On poverty

Unfortunately, that power has been handed to politicians and the stream of money they control makes the problem too big to challenge. Politicians won't stand up to food giants. The little guy would be squashed like a bug for trying. Other than raising a family on a healthy diet and helping friends avoid becoming a life time customer of food and drug giants, I don't see an answer. I predict it will reach a tipping point when there are not enough healthy people to contribute to the workforce.

BTW, I have been on an organic, Vegan diet for many years. I still enjoy a good single malt from time to time!

 

That IS the answer.

 

No, it most certainly is not, as I have already proved to you. Here's the proof again, in terms so simple that I trust even you will be unable to contrive any means of not understanding it:

There is a wild tree full of ripe apples in the forest, and a hungry man who would like to eat one. It is his freely made choice to climb the tree and pick one or not. But the situation in our modern economy is not like that. Rather, someone says they own the tree (they did not plant or cultivate it, they just have a legal deed of ownership) and if the man wants an apple, by law he must first pick one for the tree's owner. That is NOT a freely made choice. It is a choice made under duress, because it makes the man worse off than he would have been had the tree's owner not existed. The tree's owner is stealing from him, and though he is hungry, he might decide that the requirement to first feed the owner makes the climb too risky and troublesome. He may thus decide not to "do what it takes," because the cost is no longer worth the benefit. That choice is not free. It is forced on him by the tree's owner.

No it's not. The buck stops at those who created the institutions that shape the decision space -- and at those who disingenuously rationalize and justify the preservation of such institutional arrangements, like you.

Garbage. We know the opposite: anyone who wants to escape poverty must, by law, pay the privileged full market value for their permission to do so.

That is irrelevant and disingenuous blame-the-victim filth, as I have already proved to you. The fact that one agile young person climbs the tree and fetches the owner an apple before picking one for himself does not in any way imply that everyone can climb the tree as easily, or at as little risk. Indeed, the more apples the agile youngsters harvest, the harder it will be for anyone else to get one.

No, that's just more false and disingenuous garbage from you. I already proved to you that your claim is just objectively false: the institutional requirement to first feed the owner before picking an apple for yourself is a much more suitable location for that buck to stop.

Proved false above. How many apples would one have to first pick for the tree's owners before the picker is a victim? 5? 20? 100? 1000? No. The very first one already makes him a victim, because the owner's something for nothing proves the picker is getting nothing for something. That is the definition of robbery.

No. That is just objectively false, as proved above. Their choices have been constrained by force.

No they don't. They have to pay the privileged full market value just for permission to exercise them. If they had their rights, they would be at liberty to pick an apple without having to feed a parasite first.

No they do not, as proved above. BY LAW, they must first pay parasites full market value just for permission to access economic opportunity.

Conclusively refuted above.

 

1) Let's stay out of pre-history, eh? Not much point ruing the loss of our tribal freedoms, since we haven't had them for thousands of years. And let's be honest here, you wouldn't last five minutes in that world even if you could somehow reinstate it. Which brings us up to the past few thousand years, wherein land (and apple trees) have been bought and sold as a much more efficient and friendly way of acquiring those things, than the murder and pillage which went before it. The great beauty of our modern capitalist democracies is that we're all free to pursue ownership of the land and its trees. A few hundred years ago we were either tenant farmers or tenement dwellers ... there was little to no access to land ownership for what would have been the equivalent of our working and middle classes. Now, even the most modest of means will secure land if the individuals wish it.

2) The clear contradiction you make in that second comment does my work for me. Besides, any decision on cost/benefit is entirely personal, and has nothing to do with 'the system'. What works for one person won't work for another - it's entirely contingent upon how they've CHOSEN to set their lives up, and how they live those lives. Terrible argument (as always, bless ya!).

3) Including every self made rich person. And it's not 'permission', it's paying your way. If you want to return to murder and pillage as a means of getting those apples, go ahead. The rest of us will do it the civilised way, while you languish in prison.

 

Is that an admission that not all humans are perfect like you?

 

I haven't mentioned prehistory. You are merely trying to change the subject because you know that you have been proved flat, outright wrong as a matter of objective physical fact.

"Not much point ruing the loss of your tribal freedom, Tom, since your forebears haven't had it for hundreds of years. So you just hush your mouth and go back to picking that cotton, hear?"

The forcible removal of our rights by the privileged is not something that happened thousands of years ago any more than the removal of a slave's right to liberty is something that happened to his ancestors on a different continent. Like slavery, it is a theft that is repeated and renewed every hour of every day that our liberty rights remain the private property of the privileged.

That is personal speculation utterly without supporting evidence, as well as a blatant strawman fallacy. You could with equal "logic" observe that a man born into slavery lacks the skills to survive as his hunter-gatherer ancestors did, even if he could somehow be transported back to their world. It is in his present life that his rights are others' private property, just as it is in our present lives that our rights are the private property of the privileged.

You are disgracing yourself by your disingenuous attempts to rationalize privilege and justify injustice.

There is nothing efficient or friendly about forcibly dispossessing people of their rights to liberty to make the productive pay tribute to the privileged. There is only something profitable.

You just made that up. Before land was forcibly appropriated as private property, the people of a given community shared usage rights to it peacefully according to customary institutions. Google "history of village commons" and start reading.

Just as our ancestors -- very much including the slaves that lurk in all our family trees -- were all free to pursue friendly and efficient ownership of slaves.

More ahistorical garbage from you. Before the land was forcibly appropriated as private property, each household in the community had a right to use a fair share of it.

No, that is another outright fabrication on your part. Statistically, the best predictor of whether one will ever own land is whether one's parents owned land. And the more land one's forebears owned and the longer they owned it, the earlier in life one can expect to own land oneself and the more land one can expect ultimately to own.

There is no contradiction in anything I said. A decision made under duress is not a free one. Your work thus remains to be done -- and you are all too obviously not capable of doing it.

Garbage, as already proved. Whether the system does not legally require one to give any of the apples one picks to a greedy, privileged parasite, or to give half, or 90%, or 99% of the apples, is not a personal choice, and will obviously affect one's decision whether to pick apples or not.

How many more times, and in how many more independently conclusive ways, do I have to prove you flat, outright wrong as a matter of objective physical fact before you will become willing to consider the possibility that you actually ARE wrong?

Nobody chose to have their rights to liberty forcibly stripped from them and given to the privileged as their private property, any more than any slave ever chose to have his right to liberty forcibly stripped from him and given to his owner as his private property.

Slaves also choose how to live their lives.

Terrible argument (as always, bless ya!).

And every slave who purchased his liberty from his owner. That doesn't mean they weren't slaves, any more than the ability of a few to race ahead of their fellows on the treadmill means the treadmill (and the escalator of the privileged that it powers) is actually a staircase.

It is most definitely and indisputably permission.

No it isn't. It's paying the privileged's way for them.

Strawman fallacy, as proved above. I want equal rights for all as the means of getting the apples, not some being privileged to get apples by making others pay for permission to pick them.

Hong Kong has been quite civilized for over 160 years without any private landownership, and I will thank you to remember it.

 

Why would that suggest perfection? How on earth did you reach that conclusion?

Does honesty about the human condition discomfort you so much that you have to see it as some kind of accusation?

 

I said it suggested the opposite "Imperfection" .
Your claim is that people should do this or should do that, but they don't. This can only be because unlike you they are flawed, imperfect.

 

Well isn't it obvious that there are certain things humans SHOULD do? Like drink water, eat food, get enough sleep, protect the young, care for the old, etc? Even wolves do that stuff.

Your premise is either wildly entitled, or I'm missing some crucial piece of information.

 

Your point was more restrictive than just eating and drinking as you well know.

 

Not at all - I'm talking precisely about that stuff. The collective obligation to 'pack' members. Social responsibility.

 

You spoke of buying the right sort of food, etc. is your argument so weak you have to hide from what you claimed.

 

Thanks for asking! Yes, food choice is one of the most common areas of failure in people determined to sabotage themselves.

This shouldn't need explaining to a grown man, but if you have very limited means, then you clearly have no business buying fast food, convenience food, processed food, soda, expensive raw ingredients like meat and cheese, etc etc etc. All of which cost considerably more than a 'rice & beans' diet. A family living on rice or bean based meals with just the addition of fresh in season (and therefore cheap) fruit and vegetables, and drinking water or tea, is going to spend half of what it costs to live on the aforementioned crap diet.

Likewise it goes without saying that if you have very limited means, you also have no business destroying your health and fitness via bad food choices. Since you may not be able to afford health insurance/care, then you're obliged to do everything you can to stay in peak health and fitness, avoiding all vices and getting plenty of exercise.

So yes, it's ALL about choices. If someone is able to take mad risks like spending all their money on 'easy' foods, and risking their health, then clearly they're not poor. The only other explanation is that they simply prefer to be poor. We're talking about functioning adults here, after all, not three year olds. They understand cause and effect.

 

Is that an admission that not all humans are perfect like you?

 

No, because nobody ever chose to have their right to liberty forcibly stripped from them and given to the privileged as their private property.

Non sequitur fallacy. Logic is not exactly your strong suit is it?

False dichotomy fallacy. Logic is not exactly your strong suit, is it?

Do you? Read and learn:

"But a new piece of research by Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir, and co-authors in the August issue of Science magazine presents some very important evidence on how poverty affects decision making through a different channel. The authors have evidence, from two different studies, that poverty itself affects decision making, even controlling for diet, stress, and physical exertion. They believe the effects come from the larger cognitive burden associated with keeping track of all the details and loose ends as well as from constant exertion of the will power necessary to survive on low levels of income. As the authors put it: “Because the poor must overcome more urges and make difficult decisions more often than others, they are more likely to overeat, overspend, and enact other problematic behaviors.” The studies illustrate a new mechanism whereby poverty itself can beget more poverty by making it harder for people to “think their way out” of whatever problems they face."

https://nextbillion.net/new-evidence-on-how-poverty-affects-decision-making/

 

THIS!!!

 

There you are, talking about perfection again. Is this your go-to when out gunned? I'm not sure you even know what you're saying, it's just a sort of lash-out.

Meantime, if you have a quibble with the stuff I posted about food and health choices, your quibble is with reality.

But go ahead and demonstrate that such basic truths are somehow incorrect (I urge you to at least try - because it will be funny).

 

No its not my go to. Its my attempt to get you to acknowledge that human beings have faults.
Once you have taken that step, the next one is to look at the other forces poverty imposes upon this group and how they effect the decision making of the individual.
Having been in that position myself, I can vouch for the validity of those forces.

 

The problem is not with the accuracy of what you say, but the relevance. It's like you are giving running tips to people who are already exhausted from toiling on the treadmill that powers the escalator of the privileged: "Pick your feet up, and at least match the treadmill speed so you aren't leaning so far forward. Make sure you stay hydrated. Don't get behind people who are slower than you..." Blah, blah, blah. The reason the people on the treadmill are losing ground is not the problems with their running form. It is the fact that they are on the treadmill that powers the escalator the privileged ride up at their leisure, and not on a staircase where everyone goes up or down according to their own choices and effort.

 

That has to be the most complicated analogy I have ever read. Correct, but complicated.

 

It is the simplest way I could think of to explain the relationships correctly.

 

So there are no benefits to someone who works hard (runs the treadmill) and enjoys the fruits of their labor?

 

Of course there are benefits from all that toil -- but mainly to the rich, greedy, privileged parasites riding up at their leisure on the escalator that the treadmill powers. The faster the treadmill runners run, the faster the treadmill goes, and the faster the escalator bears the privileged upward. Someone who runs faster than their fellows on the treadmill may get ahead of them, and by extraordinary exertions may even scramble up onto the escalator of the privileged that the treadmill powers. That does not mean working people are on a staircase where everyone goes up or down according to their own choices and efforts, rather than on the treadmill where their labors primarily benefit the privileged riding up at their leisure on the escalator the treadmill powers.

 

And your alternative to this perceived issue?

 

For those who believe in the 'bell curve', regarding poverty for example, the peak of the bell curve is a median point while to the left of the peak are those in poverty and to the right of the peak are those not in poverty. The bell curve depicts the normal distribution. All people will not be in poverty and all people will not be out of poverty. There will be a distribution. Even if you analyzed only those people living in the worst area, there will be a distribution that shows some doing better than others resulting in the bell curve shape.

In society I cannot fathom a scenario in which we won't always have, depending on the topic (income, wealth, education, health, etc.), people spread throughout the bell-curve? There will always be some people earning more than other people, for example. I live in an area in which the median home price is $900K, and everything else costs more than it should, so it's possible someone earning $50-75K will struggle. On a bell-curve these people will be placed on the lowest left-hand side of the curve. There's nothing wrong with these people, and they earn a respectable wage, but when tossed into a very high cost of living area, they struggle. This is the scenario in every major population center of the US in which inflation and high cost of living forces more and more people into poverty. And if not poverty, pay check to pay check and no savings, always teetering on the brink of financial collapse.

IMO, this cannot be solved by increasing the MW. I think it's a scheme in which the bottom of the bell-curve can never catch up to the median and beyond. Sure, individuals can take steps to realize gains, but the collective 'we' can't and/or won't.