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It might not be the world we want to live in, but that's life. Natural selection is the name of the game. It baffles me that people think social development ca
by koanarc 16y ago
It might not be the world we want to live in, but that's life. Natural selection is the name of the game.
It baffles me that people think social development can be somehow exempted from evolutionary processes. Call it callous or compassionless, if you want, but there will always be less fit members of a species/society. Humans didn't get to this spot on the food chain by subsidizing failure. If we want to increase prosperity, we should stop encouraging the propagation of actions/ideas/genes that would otherwise be unsustainable without throwing short-sighted policy and/or tax money at it.
- DannoHung 16y agoThe late 19th century called, they want their rationalized institutional cruelty back.
- koanarc 16y agoHeh, I'm not suggesting institutional anything. Precisely the opposite. I'm saying that in the bigger picture, welfare and subsidies and coercive interference in general hurt more than they help. E.g., aid to North Korea might keep impoverished North Koreans alive longer, but it will do nothing for their long term prosperity. It just gives them a chance to give birth to more impoverished North Koreans. Farm subsidies, etc, are arrogant, over-simplistic meddling with extremely complex natural systems that will have -- as the article in question was pointing out -- any number of unpredictable consequences. I just don't buy the idea that the short-sighted whims of politics can make the world a better place. [edit: adding for clarity: "stop encouraging" DOES NOT translate as "start discouraging"]
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]