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What is that really compared to? More people have cars and couches? More concrete and trash men cleaning up the streets Were the past lives of people so destitu

• harryh 9y ago
  Were the past lives of people so destitute that we needed to deliver an economic and social epiphany Yes. Billions of people that were without shelter & adequate food (not to mention health care or any sort of shot at a good education) now have access to such things. That is progress.
  • zghst 9y ago
    So you're saying thousands of years of societies all over the world, uninterrupted by Western intervention, were all useless until their coming payday by benevolent overlords?
    • harryh 9y ago
      I'm saying that the world is a better place when more people get to live indoors & have access to a healthy diet.
      • zghst 9y ago
        But what kind of indoors, up-to-code Western kinds of indoors, or simple grass or adobe huts that the existing people are more than happy to live in? Time and time again, we Westerners look at other cultures as savage and depraved for not having the same lifestyle as we. This is going to lead us to our doom, trying to be a total savior. I firmly believe that we in the past did not have a responsibility to "educate" the various indigenous peoples of the planet, however due to past measures existing cultural structures were completely decimated, people are totally reliant on the West. We have interjected ourselves to every facet of the globe, continually introducing technologies and economic patterns that many cultures cannot afford or scale, that is these countries end up in massive poverty (measured by Western standards), because they are trying to adapt a complete economic and technological system that they had no part in developing.
        • harryh 9y ago
          I don't think you have a clear understanding what it's like to live in extreme poverty. It's not just a different way of living. It's awful. Children routinely die due to easily preventable diseases or starvation. Simple infections are life threatening for adults. Hunger is constant. Exposure to extreme elements is common. Life expectancies are short. Individuals lack meaningful control over their own lives and have little or no ability to improve their situation in the world.
          • zghst 9y ago
            I have been on nearly every end of the economical scale, especially the lower end. I know what it can be like to have suffered, but one solution to a problem does not mean it is the best solution
            • harryh 9y ago
              At no point in this thread have I said it was the best possible solution.
    • PatentTroll 9y ago
      This. There is no maxim that this is the only way to increase living standards, or a good way, or a just or moral way. It benefits large corporations in the US, though, and consumers through the availability of underpriced goods, all on the backs of some faceless brown people somewhere around the world, so its anointed as the best thing since sliced bread