Scarcity and Intelligence

Excellent essay on why poor people make poor decisions. The focus is primarily on poverty but the article also delves a bit into what happens when people are pressed for time. The effects are similar - they have diminished intelligence on account of scarcity and make bad decisions.

“Self-control feels like a challenge. You are distracted and easily perturbed. And this happens every day.” This is how scarcity – whether of time or of money – leads to unwise decisions.

There’s a key distinction though between people with busy lives and those living in poverty: you can’t take a break from poverty.

Following that logic, aggressive multi-tasking would create a severe scarcity of time leading to diminished mental abilities and bad outcomes. I have always struggled to multi-task and thought of it as a liability in life. Maybe its for the best that I cannot.

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