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That's because it's nonsense. In the past 20 years, more people have been lifted out of poverty than at any other point in human history. Look up the UN's mille

That's because it's nonsense. In the past 20 years, more people have been lifted out of poverty than at any other point in human history. Look up the UN's millenium development goals. Some people just want you to believe that the world is always getting worse.

onion2k 8y ago
You're talking about poverty in terms of absolute wealth. Yes, fewer people live in extreme poverty now. Most people on Earth have access to phones, washing machines, healthcare and transport. This is undoubtedly great. In terms of relative wealth though, comparing the average to people at the top, the 1%'s wealth has grown much faster than everyone else. It's true to say that we are all relatively less well off than we were in 2000. This is bad because wealth begets more wealth, so the inequality grows. That could lead to all sorts of problems (societal breakdown, revolution, civil war at the extremes...).
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  Why do you care how much somebody else has? People often refer to things like the French revolution as a warning of what can happen when wealth inequality gets out of control, but that comparison is completely absurd. People were not upset that the aristocracy had great feasts, liquor, and lavish lifestyles. They were upset that they could not afford even bread. In modern times this is not even remotely comparable where ever more people have ever more access to ever more things. But the richest of the rich have even more things. For comparison if we break this down into an anecdotes of toddler the French revolution would have been Joe having 0 toys while Jane had 10. In modern times Joe has 500 toys while Jane has 5000. By most of any metric, except in comparison to Jane, Joe has a ton of toys. And so his complaint seems more petulant than justified. Let's put this another way. Imagine I told you that in 100 years somebody of the lowest social class would have what would be equivalent to 10 million dollars today in terms of spending power. That sounds unbelievably amazing. Would that somehow suddenly change if somebody at the top had a quadrillion dollars of spending power? Taken to extremes wealth at the top can decrease the value of wealth at the bottom (largely due to inflation), but that's not really the case to a significant degree today - people just seem upset that other people have more than them.
  - untog 8y ago
    > Imagine I told you that in 100 years somebody of the lowest social class would have what would be equivalent to 10 million dollars today in terms of spending power. That sounds unbelievably amazing That depends, will surgery for a broken leg cost 20 million dollars in 100 years? You are talking as if poverty doesn't exist any more, which it very clearly does. A startling number of people in the US live paycheck to paycheck and are at risk of extreme poverty if they lose their job or face an unexpected expense like medical care. People in Flint had to drink water that literally poisoned them. Teachers are walking out of schools because their textbooks are falling apart. On the other hand, you have Jeff Bezos who literally said in an interview that he can't think of any worthwhile use for his money other than exploring space. You can't exactly blame people for being angry about that. "But things used to be so much worse!" isn't really a counter-argument. Why can't things continue to get better?
    - arcbyte 8y ago
      > That depends, will surgery for a broken leg cost 20 million dollars in 100 years? It will if we don't get government out of healthcare!
      - untog 8y ago
        Weird, I must have missed all those $20m broken leg treatment bills Europeans get from their universal healthcare programs...
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      I specifically said spending power, and that is what I meant. Did you know that in the early 20th century feed and flour bags used to come with vibrant floral designs. Know why? Since nobody could really afford to buy clothes, people would regularly fashion their own clothes out of whatever they could get - which included these large bags. Companies saw an opportunity and started creating lovely designs on them. This is a time we can hardly even imagine. Now a days even the poor can easily afford many of the things that only the most elite of society could previously. It wasn't even that long ago that a toaster was an extreme luxury. And of course they also have luxuries that those of times past could only dream of as they literally did not exist. In terms of what we have, people have more than ever today. And people want even more. And I think that's a good thing! The never ending drive for more more more is probably an evolutionary imperative which has paid rich dividends for our development as a species. But let's hit on the Bezos thing. Some of what I said above is conflating technological progress with economic progress. After all one of the reasons many things became cheaper, or available, is not strictly because the poor have more money (though they do!) but because technology enabled things to become much cheaper, and to introduce entirely new things. Bezos is, by far, the richest person in the world. On an individual level his wealth, $135.5 billion, is hard to even imagine. But now let's imagine his level on a social level. What if we, or he, decided to just 'benevolently' share his wealth with everybody in the world. That $135.5 billion is worth a little less than $18 per person. Even at the bottom of the world, that's hardly life changing money. However, technology does change lives. And while $135.5 billion is nothing in terms of the world, it's an enormous amount in terms of advancing space technology. Can you imagine how much the world will change once we begin to colonize other planets, or when we are able to effectively extract resources from celestial bodies, and so on? Or think of all of the tangential technological developments will inadvertently be discovered in the process of this all. The world has basically been playing on fast forward since the colonization of the new world, and space will open a door like something we can hardly even imagine. I too want things to get better and I think what Bezos is planning to do with his money is vastly more likely to, in the longrun, improve life for all of us far more than, for instance, what Gates is doing with his money.
- ghostwriter 8y ago
  > It's true to say that we are all relatively less well off than we were in 2000. This is bad because wealth begets more wealth, so the inequality grows. Remember one of the last times you went for listening to your favourite band or purchasing their latest album. At that moment, something bad had happened - they got relatively wealthier while you became poorer. Given you were not the only one who paid them for their performance that day, those bastards could actually become rich, while a lot more people became poorer. So the inequality gap grew bigger and, according to your reasoning, you had become relatively less well off that day. But did you? And should we do something with that band regarding them becoming closer to the top 1% (maybe we should redistribute their income among visitors of the venue?) Or, how about measuring the value of your emotional/spiritual state of mind before and after that event? Does it account for a relative/absolute well-being? The point is, while economic stats are good at showing you the monetary part of your wealth, they are insufficient for drawing a wast conclusion on people's wealth and well-being. So is the "relative to TopN" argument.
- castlecrasher2 8y ago
  How is your second paragraph not the very definition of slippery slope argument?
  - onion2k 8y ago
    There are occasions when the slope is real, especially where the network effect of wealth has been demonstrated over and over again for centuries.
    - ChrisLomont 8y ago
      It's demonstrable from many datasets that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Look at FRED mobility data. Look at Forbes 400 richest. Look at what percent of the richest x% are first generation. Look at FRED data on intergenerational wealth.There are ample datasets showing that wealth regresses to the mean. Pick a definition of wealth (income, or ownership, or whatever), and pick a dataset for which you can capture all in that bracket for some reasonable timeframe, and for which you can see what percent moves out. For every such dataset I've found over years of looking at this, every one backs the claim that the rich do not stay rich. Most rich people are newly rich. Most rich families drop year over year in total wealth.
  - Dirlewanger 8y ago
    Check out the recent book The Great Leveler. It basically postulates that over the course of human history, the only things that cause rising wealth inequality to decrease is natural disasters or warfare. Pretty scary stuff if that's all to be believed...
cryoshon 8y ago
so, I'd have said the exact same thing about the millennium development goals (MDGs) until a few months ago when I attended a talk by the former secretary of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon. Ban had many wonderful things to say, but one thing really shook me. he said that as a leader of the UN, he had failed in fostering the world's development, as had his recent predecessors. he then went on to say that accomplishing the MDGs and specifically slashing severe poverty was largely an illusion if you approach it from the perspective of international collaboration. he said that nearly all of the MDGs which were met were met because china had reinvested in its own country to the extent that its massive population's standard of living had substantially improved. that's it. not international collaboration. not the west's efforts to pull others out of poverty. just china doing the best that it could for itself over a long period of time, with the amazing conclusion of those efforts coinciding with the deadlines for the MDGs. so yeah, the world is getting better -- but it isn't necessarily the whole world, and it isn't necessarily because of our efforts to improve things, and we definitely can't relax.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Dirlewanger 8y ago
  Is there a recording/YouTube of this talk?
  - cryoshon 8y ago
    don't think so. here's the reportage: https://www.bu.edu/today/2018/ban-ki-moon/ https://www.bu.edu/today/2018/ban-ki-moon/
- stealthmodeclan 8y ago
  But the iPhone made in China is sold in America. China couldn't possibly bring all those people out of poverty without massive demand for their manufactered goods in foreign market. You can possibly argue all this has happened at expense of west.

onion2k 8y ago

You're talking about poverty in terms of absolute wealth. Yes, fewer people live in extreme poverty now. Most people on Earth have access to phones, washing machines, healthcare and transport. This is undoubtedly great. In terms of relative wealth though, comparing the average to people at the top, the 1%'s wealth has grown much faster than everyone else. It's true to say that we are all relatively less well off than we were in 2000. This is bad because wealth begets more wealth, so the inequality grows. That could lead to all sorts of problems (societal breakdown, revolution, civil war at the extremes...).

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
Why do you care how much somebody else has? People often refer to things like the French revolution as a warning of what can happen when wealth inequality gets out of control, but that comparison is completely absurd. People were not upset that the aristocracy had great feasts, liquor, and lavish lifestyles. They were upset that they could not afford even bread. In modern times this is not even remotely comparable where ever more people have ever more access to ever more things. But the richest of the rich have even more things. For comparison if we break this down into an anecdotes of toddler the French revolution would have been Joe having 0 toys while Jane had 10. In modern times Joe has 500 toys while Jane has 5000. By most of any metric, except in comparison to Jane, Joe has a ton of toys. And so his complaint seems more petulant than justified. Let's put this another way. Imagine I told you that in 100 years somebody of the lowest social class would have what would be equivalent to 10 million dollars today in terms of spending power. That sounds unbelievably amazing. Would that somehow suddenly change if somebody at the top had a quadrillion dollars of spending power? Taken to extremes wealth at the top can decrease the value of wealth at the bottom (largely due to inflation), but that's not really the case to a significant degree today - people just seem upset that other people have more than them.
- untog 8y ago
  > Imagine I told you that in 100 years somebody of the lowest social class would have what would be equivalent to 10 million dollars today in terms of spending power. That sounds unbelievably amazing That depends, will surgery for a broken leg cost 20 million dollars in 100 years? You are talking as if poverty doesn't exist any more, which it very clearly does. A startling number of people in the US live paycheck to paycheck and are at risk of extreme poverty if they lose their job or face an unexpected expense like medical care. People in Flint had to drink water that literally poisoned them. Teachers are walking out of schools because their textbooks are falling apart. On the other hand, you have Jeff Bezos who literally said in an interview that he can't think of any worthwhile use for his money other than exploring space. You can't exactly blame people for being angry about that. "But things used to be so much worse!" isn't really a counter-argument. Why can't things continue to get better?
  - arcbyte 8y ago
    > That depends, will surgery for a broken leg cost 20 million dollars in 100 years? It will if we don't get government out of healthcare!
    - untog 8y ago
      Weird, I must have missed all those $20m broken leg treatment bills Europeans get from their universal healthcare programs...
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    I specifically said spending power, and that is what I meant. Did you know that in the early 20th century feed and flour bags used to come with vibrant floral designs. Know why? Since nobody could really afford to buy clothes, people would regularly fashion their own clothes out of whatever they could get - which included these large bags. Companies saw an opportunity and started creating lovely designs on them. This is a time we can hardly even imagine. Now a days even the poor can easily afford many of the things that only the most elite of society could previously. It wasn't even that long ago that a toaster was an extreme luxury. And of course they also have luxuries that those of times past could only dream of as they literally did not exist. In terms of what we have, people have more than ever today. And people want even more. And I think that's a good thing! The never ending drive for more more more is probably an evolutionary imperative which has paid rich dividends for our development as a species. But let's hit on the Bezos thing. Some of what I said above is conflating technological progress with economic progress. After all one of the reasons many things became cheaper, or available, is not strictly because the poor have more money (though they do!) but because technology enabled things to become much cheaper, and to introduce entirely new things. Bezos is, by far, the richest person in the world. On an individual level his wealth, $135.5 billion, is hard to even imagine. But now let's imagine his level on a social level. What if we, or he, decided to just 'benevolently' share his wealth with everybody in the world. That $135.5 billion is worth a little less than $18 per person. Even at the bottom of the world, that's hardly life changing money. However, technology does change lives. And while $135.5 billion is nothing in terms of the world, it's an enormous amount in terms of advancing space technology. Can you imagine how much the world will change once we begin to colonize other planets, or when we are able to effectively extract resources from celestial bodies, and so on? Or think of all of the tangential technological developments will inadvertently be discovered in the process of this all. The world has basically been playing on fast forward since the colonization of the new world, and space will open a door like something we can hardly even imagine. I too want things to get better and I think what Bezos is planning to do with his money is vastly more likely to, in the longrun, improve life for all of us far more than, for instance, what Gates is doing with his money.
ghostwriter 8y ago
> It's true to say that we are all relatively less well off than we were in 2000. This is bad because wealth begets more wealth, so the inequality grows. Remember one of the last times you went for listening to your favourite band or purchasing their latest album. At that moment, something bad had happened - they got relatively wealthier while you became poorer. Given you were not the only one who paid them for their performance that day, those bastards could actually become rich, while a lot more people became poorer. So the inequality gap grew bigger and, according to your reasoning, you had become relatively less well off that day. But did you? And should we do something with that band regarding them becoming closer to the top 1% (maybe we should redistribute their income among visitors of the venue?) Or, how about measuring the value of your emotional/spiritual state of mind before and after that event? Does it account for a relative/absolute well-being? The point is, while economic stats are good at showing you the monetary part of your wealth, they are insufficient for drawing a wast conclusion on people's wealth and well-being. So is the "relative to TopN" argument.
castlecrasher2 8y ago
How is your second paragraph not the very definition of slippery slope argument?
- onion2k 8y ago
  There are occasions when the slope is real, especially where the network effect of wealth has been demonstrated over and over again for centuries.
  - ChrisLomont 8y ago
    It's demonstrable from many datasets that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Look at FRED mobility data. Look at Forbes 400 richest. Look at what percent of the richest x% are first generation. Look at FRED data on intergenerational wealth.There are ample datasets showing that wealth regresses to the mean. Pick a definition of wealth (income, or ownership, or whatever), and pick a dataset for which you can capture all in that bracket for some reasonable timeframe, and for which you can see what percent moves out. For every such dataset I've found over years of looking at this, every one backs the claim that the rich do not stay rich. Most rich people are newly rich. Most rich families drop year over year in total wealth.
- Dirlewanger 8y ago
  Check out the recent book The Great Leveler. It basically postulates that over the course of human history, the only things that cause rising wealth inequality to decrease is natural disasters or warfare. Pretty scary stuff if that's all to be believed...

cryoshon 8y ago

so, I'd have said the exact same thing about the millennium development goals (MDGs) until a few months ago when I attended a talk by the former secretary of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon. Ban had many wonderful things to say, but one thing really shook me. he said that as a leader of the UN, he had failed in fostering the world's development, as had his recent predecessors. he then went on to say that accomplishing the MDGs and specifically slashing severe poverty was largely an illusion if you approach it from the perspective of international collaboration. he said that nearly all of the MDGs which were met were met because china had reinvested in its own country to the extent that its massive population's standard of living had substantially improved. that's it. not international collaboration. not the west's efforts to pull others out of poverty. just china doing the best that it could for itself over a long period of time, with the amazing conclusion of those efforts coinciding with the deadlines for the MDGs. so yeah, the world is getting better -- but it isn't necessarily the whole world, and it isn't necessarily because of our efforts to improve things, and we definitely can't relax.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Dirlewanger 8y ago
Is there a recording/YouTube of this talk?
- cryoshon 8y ago
  don't think so. here's the reportage: https://www.bu.edu/today/2018/ban-ki-moon/ https://www.bu.edu/today/2018/ban-ki-moon/
stealthmodeclan 8y ago
But the iPhone made in China is sold in America. China couldn't possibly bring all those people out of poverty without massive demand for their manufactered goods in foreign market. You can possibly argue all this has happened at expense of west.