5 ms·

If I were a criminal defense lawyer, murder would cease to be a crime. After all, there are no causes of death; it is the rest state, that which happens when y

If I were a criminal defense lawyer, murder would cease to be a crime. After all, there are no causes of death; it is the rest state, that which happens when you do nothing ... In fact there are plenty of causes of poverty -- war, corruption, disease, overpopulation, debt, ecological destruction, etc.

mattmaroon 19y ago
Good point. Wealthy people are often impoverished by those.
DanielBMarkham 19y ago
The correct analogy would be suicide -- stop eating, drinking, and breathing, and you enter the "rest state" Murder, because it involves another actor, misses the point. That is, unless you believe that some people "make" other people poor during the course of regular life -- an odd and unsupported statement. I would agree that there are plenty causes of people losing what they own. Seems to me, however, that no matter how much money you have, you cease to be poor once you move beyond looking to external actors for the source of your internal pain. Or perhaps that statement is a bit too Zen for the board. Dunno.
- greendestiny 19y ago
  The murder suicide analogy is perfect, both end in death (poverty) but you can get their either by youself (suicide) or by the actions of others (murder). Calling poverty a rest state is to ignore all the outside forces that can be impairing a persons ability to create wealth. You can indeed make other people poor, and its not always a crime to do so, nor require them to be complicit in it. I think most people here find some truth in the idea that food aid makes farmers in developing countries poor.
  - DanielBMarkham 19y ago
    I would suggest we be careful with definitions here. Certainly certain policies impact certain jobs. My grandfather was a farmer. That is, until the economy changed. Then he wasn't a farmer any more.The policy may have had negative impacts on farmers, but it could only have a very limited impact on my grandfather. I would also distinguish between "making somebody poor" and "poverty", which is a state of existence. Likewise, I would also distinguish between internal poverty, ie, despair, and external poverty -- lack of money. The definitions always get you on these things. For instance, most people are familiar with studies that show "the rich get richer while the poor get poorer" in some western societies like the United States. What readers fail to gleam from these studies is that while the numbers for the quintiles do show those movements, people move around between quintiles a lot more than is acknowledged. So when we say the poor get poorer, we are confusing the statistical average of a category of random people with actual, real people. Actual, real people move about in income levels quite a bit. The statistical bottom fifth of people in general, however, is not doing so well. Likewise when we talk about poverty, or the economy, or social policy, we're dealing in large, averaged groups of things, not individual people. It makes a difference because we are individual, unique people, not statistical clumps. I'm not saying that the internal attitudes of a person is enough to overcome any external obstacle. What I am saying is that the way we internalize external challenges is a better measure of anti-poverty and future happiness than the amount of money we have in the bank. Therefore, you cannot "kill" me, make me poor, by taking away my money. My internal wealth is outside of your ability to change.
    - greendestiny 19y ago
      I'm really just replying to the idea that 'murder' doesn't count, or that outside influences cant cause poverty. I'm not interested in internal vs external poverty. To me poverty is an extreme lack of resources such that it impacts on the basics of life. So while you might not rate external poverty as very important, that's all I'm talking about here.
    - Retric 19y ago
      I create wealth by increasing efficiency and destroying jobs. I have made many people redundant and gotten them laid off. It's the name of the game hop from one useful skill to the next or become obsolete. I don't really care about these lost jobs but saying it's their fault that they become redundant is missing the point. Luck is a large factor in both the generation and retention of wealth. The risk of true poverty limits society’s just as excessive crime by reducing people’s willingness to take risks. Young people are more likely to do a startup because they have lower risk of failure. Losing everything at 25 is vary different than losing everything at 55. Note: I am not saying we need to do anything with the 3rd world but I feel limited job training and basic welfare help many people bounce back. Spending a small percentage of GDP on such things is an investment that may or may not pay off but saying it's useless as an ideological stance is missing the point. However, the numbers I have seen on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_state http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_state) suggest that we spend 14% of GDP on welfare which seems insane. Are they looking at SS as welfare?
      - sethg 19y ago
        Yeah, skimming the Wikipedia article, it seems that they are classifying social-insurance programs like Social Security as "welfare", whereas most people would define "welfare" as programs that are specifically targeted to poor people. And one of the reasons Social Security is so politically secure--even at the height of the Dubya Administration's influence, a proposal to privatize it went down in flames--is that middle-class as well as poor voters expect to benefit from it.
        astine 19y ago
TrevorJ 19y ago
Your example isn't the same thing. Murder would be equal to thievery in your example since murder is an action.
astine 19y ago
This is technically true, but I believe that it misses the point. Death is the rest state. Which is why much more energy is spent in keeping people alive, rather than merely preventing death. That is, if you want to extend your life, you need to not look so much at the causes of death, as at the prerequisites for life. Getting food is more important than preventing murder. The same is true with poverty. You can try to prevent war and corruption, but you won't eliminate poverty just by eliminating the impoverishing factors. You need to actually create wealth.

mattmaroon 19y ago

Good point. Wealthy people are often impoverished by those.

DanielBMarkham 19y ago

The correct analogy would be suicide -- stop eating, drinking, and breathing, and you enter the "rest state" Murder, because it involves another actor, misses the point. That is, unless you believe that some people "make" other people poor during the course of regular life -- an odd and unsupported statement. I would agree that there are plenty causes of people losing what they own. Seems to me, however, that no matter how much money you have, you cease to be poor once you move beyond looking to external actors for the source of your internal pain. Or perhaps that statement is a bit too Zen for the board. Dunno.

greendestiny 19y ago
The murder suicide analogy is perfect, both end in death (poverty) but you can get their either by youself (suicide) or by the actions of others (murder). Calling poverty a rest state is to ignore all the outside forces that can be impairing a persons ability to create wealth. You can indeed make other people poor, and its not always a crime to do so, nor require them to be complicit in it. I think most people here find some truth in the idea that food aid makes farmers in developing countries poor.
- DanielBMarkham 19y ago
  I would suggest we be careful with definitions here. Certainly certain policies impact certain jobs. My grandfather was a farmer. That is, until the economy changed. Then he wasn't a farmer any more.The policy may have had negative impacts on farmers, but it could only have a very limited impact on my grandfather. I would also distinguish between "making somebody poor" and "poverty", which is a state of existence. Likewise, I would also distinguish between internal poverty, ie, despair, and external poverty -- lack of money. The definitions always get you on these things. For instance, most people are familiar with studies that show "the rich get richer while the poor get poorer" in some western societies like the United States. What readers fail to gleam from these studies is that while the numbers for the quintiles do show those movements, people move around between quintiles a lot more than is acknowledged. So when we say the poor get poorer, we are confusing the statistical average of a category of random people with actual, real people. Actual, real people move about in income levels quite a bit. The statistical bottom fifth of people in general, however, is not doing so well. Likewise when we talk about poverty, or the economy, or social policy, we're dealing in large, averaged groups of things, not individual people. It makes a difference because we are individual, unique people, not statistical clumps. I'm not saying that the internal attitudes of a person is enough to overcome any external obstacle. What I am saying is that the way we internalize external challenges is a better measure of anti-poverty and future happiness than the amount of money we have in the bank. Therefore, you cannot "kill" me, make me poor, by taking away my money. My internal wealth is outside of your ability to change.
  - greendestiny 19y ago
    I'm really just replying to the idea that 'murder' doesn't count, or that outside influences cant cause poverty. I'm not interested in internal vs external poverty. To me poverty is an extreme lack of resources such that it impacts on the basics of life. So while you might not rate external poverty as very important, that's all I'm talking about here.
  - Retric 19y ago
    I create wealth by increasing efficiency and destroying jobs. I have made many people redundant and gotten them laid off. It's the name of the game hop from one useful skill to the next or become obsolete. I don't really care about these lost jobs but saying it's their fault that they become redundant is missing the point. Luck is a large factor in both the generation and retention of wealth. The risk of true poverty limits society’s just as excessive crime by reducing people’s willingness to take risks. Young people are more likely to do a startup because they have lower risk of failure. Losing everything at 25 is vary different than losing everything at 55. Note: I am not saying we need to do anything with the 3rd world but I feel limited job training and basic welfare help many people bounce back. Spending a small percentage of GDP on such things is an investment that may or may not pay off but saying it's useless as an ideological stance is missing the point. However, the numbers I have seen on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_state http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_state) suggest that we spend 14% of GDP on welfare which seems insane. Are they looking at SS as welfare?
    - sethg 19y ago
      Yeah, skimming the Wikipedia article, it seems that they are classifying social-insurance programs like Social Security as "welfare", whereas most people would define "welfare" as programs that are specifically targeted to poor people. And one of the reasons Social Security is so politically secure--even at the height of the Dubya Administration's influence, a proposal to privatize it went down in flames--is that middle-class as well as poor voters expect to benefit from it.
      - astine 19y ago

TrevorJ 19y ago

Your example isn't the same thing. Murder would be equal to thievery in your example since murder is an action.

astine 19y ago

This is technically true, but I believe that it misses the point. Death is the rest state. Which is why much more energy is spent in keeping people alive, rather than merely preventing death. That is, if you want to extend your life, you need to not look so much at the causes of death, as at the prerequisites for life. Getting food is more important than preventing murder. The same is true with poverty. You can try to prevent war and corruption, but you won't eliminate poverty just by eliminating the impoverishing factors. You need to actually create wealth.