and accurately assessed the risk of pregnancy, you're a killjoy.

causal3• 2 years ago

You can select a dropdown at the end for "Parenting style" which divides the groups by number of parents involved. This seems to be the strongest correlator of any of the data shown.

zeroonetwothree2• 2 years ago

Parenting style is much more likely to not be causative though

gowld5• 2 years ago

Strong argument for helping more parents be more involved.

fzeindl2• 2 years ago

This is old news.

Basically children in bad situations need just one reliable person who believes in them in their lives.

What it does is making them realize that it’s not them who are doing something wrong but that their surroundings are flawed. The problem begins when children start to believe everything is their own fault.

Jerrrry• 2 years ago

ding ding ding!

I call it "Bastard's Syndrome"

hn_throwaway_992• 2 years ago

What it does is making them realize that it’s not them who are doing something wrong but that their surroundings are flawed. The problem begins when children start to believe everything is their own fault.

This is only tangentially related, but I think your point is critically important. Relatively recently I did ketamine infusion therapy for depression, and it was life changing for me. Ketamine is a "dissociative", and one thing that it seriously helped me do was separate my "self" from my depression, which I've never really been able to do before despite decades of trying through therapy. That is, now that I see depression as a chronic condition I have (say perhaps analogous to people that have to deal with migraines), as opposed to something that I am at my core, it makes it much, much less scary and threatening to me.

In my experience, I've noticed that the people who I think of as the most successful (both from a society-wide and personal perspective) have the clearest view of what is their control and what they can accomplish, and also what is not. A huge benefit of this is that when they see an obstacle that some person could potentially overcome, even if it would be very, very difficult, they tend to think "Heck, why not me?" And when they do hit setbacks because of the unpredictability of the world, they don't take it personally, they just tend to think "Well, the world is chaotic - is this new problem something that can reasonably be overcome?" I contrast with a mindset I had for a long time (which a large part I think was a consequence of being bullied) that if I put a lot of effort into something and just didn't succeed, it was fundamentally because I wasn't "good enough", so why bother trying that hard at something else as I'm likely not going to be good enough there either.

naasking7• 2 years ago

What it does is making them realize that it’s not them who are doing something wrong but that their surroundings are flawed

Speculative. I rather think that it shows them that there are other ways of living and that they have agency to get there.

concordDance5• 2 years ago

The problem begins when children start to believe everything is their own fault.

My experience is it's the opposite and you need to overcome learned helplessness and understand that you can change your life.

Are there any good studies that could tell us which of us is correct?

quadragenarian2• 2 years ago

This is 100% accurate.

In the wise words of the late child psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner, Professor Emeritus of Human Development and Psychology at Cornell:

In order to develop – intellectually emotionally, socially and morally – a child requires participation in progressively more complex reciprocal activity on a regular basis over an extended period in the child's life, with one or more persons with whom the child develops a strong, mutual, irrational, emotional attachment and who is committed to the child's well-being and development, preferably for life. (Bronfenbrenner, 1991, p. 2)

Or paraphrased by him:

“Every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her.”

richardlblair7• 2 years ago

I volunteer in a local school. It's not always fun, but something has to change

Teachers and volunteers are how I was able to find a better life. What you're doing matters.

kulahan4• 2 years ago

How do you volunteer at the local school? My wife and I are both passionate about and interested in improving children’s lives, but not super sure how best to do it outside of donations and big brother big sister-type programs.

As an aside, maybe it’s because I’m inexperienced, but I’m finding it surprisingly hard to get connected with a group to help people that isn’t a highly specific cause like religion, LGBTQ, children of certain races, etc.??? Is it just me? I am clearly very ignorant about all this

anotheruser133• 2 years ago

I would like to volunteer as well, but it would have to be outside of home and school since I live in Texas. I would like to help young people learn to cope with being LGBTQ+, ADD, and other things, but I don't think parents would appreciate it.

trogdor4• 2 years ago

I’m finding it surprisingly hard to get connected with a group to help people that isn’t a highly specific cause like religion, LGBTQ, children of certain races, etc.

I recently started volunteering at my county’s animal shelter. The experience has been very rewarding.

subpixel2• 2 years ago

Where I live the superintendent and local groups formed a task-force style intervention and looped in local volunteers.

The scale of the problem is most visible through 'special ed' allocation. Once a program for kids with learning challenges, it now also encompasses what are essentially behavioral problems.

Kids don't get kicked out of school for throwing raging tantrums or hitting teachers - they get placed into programs designed to keep them in school. (If that's what life is like at school, imagine what life is like at home.)

seb1204• 2 years ago

Thank you for volunteering.

aidenn05• 2 years ago

Am I supposed to see more than one teenager at the point where the narrative suggests I can? I only see one as I'm scrolling through. Firefox 120.0.1

[edit]

I scrolled all the way to the top and then back down and it seems to have resolved the issue.

svachalek• 2 years ago

yes

tetromino_• 2 years ago

Same but here with Chrome on Android. I also get scrolling freezing in places so I am forced to reload the page (and then graphics disappear).

The article would have been vastly more readable if it was plain html with static embedded images and without any custom scroll/touch event handling - then one would easily be able to scroll around in it, search text, and view charts uncorrupted by javascript bugs.

I am sure the author is proud of their nytimes-like data visualization project, but in this case, the visualization makes the result in every way worse.

aidenn05• 2 years ago

They get points for linking to a video at least.

doctorpangloss• 2 years ago

The visualization will frequently incorrectly show something of the form:

    <--- False     True --->
    True True False False
    True True False False

pteraspidomorph• 2 years ago

I noticed this on Relatives died (thus far).

sweetbacon• 2 years ago

Yes I saw this on a few "screens" and it really confused me at first. They flashy visuals detract from the message in a variety of ways.

Breza• 2 years ago

I normally love the Pudding (getting a pitch accepted would be a high point in my career) but this one is hard to read. So many of the screens give you different colored groups whose sizes are hard to compare.

SuperHeavy2562• 2 years ago

Yeah I agree this was very confusing.

flanbiscuit• 2 years ago

I thought I just wasn't understanding the visualizations. Glad it wasn't just me.

It also wasn't very clear to me what I was supposed to be noticing in the visualizations that was related to whatever text was currently popped up. In the end I just watched the youtube video that was linked to at the very beginning and it made everything much clearer to me.

fillskills• 2 years ago

Saw in the "Parents Involved" section

poutrathor• 2 years ago

Also, the visualization let you think that all the leftmost teenagers are the same ones stacking the bad things. That might be true, but I doubt it is. The part around Highschool was especially unclear. Are they the same teenagers getting all the bad stuff. That would be plausible but not to the extend the visual displays I guess.

In other news, I hate that trend of scrolling to animate to get content.

sebstefan• 2 years ago

That's why you can see them run to one place or another

It's the same cohort of people all the way through and each little character moves according to the survey they filled out each year

phrotoma• 2 years ago

I stumbled across this on youtube last night and closed it halfway through when I realized the visualizations didn't make any sense. Clearly a lot of work went into this, how does something so confusing get made?

Almondsetat• 2 years ago

The page opens.

Title appears.

I start scrolling.

Nothing happens.

I scroll and I scroll but the page doesn't budge. I come to my senses: "aha, I get it! For the last few minutes I've been aimlessly scrolling in search of content and all the people around me in the train must have seen me do it with the same crooked posture and lifeless expression of a modern day teenager on their phone! This is me, the teenager! I have been the victim of a piece of performance art!"

Then I realized it simply doesn't work properly on my phone's Chrome...

HlessClaudesman• 2 years ago

The scrolling on Android was horrible, much like being a teenager.

Well done.

jpm_sd• 2 years ago

Oh, is that the issue with all of this scroll-jacking bullshit web design lately? I'm not using the Designer's Choice mobile platform, so my experience just sucks? NYTimes is one of the worst offenders.

RobCat27• 2 years ago

I like the message, but I feel like this is bad data visualization. The width of each group of people is not the same, so it's somewhat meaningless to visually compare groups without being able to see the raw percentages. For example, the "Many Adverse Experiences" group is stretched to be longer than the other groups so that proportionally fewer people in that group appear to be a larger proportion than the same proportion would be in other groups because they're not as wide.

unbalancedevh• 2 years ago

Also, the visualization doesn't update well when scrolling back and forth; and the grouping is bad -- "bullied" is listed as an adverse condition, but is also shown as a separate grouping; and the way it's displayed for "Seen someone shot with a gun" is backwards, implying that the vast majority have seen that. Too bad, because it otherwise seems like an interesting study.

candiodari• 2 years ago

Social sciences is not value-free. In reality the most important indicator of "at-risk" is previous involvement with social services and mental health professionals. Usually because these experiences tend to be so bad that the kids involved start to hide problems, or even attack anyone involved with social services. And THEN they get into a negative spiral. It is not the first time they get into a negative spiral, except now their experiences with mental help are so incredibly negative they fight to remain in the negative spiral, sometimes to the point of physical violence.

Likewise, these professionals hide that almost all experiences kids have with social services are negative for the kids. Now I suppose you could say the above is an example of that, but really, it goes further. Kids seek help with homework, and only get berated by someone that couldn't do the homework themselves ...

Studies keep pointing out that social services is exactly the wrong approach. What makes teachers, and social professionals good is excellent subject knowledge, combined with basic psychology. NOT the other way around. And in practice every mental help professional I've ever seen thinks they know what to do, and when pushed fail to produce even basic psychological facts, or outright deny them. I like to think you can explain this that when push comes to shove our minds are trying to solve problems in the real world.

The majority of mental problems are someone failing to solve real world problems, and repeatedly failing to influence the outcome. A little bit of psychology is needed to get them to try again ... and a LOT of knowledge of the real world is need to make sure the outcome is different.

bombcar• 2 years ago

It also seems backwards, unless I'm reading it wrong and 80% of high school kids see someone get shot ...

fnordlord• 2 years ago

I think you're reading it right. They have the color key correct but the key for which side is seen vs not seen is incorrect. It should be <--Seen someone shot ... Not seen someone shot-->

joshcsimmons• 2 years ago

Came here to say similar - making the page extremely wide helps a big by making the rows more similar but ideally consistent scale and number of rows should be maintained so we can see a column-to-column width comparison of the data points.

kadushka• 2 years ago

I agree that the visualization could be better, but it actually seems the differences between the three groups are not that large.

SoftTalker3• 2 years ago

I thought the visualization was awful. Prose and some (non-animated) charts would do a much better job, and suit scrolling/scanning back and forth much better.

TeMPOraL• 2 years ago

I'm torn. On the one hand, I agree with your remarks. On the other hand, I strongly appreciate the attention to detail in:

- Actually keeping individual datapoints all the time, clickable and with full details, and just moving them around to form different charts;

- Making the icons consistent with data - based on a few random instances I checked, the person's body shape and hairstyle correlated to biometric parameters in the data set.

themanmaran• 2 years ago

I think it's an easy fix to include both!

At the top of each section header (No adverse, Some adverse, ect.) they could include a section count + percentage of each category they're showing.

A_D_E_P_T4• 2 years ago

I don't even think that the message is likeable. "Oh no they don't go to college!" is schoolmarmish and patronizing. "College is for everyone!" and "you're not really an adult until you're 25!" have done an awful lot of societal harm.

mattzito• 2 years ago

As a college non-graduate, I think that is leveraging the strong data that for most people a college degree is a huge net benefit is reasonable.

As someone who was once <25, I think that version of me is stupid in a wide variety of ways. I hear you that it can be negative to divide things that way, but it seems reasonable to say “after you are either a non college graduate with a number of years of experience or a college graduate with ~2 years of post-college experience.

I hear you, though, it’s hard to sort people into buckets.

no-dr-onboard5• 2 years ago

The visualization is a good iteration on trying to get complex papers distilled into a digestible format. That was nice.

I'm not super sure how I feel about the message though as it operates on a handful of really big presumptions. I'll share my own bias to save everyone the tldr on where I'm coming from: I'm a parent advocate. I think the nuclear family is the backbone to society and that much, if not every, societal ill can be linked to the destruction of the nuclear family. Parents matter, and I agree with the general conclusion that we need to focus TREMENDOUS effort into raising children in a loving and safe way. If you are still reading, consider also that I'm a 3rd generation son of Mexican immigrants. I grew up in a lower economic class background in Los Angeles county during the 90s. I grew up shoulder to shoulder with many of the people included in this study.

The first is that it's somehow a bad thing not to go to college. The trades by now are a known lucrative path with significant upward mobility, especially as we consider entrepreneurship. This is, in my experience, hand in hand with a lot of cultural practices that just doesn't get captured in these types of sociological studies. I can personally attest to the increased risk tolerance that a lot of cultures have towards starting a business or joining a labor based trade. Food trucks, car washes, detailing services, maid services, laundromats, dry cleaning businesses, convenience market franchises. In the privacy of your own head, and without fear of judgement from your HN peers, I invite you to honestly consider the ethnicity of the people who own these businesses. See my point? The mobility is there. These aren't "bad" lives. They're different. These people also have different standards of living. Most people who are immigrants or 2nd to 3rd generation of those immigrants don't want a multi-hundred thousand dollar life. Just speaking from personal experience here, most lower class migrants see the prospect of making that much money in America as foreign and unsafe. Maybe this furthers the point that not everyone should or can be a doctor/lawyer/FAANG-engineer.

The second presumption is that "abuse" or "adverse experiences" is able to be categorized by the researcher's definition. Again, we're dealing with people of different cultures who have different standards for living. We're overlaying our own "refined" terminology of what constitutes "abuse" or "danger" to them and drawing conclusions. Worse yet, we're saying that those same conclusions are correlated to the conditions that they experienced, regardless of how they themselves would classify it.

"High risk" is a highly contestable term, especially as the diversity of subjects increases. Maybe it's a good thing that mom divorced the man who was never around. Maybe mom was sleeping around and dad found out? Maybe mom remarried because dad died. Either way, non-intact households are being labelled "high risk" in a general sense.

"Being held back" as a bad thing is contestable. Some kids fall in that weird Nov-December enrollment period and make it through by being the oldest kid in their class. This isn't typically a good thing. The threat of being held back a grade is also encouraging for those who take their schooling seriously. Should it ever happen, its a serious kick in the pants for kids to wake up and take this seriously.

"Suspension", again any type of school based discipline, is seen as a adverse event. Suspension protects the children of the school, it notifies the parents of the suspended that there is a __real__ problem with your child, and provides a significant deterrent from bad behavior. It's wild to me that anyone would think of suspension as a noteworthy heuristic for adverse experiences.

Thanks to anyone who made it this far, even those that will disagree.

NoMoreNicksLeft• 2 years ago

The second presumption is that "abuse" or "adverse experiences" is able to be categorized by the researcher's definition. Again, we're dealing with people of different cultures who have different standards for living. We're overlaying our own "refined" terminology of what constitutes "abuse" or "danger" to them and drawing conclusions. Worse yet, we're saying that those same conclusions are correlated to the conditions that they experienced, regardless of how they themselves would classify it.

I think in this case, it seems they did pretty well. They're not lumping in "people failed to use their pronouns" into it, but things like gun violence, violent crime, and bullying. Some kids might be made of tougher material and shrug that off better, but even for them if that's not an adverse experience, I don't know what could be. It seems like the researchers are using an appropriately conservative definition.

Maybe it's a good thing that mom divorced the man who was never around.

Yeh, but now we're confusing propaganda that was designed to encourage women to leave abusers for something of statistical significance about another matter entirely. If there are more men who would have made the kids' lives better than there are men so dangerous it's good they were separated from their children, then it doesn't matter that some are bad. The fact that the father has divorced and is out of the picture puts them at a higher risk of poor outcomes.

fragmede2• 2 years ago

Question one of the ACE test is

Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often… Swear at you, insult you, put you down, or humiliate you? or Act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt?

seems pretty clear to me, regardless of if something is considered okay in one culture but not in another, the question is was the experience humiliating, not did X happen, where X could be considered not humiliating in one culture and not in another.

bsimpson4• 2 years ago

I know that the author is trying to argue that minorities are at higher risk for bad outcomes, but it feels intellectually dishonest to use the same colors for white and rich, or black and poor. If white people can be poor and black people can be rich, you can't overload the color to reinforce your bias.

Plus, that whole section seemed to be sorted in an incoherent way.

jagthebeetle• 2 years ago

Agreed, not least because: - area-based visualizations make the effect hard to distinguish; bar charts or data clouds with numbers and confidence intervals would have been way more immediate. - the colors make the negative group (usually) more visually prominent, since it has higher contrast with the background, exacerbating the area-estimation problem. (e.g. me wondering, "are there more overweight pink people as a fraction of pink people?")

rrrrrrrrrrrryan• 2 years ago

It's an awful visualization.

I understand the motivation of trying to (literally) humanize the data points, but it would have been much more successful if there were vertical groupings as well as horizontal ones.

Right now it's 3 buckets + colors, but you could literally make it monochrome, make it an actual grid, then you could see which cells are completely empty, which is impactful.

gaws• 2 years ago

this is bad data visualization

This is usually the case for most stories published in The Pudding.

neom• 2 years ago

We really do love pudding.cool[1]- I'd never bothered to go look at what it's actually all about till today, and you should too if you've not, because it wasn't exactly as I expected: https://pudding.cool/about/ - these people seem great, we should probably support them. I noticed they have a Patreon if you're feeling generous[2].

[1]https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[2]https://www.patreon.com/thepudding

jonahx2• 2 years ago

Their mission statement is disingenuous, to say the least, and I sensed it as soon as I started the current post. Here is the mission statement, in bold, and in this form, great, I'd be all for it:

The Pudding explains ideas debated in culture with visual essays. We’re not chasing current events or clickbait.

Then we scroll down a bit and see that, in fact, they are not taking a fresh, objective look at issues, but are strongly committed to one side of the culture war, the progressive left:

"We believe in journalism that denounces false equivalence, one that can explicitly say Black Lives Matter"

"We strive for our journalism to be one of key making, not gate keeping, and we won't shy away from stories that tackle racism, sexism, and classism head on."

"We're a small group that operates as a collective rather than hierarchical team."

toomuchtodo4• 2 years ago

Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKv1Mixv0Hk

aidenn05• 2 years ago

Just clicking randomly shows a (to me) unexpectedly low age for first sex. If I understand right, the people in here were born in 1984, so they are younger than me (late Gen-X), and i keep hearing that Millennials are having less sex than all previous generations, but these numbers look on the young side. Sampling 11 across cohorts I got a median of 15, which is lower than I found for one all-generations measure I found[1]

[edit]

Finally got to the end where I can sort by various metrics and found a median of 17/16/15 for low/medium/high ACEs score, which is slightly closer to what I expected.

Also reading the "millennials are having less sex" articles, they mostly focus on people born in the early '90s, so the tail-end of millennials.

1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1802108/

michaelt• 2 years ago

i keep hearing that Millennials are having less sex than all previous generations

This article is about a longitudinal study; it follows "Alex" who was age 13 in 1997, i.e. born in 1984.

US teen birth rates have been falling a lot - 61 births per 1000 in 1991 fell to ~48 births per 1000 in 2002 (When Alex would have been 18) and continued falling to just 13.9 births per 1000 today according to https://www.statista.com/statistics/259518/birth-rate-among-...

You have probably heard reports that teenagers are having less sex today. The teen birth rate would seem to clearly show that. But "millenials" aren't teenagers any more, they're 30-40 year olds.

aidenn05• 2 years ago

Might be poor reporting, but it's not hard to find headlines like: Why millennials are having less sex than generation Xers[1]

1: https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/02/health/millennials-less-sex-t...

VyseofArcadia2• 2 years ago

Why are some statistics awkwardly phrased in terms of "per 1000", "per 10k", "per 100k", etc. when we have a perfectly good shorthand for that?

13.9 per 1000 is 1.39%.

Just to be clear, this is not directed at parent, because it is phrased that way on the web page they cited. I'm just hoping someone here has the answer.

karaterobot• 2 years ago

It's self-reported, and if someone's going to lie about this, it's more likely they'll give a younger age than an older age than reality.

zbentley2• 2 years ago

Why?

twelvechairs• 2 years ago

The animation is dominating the narrarive rather than assisting it. I (as many I assume) just want to skim the information and find myself stuck waiting for things to load or pathfinding algorithms to work. People keep flipping side to side needlessly also. Sometimes I'd just prefer flat 2d diagrams.

Hackbraten• 2 years ago

I can't believe I had to scroll down that far to find someone who had the same experience as I. Scrolling degenerated to 1 fps on an up-to-date Firefox. I didn't have a chance to follow the story.

jordanpg2• 2 years ago

"Don't feel like scrolling? Watch the video instead!"

Please add a TL;DR here as well. Some of us never want to watch the video instead.

davidcollantes• 2 years ago

Everything can't have a TL;DR. Well, it can, but it loses the essence, the meaning. I saw the animations, I read the text, I interacted with the page, and felt touched. I understood the message the author is trying to convey. I liked the execution.

Just as you, I don't like (much) watching videos.

jordanpg2• 2 years ago

Fair enough. I think I was just reacting to the "watch the video" suggestion which is a continuous source of irritation to me especially in the complicated video game word (e.g., Paradox games).

elil172• 2 years ago

Anyone else notice how those with the most adverse experiences were both more likely to be depressed and more likely to be happy "all of the time" for the past month?

Is this a flaw in the data? What is the causal explanation for this?

sour-taste• 2 years ago

When you see a friend or family member shot/experience drug use/other awful things maybe you stop taking for granted the things you have.

zeroonetwothree2• 2 years ago

it’s self reported data so it’s not super reliable

It could be people with more adverse experiences are less likely to take care in answering survey questions

elil172• 2 years ago

This doesn’t make sense to me because other questions seemed to follow the trends you’d expect.

markwj• 2 years ago

Challenges with emotional regulation was my first thought.

I imagine children who grow up in stable environments can better regulate their mood as they can return to a caring parent who will soothe them when they're emotionally dysregulated, compared to those in instable environments.

This might lead to the highs being higher and the lows being lower, a stretching of the bell curve.

imzadi• 2 years ago

I noticed that the no adverse group had very few people who said they were happy most of the time. I think this could come down to the weight of debt and maintaining a "stable" lifestyle. The more adverse effect group is probably generally lower income and less likely to have a lot of debt.

drawkward4• 2 years ago

Maybe high achievers can never get enough...whatever...to be content, and will always seek to define themselves not by looking at what they have, but by looking at what they don't have (yet).

visarga• 2 years ago

Apparently GPA distribution is less affected by adverse experiences. So doing college admissions based on GPA sounds more fair than affirmative action. Some people from disadvantaged groups also say they would rather be admitted on merit alone because it is more reliable in the long run, but they don't get this choice.

yonaguska• 2 years ago

Problem is, GPA is incredibly subjective across different schools, hence the need for standardized testing. Do you rank someone that has a 3.5 at a boarding school where they were taking college level math classes at Princeton as less qualified than someone that has a 4.0 at a school where half the students aren't literate?

drawkward4• 2 years ago

Agree. The place I went to HS had a 4.0 grading scale. There was no other high school in my town. Several towns over, their school district decided that AP classes should get weighted grades, putting me at a comparative disadvantage within the same curriculum.

aestetix• 2 years ago

I watched the video. Maybe I am not understanding the visuals, but it looked like the narrator's conclusions do not actually match the data. He is trying to make an argument that poor kids need extra help or they will have a rough life. But the data seems to show that over the last 20 years, people from all background types are likely to experience bad things.

Granted the last 20 years has been pretty awful, with 9/11, various wars, and other things. So I'm not really sure if I can take anything away from the video.

throwway1203854• 2 years ago

Yeah I saw the same thing in the shape of what was presented. The proportions are roughly the same in the visualization, it's just that most people had some or many adverse experiences. But what I see is that in my generation your home life didn't matter as much. I agree that we need to move as many kids as possible out of the "adverse experiences" category but I don't think this data supports that.

The last 20 years have been really really awful for everyone I went to school with.

deathanatos2• 2 years ago

The proportions are roughly the same in the visualization

They're not, though? E.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKv1Mixv0Hk&t=278s — note that the final bar is also shorter, so really you need to elongate it a bit in your mind (and compress the bar above it): the proportion of the "many adverse experiences" group is definite greater than the other two. (I wish they'd've just labelled the %'age on the screen, made the bar lengths equal — I have a lot of issues with the data visualization here, but none severe enough that they defeat the core point of the video.)

Edit: okay, I've counted the miniature people on this chart. For this specific example, they are: no adverse exp.: 7 aff, 109 total; some adversity: 16 aff, 239 total; many adverse exp.: 24 aff, 152 total. In percentages, that's "No adverse experiences" → 6.4% victims of crime, "Some adverse experiences" → 6.7% victims of crime, "Many adverse experiences" → 15.8%. The last group is more than double the other two. (The first two, in this example are equal; but the visualization also roughly shows that.)

deathanatos2• 2 years ago

First, … I don't think I dig the visualization done. These are essentially like bar-pie charts (whatever you call a bar, split into segments, each segment representing a % of a whole), but many of the "bars" are not of the same length, which makes visual comparison of the subsegments tricky.

But the data seems to show that over the last 20 years, people from all background types are likely to experience bad things.

But that adverse backgrounds are more likely to experience those things. Take "Happy person in the last month" at 2021 (the final outcome, essentially): the "many adverse experiences" group is unhappier. "General health" is the same. "Victim of crime" is the same. I think "Annual income" shows the same as the rest, but I think this is also the hardest graph to read.

I.e., it's not that people from all backgrounds aren't adversely affected by bad things, it's that people from adverse childhoods are disproportionately affected.

rahkiin• 2 years ago

whatever you call a bar, split into segments, each segment representing a % of a whole

A percentage stacked bar chart

codexb• 2 years ago

They even through in a non-sequitur jab at Trump for good measure. This is what happens when you use ideology to read and interpret data rather than the other way around.

vlz• 2 years ago

The following is the full passage. It has Trump's as well as other president‘s (Reagan, Clinton) quotes as evidence for a certain kind of responsibility rhetoric. I think it is neither non-sequitur nor ideological but judge for yourself:

It's 2015.
In one year, the US will elect Donald Trump as president – a man who constantly insults poor people and calls them "morons."
This generation grew up hearing presidents say similar things. Ronald Reagan said people go hungry because of "a lack of knowledge," and that people are homeless "by choice." Bill Clinton said "personal responsibility" is the way to overcome poverty. We grew up in a country where most people believed the top reason for poverty was drug abuse, and half of Americans blamed poor people for being poor.

(The article has links to the quotes.)

jtriangle2• 2 years ago

Also, weirdly, it seems that the years following Trump's election, the people in the group did better, made more money, etc. So I'm not clear on how presidents being demeaning to people is relevant. That's not to say it's alright for them to do so, just, seems like a strange interjection when everything else is talking about the data itself.

rlt• 2 years ago

Granted the last 20 years has been pretty awful, with 9/11, various wars, and other things.

Those are awful things, but I suspect they don’t affect kids in the same way that poverty and violence does.

moralestapia3• 2 years ago

(as others have said countless times)

Poverty fucks people up like no other thing, sometimes for life.

cm2012• 2 years ago

There's a pretty good, evidence backed system of childhood suffering, its an adverse childhood experience score. And yep its all about personal experiences.

liveoneggs3• 2 years ago

yeah agree.

I feel bad for Alex but it seemed like a pretty impressive percentage of people with very adverse childhoods ended up being happy. The graph didn't make it seem like his outcome was typical.

It also looked like the claimed racial disparity wasn't very pronounced?

Maybe the visualizations are just bad.

spyckie23• 2 years ago

Agreed, the visualizations don't sell the story.

If you actually take the percentage, it's like 30-50% more likely to have the worse outcome the worse your adverse background gets.

But on the chart, it's only like an extra line of kids. The absolute number increases don't look like much, but the percentage increase is very high. I think the authors could have done a much better job at highlighting that.

A_D_E_P_T4• 2 years ago

If you actually take the percentage, it's like 30-50% more likely to have the worse outcome the worse your adverse background gets.

I realize that this is a taboo subject, but how much of that is nature and how much is nurture?

Low IQ is associated with worse life outcomes, and it's not exactly a problem you can fix by throwing money and resources at it.

joshuahedlund• 2 years ago

Granted the last 20 years has been pretty awful, with 9/11, various wars, and other things.

This might be a side trail, but you can find at least as much awful - probably quite a bit more - in any previous 20 year period. (Iraq War? How about two world wars? Financial crisis... Great Depression? 9/11 and fear of terrorists? Cold war and fear of global annihilation? etc)

schnable• 2 years ago

Bingo. The time period of this study is pretty much the golden age of peace and stability worldwide.

moduspol• 2 years ago

That's kind of my takeaway. Nearly all of the visualizations did not show substantial differences between the groups. I was always surprised at how many kids with high numbers of adverse events were in the top group, and vice versa.

I feel like it also doesn't draw enough attention to perhaps one of the biggest factors: marriage, and its effect on one's choices.

It's quite possible I'm seeing a bunch of housewives with no income that had no adverse experiences, and they're making it look like adverse events aren't as impactful as they otherwise would be. Or maybe the data references household income, but then I'm looking at visualizations of little people that are more realistically representing a person AND whoever they're married to.

ericmcer3• 2 years ago

Kind of cool, but the conclusion was completely backwards.

The final line of the study was "So he is our collective responsibility. They all are.", but the entire study was about how the home environment affects your outcomes. I guess their conclusion is that if an individual does a bad job raising their kids, it is societies fault.

micromacrofoot7• 2 years ago

I think the idea is that "only support your family" harms everyone. The example, Alex, has 2 kids, works manual labor to earn poverty wages, and is depressed. Which one of the types of teen do you think his kids will be?

The common refrain is "then he shouldn't have had kids" but unless you're going to create an authoritarian state people will always have kids (and restricting kids went awfully for China anyway).

s1artibartfast8• 2 years ago

I think social and individual expectations are a big part of this. Why is Alex depressed? If they had 20k more a year, would they be happier, or just 2 steps ahead on and empty hedonistic treadmill. Alex now has a new mustang, but is still depressed and fails as a parent.

I think it would be interesting to see the relative impact of a 2 parent + low risk home vs income, and I think there is a lot lost when people assume every variable reduces to income.

What about Alex when they have low income, but a healthy home life? What about Alex when they have higher income, but a shit home life?

ericmcer3• 2 years ago

Convincing people that their problems are outside of their control and that the only way to solve them is to vote a certain way is also a form of authoritarianism. If you aren't to blame for your own life that implies you have no control over it.

jf222• 2 years ago

The point is that, as a society, we should do more to help kids who are having a rough time.

Another point is that if you're not thriving as an adult, it could be because of the experiences you had when you were a kid.

anon29112• 2 years ago

I honestly think that the sorts of experiences that break kids are things like parents breaking up, not 'not having the newest toy' or 'not going on vacation'. In the sense that material poverty can cause family stress, I completely agree. I fully support programs to feed kids, provide medical insurance, etc. I even support it for adults. I'm just not sure how any of that at the end of the day is going to fix daddy cheating. Unless you're suggesting a crackdown on prostitution and/or making adultery a crime again (in which case sure! as a social conservative, I'm down)... but good luck getting that passed today!

beepbooptheory2• 2 years ago

I guess I can see this conclusion if you start from a position that all families are nothing but isolated, self-interested atoms in the world. Rather than, you know, a part of society!

lagniappe• 2 years ago

The take-home for me was that as parents, or future parents, here are some things we can do to make the child have a greater chance at success. None of these are doorways to success, but they make it easier for success to happen with those conditions present, as well as the inverse.

gnramires2• 2 years ago

I think the core message is that a child's life is strongly determined by his family life/environment, it's not just a personal choice to succeed or to fail.

So if we want people to have better outcomes, we need to help better family lives/environments (and lives in general) to break the cycle, and not just give them basic education. Also, the family is just a group of individuals that probably themselves have come from poor conditions: this means there's hope of breaking the cycle.

renlo2• 2 years ago

Where in the data does it indicate that it's possible to "break the cycle"?

CryptoBanker• 2 years ago

There is a difference between fault and responsibility

burkaman• 2 years ago

Responsibility doesn't imply fault. For example we all have a collective responsibility to protect and improve our environment, even though none of us created it and none of us caused any of its problems.

SuperHeavy2562• 2 years ago

I think the conclusion is: Think about how you can help in reducing this problem

zaphar• 2 years ago

If a society has a trend line of poor home environments then I think the society is in some sense at fault for fostering poor home environments. This doesn't and shouldn't take away from the individual's responsibility for raising kids.

But home environments exist in a specific social context that effect how people think they should foster a good home environment. We've lost a lot of societal knowledge and experience around good family structures since probably the 60s. As a society we have definitely encouraged, especially the lower income bands, to outsource it to schools and institutions. That is going to have an effect.

sojsurf• 2 years ago

Under President Johnson, government funding began to incentivize single (predominantly black) mothers not to marry the father of their children. IMO this had disastrous effects on our urban centers. Before the social welfare solutions of the Johnson era, 25% of black children were born without two parents. Now the number is nearly 75%, and the effect on young men has been tragic, in a way that affects the whole community.

csours• 2 years ago

In health care, sometimes we help the body fix the problem, and sometimes we "just" treat symptoms.

It's ... probably not a good idea for the government to try to fix families. Any interventions must be very carefully considered.

But some of the symptoms can be helped out relatively easily.

---

I also think the author(s) may have a different perspective on responsibility, fault, and blame. I feel like blame is something that our minds do for us so we can stop thinking about a problem - to fix things you have to look past the blame.

koolba• 2 years ago

It's ... probably not a good idea for the government to try to fix families. Any interventions must be very carefully considered.

The government has been actively working to break families for years through economic policies that encourage single mothers to raise children on their own: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biggest-root-cause-of-crime...

webnrrd2k2• 2 years ago

I don't think that "fault", which I take as implying blame, had anything to do with the presentation. I interpreted it as very neutral in that respect. Maybe I'm misinterpreting it?

I do think it touches on how everyone is exposed to adverse outcomes, whatever category they are in. And I agree that it's a collective responsibility, although the presentation does a poor job of arguing the "collective responsibility" point.

dionidium3• 2 years ago

It also begs the question of nature vs. nurture. If researchers won't take this seriously, then nobody should take their findings seriously. It's almost impossible to untangle, "single-fatherhood leads to bad outcomes because kids need a father figure in the house" from, "single-fatherhood leads to worse outcomes because the type of person who would abandon their children is likely more impulsive and less conscientious than average and those traits are heritable."

jonahx2• 2 years ago

Fair point in theory and I'm not familiar with the literature, but I'd guess at least some researchers have studied ways of controlling for this: eg, looking at cases where father dies early and mother does not remarry, single mothers who adopt or do artificial insemination, etc.

qwery• 2 years ago

Maybe you missed some of the bits in the middle? Like how education is a greater boon to the people who can't afford it and that the cost of it has increased over time.

anon29112• 2 years ago

Yeah, I'm tired of being told that it's all our responsibility, but we get none of the agency. My mother was a teacher in the inner city. There were kids our whole family fell in love with, and frankly, my mother knew what was best for them, and for a few would have been willing to even take them in. But, alas, they had to go home to their abusive parent. I am in no way advocating for forced separation, but it's hard to experience these things first hand and then be told it's all our responsibility.

I mean.. I agree that we are responsible for each other. However, for other things in life I'm responsible for, like my car, my property, and even my government, I am given a direct say. Imagine if you were forced to take responsibility for a car, except you were never allowed to drive it and it was made freely available to every teenage boy at the local high school. What responsibility could you possible have? What does it even mean to say you're responsible for something you have no control over?

A good priest once told me in confession when I confessed feeling upset that I couldn't help the homeless, the destitute, etc, and he properly identified the problem was that there's only one Saviour and I'm not him. And I feel that sagacious advice is applicable here. What are we possibly to do in this situation other than the unthinkable?

Previous progressive movements have indeed advocated for the removal of children in bad environments, and indeed many of these 'worked', but they're highly criticized (rightly, I guess) today.

hot_gril2• 2 years ago

I can see it either way. They could've left the conclusion up to the viewer.

zer00eyz2• 2 years ago

>> He'll be bullied at school. He'll be held back a few grades. He won't go to college.

I dont even know where to start with this.

1. The whole anti bullying campaign that we now have two and a half decades of in schools has backfired spectacularly. This feels like "well DARE didn't work, we need to put this money somewhere else". We tell kids dont bully people, but if you defend yourself in a fight everyone gets suspended because of zero tolerance... it is obscene.

2. College? Really? We stripped schools of anything that was vocational, or practical. What happened to shop and home economics... and the computer labs that got many of us started are long gone. Meanwhile we're short on plumbers, welders and all sorts of middle skill jobs...

Note: that there are now middle skill jobs (trained professionals but not college) that not only make more than those with degrees, they will do better over the course of their life because they dont have massive debt.

Alex has a shitty home life, but we under fund public schools and then rob kids for college (and we dont need more college grads).

throwway1203854• 2 years ago

We stripped schools of anything that was vocational, or practical. What happened to shop and home economics... and the computer labs that got many of us started are long gone. Meanwhile we're short on plumbers, welders and all sorts of middle skill jobs...

I completely agree. The hollowing out of the education system in response to NCLB and the relentless drive for "data" and "standards" is why a lot of people no longer graduate from high school with any life skills.

Qwertious• 2 years ago

but if you defend yourself in a fight everyone gets suspended because of zero tolerance... it is obscene.

Zero tolerance, in it's current meaning, is stupid. But the original concept was great: if anything happens, then you respond to it. "Respond to it" including things like sitting down and talking about it, without necessarily issuing any punishments whatsoever.

edm0nd• 2 years ago

Who cares about zero tolerance rules tho, just simply ignore them on the parent and adult level. My nephew was getting bullied and we told him the kid bullying him was simply just mad at his own home life and to ignore him. We also told him that if the bully attacked him first, he has 100% the right to punch him back.

Well well well, the bully cornered him in the school bathroom and attacked him. My nephew punched him in the face. my nephew got made into a legend at school and got suspended.

Guess who doesn't get bullied anymore? Violence works.

ambrose2• 2 years ago

You can’t say that you can just not care about zero tolerance. I was the nephew in a similar story and was probably held back from membership in the National Honor Society because of the timing of the suspension, worsening my college applications.

riversflow• 2 years ago

that there are now middle skill jobs (trained professionals but not college) that not only make more than those with degrees, they will do better over the course of their life because they dont have massive debt.

I don’t believe this. My first and second hand experience is that sure, there are some people who work blue collar and get paid better than $DESKJOB, but those are typically from wealthy households that can help them financially so they can ascend to owner.

If you are poor and start working in the trades it’s the status quo to be completely taken advantage of with no real opportunities. Expect to end each day beat-up and exhausted, with very little energy to take care of yourself. This is the poverty trap.

Blue collar is chock full of sociopath owners who actively lie, exploit, steal from, and emotionally manipulate their employees.

chaorace• 2 years ago

I couldn't agree more regarding college education. Speaking as a member of the highschool graduating class of 2015, the pressure on every single child to go directly into college was insane. Even the mere act of telling an adult that you weren't interested in college could get you referred to a school counselor or called into an impromptu parent-teacher meeting. During my senior year, I was personally pulled out of class to discuss this topic on five separate occasions. I happened to be an unusually stubborn kid, but even I eventually caved and pre-enrolled at a local college.

Naturally, I almost immediately flunked out of the program. Who wouldn't quit something making them miserable when they didn't even want to do it in the first place? I was one of the lucky ones, actually... Many like-minded cohorts in my graduating class wasted years of time and money with nothing to show for it. They deserved adults who'd help pair them with the pathways that best suited their individual talents and risk tolerances -- not some blindly optimistic, cookiecutter college-for-all solution.

What about you, dear reader? Perhaps you're responsible for teenagers of your own... can you say with certainty that the adults in their lives have given them consistently honest and thorough conversations about the paths before them? I bet some parents would accuse me of being totally full of shit right about now... That's fine, I'm not some nostradomus bringing news of impending doom -- I only want the next generation to have things better than I did. If nothing else, it doesn't hurt to entertain the idea, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITwNiZ_j_24

VirusNewbie• 2 years ago

but we under fund public schools

Isn't the US in the top of funding per student? I think if anything we over fund public schools.

zer00eyz2• 2 years ago

By what metric?

Teacher Pay?

Class room size?

Hours of education?

We may WASTE more money on students than other countries but in these metrics were behind and our below average everything makes that apparent.

xkcd1963• 2 years ago

Hey! Teacher! Leave the kids alone!

moralestapia3• 2 years ago

Great site. However, I think there's much more interesting things one could visualize from the same dataset.

I'll go out on a limb (these days?) and say that nothing is more influential when growing up than what your parents teach you. That alone transcends all other negative/positive effects considered (health, income, "have you seen someone getting shot", ...).

I see the study does account for parents present or not but I would've liked to read a similar story in which this is the categorical control.

The other one "classic" correlation of interest is race vs. all the other variables, but I can understand why they didn't want to initiate yet another flamewar.

Dig1t• 2 years ago

But in 2022, the average cost for first-time college students living in campus was $36,000 – nearly $10,000 higher than a decade prior. It's made college inaccessible for kids who need it most.

College kids do not need to live on campus, most people in this country live within commuting distance of a community college or university. It may not be a top rated university, but it will always be one that teaches skills kids need to build a life. You do not NEED to pay anywhere near $36,000 for college, and stating it as a necessity is misleading. The point that the author misses is that the subject, Alex, would have easily qualified for free tuition at his local community college or university, and most likely a scholarship or grant would have paid his living expenses while attending as well, based solely on his economic and ethnic background and not his grades. The only missing piece was someone to tell him how to do it, or someone to encourage him to do it. This is generally what people mean when they say that poor people lack the knowledge to get themselves out of poverty.

Over the last few years, his annual income was around $20,000. He has struggled with his weight for much of his adult life, and it affects his overall health.

It is worth noting that the poorest in the USA struggle with eating too much, not too little. This is at least a silver lining that we should not ignore. Many countries in the world, poor people are starving.

In one year, the US will elect Donald Trump as president – a man who constantly insults poor people and calls them "morons."

As part of this paragraph, the author links to an extremely partisan article which does not even try to hide its bias. It quotes something that Donald Trump said back in a 1999 interview. I don't love Trump and wouldn't vote for him, but I think the author's point about him is stretched quite a bit and was unnecessary for the overall point he's trying to make.

In the end, the main takeaway from this article seems to me to be that you can justify any bad decisions or bad outcomes in your life by blaming your childhood trauma. With such a worldview how can one ever better themselves? It seems such a self-defeating way to look at things, if you never blame yourself for your bad decisions how can you ever learn how to make better decisions?

I know that if I personally lived my life blaming my childhood trauma for problems I've had, that I would still be poor to this day.

beepbooptheory2• 2 years ago

This is wonderful in a lot of ways but also seems to be designed to annoy HN specifically. With its somewhat, um, adventurous choices in data visualization combined with an overall conceit that poverty is harmful and kids are not the ones to blame... It's like a dangerous cocktail. I could read this thread in my head probably!

zuminator• 2 years ago

The color scheme is terrible. Salmon, plum, light purple, medium purple, dark purple, and grey?

tomvalorsa• 2 years ago

In case the author swings by - I think the presentation of this is really cool. The sprites bring it to life as they hurry around the screen! The way Alex bookends the walkthrough of the data is clever as well, and I felt the return to him at the end was quite evocative. Nice work!

Cockbrand• 2 years ago

For a different approach on the socio-economic background's influence on growing up (and eventually growing old), check out the very interesting "Up Series" [0].

It's a British documentary series that starts out with interviews with kids at age 7 from different backgrounds, and then interviews the same group of people every 7 years (14 Up, 21 Up, you get the idea). They've come to "63 Up" so far.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_(film_series)

thefourthchime• 2 years ago

I agree, fantastic series

readams• 2 years ago

One thing that jumps out is that being held back in school is one of the "adverse experiences" that will cause poor performance later. But of course being held back in school is what happens when your school performance is poor, so this seems backward. All of these things just seem to be proxies for "your parents are rich".

zbentley2• 2 years ago

being held back in school is what happens when your school performance is poor, so this seems backward

Why is that backward? Couldn't they be mutually affecting factors a la the failures of "No Child Left Behind"'s penalty system (as in: ACEs damage school performance, leading to risk of being held back a year, which risks additional ACEs)?

All of these things just seem to be proxies for "your parents are rich".

If that is indeed a strong correlation, then that would be valuable insight gained from this study, I think.

Clubber3• 2 years ago

All of these things just seem to be proxies for "your parents are rich".

  1. You have good parents (attentive/loving/encouraging/supportive/available).
  2. You have access to a good education.

Those seem to be the big differentiators in my experience. Rich people typically have #2, so that's 1 of 2 right out of the gate.

kulahan4• 2 years ago

Having a lot of money and having loving parents are not related in any way I can tell. Maybe they’re less likely to fight with each other in a money-based scenario, which is probably better for the kid.

Education makes a bit more sense since it’s at least easy to buy your way into a better education.

albert_e• 2 years ago

Visualization was confusing and I don't think the narrative matches the data being shown. Differences between groups were way less dramatic in the visuals than the narration suggests. The differences could just be statistical noise for all we know.

breakfastduck• 2 years ago

Every single one I clicked on said they weren't in college or work. Is it bugged?

pie_flavor• 2 years ago

The data visualization is fun, but the conclusion has exactly the same problem as the studies it links to: it's an analysis of a previous survey, with no experimental interventions, and as such is only measuring a correlation, with the causality being an asspull. In reality, every idealistic explanation of why these things happen gets shot down by RCTs or twin studies.

tux1968• 2 years ago

It sure appeared that on a percentage basis, the difference in outcomes between the 3 identified groups, wasn't that significant. Or maybe it was just a poor visualization of the data.

alex_lav• 2 years ago

Crashes my browser.

nailer• 2 years ago

Watching the video And looking at the visualisation rather than the voiceover, I’m surprised that having more adverse experiences in childhood doesn’t have A more significant effect on the adults.

sethammons• 2 years ago

you can find out your ACE score online easily. It is 10 questions. A lot of folks commenting are getting stuck on poverty. Even folks in higher socioeconomic categories can have high ACE scores; poverty is only part of an ACE score. What is wild is the relationship to health as it ties to ACE scores.

I found a lot of value reading The Deepest Well by Dr. Burke Harris. She notices that some of her patients are having strange health issues and then she realizes that these strange health issues can be tied to their ACE scores. Issues include epigenetic changes and immune system dysfunctions among many others. She advocates for early ACE screening to help address issues as early as possible.

erquhart• 2 years ago

College isn't just a place that teaches you how to do a job; it's also a safe, structured, and productive environment for people to continue growing up – and to fend off adulthood for a bit.

This is actually a problem.

in developed countries, there is an era between ages 18 and 25 when we collectively agree to let people explore the world and figure out what role they want to have in it. He calls it "emerging adulthood". And college is an environment built for emerging adults – a place where kids can leave their family environment and finally have a chance to independently shape their futures.

This is a wholly inaccurate description of college.

andruby• 2 years ago

Would you care to expand a bit more of what your experience was like or your perception?

Why is the first statement a problem?

(not trying to be confrontational, just would like to know more)

manc_lad• 2 years ago

it was my experience of college. many I know would agree, and few would agree with you. I'm sure there are some that didn't feel this way, but strange sweeping statement to make.

xandrius• 2 years ago

It might be me not getting it but all the charts seemed to have roughly the same percentage of people across the different types, given some small wiggle room.

It was never an obvious impact.

Am I getting it wrong or is it a tiny change that statistically is significant at huge scales of population?

oglop• 2 years ago

“Ultimately, initial conditions matter”

Whoa. Mind blown. Worth the infinite scroll and meandering presentation.

Condescending and pearl clutching read. I used the military to escape. Life’s tough, navel gazing and pushing college doesn’t help in the vast majority of cases. Everyone has adverse things happen, but not everyone makes the choice to start finding solutions.

sublimefire• 2 years ago

Great point, getting away is an important step when you are stuck in an environment that causes more harm to you than good. I think one of the related issues is that it is difficult to get away when you are 14 or similar.

10xDev2• 2 years ago

Everything is a matter of probability. Resorting to survivorship bias even if that includes yourself is just spitting in the face of statistics.

fsckboy• 2 years ago

Hono - [炎] means flame in Japanese

oh, cool! that must mean, because of all those volcanos, that Honolulu means...

From Hawaiian Honolulu, from hono (“bay, harbor”), cognate with Maori whanga, + lulu (“shelter”), from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian duŋduŋ (“sheltered”).*

ok, nope. "fire shelter" would have been pretty cool tho.

dimgl• 2 years ago

Is it just me or does this visualization show that things aren't actually that bad? And that adverse experiences don't have that much of an impact on outcomes?

TheEggMan• 2 years ago

They should show the crime the person will commit. Some interesting data on that found on FBI.gov

nahikoa• 2 years ago

I don't want to be that guy, here's a nice summary of what you missed, since the creator is so inconsiderate when it comes to accessibility:

The video introduces us to Alex, a 13-year-old in 1997, who is Hispanic and living with his dad and stepmom. At this point in his life, Alex's family has a net worth of just $2,000, and his parents are not particularly supportive or involved in his life. Despite these challenges, Alex expresses a sense of optimism about his future. This optimism is shared by many teenagers, as evidenced by a survey from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which includes 9,000 participants followed from their adolescent years into adulthood.

The video then shifts to highlight the importance of childhood experiences, as research by Vincent Fidi published in 1998 would later reveal. This research indicates that traumatic and stressful events during childhood can have profound, lifelong effects on an individual's health, relationships, financial security, and overall well-being. The video follows 400 of these survey participants, focusing on those with uninvolved parents, those who have been bullied, and those growing up in risky home environments. It tracks adverse experiences such as parental drug use, being held back or suspended from school, and witnessing violence.

By 2001, the participants are in their senior year of high school. The video examines the adverse experiences these students have faced, noting that Black and Hispanic youths are disproportionately represented among those who have experienced multiple negative events. These experiences often correlate with academic performance; students who face more adversity tend to struggle more in the classroom. The video also introduces the concept of "emerging adulthood" as a period between childhood and adulthood, during which college can provide a supportive environment for young adults to navigate this transition.

By 2010, some participants have completed a four-year college degree, with a clear trend showing that those who had fewer adverse experiences in childhood are more likely to have attended college. The video also highlights the financial struggles of those from less privileged backgrounds, many of whom are still grappling with the economic implications of their challenging upbringings.

In 2021, the long-term impact of childhood adversity is starkly evident. The participants' life outcomes, including income levels, health issues, and overall happiness, show a direct correlation with the adverse experiences they faced as children. Alex, whose story we have followed, is now 37 years old, living with his partner and two kids. He has struggled with his weight and health throughout his adult life, and his annual income remains around $20,000. The video concludes by emphasizing that the circumstances of our youth significantly shape our lives and that systemic factors play a significant role in individual outcomes. It calls into question the blame placed on individuals for their life circumstances and suggests that the collective responsibility to support young people is essential for breaking cycles of adversity.

engineer_22• 2 years ago

Its confusing and hard to make comparisons when the length of the rows is different for each group. It seems disingenuous.

Cool website though, kudos to the author.

LeroyRaz• 2 years ago

The visualization works poorly on my phone, basically unusable.

jovial_cavalier• 2 years ago

Yeah, lots of people are traumatized. Lots of people have seen close friends or family members get killed... some have been sexually exploited... I'm not sure the answer is for them to get a degree in communications.

And furthermore, what actually is stopping them from getting a college degree if they so choose? The price. What is driving up the price?

renewiltord• 2 years ago

It's hard to take the Western world seriously. There was a guy on Reddit who lamented how so many Americans live in their cars, unlike Indians or Chinese. The 15th percentile in India puts one at 10k INR / year apparently and this constant woe and gloom in the US does not have a counterpart.

It would seem that some degree of thriving requires striving. The median person here has an iPhone - a luxury device. Here, the cultural belief is that if some other guy is richer than you, he cheated his way there. And you should steal from him. And the relentless woe is me whining about normal life.

"We were the first generation who had to live through 9/11 and a pandemic and the global financial crisis!"

Bro, in the '90s India was testing nuclear weapons and Pakistan had them and the possibility that two nuclear armed nations would go to war was real. There were massive genocides. The Gulf War. The President was impeached. The Unabomber. The LA Riots. In the '80, the AIDS pandemic was getting known and it wouldn't be handled for 30 years! It was a shadowy figure. Challenger blew up. Lockerbie bombing. The Iran-Iraq War. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan. The UK fought the Argentines in the Falklands. The French blew up the Rainbow Warrior. This is what normal life looks like. Things happen.

The number one thing that has come out of the modern Internet is this whiny brigade of losers who want to blame everything in the world for their problems. The majority of Americans are actually happy with their own lives. It's these few loud whiners. No, dude, 9/11 isn't why you can't get a girlfriend. Get a grip.

10xDev2• 2 years ago

Top comment: "I volunteer in a local school."

Bottom comment: "Get a grip!"

Two kinds of people...

swader999• 2 years ago

Study is great and all but how would it work when corrupted by an event like the pandemic lockdown.

cruffle_duffle• 2 years ago

It won't look good, I'll tell you that much. Society hysterical reaction to covid did kids dirty.

fourseventy• 2 years ago

I don't like the victim mentality of the message.

drawkward4• 2 years ago

Yea, those kids who were born into crappy situations should just get out of those crappy situations! Dumb victims.

slowhadoken• 2 years ago

Poverty and abuse is a cloud that very few people can see through. Normal people try to help but often make it worse.

samatman• 2 years ago

Everything this is based on is subject to absolutely massive genetic confounds.

How you're raised is who your parents are, except for when it isn't.

Which is why we have adoption studies. Which strongly indicate that it's who your parents are, not how you're raised, which is more determinative of outcomes. Is it a mixture of factor? Yes, but the dominant component is clear. A study like this focuses on the minor component and presumes that it's causal. That is unlikely to be the case.

gymbeaux2• 2 years ago

This should be the measure of our country, rather than the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Incidentally, rehabilitating these traumatized kids-turned-adults would probably have profound positive impacts on the economy (since that's all Jamie Dimon and friends care about).

kypro• 2 years ago

Not disagreeing with your point that economic metrics often held too highly above others, but Jamie Dimon has commented a lot on the need to tackle inequality. Even if he's doing so for ulterior reasons, I feel like this is an uncharitable representation of his views.

worik• 2 years ago

Jamie Dimon has commented a lot on the need to tackle inequality.

Good

Let's put him on the BBQ

gymbeaux2• 2 years ago

Talk is cheap

sxg• 2 years ago

This should be the measure of our country

The most important thing about a metric is that we all agree on how to interpret it. While money may not measure exactly the right thing, we can all agree that $50 is $50 regardless of our age, race, gender, upbringing, etc. Take a look at the other comments on this thread. There's hardly any consensus on what this visualization shows. If this was how we measured our country, we'd get nowhere because there's no agreement on what this data means or what to do about it.

sireat• 2 years ago

I couldn't really understand the annual income being so low on the about 20 persons I clicked on.

It was between $50 to $1700 annually. Was that the income when they were 13 years old?

imacomputertoo• 2 years ago

The conclusion of this data presentation is that so of these people are our collective responsibility, and I just wasn't convinced. I wish they had shown percentages with the visualization. They choose not to.

I was underwhelmed by some points that seemed like they should have been more shocking. Look at the huge number of people in the many adverse experiences category who made it to college, and make a high salary. that was shocking! and look at the people who had no adverse experiences and still managed to end up poor. how does that happen?

I was left with the impression that if the government threw a lot of resources at it we might be able to move a noticeable percentage of those people in a better direction, but not most of them.

The questions that remain are, how many people's lives could we improve and by how much? And, critically, how much are we willing to collectively sacrifice to move that percentage of people in a positive direction?

theicfire• 2 years ago

I had very similar takeaways, you said it well!

tomrod• 2 years ago

This highlights what Judea Pearl's causal framework gets at: Pr(Y|X) versus Pr(Y|do(X)), where we can set early.

Causality isn't easy to establish. Correlation is insufficient.

Note, too, I am unfamiliar with the literature cited by the Infoanimatedgraphic.

colonelpopcorn• 2 years ago

You have to balk when anyone says that anybody is the same person they were 24 years ago.

erikerikson2• 2 years ago

You have to disbelieve anyone who says they aren't a derivation of their previous person states. That's just physics.

jf222• 2 years ago

A big part of what makes a person is their unique collection of experiences.

You can be the same person but different because of those experiences.

richardlblair7• 2 years ago

It's hard to look at visualizations like this and reflect on the experiences of the individuals living through hardship. Even those who 'make it out' may struggle in ways not fully captured in the data or this visualization.

I grew up in a 'high risk environment', and experienced all the adverse experiences with the exception of gun violence (yay Canada). I'm one of the few that 'made it out'. Many of my childhood friends are dead (usually overdoses), suffer from substance abuse, or are still stuck in the poverty cycle (on average it takes 7 generation to break the cycle).

I look at this visualization and I can feel, to my core, what these folks feel. Even for those that 'made it out', I feel for them. I struggle with my mental health, I've had to actively reparent myself, and I feel pretty lonely. Many of the people I'm surrounded by don't know what it feels like to carry all the weight from your childhood.

I do agree that the government shouldn't just throw resources at the problem. There are some things the government can do, though.

1. Teach conflict resolution skills to young children. This mitigates adverse experiences and prepares the children for adulthood (especially if they 'make it out')

2. Address addiction as a health problem and not a criminal problem. Children don't need to see their parents as criminals, they need to witness them get better.

3. Reduce the burden of poverty. For instance, the poorer you are the further you have to travel to the grocery store. The people who often don't have the means to easily travel for food have to travel for food.

4. Access to education. The people I grew up around who have found success did so because our schools were really well equipped.

You'll notice I didn't list access to support systems. Honestly, they are kind of useless. As a child you understand that if you open up about your experience there is a solid chance your parents will get in trouble or you'll be removed from your home. No child wants this. You end up holding it all in because you can't trust adults.

These are just some of my thoughts. Definitely not comprehensive, I could ramble on about this for ages.

(edit - formatting)

anon29112• 2 years ago

Unfortunately a solid number of these things would rely on the moral equivalent of slavery.

Reduce the burden of poverty. For instance, the poorer you are the further you have to travel to the grocery store. The people who often don't have the means to easily travel for food have to travel for food.

No one wants to work in these neighborhoods because they are invariably awful. At some point the risk of an employee being murdered / assaulted means stores close down.

There's no good answer for this, other than to keep doing what we're doing. Our current economic system has consistently lifted large numbers of people out of poverty historically, and is still doing it today. We should at least give it a go for seven more generations.

That's not to say we should do nothing, but large overhauls seem uncalled for given the data.

jtriangle2• 2 years ago

Not to mention, if you rat on your parents and get yanked into a group home, your experience is very likely the same or worse as it would be at home, and growing up, you know kids who this happened to and more or less have proof as to why you don't talk about it. I certainly saw this happen to people I knew, one of them lived with us for awhile and my folks arranged for her to live with a relative, which allowed them to really make it in life instead of being stuck in the system. Weirdly, after some initial trouble that looked impossible to overcome, it was very simple to get them placed into our home, and, very simple to get them in with a relative. Most of that was the workings of the social worker assigned to them, who was hard to reach out to, and very clearly over worked.

Basically, there has to be a better intervention than just taking people's children away, which certainly keys into your points.

I'd take it further to the point where, the poverty line is re-evaluated per locality, and inflation needs to be accurately reported, and with it the tax brackets as required by law. Then we need to dump the tax burden completely off the lowest earners, along with their requirement to file taxes at all. Then, we need to re-evaluate the bottom tiers to ramp in slowly to help eliminate welfare traps. It'd probably be a good idea, additionally, to no longer tax things like unemployment/workmen's comp/disability/social security/etc, for similar reasons. Reporting taxes itself is a burden all its own, and it negatively affects people who already struggle with math.

Also, something that isn't currently done, and certainly should be done, is to create interactions between the kids who have poor situations with the kids that have good situations. My elementary school had a 'buddy' program, where the older kids would hang out in a structured way with the younger kids. I think it'd go a long way in terms of support to have a system where kids from the good side of town interact with kids from the bad side of town in that way, and to make it a K-12 program. You additionally get the side product of the kids who have better situations being able to socialize with, and therefore have empathy for, kids in bad situations, and real empathy at that, not "spend some more tax money" empathy, actual boots on the ground empathy, person to person.

nurple2• 2 years ago

I'm 2 generations from immigrants on one side, 2 from pioneers and 1 from blue-collared work on the other. I wish more people could empathize with those who struggle within poverty as it is an incredibly hard row to hoe, not just physically, but also mentally.

I think a lot of people take for granted what an impact a small amount of money, or the lack thereof, has on a person's ability to thrive and contribute to their community, and how much its impact on a person's mental health contributes to hopelessness and often ultimately substance abuse.

I do like your thoughts on things the government could change. Frankly, though, I actually think they know these things but have perverse incentives to keep the population stratified. This country would financially crumble without the abuse of those in poverty for every one of those 7 generations, if not more.

I think managing this pool of exploitable resources is actually a primary component of most govs immigration strategies.

no-dr-onboard5• 2 years ago

Teach conflict resolution skills to young children.

This is pretty huge. A lot of my experience growing up in California during the 90s was "tell an adult" and "zero tolerance" coming down from school administrators. This is useful at a very young age, but it neglects to equip the children with agency for when the adults aren't around. You can't tell an adult when you're on the school bus and conflict breaks out. You can't tell an adult when you're out on a soccer trip and people are getting rowdy in the locker room. The bystander effect is very strong in school aged children because we neglect to introduce them to their inherent agency in conflict.

There is also a degree of antifragility that parents could teach as well. Your emotions aren't reality. What people say about you isn't either. Again, these should come from parents.

fyrepuffs• 2 years ago

That's because Canada has safety nets for people. They have affordable healthcare and places to turn to if you're out of work and need assistance. It's because Canada is a compassionate society. It doesn't take this down right mean attitude of a "f-u" you're poor because it's your fault.

bccdee13• 2 years ago

I'd love it if the government would throw resources at the problem, though. People act as if we're already flushing huge amounts of cash down the toilet of socialized benefits, but the fact is that the government has been extremely laissez-faire for decades. The midcentury boom was characterized by extensive intervention and public spending. There are much worse ways combat poverty than simply giving people public works jobs building the houses they need. Even direct cash transfers massively reduce the burden of poverty.

__MatrixMan__5• 2 years ago

Whether it counts as a collective sacrifice would sort of depend how it balances against the benefits of living among a population with a lower desparate/safe ratio. It may well be a collective investment instead.

skrbjc• 2 years ago

The argument of the data seems to say we should put resources towards those with more adverse experiences in childhood.

But I wonder, if you were optimizing for improving more people's lives in a more meaningful way with limited funds, would you come to the conclusion that you could do so by focusing on improving the lives of those in the no adverse experiences group because you might be able to get more "life improvement units" per dollar?

Most think resources should be targeted towards groups that "deserve it more" because they are "worse off", but it's interesting to think if your goal is to create more happiness or whatever per dollar, maybe the discussion would lead us to investing in groups that are not on the proverbial "bottom"

12907835202• 2 years ago

If you haven't already look up John Rawls he's probably the most famous person who has argued for helping the worst off.

Of course reading his books would be the best source but for now here's a link: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/#JusFaiJusWitLibSoc

bumby2• 2 years ago

Most think resources should be targeted towards groups that "deserve it more" because they are "worse off"

I believe there is behavioral game theory research that shows we are hard-wired for "fairness", even at the expense of a more optimal solution. E.g., Two subjects are given $100 to split and one was allowed to determine the split and the other the choice to accept it or both would go with nothing. A "$90/$10" split would often be rejected, even though the decider is giving up $10 and instead choosing nothing because of a sense of being slighted.

gowld5• 2 years ago

It depends entirely on how you define utility.

Making rich people happier makes me more unhappy that it makes them more happy, so by your calculus it's not worth helping them.

See how quickly this line of reasoning runs aground?

wiz21c• 2 years ago

I'm really surprised that you consider it a "sacrifice" to help others. Because when "others" are doing well, I'm doing better too.

Give a job or a good life to anybody and you'll see, they'll just be better. Most of the poor/unemployed people are not like that because they choose to but because they had more hurdles to pass and ultimately were more at risk to fail. And it's not because some made it that it proves that the others should have made it too (survivor bias)...

richardlblair7• 2 years ago

I fully agree. OP also ignores the compounded returns. If you lift a person out of poverty you immediately set their children up for better outcomes.

thegrim33• 2 years ago

You're just being obtuse. The topic is about spending resources in an attempt to achieve a goal. You can't just say "whatever we spend just makes people's lives better so it's worth it". There's a very real cost involved, and a very real effectiveness of spending that cost.

To put it to extremes as an example, if we're spending $1 per person to give them a 99% chance of living a better life, that's a much different situation than if we're spending $1 million per person to give them a 1% chance of living a better life. That million dollars per person could have otherwise funded countless other programs which may have had a better positive affect on the population. You can't just say "well others are doing better when we spend that money so it's worth it" with no other thought given.

willmadden2• 2 years ago

Interesting. Would you agree that not everyone is the same? How about that not everyone is a "good person" by nature?

anon29112• 2 years ago

I dunno as someone who grew up with relatives who have been trapped in these cycles, I do think some of it is a choice. I realize people are affected by all kinds of things, but when things are given to you and you have no interest, it's hard to see that as anything but what it is.

But of course, it's important to help people who are down; but being poor does not absolve you of all self responsibility.

constantcrying3• 2 years ago

Why? State funded social programs are funded by taxes, I pay money so these programs exist. How would I feel better in any way? I certainly do not.

Give a job or a good life to anybod

This is beyond the capacity of almost all people. I don't even have any idea what you are thinking of.

Most of the poor/unemployed people are not like that because they choose to

Simply not true. Being willing, but unable to work is extremely rare. They just do not like the work they would have to do, which I don't begrudge them for I wouldn't do that work either if the state was paying my rent and my food. But pretending that somehow they can't do basic jobs is simply nonsense.

ClumsyPilot3• 2 years ago

how much are we willing to collectively sacrifice to move that percentage of people in a positive direction?

Thats the wrong question -

How many adolescents and citizens of the future are we willing to sacrifice for our comfort today.

It will come back to byte us in the ass, condemn adolescents to life of poverty today, and get lost productivity, crime and political instability.

Push it far enough and get French Revolution

hammock• 2 years ago

The conclusion of this data presentation is that so of these people are our collective responsibility, and I just wasn't convinced.

That conclusion came out of left field for me. He started off saying these certain adverse events affect you in adulthood. So the logical conclusion would be:

Be involved parents, give your kids a quiet place to study, don't have a drug problem as a parent, don't tolerate bullying, don't let your kid fall behind and be held back in school, don't let your kid do things that will get him suspended, don't shoot people in front of kids.

The vast majority of these are about good parenting. I would not describe that as a "collective responsibility," though, rather an individual civic duty.

Ntrails• 2 years ago

We have largely moved away from anything so crass as holding parents responsible

James_K13• 2 years ago

Exactly, and I've always said the same thing about murderers. Why should we pay for police to catch murderers when the murderers could just not murder? This seems like a matter of individual, rather than collective responsibility. If they don't murder, it is better for us, better for them, and better for their victims. Why should we have to protect the victims of murderers when murderers could simply not kill people?

Without the sarcasm now, the victims of bad parents are no different than the victims of any other crime. Yes, it may be the parents' fault that their child has a bad life just as it is a murderer's fault that his victims die, but that hardly justifies it happening. A child cannot choose their parents any more than you can choose not to be the victim of a crime. It seems obvious to me that, as a society, we should protect the vulnerable from those who might harm them.

nurple2• 2 years ago

Do you realize that having the time and resources for those things is a privilege that many in poverty don't have?

Glyptodon3• 2 years ago

I do think the trend towards single parent and dual income homes makes all these things harder for parents. Clearly standard of living issues from lack of real income growth effectively filter down through parents into more of these adverse events.

ransom15382• 2 years ago

I took these types of surveys in junior high. All my friends did heroin and were prostitutes. (it was funny). I wouldn't trust a survey like that more than toilet paper and tea leaves. The truly horrifying thing is adults thinking the data is real and making decisions.

jeppester• 2 years ago

How would you interpret the results then? That there's a correlation between lying in the survey and doing worse in life?

wyre5• 2 years ago

This isn’t a jr high survey. This is a study of select individuals over decades.

computerdork• 2 years ago

Yeah, agree with you that if they used percentages - it would have been much easier to see - disagree with you about what their data is implying. Think it clearly shows that those with less adverse experiences have more success in life.

Took another look at their data visualizations, and yeah, look at 2013, for the people with no adverse experiences, it looks like at least 40% make $45k more, while those with multiple adverse experiences it looks something like 15%.

And, in 2021, it's harder to see (because looks like people's income rises as they get older), but it looks like for no-adverse experiences, good 50% are making over $60k, while maybe 30% for multiple adverse experiences.

... and actually, do agree with one aspect, it is interesting that the older they get, the less the differences in income and other life attributes are. Maybe it just means that for people who had difficult childhoods, it takes more time to get past all the early obstacles, and live a more stable life.

maxerickson4• 2 years ago

And, critically, how much are we willing to collectively sacrifice to move that percentage of people in a positive direction?

This begs the question, at least to some extent. A big lesson of modern economics is that lots of things are win-win.

For example, if you could eliminate years spent in prison by spending more on K-12 education, that looks like a big sacrifice if you don't have the prison counterfactual to compare to, but it's potentially the cheaper path.

lazyasciiart4• 2 years ago

There are lots of interventions that show massive returns on investment in social welfare: a recent one has been extended availability of support for teenagers aging out of foster care, that takes their outcomes from something like "percentage who have become homeless within one year of their 18th birthday" from 70% down to 30%, and similar for arrest records and pregnancy among girls.

But, sadly, many people feel morally injured by spending money to proactively help adults who should be eating their own boots or whatever, and so it is less of a sacrifice to spend 5 times the money on jailing them instead.

perfectritone• 2 years ago

Unfortunately it's not all economics. The prison system in the US exerts its power on the population using fear. The goal is to have a certain amount of people in prison, not to save money by getting them out. There are myriad ways to achieve reducing the prison population if that was the goal.

AndrewKemendo2• 2 years ago

The person in the story might has well have been me

- I repeated 7th grade

- Was suspended Multiple times

- Lived in 11 different houses

- Lived with a teacher for two months

- Good friend murdered

- Mom of good friend murdered by their Father

- Gnarly parents divorce with police etc regularly

I joined the AF because I read a book about John Boyd and figured I could pursue technology that I saw in the movies so I got out

What could the govt have done? The question is incoherent.

Are they going to make my toxic narcissistic parents stop being that way?

No, I needed a family and community to take care of me. So unless you believe government = collective community then there’s nothing the govt can do but stop letting businessmen and conservatives keep standing on our necks

bglazer2• 2 years ago

I mean you did join a government organization that provided a (more or less) guaranteed job and training.

Also, this is a genuine question, how much of the chaos in your life was due to financial hardship? Do you think just having more money would have lessened the chaos?

Red_Leaves_Flyy16• 2 years ago

The point is, likely intentionally, understated. I cannot speak for the author, but the gist I got is that our society thrusts wholly unprepared people into adulthood and we could get a lot of improvements from just making it harder for people to fail at adulting. IYKYK and if you don’t you will get fucked - repeatedly.

Basic life skills are not taught so it’s up to the individual if their family fails. Importantly, it is unreasonable to expect someone to teach another how to do something they don’t know how to do.

I’m talking about stuff like navigating health insurance, paying taxes, budgeting, managing credit, home maintenance, vehicle care. Mistakes in any one of these domains can have devastating consequences that profoundly change one’s life. Simple things like single payer health care (only complex because of greedy people demanding a tax for the privilege the laws wrote grant them), personal budgeting education, and teaching basic home improvement skills will markedly improve many people’s lives.

We could also discuss more difficult topics like the complete lack of a meaningful social safety net, and the rippling consequences of systemic injustice but that’s less on topic and more likely to get me flamed or trolled.

gentleman11• 2 years ago

If you say the problem is social class and poverty, and not having available role models to show how adult life actually works, you’ll get flamed and trolled. If you say the problem is racial issues, you’ll get upvotes. I’ll just sit here and await my downvotes now

sabarn0110• 2 years ago

The outcome of this has been to make it harder to fail as a kid. We don't hold kids back anymore and we don't suspend kids anymore. At some point in time the rubber meets the road and you will be held accountable and have to be. We could improve the social safety net but we never want to match other countries that have more supervision of their at risk population.

When I worked temp jobs there wasn't a place I worked where if you showed up on time two days in a row and worked hard I wasn't offered a job. All of these places paid well over minimum wage you just had to be willing to do hard physical work. Society plays some role but I have zero trust that our institutions know how to help people.

mortify2• 2 years ago

making it harder for people to fail at adulting

That has been the direction school has gone and, at least from my perspective, it seems worse. It has lead to a loss of agency among now so-called adults who expect to always be in a situation which guides them toward success. They struggle without a guidebook.

Learning to fail, and crucially, how to handle failure and recover are better approaches.

mbesto2• 2 years ago

navigating health insurance, paying taxes, budgeting, managing credit, home maintenance, vehicle care

The self-perpetuating lie in American life is that all of these get solved by <insert market good/service here>. Silicon Valley has only made it worse because these solutions are just monkey-patching poor "source code". Why learn how to balance a checkbook when Chase online can do it for you?

Our parents' generation had it different. They had fewer health provider options, a smaller tax code, fewer financial products, simpler home setups, engines that didn't have planned obsolescence built into them, etc, etc. We assume that things like 6 different options for MRIs or 2,304 different credit cards mean better products/services, but what is ignored is that these have only made for more complex and yet brittle systems that are harder to navigate and create much greater analysis paralysis.

coldtea4• 2 years ago

The questions that remain are, how many people's lives could we improve and by how much? And, critically, how much are we willing to collectively sacrifice to move that percentage of people in a positive direction?

What exactly would we be "collectively sacrificing"?

Something like, 1% higher taxes?

Same taxes, but the use of some of the public money currently massively wasted in all kinds of endless sinks?

0xbadcafebee• 2 years ago

In every society, taxes and government are the lens used to focus collective social responsibility and direct actions that will benefit the society as a whole, and individually. Even in a collectivist society, some work is done to benefit a small group of individuals when it's deemed necessary by the society. And in an individualist society, effort is also undertaken to benefit the whole.

The questions you pose are good questions, but they can't be answered by this presentation. Even if you were to ask a much more "fundamental" or "simple" question, like "How much should we sacrifice for sanitation?", the answer is not clear, as it will vary by location and other criteria.

This presentation can't answer the questions, but it can cause us to ask them. Let's remember these questions and take them forward into our local communities, and try to focus more on local solutions, and less on one-size-fits-all.

mortify2• 2 years ago

The idea that we're collectively responsible is abjectly untrue. The only people with responsibility are the parents because they are the only ones who are allowed to make decisions. That is unless the government wants to take their children away because they're "uninvolved." Not that a government employee or paid foster family is likely to be better.

The fact is that people with positive influences and role models will do better. It would be great if we could maximize that, but who chooses who is "better," one of the majority who didn't have those role models themselves?

ErigmolCt4• 2 years ago

I think this conclusion should encourage people to think about the current problem and how childhood can influence success in adulthood

komali26• 2 years ago

And, critically, how much are we willing to collectively sacrifice

If we bring back wealth taxes "we" probably wouldn't have to sacrifice much if anything (not sure if your net worth is > 20 million)

fergie• 2 years ago

The classic answer to that question would be to move to a more Scandinavian model.

cycomanic3• 2 years ago

The conclusion of this data presentation is that so of these people are our collective responsibility, and I just wasn't convinced. I wish they had shown percentages with the visualization. They choose not to.
I was underwhelmed by some points that seemed like they should have been more shocking. Look at the huge number of people in the many adverse experiences category who made it to college, and make a high salary. that was shocking! and look at the people who had no adverse experiences and still managed to end up poor. how does that happen?

What do you mean huge number of people in many adverse experiences making it to college? If you look at the graph from 2011 with highest qualification obtained. There's probably less than 1 in 8 of the many adverse effects that obtained a college degree, while about 50% of the no adverse effects kids did. Those are huge differences.

Did you expect that none of the many adverse effects kids make it to college? That's the nature of statistics with humans, yes some succeed but the probabilities are so much different.

rglover• 2 years ago

Semi-related: often astounded by what can be achieved with HTML5 canvas.

rconti• 2 years ago

I'm not sure if it was just me, but I struggled with the visual style. In some groups there were more rows than others, but then the rows would be of different lengths, making it difficult to intuitively compare the population sizes, especially when trying to break them down by color coding.

It felt like the "some adverse experiences" group was worse off than the "many adverse experiences" group, which I'm guessing is incorrect.

robocat2• 2 years ago

I was a bit sceptical to start with about correlation versus causation. Causes are what we are looking for here. If we see someone get shot, does that mean we decide not to go to university[1]?

I watched the video, and the semantic meaning of pink people kept changing, and I couldn't follow the story because too many moving parts.

There's a study looking at people from a "bad" neighbourhood, that used data on immigrants to and emmigrants from the neighbourhood to try and track causation.

If I was feeling obnoxious I would grab the data, and massage it until the conclusion is that we should blind children so they don't see someone get shot so that they go to university.

[1] actually I can think of plenty of friends where that would be plausible (disclaimer: gun violence isn't so common in New Zealand). I'm trying to pick an example where causation and correlation are more disjoint but I think I've failed here.

goldenchrome• 2 years ago

How about if we control for IQ?

sgammon• 2 years ago

Beautiful evidence.

fregonics2• 2 years ago

The presentation argues that the adverse experiences cited are outside the individual's control, some of them are and they can have negative effects, i agree, like gun violence or uninterested parents, but others are questionable, like suspensions or being held back in school, which is (in most part) derived directly from the individual's actions.

Since the margins in some of the statistics are so small i wonder how would they look with the adverse experiences ignoring this 2 points.

For me it is obvious that a person who was held back in school and received suspensions will be less likely to be well off when they are older.

thfuran4• 2 years ago

derived directly from the individual's actions.

Are you saying that a person's actions aren't influenced by their environment?

concordDance5• 2 years ago

Assuming a materialistic (non-spiritual) world this statement seems a bit vacuous as we are all the direct products of our environment (including womb environment, genes, nutrition, culture, etc).

naasking7• 2 years ago

Of course they are, but putting the locus of control on external factors disempowers people. "These people didn't do as well as they could have due to poor impulse control" is a better explanation/reason than "these people have poor impulse control because of the environment in which they were raised"; the environment is not the cause of the poor outcomes, the poor impulse control is the cause, and pointing out the cause shows a path to correcting the issue.

fregonics2• 2 years ago

The person is indeed influenced by their environment, but the "adverse experiences" should factor in just that, environmental influences, not actions from the individuals.

I think environment influences can increase the likelihood of those adverse experiences, contact with violent behavior for instance can make a person more likely to be suspended, but a person may have been brought up in a normal family and still be violent and be suspended (i got to know such cases, and they're more common than you imagine), and even a person that had contact with this kind of situation may think that they do not want that for their life and use this as a motivator (also have seen such cases).

But the adverse experiences should focus not on the results, but the causes. What factors are we able to quantify that made this student be held back (uninterested parents? a personality disorder? ...) and how big is the influence of each of them in a person's destiny. Only looking at them we will be able to really learn something meaningful from what happened.

RationalDino• 2 years ago

My biggest takeaway is that they nowhere address address the fact that correlation is not necessarily causation. Yes, our childhood affects who we become. But it is not the only thing that affects it. For example

Two giant factors come to mind. Genetics and racism.

Consider one genetic factor. I have ADHD. That means that it is extremely likely that one or both of my parents had ADHD. (My father, certainly. My mother, maybe. She certainly had a genetic propensity for depression that her children struggle with.) This resulted in an unstable family home. Unsurprisingly this resulted in me falling into their adverse environment category. As an adult I've done reasonably well. But yes, my challenges have affected my children. But were those challenges because I grew up with horrible problems? Or was it because I have a well-known genetic condition that causes challenges?

On genetics, I highly recommend https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190808/th.... GWAS studies can only tease out genetic correlations for European Caucasians. Part of that is that they can only be done with a lot of data from somewhat related people. And part of that is that with Caucasians it is reasonable to assume that bad results are due to personal characteristics, and not racism.

But we can do it for Caucasians. And so we can know for Caucasians that the impact of genetics is about as strong as the impact of socioeconomic status. We can also separate the effects of things like the effect of when you first had sex from the genetics that make you first have sex early or late. That one is fun, because it turns out that the genetics matters a lot, and when you first did it only matters because it is correlated with your genetics. We can look at the impact of reading to kids. Yeah, that's pretty much genetics as well. We put a lot of effort into getting kids read to more, and didn't get demonstrable results for it.

So you see, understanding the impact of genetics is very important for what public policies are likely to work. They tell a great just-so story. But I'm not convinced.

Moving on, what about racism? They trace the story of Alex. Hispanic. He had a terrible upbringing. Which could be caused by the impact of racism on his family. He had a terrible adulthood. Which could be caused by the impact of racism on him. He's just as good an example for "racism sucks" as he is for "adverse childhood sucks". Which is it? We don't know. What should we do about it? That's still an open question!

And finally, let's look at personal responsibility. I don't agree with condemning poor people for being poor. But suppose you are born in whatever circumstances, with whatever genetics. What's the best way to improve your life? Judging from my experiences and understanding of human nature, it is to encourage an attitude of personal responsibility. Don't worry too much about what's outside of your control. Focus only on what's in your control, and try to do the best that you can.

Ironically, this matters more when the deck is stacked against you. If you have family background and racism are holding you back, you can't afford the third strike of a self-destructive attitude. But if your background and race give you resources, your attitude probably doesn't hurt you as badly.

Does "personal responsibility" make for a good social policy? No. But should we encourage people to individually embrace it? Absolutely!

I strongly disagree with their cavalier dismissal of the idea.

legitster• 2 years ago

What a cool visualization!

... of a fairly mundane data set.

If anything, I am shocked by how much the data between the groups evened out over time. The differences in "adverse experiences" started out so stark, but almost seemed to disappear by 2021, especially in categories like happiness and wealth. I would hate the be the researched who followed this for 20 years just to find nothing particularly interesting.

"If we fail, we are punished. We are blamed for not going to college, for being unhealthy, for being poor, for not being able to afford healthcare and food and housing."

Not sure if the author and I are looking at the same data set. If anything, it's saying the opposite to me - the difference between a terrible childhood and a perfect childhood results in some barely perceivable differences by the time you are 27.

patwolf• 2 years ago

On the section for gun violence, it says "And these are the kids who witnessed gun violence", but the title says "See someone shot with gun". I'm curious which it is since gun violence encompasses things other than seeing someone shot.

adamredwoods3• 2 years ago

For example, being held up at gunpoint.

Laylo_• 2 years ago

This data seems suspect. Three "some adverse experience" and four "many adverse experiences" individual all report a most recent annual income of exactly $380,288? That seems highly unlikely, and if that is a data error there are likely others.

3minus12• 2 years ago

It doesn't seem unlikely to me at all. Lots of people are smart or successful despite coming from a broken home. Weird example but Eminem was extremely poor growing up.

dc96• 2 years ago

You're misinterpreting. When sorted by annual income, the top 5 incomes all have the same value: 380,288. This points to something weird going on in the data, unless all of those specific participants happen to work the same job at the same company. Even then, years of experience and salary increases would likely differ.

taurath2• 2 years ago

I have 7/10 ACE's and am a self-taught senior software engineer. We exist. Not always well, and good lord is it hard to find empathy from coworkers who had the "standard" life advancement, but we exist. Among folks who've gone through the same stuff as me, they are not doing nearly as well as a group compared to others in my generation.

(But yeah there's some data checking that needs to be done as denoted elsewhere in the thread)

hnburnsy2• 2 years ago

"Being held back" or grade retention is rare for high school students (teenagers), so rare that it is hard to find a study on it. RAND studied middle school and elementary school retention and found only some smallish negative effects.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10025.html

Most middle\high school grade retention I see these days is self-imposed for an advantage in athletics; don't get me started.

narrator2• 2 years ago

Let me guess, the solution is ban guns and pay higher taxes. That is the solution to literally every single problem in human history according to western sociology.

Then you get some guy like Nayib Bukele who cuts the Gordian Knot of societal disfunction going from the highest murder rate in the world to the lowest in the western hemisphere in 3 years short years by putting all the gangsters in prison. All the "surplus elite" NGO people who spent their entire career ineffectually addressing "the root causes of crime" are all now out of a job and/or very upset.

leokennis• 2 years ago

This will probably greatly interest you:

https://mattlakeman.org/2024/03/30/notes-on-el-salvador/

narrator2• 2 years ago

It's amazing how surprised everyone was that the whole thing worked phenomenally well. It went against a century of "expert" advice. It literally did the exact opposite. The purpose of the system is what it does [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

ricardobeat2• 2 years ago

In early October, El Salvador’s police announced the seizure of 2,026 firearms, including 1,371 pistols and other small arms
Imports of certain high-caliber firearms are prohibited. Arms for personal defense or hunting may be imported but are strictly controlled

No open carry either. Sounds like gun control to me. It goes way beyond “putting gangsters in prison” and a large part of the plan is investment in education to get kids away from this path.

One thing to note is the 72000 in prison did not receive a life sentence. They will be released at some point, and one has to trust that the “integration” part of the plan will work.

There are also an infinite amount of reports of police abuse, violence, unlawful imprisonment, and media being silenced. We’ll only know the true cost of this many years from now.

adamredwoods3• 2 years ago

In my armchair opinion, there will always be crime, but the magnitude of gun violence is incredible. Kids get shot at parks near me because bullets don't stop. Guns are great at that, spreading violence across an area of intention, and from a distance.

If there were any simple solution, we'd have done that, but even with the idea of "banning guns" nothing has significantly progressed in that department because of loopholes and powerful gun advocates.

So anytime anyone complains of "banning guns" I laugh because nothing has changed.

rafaelero3• 2 years ago

What's missing here -- and in most of social sciences -- is the realization that adverse events is itself a product of genetics, and bad social outcomes are only weakly mediated through those events. Genetics is most of the story here and, although it's a depressing narrative, I'm sick of seeing people push a narrative that is not based on facts.

shimon• 2 years ago

On what factual basis can you claim that adverse events are primarily driven by genetics?

On the face of it this seems ludicrous. A baby born to a mother living in a high-risk environment but then adopted by a low-risk family would likely do far better in their life than the inverse.

anon29112• 2 years ago

As someone who was on the adoption lists in California, we had to learn that statements like 'On the face of it this seems ludicrous. A baby born to a mother living in a high-risk environment but then adopted by a low-risk family would likely do far better in their life than the inverse.' were false. I don't know if it was right or wrong, but California in its mandated adoption (fostering) training courses thought that we should be disabused of the idea that taking in a child (even a newborn) would mean that the child wouldn't end up significantly like the genetic parent. There were several studies we had to read (don't have them) that supported this claim.

We didn't end up fostering, for unrelated reasons.

rafaelero3• 2 years ago

See for example the classic association between childhood maltreatment and future antisocial behavior [1]. As intuitive as it may seem that a child that is maltreated may develop negative externalizing behavior because of that, it looks like the true route of transmission is genetics, not environmental.

[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medici...

anon29112• 2 years ago

I disagree with you but upvoted you. I think it's an important discussion to be had, because I have seen lots of conflicting data, but it's unfortunate the forum doesn't want to have it.

jaza3• 2 years ago

WTF? You are the product of your genetics AND your life experience. If anything, I've always felt that the latter, not the former, is the dominant factor. Granted, there are other biological factors apart from genetics that may disadvantage you at birth (e.g. exposure to alcohol / drugs / tobacco before birth). But to suggest that genetics is "most of the story" in determining your lifelong socioeconomic success, I find to be absurd.

rafaelero3• 2 years ago

I find to be absurd

It's not intuitive, but it's what decades of behavioral genetics studies say. Adoptees have much stronger correlations with their biological parents than with the parents that adopted them (in all socially meaningful metrics: intelligence, income, etc.). Monozygotic twins correlate much stronger than dizygotic twins, etc.

hnburnsy2• 2 years ago

Hey Alvin (the author), you see us discussing this, how about addressing the issues raised in this discussion?

https://twitter.com/alv9n/status/1780289344852431041

So this piece is now at the top of @hackernews. This experience is always cool and terrifying, especially when they also see all the small things that don't quite work about the piece.

abhayhegde• 2 years ago

Then we turn 18 and we're expected to be "adults" and figure things out. If we fail, we are punished. ... The world we've built has shaped his life.

This is a powerful message. A cynical (mostly realistic) outlook is that we are powerless pawns at the mercy of the powerful (read rich) in the world whose actions are ultimately reasons for blaming the powerless.

Nimitz14• 2 years ago

Maybe I missed something but the adverse experience factor didn't seem to be very meaningful. Not convinced by their argument.

Great title and initial presentation though!

astura• 2 years ago

I feel like this is trying to tell me something really important but the data visualization crashed my browser multiple times.

cameldrv• 2 years ago

The punchline is this:

"It's 2021.

The research participants are in their late-30s now, which means they've had plenty of time to shape their own destinies. But we can clearly see that the experiences of their childhood had a huge effect on their financial situation as adults.

It also has an effect on virtually everything else in their lives."

You cannot infer the direction of causality from this data, i.e. that the traumatic experiences themselves cause the poorer outcomes. I remember reading about how in Chicago someone had noticed that kids who did better had more books at home, so they decided to give poor kids books. Certainly not a bad thing to do, but just giving them some books is not going to make them like the better off kids in all of the other (highly correlated) ways that they're different.

Just as an example, one of the traumatic factors they identify is if a kid had witnessed someone being shot. The wealthy kids are way less likely to see anyone get shot, because if people were regularly getting shot in their neighborhood, they would move. The poor kids' parents don't always have that option. In this case it could be the poverty itself, not the shooting that is causing the poor outcomes. But then you get into why the parents are poor in the first place, and there are many causes, but a lot of them get passed down to the next generation in one way or another.

refulgentis• 2 years ago

Certainly not a bad thing to do, but just giving them some books is not going to make them like the better off kids in all of the other (highly correlated) ways that they're different

From personal experience, I can absolutely vouch for that. 35, came from nowhere with nothing, absentee parents, out of house by 15. Dropped out of college, waited tables, did a startup, sold it, worked for 7 years at Google, now I'm doing my 2nd startup.

Does it fix everything? No.

But it gave me something to do that wasn't TV, and it kept me safe from [redacted] dad and [redacted] mom, I could hole up wherever I wanted and spend hours in them.

You'd be surprised at the things that are lifelines. I had a really hard time explaining to this CS PhD dude who ran a weekend night basketball league for no particular reason how different and better that kept my life the last couple years of high school.

You aren't shifting the whole distribution with one act, but just like the little shifts add up in the negative, they add up in the positive too.

I remember a woman in her 30s running into me in the library lugging around those 7 volume MSDN published sets at 9 years old. She was incredulous and told me to keep it up. That mattered! No one had even noticed me or remarked on it before, gave me pride.

brailsafe3• 2 years ago

Up front, I have no intention of trying to detract from any of those accomplishments, because you've obviously been grinding pretty hard for a while and admire the tenacity you must have had as a kid and the progression you've seemed to follow.

I do however find it under-discussed how many subsequent dice rolls have to at least partially work out for that tenacity, and those little shifts, to be a compounding positive instead of negative, and usefully applied long-term. I'd be curious if you had any major setbacks that you rebounded from after things started rolling successfully forward for you. Now at 32, unemployed with a spotty resume and no prospects, I could really use a &pointer (or reference ;))

Reading through your comment and picturing my own upbringing (poor, abusive, but I guess I got a handle on it and discovered programming through gaming eventually, it does make me sad that although there were hand-me-down computers available that I gravitated toward and experimented with, I could not picture where the nearest library was, and had to Google it now. I'm not particularly resentful though, I did get out, and I'm grateful for that.

I wonder if the books alone would have been enough, but having the books and the physical escape together is kind of incredible, and it's heartening to hear you used the hell out of that space.

Much earlier on, I had some exposure to small motors, and had some mentorship from my extended family on the programming front, but didn't really have a sense of how to build on that; no conception of how to connect motors with gears in a more complex system, no business exposure at all, no ability or framework for learning how to execute on any project, and just a debilitating lack of motivation up until around 17, along with no appreciation for the idea of proving myself measurably; I thought I was capable, but apparently wasn't. I got my little bots for Runescape running though, and that was empowering.

Thankfully, I did and continue to have a similar refuge at the skatepark, which provided me some social and physical benefits for free, much like your basketball league, that a surprising amount of people I meet now don't have. I was nerdy, but couldn't execute, and couldn't see how I'd get there. My first job was a glimpse into how much potential there was available; I made more than my father who I was on good terms with, but then I was laid off for lack of reason to have me on the payroll, which took a positive signal and turned it into hopelessness in a way. I experienced adult job loss my first time trying. It was a great opportunity that I relish in some ways still. I then got another job as a frontend developer, making a bit more, and then burnt out, slowed down, and got fired, partially because I was trying to do CSS things that nobody was paying me to do, instead of just writing some JavaScript to handle dynamic layout and getting the job done. I was too deep in the weeds and got stuck there, but the idea of just cranking out things quickly wasn't stimulating enough and I'd just sit there trying to convince my brain to do the work.

Since then, it's just been gradual pay increases, some early freelance clients that worked out for a while, but at this point I've never held a continuous job for longer than a year and a half, and I feel like the pieces of minor success are hard to stabilize, despite being in a wildly better situation still than I'd ever have imagined in high school, and a hell of a lot of personal inward reflection. My last job title was Software Engineer II, but really I'm just a generalist that keeps failing upward, and I don't know whether if I were to double-down and specialize more, go deeper, or pivot out completely, I'd be able to do that well; it's a bit of a constant existential crisis. It's hard to be consistent over a long period of time without a manager deciding I was a liability or me just burning out so badly, or a series of unfortunate life events coming together for the negative, and once you're out, it's extremely hard to get back in.

For the last year, I've been working my way through Nand2Tetris, because in a career highlight I landed an actual interview with Apple (that ended up going nowhere, rightfully so because my lowest level knowledge didn't exist) as well as building a small SwiftUI project that may or may not see the light of day, and while I think those are positive moves, it's going to be a hard year ahead that may take me to net zero again unless I can pick up something in general labor for while (Waiting tables would be quite difficult without a solid short-term memory, and don’t believe someone would hire me for that with largely tech experience and random interspersed menial work).

Anyhow, ultimately I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment, those little shifts really do add up for either the positive or sometimes negative. I think the longer you can keep them positive, keep the ball rolling forward, the more likely things will work out, and as a society it's crucial we continue making it possible to smooth out the experience of life, especially for people who grow up in volatile situations.

renjimen2• 2 years ago

Given the order of events (childhood trauma THEN adult outcomes), and the strong relationships identified in the source material (while controlling for confounding factors), I think it's about as close as we can get to inferring directionality.

concordDance5• 2 years ago

I think it's about as close as we can get to inferring directionality.

No, we can try interventions (e.g. do a big and expensive anti-violence/CCTV/policing campaign in a neighborhood) and record the result.

I do think the grandparent has a point and a lot of these could have a common cause. e.g. a violent environment and poor educational attainment could both be caused by poverty or genes for impulse control or a subculture with a higher acceptance these things.

James_K13• 2 years ago

But then you get into why the parents are poor in the first place, and there are many causes, but a lot of them get passed down to the next generation in one way or another.

Are you trying to say that these people are genetically poor?

what-the-grump• 2 years ago

Generational wealth is a thing...

int_19h5• 2 years ago

To give one example, today's wealth distribution in UK still correlates quite strongly with Norman descent from the original participants of the Conquest. That's over 1,000 years of still-measurable generational wealth transfer.

Staple_Diet• 2 years ago

I took it to infer that there are systemic factors that disadvantage segments of the population disproportionately and across generations.

Having worked with disadvantaged and vulnerable populations I would agree, we only hear about the pulled up by the bootstraps success stories and readily ignore the 99.99% of cases where offspring are worse off financially than their parents.

GuB-42• 2 years ago

I think witnessing someone being shot is a good metric because it is factual. Either you saw someone being shot or your didn't, no ambiguity there, and no matter where you live, someone being shot is someone being shot. Not like "uninvolved parents" and "bullying" which are open to interpretation.

This metric is also a proxy for living in a violent environment. It correlates with wealth, but it is also kind of the point. Children who lived in a wealthy environment are better off as adults in terms of income. It is not that obvious, as rich kids could simply burn through their family wealth.

ip26• 2 years ago

It’s likely strongly subject to Goodheart’s Law, however. In other words, there are probably many things you could do to improve the goal (e.g. figure out how to keep kids from seeing the violence) without improving outcomes for these kids (because they remain just as poor)

ernst_klim• 2 years ago

This metric is also a proxy for living in a violent environment.

Probably, probably not. The probabilities of witnessing someone being shot is extremely low in both environments. If amount of people who are living in violent environment is much lower, it may be that a person who witnessed someone being shot is more probable from a good environment.

https://www.anesi.com/bayes.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZGCoVF3YvM

hn_throwaway_992• 2 years ago

There are common statistical techniques to better get at causality in this situation. E.g. given how relatively unlikely and random "seeing someone getting shot while still a child" is, it should be fairly easy to match this up with other variables to tease out causality, e.g. just looking at someone in the same socioeconomic situation, same parental situation (i.e. married/single), and then comparing gunshot witnesses vs. others.

atoav• 2 years ago

If one feels unhappy about the causality link between a good childhood and a better life as an adult please remember that we are talking about statistical effects here. If more people who were bullied end up in unfortunate positions that doesn't imply direct causality, it implies that people whose live paths lead to bad places often had being bullied as a station on it.

There will always be the tail ends of the statistical function, so people who became phenomenal adults despite all hardships, but also people who had a good childhood and became utterly disfunctional adults. But if we think about devising utilitarian political measures knowing what "broadly" has an effect on people is useful. Ideally you discover small things that if changed would have huge positive downstream effects. E.g. if bullying would be shown to have a big impact on later lives, it could be justified to pick up more funds to prevent it, to help victims and/or to change the way schools work in order to minimize chances someone is being bullied. Bullying is just an example, one could also pick other triggers.

thegrimmest10• 2 years ago

Hard disagree with utilitarian interventionism. It violates core liberal fundamentals. People have the right to be as involved of parents as they see fit, and to raise their children with values of their choosing. Economic and social outcomes are not universal moral values. The collective has no right to impose their utilitarian best-guess on the individual. People should have a right to reject them and raise illiterate children in forest school.

Free society is a liberal ecosystem, where participants are continually succeeding and failing. The authority required to mount a collective response to these inequalities is too susceptible to corruption, and represents injustice in its departure from liberalism. Not to mention that well-meaning interventions by federated authority have an abysmal track record.

cycomanic3• 2 years ago

You seem to construct a straw man.

The whole point of the study is to show that kids that grow up with more adverse effects which are out of their control makes them more likely to have problems as an adult.

You seem to say we can't infer causality, but that's exactly what they do. They show that having been affected by more adverse effects does make you more likely to suffer in the future. As the study says being poor is one of the adverse effects but not all. So that's your control right there.

hackeraccount• 2 years ago

What if the root cause is the quality of the parents not the external events?

jdmichal• 2 years ago

This is classic correlation is not causation. The thing about correlation is that it could be a causative relationship, or there could be another set of untracked variables that's causing some or all the effects, or it could be unrelated coincidence.

Now, maybe this is a difference between the study and the article. Maybe the study makes stronger claims here than the article does. But I didn't see anything in the article that claimed nor demonstrated causation, only correlation.

peoplefromibiza• 2 years ago

In this case it could be the poverty itself

unfortunately in the US socialists theories, even the most diluted ones, are almost entirely removed from the public discourse.

These kinds of issues can be better analyzed in the context of the class struggle (or class conflict), of which they are a textbook example.

On a personal level people can get over hardships and have a successful happy life, but statistically, on a societal level, those who are born poor will, more often than any other group, end up being poor(er) adults.

boxed• 2 years ago

Honestly I think the effect was hard to even see in the graphs at that point. It certainly wasn't "huge".

moribunda• 2 years ago

Completely agree - "bars" of people weren't scaled to the same width, and analysing it in only one dimension feels manipulative.

begueradj2• 2 years ago

Still books/ study material are of extreme importance.

No one could be living in more extreme poverty than Michael Faraday did. Still he managed to be one of the greatest minds of all times. He read a book called "The improvements of the mind" by Isaac Watts and applied it on himself literally. The book was written for poor people who can not afford themselves books and means to conduct chemistry/electricity/mechanical and biology experiments.

Michael Faraday had to draw and write down everything he learned and imagined meticulously in a military and highly disciplined way where testosterone was expressed in its noble manner: discipline and high focus, no distraction. He wrote himself an extremely dense and technical voluminous book like notes of things he read and noticed while he was still a boy.

The success story of Michael Faraday started only because he was accepted to work for a man selling books. There, Faraday read every single book he saw.

I hope the study mentioned in this article will not be taken seriously by people of modest environments. The victimization mindset is a gatekeeper to success.

KittenInABox3• 2 years ago

Weird way to analyze this. If you look at Faraday's biology he was poor but he had an apprenticeship in his youth, so he clearly had at least adults looking out for him and giving him room to study. I would say it's way more likely that his success can be attributed to him having supportive adults in his life, as opposed to his testosterone(??).

Valakas_2• 2 years ago

If you knew even a little bit about trauma, you'd know it's not even up for debate at this point that trauma is a huge setback in life.

Your risk of bad relationships, emotional dysregulation, physical ailments and diseases, stress, life unsatisfaction, (...) all increase as your ACE score increases.

I keep repeating myself at this point, but trauma is the biggest epidemic with the most negative consequences that isn't being talked about enough.

robertlagrant• 2 years ago

I keep repeating myself at this point, but trauma is the biggest epidemic with the most negative consequences that isn't being talked about enough.

I would disagree; trauma is an incredibly well-used word in 2024.

ErigmolCt4• 2 years ago

Yes, and such research should help increase society's engagement with this issue. Childhood need to be protected.

MrBuddyCasino• 2 years ago

If you don't agree with certain people that "wet roads cause rain", you are basically doing a heckin' fascism and should be deplatformed.

ErigmolCt4• 2 years ago

I am pretty sure that the fact of witnessing someone being shot has an impact on your life. Maybe not connected with the data that was implemented here but still

rocketnasa• 2 years ago

I think how people relate to media and attitudes about out-groups can have an even deeper impact on a life. We all can witness people being shot in non-fiction on police bodycam footage, surveillance camera footage, published on video websites, etc.

Most people compartmentalize seeing shooting of a house and killing a child sleeping in their bed in Ukraine in 2024 different from a drive-by shooting on their own street or road rage on a highway killing a child sleeping in bed or car. But we can witness it easily now and most people are taught to detach non-fiction video of "others" and treat it like it is fiction.

It becomes a wealth and power status symbol to move to the "good part of town" and a "safe neighborhood" and create a compartmentalized mindset that what goes on in other areas is "not witnessed" the same. A detachment of compassion for those in the out-groups and a denial that indeed it is reality, it is non-fiction.

bccdee13• 2 years ago

I remember reading about how in Chicago someone had noticed that kids who did better had more books at home, so they decided to give poor kids books.

The problem here was not trying to infer causality from population-level data, but rather insufficiently controlling that data for correlated variables. If that study had controlled for the income and education of those kids' parents, it would have been much more able to predict the actual impact of giving kids books.

This visual essay thing doesn't present a particularly detailed data analysis, but I wouldn't be surprised if the original study, being properly academic, did dive into this kind of regression analysis.

willmadden2• 2 years ago

Everyone wants to assume causation from correlation.

I would posit that it’s a cumulative effect from many generations and mostly heritable.

Nevermark• 2 years ago

It is odd that they don’t normalize the width of the dozens of 3 cohort graphs. Apparently in order to show fully filled rows.

But it dramatically blunts the visual clarity of comparison between the differing percentages in each cohort associated with better and worse outcomes.

timzaman• 2 years ago

This depiction actually slowed me the issue was much more subtle and less severe than I thought.. I thought it would have been much worse. I don't think that was their intent!

rkho• 2 years ago

College isn't just a place that teaches you how to do a job

Sorry, what? This statement feels like the exception, not the norm for most people who have attended college.

apsec112• 2 years ago

The chart titled "Percentage of people 25 to 29 years old with a bachelor's degree" is just wrong. Looking at their own source, NCES, in 2010 this was 32%, while their graph seem to show around 70%:

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_104.20.a...

3minus12• 2 years ago

As others have mentioned this site heavily implies causality with statements like "we can clearly see that the experiences of their childhood had a huge effect" and "college or technical school can mitigate some of the effects of adverse childhood experiences". It is simply not possible to draw such conclusions from a longitudinal study. Interventions and actual experiments are necessary.

The site is really nicely done and even moving, but I find the ideas it is putting forth harmful honestly. We all would like to see better outcomes for teenagers, but if that is truly our goal we should not be shaping public policy around non-scientific observations on correlations. Let's do some actual science please and build policy around that.

sabarn0110• 2 years ago

The oddest example was suspensions. It treated suspensions as if they were random bad events not behaviour driven. Its not the suspension that causes poor outcomes its the behaviour.

taurath2• 2 years ago

The layout of the data being poor and accuracy issues called out, while rightly, don't really engage with the narrative.

This infographic talks about the economic outcomes, but there are also major health outcomes like early death, mental health issues that this doesn't approach. I think in a way it takes away from the core ideas of the impact of ACE's, which Everyone should absolutely know about. There IS a direct causal link from ACE's to poor life outcomes, and here is some reading on that:

https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(98)00017-8/ful...

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/resources.html

eslaught• 2 years ago

Has anyone done anything like this for historical time periods? I realize the data is inherently sparse, but I'd be curious to see what the results would look like in 1900, 1800, 1700, 1600, etc.

My impression of the data is that, actually, we're doing pretty well with social mobility. Not perfectly by any means, and there is lots of room to improve. But as compared to (I think) just about any historical period, I think the graphs would be even more skewed. I'm fairly certain that as a medieval peasant, there were basically no viable routes to improving your lot (and even the word "lot" betrays the assumptions of the time), and so acceptance was the only viable route (violent rebellions excepted).

jaza3• 2 years ago

We are indeed doing well by historical standards. Looking back to Dickensian times, for example, those at the lowest echelons of society were lucky to make it to their teenage years at all! Infant and child mortality was far higher than it is today. And for those (who were poor and who lacked supportive parents) that lived to 13+, the majority had received little or no schooling, were virtually guaranteed to be illiterate, had likely already lost close family / friends, had likely already been employed in slave-like conditions, had likely already lived a life of crime out of necessity, and were likely to be incarcerated or executed in their lifetime.

Not that any of that means we can't do better today. We can and we should.

adamredwoods3• 2 years ago

I'm assuming this is a US study, I wish it said that, because these days the internet has an international audience.

Aeolun6• 2 years ago

The thing I took away from this, and seemed more than just a slight increase for one of the categories, was that people with zero adverse experiences are very rarely ‘happy all the time’.

hndamien• 2 years ago

It seems to me a lot of this is caused by inflation making it very hard for people struggling econimically, and the fall out effects of that for all society. Stop develuing the dollars people use by printing money and maybe some chunk of this goes away over time when people can enjoy the dividend of a productive society.

teleforce• 2 years ago

Very cool, clever and intuitive data presentation, this probably the way forward of effectively publishing research findings and help empower those who are not keen on reading research data (e.g policy makers). I will be very interested to see their workflow on how the data transformation from papers to what we see here, and this can be a game changer in publishing research results and findings.

Those who are designing computer based GUI, graphics, dashboard can learn a lot from this animation and interactive with timeline/frequency approach (soon someone will coin a this a special term e.g gamification, etc) because this is how we can optimize the brain to process its data for optimum users' usability. Deep learning AI has shown impressive results values in mimicking the brain functionality based on the human cognition and brain neurology and it is about time the user interface aspect get the same treatment. Excellent books like Designing with the Mind in Mind can be a good guiding principle based on human cognition for effective and intuitive user interface [1].

For the research presented by data it is kind of plain obvious that your childhood upbringing and experiences shape and affect your adult world significantly and considerably. Imagine children from war torned countries that experienced extreme adversity at some point of their life like Vietnam and the latest Ukraine people who witnessed not only gun violences but also all out war (e.g bombs, war machinery, jet fighter) with extreme insecurity food depreciation, malnutrition, etc will be several more times badly affected compared to these children reported in the study that are primarily based on developed and stable countries. Then imagine people who are residing in a continously intermittent conflicts/wars and oppressed regions (without a valid country) for example Palestine people that experienced the injustices and atrocities happening over several generations not years, badly affecting the childrens with family member's and friends got killed prematurely, and some with no parents or worst dependents left.

To think that how the people of the world ever allow, tolerate and even sponsoring the prepetrators of the oppression and injustice is beyond me. I think the only solace for these people in the region is that hopefully there will be easiness after hardship, and there will be justice sooner or later, here in this world or hereafter [2]. These are the sentences that really caught my attention, they say they are the peacemakers, but in rwality they are the real troublemakers or the root cause of the very problems and atrocities [3].

[1]Designing with the Mind in Mind:

https://shop.elsevier.com/books/designing-with-the-mind-in-m...

[2] https://quran.com/ash-sharh/5-6:

5 - So, surely with hardship comes ease.

6 - Surely with that hardship comes more ease

[3]https://quran.com/ms/al-baqarah/11-12:

11 - When they are told, “Do not spread corruption in the land,” they reply, “We are only peace-makers!”

12 - Indeed, it is they who are the corruptors, but they fail to perceive it.

geraldalewis• 2 years ago

Sorry for the meta-commentary, but I don’t think it warrants its own post: wow the Overton window has shifted right on HN. I’ve noticed it with other comment threads but this one drives it home. Not good for discourse.

tavavex2• 2 years ago

I haven't been on this platform for long, but I'm feeling it as well. Maybe it coincides with the extreme shifts that have been occurring in real life, or maybe the audience here is just more likely to be very conservative. From my subjective observations, I feel like the average HN user is older and richer than the average tech worker.

hot_gril2• 2 years ago

Is it better for discourse if it's left?

Generous80303• 2 years ago

I don't want to imagine your level of radicalism if you think HN is anywhere on the right. In my opinion you would have to be at the point of being completely disassociated with reality.

Glyptodon3• 2 years ago

One thing I've been curious about but can never tell from the no/some/4yr+ income breakdown they always do is how trades like mechanics, electricians, welders, and plumbers actually do. Which box are they in? Do they make no degree multi-modal, or even more skewed to poverty than we think?

jaza3• 2 years ago

Don't know about the US, but in Australia at least, mechanics / electricians / welders / plumbers / etc ("tradies" as we call them) generally do quite well financially. Income often above the average for a university graduate. Often more job security. And often significant tax breaks due to being self-employed.

Also, income aside, I don't think that tradies belong in the broad "no college education" group, as almost all of them have a tertiary qualification (apprenticeship + TAFE diploma in Australia, maybe community college is the equivalent in the US?), even though it's not necessarily a bachelor's university degree.

Glyptodon3• 2 years ago

In the US it's never clear which box they get included in, at least to me. But apprenticeship + cert would I think generally be no college.

dnedic• 2 years ago

The quote saying that people from 18 to 25 need a safe environment to "explore the world" and "find their purpose" seems very infantile and backward.

First off, it's not realistic at scale and presents a very sheltered worldview. Majority of worlds workforce is between those ages and no automation, nor AI will change this.

Second, even in the first world it's backward because you can also explore the world and find your purpose while working, infact working will teach you much more about the world than any college and you can always decide to get education when you're more mature and better off financially.

1024core• 2 years ago

I don't know why they concentrated on college alone. For a lot of people, learning a trade like welding, carpentry, plumbing, auto maintenance, etc. is worth a lot more than going to college. They _can_ make a good living learning a trade. We should be looking more at sending the poorer kids to trade schools. Plus, working with your hands and building stuff is a mood-uplifter.

l0c0b0x• 2 years ago

I was Alex (my name is not Alex). Graduated high school in 97, but with a 2.1 GPA (yeah, pretty bad). Went to community college while working part time, living in a 'separated' household (mom/dad did the splits), supported both my parents both emotionally and financially (as much as I could) through their transition and new living arrangements. We were all immigrants, and still learning the ropes in this wonderful country. I did not graduate college, but instead went the part-time/apprenticeship/gain-experience route, while going through many roles. My baseline was to be a good citizen. A good son, a good partner, good friend, good husband and a good dad (4 wonderful kids). There were many good times, but also sad times, including when we lost our house and cars (2008), and that month when we literally didn't have money for food... but this country gives you many opportunities. There are safety nets, use them! You just have to focus on the goal: Move forward! There is always someone else who needs more help than you. Stay the course, and try not to lose perspective.

I'm one of the luckiest people alive because I live in this country, and was always able to surround myself with supportive, positive and forward thinkers.

I don't know why I shared this. Maybe because I don't care to blame society for my adverse experiences. Through those experiences, I learned to lead. I learned to listen. I learned to value and appreciate. I learned to live.

ciupicri3• 2 years ago

Are you talking about USA? What safety nets are available in the US?

P.S. It's just a question. Not everyone lives in the US. Heck, maybe the OP was even talking about another country, say Denmark.

petesergeant8• 2 years ago

Earned Income Tax Credit, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Child Care and Development Fund, housing assistance, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program, Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children

gfiorav• 2 years ago

It doesn't shock me that there's anti-US propaganda. It shocks me that people on this site routinely fall for it.

kylehotchkiss3• 2 years ago

Rather than looking at USA as Scandinavian county, imagine living in some of the counties in the global south. The competition for good jobs is so intense that you’ll work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. You won’t miss work if you’re sick or have a family event because then somebody else gets your job. Culturally second chances don’t exist, and you’re the only chance your children have to get through school (because you have to pay for it) and for your parents to retire in peace (because they live with you and you care for them). Heaven forbid you get sick. There’s barely a regulatory system for doctors. The doctor takes your temperature but wasn’t trained to sanitize the thermometer correctly. You are now double sick and don’t have somewhere safe to isolate because your rented home has 2 rooms and no ability to ventilate. Your family is now sick, and your children’s school has no mercy for missing class. The children have to compete in complicated exams to even have the sliver of a chance to land themselves in a good university. Otherwise, they’re just gonna live in your footsteps. Oh and don’t take out a loan, because when you do and somehow your entire contact list lands in your lenders hands, every contact on the list will hear about your debt for the next several months.

I’m just demonstrating here but this is an example of the stressful life many people around the world are living. We are blessed to be in the USA.

Aeolun6• 2 years ago

I guess what we learn from this is that not everyone is as enterprising as you? While on some level I’d say that, of course you can do it if you want to. There’s many people for whom that is just too much of a leap, and it feels unfair to say they don’t deserve happiness just because they can’t make themselves seek it.

petesergeant8• 2 years ago

it feels unfair to say they don’t deserve happiness just because they can’t make themselves seek it

While I’d agree, you’ve read the OP’s comment in a significantly darker light than I did, or than I can get the text to support

kryogen1c• 2 years ago

unfair to say they don’t deserve happiness just because they can’t make themselves seek it.

You and I have very different ideas about what's fair.

harryp_peng• 2 years ago

yeah, I mean, I made it (what was it?) I think I became conscious and awake at 16, and with a computer did anything imaginable. We have all became 10x with the internet, and will probably be 100x with AI.

Generous80303• 2 years ago

This is an interesting perspective that I very much agree with (also being an immigrant), I feel there is this constant bashing on the country, and for what I can tell (at least in my circle), is citizens most of the time. I have found the US to be the easiest place to make it (and by far) of any other that I have been to, but they rather remove any ounce of responsibility from their own citizens for... their own doing.

sangnoir2• 2 years ago

I have found the US to be the easiest place to make it (and by far) of any other that I have been to, but they rather remove any ounce of responsibility from their own citizens

I'm willing to bet - dollars to donuts - that there were (and are) American investors in your country of origin, and every other one you've been to. Sometimes being an outsider confers clarity / skills / experience necessary to exploit opportunities not available - or even visible to those who've lived all their lives in an environment.

kylehotchkiss3• 2 years ago

Thank you for saying this. I spent a few years living outside the USA and it helped me deeply understand the positivity and opportunity life in USA can offer. It’s a special thing and I hope we can keep it that way for many decades to come

purple_ferret• 2 years ago

Your story rubs me the wrong way. For one, you say you had to financially support your parents, but then insinuate that people highlighted in the article should bootstrap themselves up since America is such a great place. Also being an immigrant doesn't make it 'high risk.' In many areas, belonging to an immigrant community might actually confer an advantage.

The point of the article is to think about how adverse childhood experiences might affect adulthood, using actual data, and try to think about an actionable way to address the issue. Maybe stuff like this is behind USA's secret sauce compared to other countries where the 'unfortunate' are left to rot.

rottc0dd• 2 years ago

Not implying anything regarding OPs comment other than perspectives is greatly influenced by where you come from.

From: https://collabfund.com/blog/immutable-truths-and-arguing-foo...

This is so foreign to the world I know. But so is my world to them. I think they’re wrong, but they’d say the same to me. I’m sure I’m right; so are they. Often the reason debates arise is that you double down on your view after learning that opposing views exist.
Here’s another.
Former New York Times columnist David Pogue once did a story about harsh working conditions at Foxconn tech assembly factories in China. A reader sent him a response:
> My aunt worked several years in what Americans call “sweat shops.” It was hard work. Long hours, “small” wage, “poor” working conditions. Do you know what my aunt did before she worked in one of these factories? She was a prostitute.
> Circumstances of birth are unfortunately random, and she was born in a very rural region. Most jobs were agricultural and family owned, and most of the jobs were held by men. Women and young girls, because of lack of educational and economic opportunities, had to find other “employment.”
> The idea of working in a “sweat shop” compared to that old lifestyle is an improvement, in my opinion. I know that my aunt would rather be “exploited” by an evil capitalist boss for a couple of dollars than have her body be exploited by several men for pennies.
> That is why I am upset by many Americans’ thinking. We do not have the same opportunities as the West. Our governmental infrastructure is different. The country is different.
> Yes, factory is hard labor. Could it be better? Yes, but only when you compare such to American jobs.
> If Americans truly care about Asian welfare, they would know that shutting down “sweat shops” would force many of us to return to rural regions and return to truly despicable “jobs.” And I fear that forcing factories to pay higher wages would mean they hire FEWER workers, not more.

parentheses2• 2 years ago

I agree. I find it hilarious when Americans complain about America. Most have no clue how good they have it.

autoexec2• 2 years ago

I'd bet that most do, but also know that America could be better and want it to be better. No one has to be ignorant about what is good in order to see what needs improving.

komali26• 2 years ago

Why is it funny to want to make our country better? Do you believe it's impossible for America to more wisely spend its wealth? Do you believe Americans have it as good as is possible, considering how rich the nation is? I find this silly, because I can simply point at our education and healthcare outcomes to find two readily improvable conditions. Or, our child hunger rates.

sneak• 2 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position

stkdump• 2 years ago

That is great to read and I genuinely believe everyone with such adverse experiences will be better off if they lived their life with this attitude. It is also a healthy attitude to focus on what one can control, which is how they choose to think of their situation and act in it.

We should not forget though that at the same time the system in place will also produce people that face live with the same attitude and do all the same things, but with much less success.

Now the big question is, if we can have a system that does a similar job in encouraging your type of attitude while at the same time helping those out better, for whom it doesn't work out as much. Or are these things mutually exclusive.

There is a guy who cofounded a successful company and sold it. When asked if he would retire, his answer is no. Not because he isn't ready for retirement. Not because he wants to continue working or be even more successful. Because he has kids to put through college. Even successful people are not free of financial worry.

I wonder if all this success if fueled by constant adrenaline, no matter if it helps the individual or not. And if yes, if there is a better way.

ascorbic• 2 years ago

That's great, and I'm genuinely glad to hear you've done well, but your story in no way negates the data in the article. It's not claiming that nobody coming from an adverse childhood succeeeds - just that it's a lot harder. Your post is a great example of survivorship bias. I doubt that there are many people in poverty who post to HN.

jajko• 2 years ago

Well of course no, there us simply no logical way how that could work, and claim what you (not you personally) can, reality and society are at base level quite logical, even if obscure way.

If you start life race very far behind athletes who had best training and nutrition, how easily you can even catch them, not even going into overcoming.

But adversity is a great, massive stimuli for those few with right mindset on their own, even if it stuns most. They would wither and get comfortable in comfort and security, instead they gather drive and focus that very few can match eventually. Often great men and women, albeit broken deep inside.

ziptron• 2 years ago

An interesting silver lining is that reported happiness (shown near the end) seems to be inversely related to all of the other negative effects. At least from first glance at the data.

throwaway2037• 2 years ago

Right away, I was struck by the early chart "Parenting style" which shows about 75% with "Two parents uninvolved". Pardon my language: What the fuck does that even mean? I call bullshit. The whole article is nothing more than typical doomerism that spikes the reader's emotions with clickbait.

Another one from "Household income vs. poverty line":

    > And a lot of kids are growing up extremely poor – which, in and of itself, can be traumatic.

Here, the phrase "a lot" is absolutely an editorial phrase. It would be more clear and less emotional to use a percent value. Instead, they chose the clickbait route. Interestingly, they chose the term "extremely poor", but their own chart does not use it, nor include a definition of it. The lowest income category simply says "In poverty". In past discussions about poverty, many people on HN have shared their personal poverty experiences and the range of poverty. You can be right at the poverty line, but making ends meet. Or you can be deep in poverty, struggling terribly. Again, the article fails to provide necessary nuance.

luxuryballs• 2 years ago

In one year, the US will elect Donald Trump as president – a man who constantly insults poor people and calls them "morons."

This is blatantly false and yet for no reason at all is embedded here. It makes it harder to trust the author for everything else when they do stuff like this. “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is clearly much more than just a meme.

reactordev• 2 years ago

This is fascinating. Also kind of helps explain why my experiences aren’t relatable to the people I work with as they (mostly).

This is my peer group too!

So cool to see how our experiences shape us. For better or worse.

unobatbayar• 2 years ago

I'd like to share some of my experiences on this topic.

Growing up, I faced several adversities. My parents divorced when I was young, and I lived with my mother until the age of 13. Unfortunately, my mother struggled with alcoholism, often bringing friends over, even during my early school years. However, in hindsight, I believe she deeply missed my father and coped with her pain through drinking. Despite her struggles, I know she loved me.

Life became even more challenging when my stepfather entered the picture. I endured multiple school absences due to injuries like broken noses and ribs. Eventually, I reached a breaking point and called my real father, expressing my desire to live with him. One day, I left my mother's home and never returned.

Transitioning to life with my father brought new dynamics, including a stepmother and stepbrother. While our financial situation improved, a different form of abuse emerged, one that was emotional and insidious. I often found myself unfairly blamed and punished for things I hadn't done. Despite evidence implicating my stepbrother, I was consistently scapegoated. To extended family and relatives, I became the problem child, while my stepbrother was seen as an angel. My stepmother's behavior shifted when my father was present, exacerbating the emotional turmoil.

My academic performance suffered, contrasting sharply with my previous success under my mother's care. I developed a video game addiction, became extremely thin and struggled with dissociative identity disorder, challenges that persisted into my university years and adulthood.

Despite graduating with a GPA of 2.7 and needing an extra year to complete university, I was able to secure a job, thanks to the kindness of the people I met during an internship. I faced numerous exam retakes due to heavy gaming. Financial stability, facilitated by my father, spared me from experiencing poverty and enabled my education. Now, at 26, I'm married with a baby on the way in May. I'm determined to provide unwavering love and support to my child and wife, drawing from my own experiences of feeling blamed and unloved.

Reflecting on my past, I regret leaving my mother's home. A mother's love is irreplaceable, transcending monetary value. However, I don't blame anyone except myself. In conclusion, I might have been an unlikable and unlovable brat, often inciting displeasure and animosity. On top of that, loving a stepchild is undoubtedly challenging. Yet, I believe that surviving abuse and adversity can catalyze personal growth in ways we may not immediately perceive. Most importantly, it's crucial to have someone who loves you, whether it's a significant other, partner, or friend, especially if you're unable to find that love and support within your own home.

matteoraso• 2 years ago

In conclusion, I might have been an unlikable and unlovable brat

Sounds like self-blame to me. No matter how you act, getting your bones broken isn't something that you deserve, ever.

MathYouF• 2 years ago

"Bachelor's degrees have become essential for well-paid jobs in the US."

The lies we continue to allow ourselves to tell as a society.

atlas_hugged• 2 years ago

Poverty is expensive.

I’m about to be 40 and I finally feel like my family has escaped it.

yosito• 2 years ago

I read this, and I'm shocked at the number of people who seem to make it through life with no adverse experiences. And I also note how by almost every measure, there is a similar ratio of people with adverse experiences who are found at every level. Life is hard. I used to think that it's hard for a majority of people. But this article has convinced me that quite a lot of people have relatively easy lives, which, as someone who had my fair share of adverse experiences, I think is wonderful.

joshuahutt• 2 years ago

Life seems to be a crapshoot for most people. Most people seem to be born into families not adequately equipped to raise children, and the ones that succeed and survive seem to do so despite what they missed out on, developing elaborate coping strategies that survive on into adulthood, which ironically, can lead to more underserved children.

Few seem fortunate enough to find a time to "pause" in their lives, examine what deep seeded issues they have developed from the process of surviving childhood, and finding and embarking on a path to a more balanced and mature, "adult" life.

But hey, it might be a sampling bias. I also imagine there is a silent majority of well adjusted people that don't show up on the internet or the news, projecting themselves all over everyone and everything within their reach.

jackbauer24• 2 years ago

I am familiar with this documentary. The current presentation style is quite spectacular.

NewByteHacker• 2 years ago

Parents and family are so important to a child's growth.

donatj• 2 years ago

Probably an unimportant detail, but the "weights today" are strangely low and seemingly unrepresentative of the general US population. A VERY strangely high percentage between 90lbs and 120lbs, and very few over 200lbs.

acjohnson552• 2 years ago

The format is very creative and technically impressive. I don't want to launch into criticisms without acknowledging that.

However, I find myself underwhelmed, for a few reasons.

- It's hard to compare the different cohorts, because of the different widths.

- The definition of "adverse experiences" seems too limited in scope of what's counted, leading to small numbers and small differentiation between the cohorts.

- The biggest difference appears to be "no adverse experiences" vs everyone else, but I think the narrative describes other things.

- Somehow, the viceral differences in experience between folks who come from healthy, happy, wealthy families and those that don't feel kind of flattened.

I'm deeply concerned for social justice and equity of opportunities. I'm sure the underlying research of this longitudinal study is fascinating. I just think that the execution of this summary misses the mark a bit.

aprilthird2021• 2 years ago

I'm honestly not sure what conclusion to come away from this data with. It seems to be bolstering a (typically conservative) viewpoint that parenting is really important and that bad or unfit parents need to be kept in check by the state because the harm they may do to their kids can last a lifetime.

This article focuses on shootings, neglectful parents, etc. But what if we focused on more controversial things like only having one parent in the home or missing, specifically, a father figure, religious attitudes of parents, or even (to be maximally controversial) same-sex vs opposite-sex parents?

If those things were found to have impacts on children that last into adulthood also (since the data implies that our childhood shapes us so much), I doubt the author would agree that we have a collective responsibility to keep children from experiencing the negatives of those scenarios

acjohnson552• 2 years ago

I don't think it's at all unique to conservatives to believe that parenting is important. I would say conservatives tend to want to enforce (and sometimes preferentially support) "traditional" households, leaving up to people to self organize their support systems. Liiberals tend to want to accept households as they are but put in place systems to compensate for the specific conditions that might be suboptimal in a child's environment.

I'm biased, but I believe the liberal perspective takes a more open mind to letting people live the ways they want, under the assumption that this is likely to be locally optimal versus trying to coerce people into externally imposed lifestyles. I don't think it's controversial to say that two parent households correlate with better outcomes. But that doesn't mean that every family is better off that way. Some children are way better off if it's easy and unstigmatized for a single parent to get sole custody if the other parent is abusive.

INTPenis• 2 years ago

"This is a US teenager". Wouldn't be hard to add that right? We're not all american on the internet.

bbqq• 2 years ago

age of first sex? n/a. age of the first of a long series of rejections from the opposite sex was quite a young age.

I guess we all have our own positive and negative deviations from the mean across different aspects of life's 'expected' outcomes.

aszantu• 2 years ago

This girl was unlucky, she got hit a few times when she was young. By mum, by "friends", bullied in kindergarden and bullied and bossed in school and when it looked like it would all be okay, the parents divorced. She felt like she's not good enough for this world, but eventually she found out she had been depressed for 25 year and blessed/cursed with adhd. When she fixed her diet, it all turned around and she got her first stable income at 37 and went up the ladder a bit. She happy? No. Happiness is for others. Today it's enough to not suffer too much.

ozim2• 2 years ago

I think in Europe no one holds back in the grades, school will push a kid forward.

When I was a kid they did hold kids and they were usually worst bullies and bad influences.

Wonder if it still the case in US or “Alex” would be born somewhere 1990ish or earlier?

mdekkers• 2 years ago

I think in Europe no one holds back in the grades, school will push a kid forward.

That is hilariously incorrect.

I had an adverse childhood, my dad died when I was 8, and my mom was literally not around, she was on the other side of the country and not interested. I was in care. I was passed around middle and high schools like a hot potato, nobody wanted me, simply because I was in care. The folks in care told me I was going to do exceptionally well in life, as my IQ tests were incredible - they were the only really structured approach to testing at the time. I ran the computer labs at all the schools I was at (C64 FTW!), because I was known as a “whizz kid” and could be trusted with that, but before ever setting foot in any of those schools I was already “branded” because I was in care. The teachers, all of them bar one, literally didn’t give a fuck. The one that cared, cared deeply. He was the music teacher, steadfastly wore punk t-shirts to class, and taught me drums and percussion. I still think of him often, but music lessons are not enough.

As for the rest of the bastards, my questions and educational needs were ignored, I was told to “just don’t bother” by many. I was great in the computer lab of course, English, and history. I struggled with many other subjects, but was deeply motivated to do well in school - I saw all the _other_ kids in care around me and was absolutely positive that I did not want to end up like that, but as I said I simply was ignored. Not only can I not do math until today, the “European schools (Netherlands, to be precise) experience” traumatised me to an extent where any kind of formal learning causes some kind of brain freeze and I simply cannot. I was relentlessly bullied at and outside of school, until I learned to stand up for myself, at which point it went in a kind of binary fashion directly to outlandish punishments for standing up for myself. Punching back in self defence can, in fact, land you in a straitjacket and in isolation for a week, who knew?! That was also where my deep distrust and rejection of any kind of authority figure or structure comes from.

I never finished school, I emancipated myself from care and dropped out when I was 17, and got the fuck out of the Netherlands. I am, until this day (54 years old now), unable to get a degree as I dropped out and as I am unable to study in a traditional sense. I was homeless and living rough a few months later, and it took me years to fight my way out of that shit. By good fortune and stubbornness I was able to learn and work in stage lighting, and did that for many years. I designed shows, clubs, bars, and ran the lights at too many events to count. I was at the forefront of the (then new up and coming) move away from pure analog lighting and into digital control and moving lights.

I eventually pivoted into IT professionally, again at a time when this was all new for everyone, and managed to build a career. I did well for a very long time and love the work. As a certified Old, I now struggle to get the contracts I need to keep going, companies want young blood and believe that deep skill and experience is overrated, so we will see what the next stage of life will bring.

Nothing special about European schools. They suck just as much as all the others.

ozim2• 2 years ago

Push forward doesn't mean help in some special way.

It means only that they will never let a kid to stay the same level with younger kids, you always move with your peers to next class - even if you won't have any passing grades.

Maybe on high school level they will kick you out but in primary school I don't think they have any real grades even anymore.

badpun• 2 years ago

Regarding low-income as a result of adverse childhood experiences. This ignores the fact that some jobs just don't pay a lot, and even if everyone had super-duper childhood, some portion of those people would still end up working minimum-wage jobs - because somebody has to do them. The way our economy works is just stack-ranking, but at a nation-wide scale. In consequence, if you help one teenager, you'll lift them further the bottom of the stack - at the expense of everyone else who they've surpassed thanks to your help. Another corollary is that, if we want people to not have low incomes, we need to change how our society functions (as say Scandinavians did it, with very high minimum wage), as helping individuals will not matter that much. The one effect helping individuals has is making them more efficient and better adjusted to the economy, so that maybe they'll be slightly better waiters or burger flippers, which produces slighly more GDP for the nation to spread via welfare state policies - but, for simplest jobs, that effect can't be huge.

helboi42• 2 years ago

To respond to a lot of these ridiculous responses here:

The answer to this is that we should optimise society towards less inequality. It is our collective responsibility because the privileged people who have disproportionally better results do so BECAUSE systems of inequality that keep wealth in certain areas of society exist. This doesn't mean you didn't work hard, obviously.

The evening out of such inequalities require much more radical policies than stuff like affirmitive action. We need things that address the root of the issues with how our society works. Nobody is willing to do that.

But yeah, its not the fault of the parents alone. I'm sorry that's some incredibly neoliberal individualist bullshit. There are so many factors listed here that poorer parents cannot sheild their kids from. They cannot live in a nicer place that they can't afford. They cannot just stop having chronic illness at a higher rate because of their own disadvantaged lives. Etc etc.

Everyone should take responsibility over their own life and do as much as they can to not let anything hold them back, just for the sake of their personal happiness at least. However, saying that does not then abdicate us from our other responsibility to make the world a better place. Telling people to work hard does not make societal factors go away.

ConnorCallahan• 2 years ago

“ The world we've built has shaped his life.

So he is our collective responsibility. They all are.”

I don’t understand how it’s our responsibility that he is “sometimes depressed”. I didn’t make him not study.

m101• 2 years ago

The problem with 1) blaming early trauma on all outcomes and 2) saying it's out responsibility to support them, is that it sends a poor signal about personal responsibility. What kind of society would be created if we sent that message?

ErigmolCt4• 2 years ago

The data is really interestingly presented!

ckemere• 2 years ago

Lots of discussion about the conclusions relating childhood trauma to adult outcomes. One intermediate comment that struck me was the idea of college as a temporal/physical space for necessary growth in the 18-20s age range. I need to ponder more about this.

BUT, it struck me that one of the outcomes of the pandemic was the recognition that a major function of school for kids is childcare (as opposed to learning), and it’s funny to imagine college as the modern equivalent for older “kids”.

kjgkjhfkjf• 2 years ago

This website is neat, but please keep in mind that you cannot establish causation from an observational study.

mayerwin• 2 years ago

Worst visualization ever for a study about obvious correlations (that are misrepresented as a result of the poor display of data).

This is a teenager

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