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>If your mental model for how the economy works somehow doesn't allow the situations My mental model certainly allows for the situations such as evictions and
by jasode 10y ago
>If your mental model for how the economy works somehow doesn't allow the situations
My mental model certainly allows for the situations such as evictions and landlords making money because that much is obvious just by looking around.
However, my mental model will not accept the journalist's headline claiming that "the Problem of poverty is that it's Profitable". That makes no sense. To test the journalist's assertion, just flip the words around: "the Solution to poverty is to make it Money-Losing!"
This means that to "solve poverty", the landlord charges less than the cost of maintenance / property taxes / interest on loans / etc. Eventually, the landlord's bank account leaks away until the landlord herself is in poverty. And who then steps up to lose money to "solve" the landlord's poverty? The city accepts less property tax payments than it costs to maintain roads, schools, and salaries of the government staff? The grocery store accepts less payment than the cost of milk and bread? And who solves the poverty of the workers of the city government and grocery store that were laid off? How do we keep this chain of everybody losing money going so poverty is solved?
- jaggednad 10y agoI don't think anyone's saying that the solution to poverty is for landlords et al to start losing money. That's a ridiculous straw-man. The article points out that many people profit by keeping others in a powerless state and exploiting them. It doesn't posit a specific solution
- jasode 10y ago>I don't think anyone's saying that the solution to poverty is for landlords et al to start losing money. And I'm not claiming anyone is saying that or pushing it as a realistic policy. Instead, I'm asking readers to think about it as a thought experiment to test the economic validity of what the journalist is saying. >It doesn't posit a specific solution Can you explain from a logical standpoint why taking the opposite of what the journalist said is not an _implied_ solution that's worth testing?
- Bartweiss 10y agoThat's not a valid thought experiment, though. First, because the truth of (A -> B) doesn't determine the truth of (!A -> !B), which is what your title inversion did. And second, because (A -> B) does imply (!B -> !A), but you haven't established (A -> B). If something causes a problem, that doesn't imply that inverting the thing will solve the problem. "Poverty is widespread because people profit from it" does not imply "poverty would disappear if people lost money when it happened". So you haven't actually said anything about the headline by mocking its inverse.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jasode 10y ago>does not imply "poverty would disappear if people lost money when it happened". That's true but that's also not what I wrote. Your derived hypothetical has a vastly different meaning than "not profiting in transactions is the solution to poverty". >First, because the truth of (A -> B) Using strict math logic is not applicable to this. Instead, we're talking about the "logic" of human choices and how to parse English sentences. >If something causes a problem, that doesn't imply that inverting the thing will solve the problem. If we claim that "the problem of a child dozing off in class is that he works late at night" then yes, we are implying that the child should not be forced to work at night and instead get a full night's rest. This is how we normally parse things when proposing prescriptive recommendations. (Yes, if we attempt to use a strict math logic framework, we could say that !B->!A == "he's not working at night therefore he's not dozing in class" which can't be 100% true since there isn't enough information. Therefore, valid negations in abstract math don't perfectly carry over to negating English sentences.) In any case, do you really think "the problem of poverty is that it's profitable" is a meaningful and insightful statement? (I actually lived in poverty as a child and I find it ridiculous.) The journalist isn't just suggesting that "_a_ problem of poverty is profits" but provoking readers with "_the_ problem of poverty is profits".
- chiefalchemist 10y agoI read Evicted. The key takeaway is this: Poverty isn't simply about income/money. The root issues are more complicated. And anyone who thinks "just work harder" Probably doesn't have a fucking clue.
- AstralStorm 10y agoWhy not? If poor people costed landlords money they unfortunately have two solutions. Good one: make those people no longer poor by any means at their disposal. Evil one: get rid of poor people. If this were too be enforced globally (including closing loopholes such as homelessness) the evil solution would have to involve breaking the law by someone. (I'm thinking of a quota requiring building and maintenance of x amount of housing for the poor of specified standard, rent controlled. Including rentals.)