3 ms·

Your logic is flawed here. You're basically saying the author's statement that the "poor are blessed in industrialized nations" is incorrect because of people

Your logic is flawed here. You're basically saying the author's statement that the "poor are blessed in industrialized nations" is incorrect because of people who are not blessed for reasons other than simply being poor. By that same logic we could say the poor are overwhelmingly blessed because some people who are technically poor live in mansions with their wealthy parents. That's why we use generalizations in theoretical discussions. The author uses the generalization of "the poor" as people who are poor but have no other serious problems or benefits. In that context he's right. And my experience confirms that because the aide was there and available to anyone who wanted it. I wasn't special. As I said just the opposite was true. My Mom squandered much of the Aide given to us and we STILL got by. So in a general sense others should be able to as well. Finally as others have pointed out here the author's point is wealth is relative. Even those living on the street of the United States are tons better than many of the people living in third world countries.

boredguy8 16y ago
You were poor with privilege (according to your "about me" blog page). Others are poor without it. My response was not to the author, but rather to your response to someone saying that "poor" is always contextualized and there are poor today that are not at all well off. Your counter was "I was poor and I had things OK." That's not a compelling rejoinder. There are many poor that don't have that same experience. My point regarding variable isolation (which you call 'flawed logic') is to highlight that there are lots of kinds of poor people: there is no such thing as "simply being poor". This is why the true logical flaw is when you say things like "we could say the poor are overwhelmingly blessed because some people who are technically poor live in mansions". No, you can't. You can't speak of "the poor" as a monolithic entity, period. Yes, some poor today have it better than some wealthy of the past. But there are poor today that have it worse than people in the past. Which brings me, I suppose, to the point the author of the linked article makes: the poor on skid row do not, in point of fact, have "possession of consumer durables". That is the point the author of the post you replied to was trying to make. And while possibly most poor in rich-world nations are better off than most poor in rich nations of the past, that's not the original author's claim. The claim is that the poor of today are "the blessed of history." I see no reasons presented as to why that's true, and my knowledge of both history and the current world leads me to disagree (though again, that's beyond the point I was making).
kenjackson 16y ago
The problem is that everything is relative. Did slaves have it badly? Well they were fed, had shelter, and life expectancy too. Probably better than being a gladiator, for example. People who grow up in Watts don't sit around saying, "At least this ain't Rwanda!" They just see folks who have nice cars drive down the street, or have nice clothes, or eat in restaurants with waiters, etc... The argument that life is worse somewhere else is a loser argument to me. Oddly, the same people who push this argument will then collapse with convulsions if you tell them that you're going to raise income tax rates from 36% to 39%.
- Symmetry 16y ago
  But if the only bad thing about being poor is comparing yourself to people who are better off then thats not a problem that we'd ever be able to solve. If we're actually increasing poor people's life expectancies with welfare (and we do!) then we have a good excuse for using government money to help poor people. If all we were doing was acting on people's envy then welfare wouldn't be justified. But if we're spending money not to cushion people's feelings but to materially improve their lives, and if we consider the life of someone in Rwanda to have the same value as someone in the US, then the relative plights of the people in Rwanda _do_ figure in to it.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    The only thing we know, outside of activities like math, are relative measures. That's it. There's no "good" life or "bad" life. There's just better and worse, period. Materially improving lives, but not making them feel any better about their lives is an utter waste of money. It's the same reason why virtually no one will give away all of their money this afternoon, knowing that even with $0 to their name their life is better than the average Europeans during the Dark Ages. There is no absolute material scale at which point one is happy. There's substantial research in happiness that shows that happiness is a completely relative measure. But if the only bad thing about being poor is comparing yourself to people who are better off Not only is that the only bad thing, but it is the ONLY way to determine if you're actually poor!

boredguy8 16y ago

You were poor with privilege (according to your "about me" blog page). Others are poor without it. My response was not to the author, but rather to your response to someone saying that "poor" is always contextualized and there are poor today that are not at all well off. Your counter was "I was poor and I had things OK." That's not a compelling rejoinder. There are many poor that don't have that same experience. My point regarding variable isolation (which you call 'flawed logic') is to highlight that there are lots of kinds of poor people: there is no such thing as "simply being poor". This is why the true logical flaw is when you say things like "we could say the poor are overwhelmingly blessed because some people who are technically poor live in mansions". No, you can't. You can't speak of "the poor" as a monolithic entity, period. Yes, some poor today have it better than some wealthy of the past. But there are poor today that have it worse than people in the past. Which brings me, I suppose, to the point the author of the linked article makes: the poor on skid row do not, in point of fact, have "possession of consumer durables". That is the point the author of the post you replied to was trying to make. And while possibly most poor in rich-world nations are better off than most poor in rich nations of the past, that's not the original author's claim. The claim is that the poor of today are "the blessed of history." I see no reasons presented as to why that's true, and my knowledge of both history and the current world leads me to disagree (though again, that's beyond the point I was making).

kenjackson 16y ago

The problem is that everything is relative. Did slaves have it badly? Well they were fed, had shelter, and life expectancy too. Probably better than being a gladiator, for example. People who grow up in Watts don't sit around saying, "At least this ain't Rwanda!" They just see folks who have nice cars drive down the street, or have nice clothes, or eat in restaurants with waiters, etc... The argument that life is worse somewhere else is a loser argument to me. Oddly, the same people who push this argument will then collapse with convulsions if you tell them that you're going to raise income tax rates from 36% to 39%.

Symmetry 16y ago
But if the only bad thing about being poor is comparing yourself to people who are better off then thats not a problem that we'd ever be able to solve. If we're actually increasing poor people's life expectancies with welfare (and we do!) then we have a good excuse for using government money to help poor people. If all we were doing was acting on people's envy then welfare wouldn't be justified. But if we're spending money not to cushion people's feelings but to materially improve their lives, and if we consider the life of someone in Rwanda to have the same value as someone in the US, then the relative plights of the people in Rwanda _do_ figure in to it.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  The only thing we know, outside of activities like math, are relative measures. That's it. There's no "good" life or "bad" life. There's just better and worse, period. Materially improving lives, but not making them feel any better about their lives is an utter waste of money. It's the same reason why virtually no one will give away all of their money this afternoon, knowing that even with $0 to their name their life is better than the average Europeans during the Dark Ages. There is no absolute material scale at which point one is happy. There's substantial research in happiness that shows that happiness is a completely relative measure. But if the only bad thing about being poor is comparing yourself to people who are better off Not only is that the only bad thing, but it is the ONLY way to determine if you're actually poor!