6 ms·

You are of course right, but it is nevertheless mostly true, and in this case mostly true happens to be sufficient. Evolution works despite the fact that unfit

by Doji 9y ago

You are of course right, but it is nevertheless mostly true, and in this case mostly true happens to be sufficient. Evolution works despite the fact that unfit animals don't always die. More importantly, private companies preserve choice (assuming no monopoly). Government provides no choice. My ability to make my own choice is what is most valuable to me.

jbarciauskas 9y ago
I don't mean to be too harsh, but you might value your ability to choose less if you didn't know when your next meal would be.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  I was homeless for a long time. Valuing my agency above all else helped me solve my problems and get off the street. When you start eroding rights on the excuse that someone is too poor to have any right to care about such high minded frivolities as rights, you deprive them of hope of resolving their problems.
  - jbarciauskas 9y ago
    I don't think anyone here is talking about taking away anyone's rights. The implication above was that government providing free food might lead to less choice as government crowds out business, but not removing someone's "right" to choose. The tradeoff between more choice in food and people starving doesn't seem to be much of a tradeoff. There's plenty of room for a middle ground.
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      My comments are in regards to your statement here: but you might value your ability to choose less if you didn't know when your next meal would be. I am telling you that when I was so poor that I often had no idea when my next meal might be, I valued my own agency -- my right to choose and to make choices -- tremendously. But it looks to me like, overall, most folks here don't want to hear the opinions of someone who actually ate regularly at soup kitchens for a time. They want to say nice things about being generous people who will feed the hungry, and let's not let actual facts get in the way of our pretty ideas that this is always a good thing with no down side. It is a form of virtue signaling. It is also a form of pity, which is fundamentally disrespectful. You assume you are in a better position than the people of whom you speak to decide for them, while completely dismissing the opinions to the contrary of someone still poor enough that food security is an ongoing question mark. This seems to be par for the course.
      - jbarciauskas 9y ago
        While I value your experience and perspective, I don't believe you speak for all people who are food insecure. There is lots of evidence, given the success of food banks, meals on wheels and other programs, that many would welcome this type of universal free food. You also assume that I am somehow in favor of paternalistic policies and against the agency of poor people, when that is not at all the intent of my comment and does not reflect my personal beliefs. I am personally strongly in favor of a universal basic income and other approaches that enable people who do not earn wages or have other sources of income to make the best decisions for themselves. I also think this is a good idea. I think there are a lot of different ways to improve the quality of life of a lot of people, and I don't think just giving away food to everyone (rather than means-testing the program or something) is particularly paternalistic or highly choice-limiting. With regard to "virtue signaling", that is a derogatory term used to imply that a person is only promoting an idea to appear good to others, without a genuine care or interest in effecting the change they are promoting. I think we have a fundamental disagreement about what sorts of policies would be effective, and using that term is unnecessarily dismissive.
        DoreenMichele 9y ago
        I think we have a fundamental disagreement about what sorts of policies would be effective, and using that term is unnecessarily dismissive. Using that term mostly indicates that I feel incredibly dismissed most of the time on Hacker News. This is a new handle, but I am not new here. I have had college classes on, for example, homelessness and public policy. I got myself off the street on my own efforts, not through some program. As best I can tell, I am the only woman who has ever spent any time on the leaderboard of HN. None of it seems to make any difference. I continue to get no traction. I continue to not get substantive feedback on my projects. I continue to have no connections. My income remains extremely low. I can't help but feel that sexism and classism are factors and I am just incredibly frustrated. Trying to do something good against long odds, etc begins to seem totally pointless and fruitless. I increasingly understand the very angry feminist types. I don't agree with their approach, but no approach seems to actually work. You and I do fundamentally disagree. I am not pro UBI. I think that is a polite means to crap all over the have nots and increasingly cut them out of ever more access to money, rights, you name it. I don't intend to engage further. I don't think this is in any way whatsoever productive. It is yet another exercise in me trying to engage in good faith with someone who seems to fundamentally be incapable of genuinely respecting me. Everything you say is another ever so politely dismissive thing done in accordance with the rules such that me getting offended just makes me look bad in the eyes of everyone here. I have been facing this sort of thing with, I think, quite a lot of aplomb for more than 8 years, to no avail at all. And I just am not coping well with that fact at the moment.
kybernetikos 9y ago
I know lots of situations where horribly inefficient companies continue to operate, and I know of situations where poorly run public programs have been stopped, either because of public pressure (because governments are accountable to their voters), or just because the administrators realised that they could do more effective things with the money. It's also possible to find a middle ground; food providers could be paid by the government based on how many people they feed, giving the opportunity for competition between providers.

by Doji 9y ago

jbarciauskas 9y ago

I don't mean to be too harsh, but you might value your ability to choose less if you didn't know when your next meal would be.

DoreenMichele 9y ago
I was homeless for a long time. Valuing my agency above all else helped me solve my problems and get off the street. When you start eroding rights on the excuse that someone is too poor to have any right to care about such high minded frivolities as rights, you deprive them of hope of resolving their problems.
- jbarciauskas 9y ago
  I don't think anyone here is talking about taking away anyone's rights. The implication above was that government providing free food might lead to less choice as government crowds out business, but not removing someone's "right" to choose. The tradeoff between more choice in food and people starving doesn't seem to be much of a tradeoff. There's plenty of room for a middle ground.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    My comments are in regards to your statement here: but you might value your ability to choose less if you didn't know when your next meal would be. I am telling you that when I was so poor that I often had no idea when my next meal might be, I valued my own agency -- my right to choose and to make choices -- tremendously. But it looks to me like, overall, most folks here don't want to hear the opinions of someone who actually ate regularly at soup kitchens for a time. They want to say nice things about being generous people who will feed the hungry, and let's not let actual facts get in the way of our pretty ideas that this is always a good thing with no down side. It is a form of virtue signaling. It is also a form of pity, which is fundamentally disrespectful. You assume you are in a better position than the people of whom you speak to decide for them, while completely dismissing the opinions to the contrary of someone still poor enough that food security is an ongoing question mark. This seems to be par for the course.
    - jbarciauskas 9y ago
      While I value your experience and perspective, I don't believe you speak for all people who are food insecure. There is lots of evidence, given the success of food banks, meals on wheels and other programs, that many would welcome this type of universal free food. You also assume that I am somehow in favor of paternalistic policies and against the agency of poor people, when that is not at all the intent of my comment and does not reflect my personal beliefs. I am personally strongly in favor of a universal basic income and other approaches that enable people who do not earn wages or have other sources of income to make the best decisions for themselves. I also think this is a good idea. I think there are a lot of different ways to improve the quality of life of a lot of people, and I don't think just giving away food to everyone (rather than means-testing the program or something) is particularly paternalistic or highly choice-limiting. With regard to "virtue signaling", that is a derogatory term used to imply that a person is only promoting an idea to appear good to others, without a genuine care or interest in effecting the change they are promoting. I think we have a fundamental disagreement about what sorts of policies would be effective, and using that term is unnecessarily dismissive.
      - DoreenMichele 9y ago
        I think we have a fundamental disagreement about what sorts of policies would be effective, and using that term is unnecessarily dismissive. Using that term mostly indicates that I feel incredibly dismissed most of the time on Hacker News. This is a new handle, but I am not new here. I have had college classes on, for example, homelessness and public policy. I got myself off the street on my own efforts, not through some program. As best I can tell, I am the only woman who has ever spent any time on the leaderboard of HN. None of it seems to make any difference. I continue to get no traction. I continue to not get substantive feedback on my projects. I continue to have no connections. My income remains extremely low. I can't help but feel that sexism and classism are factors and I am just incredibly frustrated. Trying to do something good against long odds, etc begins to seem totally pointless and fruitless. I increasingly understand the very angry feminist types. I don't agree with their approach, but no approach seems to actually work. You and I do fundamentally disagree. I am not pro UBI. I think that is a polite means to crap all over the have nots and increasingly cut them out of ever more access to money, rights, you name it. I don't intend to engage further. I don't think this is in any way whatsoever productive. It is yet another exercise in me trying to engage in good faith with someone who seems to fundamentally be incapable of genuinely respecting me. Everything you say is another ever so politely dismissive thing done in accordance with the rules such that me getting offended just makes me look bad in the eyes of everyone here. I have been facing this sort of thing with, I think, quite a lot of aplomb for more than 8 years, to no avail at all. And I just am not coping well with that fact at the moment.

kybernetikos 9y ago

I know lots of situations where horribly inefficient companies continue to operate, and I know of situations where poorly run public programs have been stopped, either because of public pressure (because governments are accountable to their voters), or just because the administrators realised that they could do more effective things with the money. It's also possible to find a middle ground; food providers could be paid by the government based on how many people they feed, giving the opportunity for competition between providers.