Trash Can Trap (Consumerism Trap)#
Consumerism shapes the value of "identity = consumption" through advertising and other means, packaging luxury goods as symbols of social mobility, enticing low-income groups to borrow money to purchase non-essential items. At the same time, financial tools lower the borrowing threshold, allowing debt to grow with high interest rates and compound interest. The poor lack the ability to delay gratification, are easily "brainwashed" by merchants, and follow trends in purchasing, leading to waste of money, difficulty in accumulating wealth, and falling into debt.
Nipple Happiness Trap (Entertainment Paralysis Trap)#
In the 1990s, American sociologist Zygmunt Bauman proposed the "nipple happiness" theory, which provides the lower class with cathartic or mass entertainment, such as games, short videos, soap operas, etc. These entertainments use algorithms to stimulate dopamine secretion through instant feedback, robbing people of their attention, encroaching on time for learning and thinking, weakening deep reading abilities, trapping individuals in short-term pleasure, losing motivation and thinking ability to improve themselves and change their fate.
Rat Race Trap (Inefficient Busy Trap)#
Gig economy platforms use algorithms to maximize the compression of workers' hourly wages, locking their working hours at the survival line, leaving no time for self-improvement. People engage in repetitive, low-value work, falling into a state that seems busy but is actually inefficient, like a rat desperately running to get the cheese above its head but spinning in place, having no time or energy to think innovatively or improve their skills, making it difficult to break through the status quo and achieve social mobility, trapped in a vicious cycle of being poorer and busier, and busier and poorer.
Shawshank Trap (Self-Domestication Trap)#
Long-term poverty can foster "learned helplessness," causing individuals to become accustomed to and accept their current situation, developing a fear of change and relying on their comfort zone. At the same time, institutional barriers such as household registration and education can lead the lower class to mistakenly believe that "effort is useless," rationalizing the intergenerational transmission of poverty. People self-limit in a long-term constrained environment, losing the courage and ability to change; even when opportunities for change arise, they may give up out of fear, remaining trapped in poverty.
Information Asymmetry Trap (Information Gap Trap)#
The poor often struggle to access high-quality information, such as employment, investment, and entrepreneurship information, due to a lack of resources, education, and social networks. Those who possess information advantages can exploit this gap for profit, further widening the wealth gap. Additionally, the poor are more likely to encounter false or misleading information, leading to poor decision-making, such as purchasing overpriced low-quality goods or participating in illegal fundraising.