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> The US is a rich country And it was almost identically rich 20 years ago. Actually, since the national debt keeps going up, and we've engaged in multiple wa

> The US is a rich country And it was almost identically rich 20 years ago. Actually, since the national debt keeps going up, and we've engaged in multiple wars since then, a case could be made that we're worse off. > National wealth is having enough ambient wealth in every single community so that starvation is really rare. So, maybe what you meant to say was, "I'd rather be what most people consider to be poor today (as long as I got to live in the United States), than rich twenty years ago." > Our country has only gotten richer and richer in the last thirty years. I disagree. We had the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. People were genuinely hurting. Employment among many groups (such as "poor" laborers) hasn't rebounded. Meanwhile, 20 years ago was in the middle of a boom. > I'd rather lose everything and become homeless today ...as long as it's in the United States. (Which you did not clarify in the first place.) > I'm not making that decision for everybody. Just me. Sure, but you presented your argument as rational, not just personal. And then for some reason you were BOTHERED that I tried to understand your position. Why state your position, if you don't want other people to take it seriously and try to understand it? > Barrels of cash aren't all that hard to come by. All evidence points to GENERATIONAL poverty being the norm. So, yes, wealth IS that hard to come by. > Massive national wealth isn't... Far out. So, as a rich person 20 years ago, you'd move to the nation with the greatest national wealth. > But my point is that national wealth created both the option to have heart surgery and the ability to have it relatively cheaply. And my point is that TWENTY YEARS AGO, the United States wasn't THAT different than it is today. In fact, relative to median income, the same medical procedures cost more today (even adjusting for inflation) than they did back then. By a LOT. And most outcomes aren't proportionally better. We're still way behind in life expectancy and infant mortality, for instance. > as if I don't know the difference or something No, I'm trying to understand your statement, "I'd rather be poor today than rich twenty years ago." I'm trying to actively listen, and keep asking you if I'm understanding you correctly, even to the definitions of each of those words "poor" that I use in my head. > But again, the only thing that really solves the poor's problems is national wealth. There's not enough liquid wealth to spread around to stop poverty. That's a great assertion to digest, and I don't buy it. There are nomadic people, to this day, living in areas of Africa we'd be tempted to call a desert, who work less than 10 hours a week gathering food, seeking shelter. They spend the rest of their days lounging, chatting, teaching their children. If there is enough food and water to provide for a population, everything else is relative, isn't it? They even take care of their neighbors when they are sick. > Hehehe, good thing you live in a country where the things that can seriously test that belief in unconditionality generally don't happen. Let me imagine the worst imaginable environment - I'm a Jew, living in Nazi Germany. I think my friends and family still unconditionally love me. Are you convinced they don't? > Totalitarian states insert politics into families specifically to keep these sorts of bonds from giving communities the power to resist the state. So, again, I think you should have said, "I'd rather be what most people consider to be poor today (as long as I got to live in the United States), than rich twenty years ago." Because if you and I made a list of all of the poor people in the world today, I think you'd be forced to agree that MOST of them live in places you would not ever want to live. No national wealth. Totalitarian government. Warlords. Corruption. Not enough food and water. No opportunities for employment, or education. No internet. > In case you missed my point, it's that just about everything you think of as 'you', your life, your wealth, your family, your very mind, is a product of the country you live in. In case you missed my point, the US twenty years ago isn't THAT different from the US today, to offset the difference between being able to financially provide for my family, and NOT. > the options people have available to pull themselves out of poverty But they don't. All the data says you're EXTREMELY likely to have the same wealth as your parents. I think, in order for your assertion to make any sense, you must believe that most people are poor because they're not as motivated as you are. I'm not even trying to load that statement, or put judgement on it. That's the only way I can make sense of what you've said. > There is a ton of attention being paid to the actual problems both poor people and ACTUALLY POOR people are having, and a lot of resources devoted to promising options. I don't buy it. Even our beloved veterans are homeless, unemployed, and suicidal. I'll think the options are promising when they start to have an impact. And I mention veterans, because even Conservatives claim to want to use government to help poor people, as long as they're veterans. But we still haven't put a dent in it. > I made an assertion concerning my own convictions that you are taking out of context. No, you made an assertion, and I want to discuss it, to see if it was rational, and to try to gain knowledge from whatever perspective you have. > Most of those volunteering in soup kitchens are closer to the people they're serving than they are to you. Most of the people stocking soup kitchens are more like me. Disposable income, secure in their career. And twenty years ago, there were more people like that (relative to population size), than there are today. The middle is shrinking. > And the things rich people try to do to help the less well-off often boil down to ego gratification and do no real good. A rich person is CAPABLE of doing everything a poor person can. You may be right that the rich need to be educated. > I can't even begin to try to convince you because the very way you think about wealth is utterly silly. /sigh Thanks for the insult. WHY BOTHER talking, if you don't ENJOY talking with people who think differently than you? SERIOUSLY?

vinceguidry 11y ago
> And it was almost identically rich 20 years ago. Actually, since the national debt keeps going up, and we've engaged in multiple wars since then, a case could be made that we're worse off. I could argue against all of these points, but it seems like that would be pointless. > So, maybe what you meant to say was, I would rather lose absolutely everything (including things that have helped me out in the last 20 years like family assistance. the idea is that I have to go by my wits as much as possible) and stay in today's USA than step into a time machine with any amount of money to mid 1980s USA. I believe that, just by relying on national wealth, I could become as rich as I wanted to in relatively short order in a way that would have been impossible 30 years ago. You don't think the world's changed all that much but I do. We seem to lack the shared vocabulary needed for me to convey why I think that way. > ...as long as it's in the United States. (Which you did not clarify in the first place.) I did, in another part of the thread. I thought you would have been thoughtful enough to follow the rest of the discussion to get the missing pieces of my argument. A lot of times I'll, not just look at the whole thread, but also click to see some of the author's other conversations to see where he / she's coming from. > So, as a rich person 20 years ago, you'd move to the nation with the greatest national wealth. Maybe. Depends on how much I have tying myself down there. The aforementioned author's great great grandmother had brothers that died in the Holocaust rather than emigrate from Latvia because they had a thriving local business there. Elon Musk brought himself and his family over from South Africa, that's how much he believed in national wealth. I'm not sure I would come to the same conclusions so quickly, and Musk did have a really ugly childhood that he was anxious to escape. I perhaps might have found a local maximum rather than a bigger pond. Or perhaps not. I don't have the experience of growing up in an emerging market to draw on to be able to make a real guess. I can only judge based on my current awareness. > I think my friends and family still unconditionally love me. Are you convinced they don't? It's one of those things you don't know until you know. Or you know until you don't. Do I think it's possible you're miscalculating these feelings? Certainly. I do know that you haven't carefully considered the full breadth of things that could affect your relationships. What if part of your brain shut down and you became a different person than you were before? Read an article where that precise thing happened recently. What is it precisely that your family loves about you and what would happen if that thing were to be taken away? If you delve into that question, I think you'd find that each member of your family has different values and would react differently to each kind of stress. You'd also have to figure out what unconditional love is and how to define the event of that love going away. Things get a lot more difficult when you apply real logic to mushy situations. > the US twenty years ago isn't THAT different from the US today I very much disagree. > All the data says you're EXTREMELY likely to have the same wealth as your parents. Data does not predict anything. It only describes what has happened. In a certain light. If you examined the data yourself and asked your own questions of it you might come to a different conclusion. > Most of the people stocking soup kitchens are more like me. How do you know this? Have you gone and looked? Have you asked a significant number of them their stories and how they came to volunteer? I'll admit my assertion in this regard is probably about as valid as this one. But that's how you find out. > Even our beloved veterans are homeless, unemployed, and suicidal. What that means is that the mental problems caused by going to war are worse than we have the ability to effectively help, at this moment in time. But there's plenty of research going into things like PTSD so that we can more effectively help these people. Suicide is an extremely difficult problem to solve. > WHY BOTHER talking, if you don't ENJOY talking with people who think differently than you? SERIOUSLY? I do enjoy it. There are any number of things I could have done with my morning, I chose to focus my attentions on this discussion.

vinceguidry 11y ago

> And it was almost identically rich 20 years ago. Actually, since the national debt keeps going up, and we've engaged in multiple wars since then, a case could be made that we're worse off. I could argue against all of these points, but it seems like that would be pointless. > So, maybe what you meant to say was, I would rather lose absolutely everything (including things that have helped me out in the last 20 years like family assistance. the idea is that I have to go by my wits as much as possible) and stay in today's USA than step into a time machine with any amount of money to mid 1980s USA. I believe that, just by relying on national wealth, I could become as rich as I wanted to in relatively short order in a way that would have been impossible 30 years ago. You don't think the world's changed all that much but I do. We seem to lack the shared vocabulary needed for me to convey why I think that way. > ...as long as it's in the United States. (Which you did not clarify in the first place.) I did, in another part of the thread. I thought you would have been thoughtful enough to follow the rest of the discussion to get the missing pieces of my argument. A lot of times I'll, not just look at the whole thread, but also click to see some of the author's other conversations to see where he / she's coming from. > So, as a rich person 20 years ago, you'd move to the nation with the greatest national wealth. Maybe. Depends on how much I have tying myself down there. The aforementioned author's great great grandmother had brothers that died in the Holocaust rather than emigrate from Latvia because they had a thriving local business there. Elon Musk brought himself and his family over from South Africa, that's how much he believed in national wealth. I'm not sure I would come to the same conclusions so quickly, and Musk did have a really ugly childhood that he was anxious to escape. I perhaps might have found a local maximum rather than a bigger pond. Or perhaps not. I don't have the experience of growing up in an emerging market to draw on to be able to make a real guess. I can only judge based on my current awareness. > I think my friends and family still unconditionally love me. Are you convinced they don't? It's one of those things you don't know until you know. Or you know until you don't. Do I think it's possible you're miscalculating these feelings? Certainly. I do know that you haven't carefully considered the full breadth of things that could affect your relationships. What if part of your brain shut down and you became a different person than you were before? Read an article where that precise thing happened recently. What is it precisely that your family loves about you and what would happen if that thing were to be taken away? If you delve into that question, I think you'd find that each member of your family has different values and would react differently to each kind of stress. You'd also have to figure out what unconditional love is and how to define the event of that love going away. Things get a lot more difficult when you apply real logic to mushy situations. > the US twenty years ago isn't THAT different from the US today I very much disagree. > All the data says you're EXTREMELY likely to have the same wealth as your parents. Data does not predict anything. It only describes what has happened. In a certain light. If you examined the data yourself and asked your own questions of it you might come to a different conclusion. > Most of the people stocking soup kitchens are more like me. How do you know this? Have you gone and looked? Have you asked a significant number of them their stories and how they came to volunteer? I'll admit my assertion in this regard is probably about as valid as this one. But that's how you find out. > Even our beloved veterans are homeless, unemployed, and suicidal. What that means is that the mental problems caused by going to war are worse than we have the ability to effectively help, at this moment in time. But there's plenty of research going into things like PTSD so that we can more effectively help these people. Suicide is an extremely difficult problem to solve. > WHY BOTHER talking, if you don't ENJOY talking with people who think differently than you? SERIOUSLY? I do enjoy it. There are any number of things I could have done with my morning, I chose to focus my attentions on this discussion.