Reddit reviews Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass

Talk to people more. Travel outside of the US. Go to a large college with a diverse array of people or work at a job that give you access to lots of different types of people. If you're the smartest highest status person in the room get out of the room.

> I wonder, how to determine what status a girl is

If she's overly concerned with status. She's low or middle status. If she's well spoken and doesn't offend easily she's higher status.

> Are there different rules in communication depending on the statuses of a girl?

Yes and no. Redpill applies across all social and political spectrums but every group has a set of secret rules that outsiders don't pick up on. This helps to create in group out group dynamics.

I highly recommend these two books on the subject of status and class mindsets.

https://www.amazon.com/Framework-Understanding-Poverty-4th/dp/1929229488

https://www.amazon.com/Life-Bottom-Worldview-Makes-Underclass/dp/1566635055/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502810211&sr=1-1&keywords=life+at+the+bottom

> Is applying these rules the same as holding the frame of high status?

No. You could play all your cards right and if a girl is in a different class/status position you're out of the running. It's all about handling these situations with grace and establishing connections and friendships. Holding frame is not a guarantee of landing particular target. Holding frame just ups your chances in general and also wins male friendships which helps you grow a social group which increase your chance of getting laid. Men respect other men that hold frame.

This is a bit tangential, but it helps to understand why the poor really are poor, so that the lie that they're being made poor is exposed:

Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass

TL;DR: the poor are poor because they have a culture marked by high time preference in all aspects of their life. They live in the moment, not planning ahead. This precludes investing, deprecates long-range planning and goal setting, such as going to college and finding a good job. They also don't take care of capital they do have, they are poor stewards and thus cannot accumulate it. This manifests in things like not changing your oil and then being surprised when your car quits on you.

They spend disproportionately on luxury items, in stark contrast to the poor from say Asia whom came here, saved and scrimped, opened businesses, and whose children all became highly-educated professional workers in a generation.

One very interesting and thought provoking book from the right that may CYV is Theodore Darlymple's Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that makes the underclass. He certainly challenges my beliefs.

Ever read Theodore Dalrymple? I’d be curious whether your experience matches his.

Well anyways, here's a NRx reading list I'm slowly making my way through...

​



Introduction

The Dark Enlightenment Defined*
The Dark Enlightenment Explained*
The Path to the Dark Enlightenment*
The Essence of the Dark Enlightenment*
An Introduction to Neoreaction*
Neoreaction for Dummies*

Reactionary Philosophy in a Nutshell*
The Dark Enlightenment – Nick Land*

The Neoreactionary Canon

The Cathedral Explained*

When Wish Replaces Thought Steven Goldberg *

Three Years of Hate – In Mala Fide***

****

The Decline

We are Doomed – John Derbyshire*
America Alone – Mark Steyn*
After America – Mark Steyn*
Death of the West – Pat Buchanan***
The Abolition of Britain – Peter Hitchens

****

Civil Society and Culture

Coming Apart – Charles Murray
Disuniting of America – Arthur Schlesinger
The Quest for Community – Robert Nisbet
Bowling Alone – Robert Putnam
Life at the Bottom – Theodore Dalrymple
Intellectuals and society – Thomas Sowell

****

Western Civilization

Civilization: The West and the Rest – Niall Ferguson
Culture Matters – Samuel Huntington
The Uniqueness of Western Civilization – Ricardo Duchesne

****

Moldbuggery

Mencius Moldbug is one of the more influential neoreactionaries. His blog, Unqualified Reservations, is required reading; if you have not read Moldbug, you do not understand modern politics or modern history. Start here for an overview of major concepts: Moldbuggery Condensed. Introduction to Moldbuggery has the Moldbug reading list. Start with Open Letter series, then simply go from the beginning.*

****

​

Be careful on overestimating the whole death of the suburbs thing. While there has been some gentrification, there was always a relatively large group of affluent people in cities. Even if a few neighborhoods/districts get gentrified, there will still be wide swaths that are poor/low income.
This is true even in the fastest gentrifying places like Chattanooga.

Crime has largely continued down, even during the recession.

Also, "Global South" is a really crappy grouping. Almost any other word would be more fitting


http://www.amazon.com/Life-Bottom-Worldview-Makes-Underclass/dp/1566635055

here's a great book on the topic

What I have in mind is the typical "serial abusive boyfriend" situation that is unfortunately common for lower-class single moms... http://www.amazon.com/Life-Bottom-Worldview-Makes-Underclass/dp/1566635055/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342513315&sr=8-1&keywords=theodore+dalrymple

Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass

I think you're not understanding my point that social welfare programs wouldn't be so broadly necessary if community, religion and marriage hadn't been crippled so badly as the tent poles holding up our society, as least among those who receive government benefits. The government has stepped into the void to take care of people instead of people taking care of themselves, which they are far better equipped to do if they are socialized through the aforementioned institutions that you dismiss so cavalierly. And now that we have an entire underclass with no notion of or use for those institutions, the only option they have left is to rely on the government to support them. You might consider reading this book for an analysis of this phenomenon.




There's nothing inherently "leftist" about community as a concept; what an odd claim to make. Maybe you've never met any Mormons? Or a rural farming town? Or the old people in my town who square dance and play bridge and quilt and paint benches at the park together?

> the relative poverty rate being 33.33% lower than it otherwise would have been (10% vs. 15%).

Not lower than it otherwise would have been. Just lower than if you do the accounting differently. If you give the poor services, then total their income+services, of course you get a bigger number than just totaling their income.

But this doesn't tell you what would have happened in a universe where you never provided the services and had instead left the resources in the more productive parts of the economy.

> there is still a clear benefit in these programs

There's a benefit to any action. When you send people checks, they get richer. Doing drugs makes you feel great. Even plane crashes remind us how precious life is. What I'm disputing is whether your success metric is sensible and whether the hidden cost outweighs the visible benefit.

> I challenge you to show me evidence that these programs had a significant role in halting the declining trend in poverty rates.

Read some Theodore Dalrymple. I found Life at the Bottom an eye-opener. He writes about the effects of the UK's welfare system, but ours isn't much different.

> a substantially lower percentage of the total federal tax revenue

I was responding specifically to your claim about Social Security benefits. Its hidden costs are relatively easy to bring into the light, because its accounting is somewhat separate. Payroll taxes have in fact gone up quite a bit and are borne disproportionately by the middle class.

If you want to look at the bigger picture, you can't stop with federal tax but need to include state and local, which have risen the most and are the least progressive, as a good part of them take the form of sales and property tax. The total tax burden has tripled in real terms since 1979, while the workforce has grown by only about 50%. Workers are getting squeezed to pay for many things, but baby boomers' retirements are among the bigger items.