re: How do we change the culture of bad decision-making?

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but UBI is going to cost a LOT more than what we spend on welfare

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But it should be more efficient (less bureaucracy; less fraud, etc.), and I think from an incentives standpoint, it diminishes the reinforcement of poor decision-making and a lack of self-improvement. The entitlement system incentivizes people to stay in need.

UBI is one thing that I'm hypocritically open to. Listening to the Freakonomics podcast regarding it, and seeing the support from people like Friedman and Hayek, really changed my perspective a bit.

Doing some more research, I found Hayek's moral arguments, regarding government control and coercion in an entitlement system pretty compelling.

UBI will eventually happen

until then, this is an impossible question to solve

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UBI will eventually happen

until then, this is an impossible question to solve

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If the government could think scientifically, we could reseach how it works on a small scale and go from there.

I guess a venture capitalist firm is planning to do a large study on UBI; I really hope they do since they'll study it scientifically, and it's a private venture.

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at some point it may no be possible to organize a society without one (when the robots take over)

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this is what I mean in that it will eventually happen

hopefully I'm dead by then

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ETA example: If you have 1 baby, we (the government/American people) will help you out. When you have your 2nd-10th, you are on your own.

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This won't change people's reproductive habits, and you're naive if you think that it will.

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But the problem is that it's probably a combination of pooe decision-making with poor circumstances outside their control

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Of course there could be many factors at play when you consider each case, but the decisions each individual or their parents make have, by far, the greatest implications on affecting their financial status.

And therefore finding a solution to rectify those bad decisions need to be where you start in order to find a solution to combating poverty.

That graph is sort of incomplete.

There ought to be a massive effort aimed at instilling the "cheat codes" of life into every young child at all levels of public school.

1) Graduate from high school,
2) Don't have children until you are married,
3) Don't get addicted to drugs or alcohol,
4) Don't commit crime.

If you do those four things, your chances of remaining in poverty for the rest of your life are extremely low. If you get married and provide a two parent household to your children and pass these rules down, the odds of your child living in poverty are even more drastically reduced.

We basically need to give up on the idea that we can save people over the age of 12 who are already in the bad decision/poverty cycle. We also need to get over the idea that you cannot patronize them; you can and it is right. If you really love your kid, then you don't want them to make the same mistakes you did. They need to be told that their parent screwed up and that there is a better, easier way.

I envision something along the lines of the anti-smoking campaign. By the time they are teenagers, it is already too late. You have to impress these ideas onto them before age 11.

I think the biggest obstacle to something like this is obviously the garbage PC culture we have. You have to be able to say that being a single mom or having a criminal record is bad instead of blaming everything on "the system" or "the patriarchy" or "the school-to-prison pipeline." You also have to be able to say that we have "given up" on those who are too old to really absorb the idea in any meaningful way.

Behaviorally speaking, you need to identify and use an effective motivator. The two very best motivators are social stigma and actual extreme hardship. People who make bad decisions that lead to poverty just don't experience the kind of actual extreme hardship that would force change. No one is starving to death. This is a good thing. For that reason, we need to get reacquainted with social stigma as a tool. You would think liberals would be all for this since it is a "for the greater good" collectivist-type of thought.

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ETA example: If you have 1 baby, we (the government/American people) will help you out. When you have your 2nd-10th, you are on your own.
This won't change people's reproductive habits, and you're naive if you think that it will.

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I work in education. I have seen time and time again, that when the checks stop, the behavior stops.

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I think the biggest obstacle to something like this is obviously the garbage PC culture we have. You have to be able to say that being a single mom or having a criminal record is bad instead of blaming everything on "the system" or "the patriarchy" or "the school-to-prison pipeline." You also have to be able to say that we have "given up" on those who are too old to really absorb the idea in any meaningful way.

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i won't even call it PC culture

it's guilt culture. people just feel guilty at their success for some reason