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Citation please.

• parenthephobia 11y ago
  To be fair, I think most people probably agree about this. Where the disagreement occurs is the question of whose behaviour is chiefly responsible: people in poverty, or people very much not in poverty.
  • tomlock 11y ago
    To be fair, I don't think most people agree on this.
    • parenthephobia 11y ago
      Really? Most people don't think that "much poverty" is caused by human behaviour? I'll grant that some temporary localized poverty may exist due to circumstances beyond human control, but I'm absolutely certain that most poverty exists because humans collectively permit it, not because we are - as a whole - powerless to prevent it.
      • tomlock 11y ago
        Pure environmental factors for poverty won't necessarily be temporary, since land might just be infertile for thousands of years. I think that poverty is within human control in the same way that cancer is. Cancer has always been around, and nobody has ever been able to solve it. While most can agree that we have more control over cancer now, sometimes we take a backwards step and introduce something that encourages it. I'd argue that cancer, like poverty, is a circumstance we find ourselves in. Something that has been there forever, and which we are trying to get under control. And like cancer, the circumstances of poverty inordinately impact people from different backgrounds, even though with a little help from the experts, it could be better. But I'd argue that we don't actively permit cancer to exist like we don't actively permit poverty.