11 ms·

It's a witty reply, but it essentially boils down to "just be less poor." Is this really the argument you want to make?

by ohazi 6y ago

abduhl 6y ago
GP does not mention money, wealth, or differences in populations due to either. I don’t understand how you landed on “just be less poor” as the thrust of his argument?
- enraged_camel 6y ago
  It's unstated but very obvious, because people who aren't able to evacuate, or move away permanently, are those who are too poor to do so.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    There are a lot of other reasons for not being able to move away even if you could afford it.
- ABeeSea 6y ago
  Preparing for a hurricane in Florida means building a house entirely out of concrete, moving, or accepting you will lose a lot of your stuff at some point. All of those options cost a lot of money.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    True, there are people who can't afford to prepare, but if few do it even among those that could afford it, then the point still stands.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    You don't need to build out of concrete. In fact concrete isn't a great material to build from, it just happens that the mass needed to work around its limits also stand up to hurricane winds. Conventional stick framed houses do fine in hurricanes when engineered to modern building codes. You see it once in a while when modern houses are near old ones in a hurricane.
- peglasaurus 6y ago
  I think we learn more about the assumptions of the complainer rather than who wrote the "witty reply". That and the spoiler can be applied to any number of people in government agencies who are meant to be taking precautions and setting up contingencies.
malandrew 6y ago
abduhl is correct. Those who are not poor within a community should be prepared to help others in their community. As someone who is a director of engineering at a tech company in one of richest zip codes in the country, what have you done to prepare to help both yourself and others within your community that are more vulnerable such as the poor, elderly and infirm? Or will you be another helpless victim adding to the burden that FEMA responders will have to attend to? If you are not prepared yourself when you have the financial means and technical capacity to do so, you're taking away resources from those that actually need that support in the event of a disaster.
- ohazi 6y ago
  You're missing or ignoring a long history of extreme poverty in the American South, and deliberate policy decisions to under-invest in those communities in order to maintain the status quo. Nobody in this thread is proposing that FEMA help idiots in their multi-million dollar Florida oceanfront mansions that regularly get decimated by hurricanes. Those people can and regularly do bail out and return to their other homes in California or Nevada at the first sign of trouble. Your stated position is not based on reality -- most rich people do very little to help their communities. But even ignoring this fact -- random towns along the Mississippi coast don't have a lot of lawyers or doctors or directors of engineering with overflowing bags of money to graciously spend on their community, even if such philanthropy was common (which, again -- it isn't). Everyone in those communities is poor, and struggles to get by during good times. That's what FEMA is supposed to be for. And under-investment in FEMA's hurricane preparedness is yet another deliberate policy decision to throw these poorer communities under the bus, in favor of the wealthier communities where terrorists seeking visibility are expected to focus their efforts.
  - malandrew 6y ago
    > deliberate policy decisions to under-invest in those communities You're missing or ignoring the fact that government is funded by economic activity. The government invests in protecting the revenues streams that allows it to continue to operate with surplus and those communities that don't provide much if any revenue benefit disproportionately relative to how much they contribute to funding the government they rely on for help. What you're proposing is to divert dollars from activity that creates the very surplus that affords the government the budget to help those that can't help themselves. Pretty much all countries cannot provide even a fraction of the support the US is able to provide to its disadvantaged communities. This is largely due to the fact that our government makes the smart decision to protect its cash cows. We have so much surplus that we're actually able to provide to many disadvantaged and advantaged communities beyond our own borders. We can of course debate the particulars of how much goes to protect the cash cows and how much goes to the communities less capable of contributing, but what's not up for debate is that the optimal solution we should both be solving for is the one that creates the greatest surplus. Many of these poorer communities are often better prepared than the cities where well off people are. During Katrina, much of the support rendered came from people outside the city that are self-reliant. They even had a name for these people, the Cajun Navy and they did far more to help the poor people in New Orleans than the rich people in New Orleans. So I ask you again, as someone who is a director of engineering at a tech company in one of richest zip codes in the country, what have you done to prepare to help both yourself and others within your community that are more vulnerable such as the poor, elderly and infirm? Or will you be another helpless victim adding to the burden that FEMA responders will have to attend to?

It's a witty reply, but it essentially boils down to "just be less poor." Is this really the argument you want to make?

by ohazi 6y ago

It's a witty reply, but it essentially boils down to "just be less poor." Is this really the argument you want to make?

GP does not mention money, wealth, or differences in populations due to either. I don’t understand how you landed on “just be less poor” as the thrust of his argument?

enraged_camel 6y ago
It's unstated but very obvious, because people who aren't able to evacuate, or move away permanently, are those who are too poor to do so.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  There are a lot of other reasons for not being able to move away even if you could afford it.
ABeeSea 6y ago
Preparing for a hurricane in Florida means building a house entirely out of concrete, moving, or accepting you will lose a lot of your stuff at some point. All of those options cost a lot of money.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  True, there are people who can't afford to prepare, but if few do it even among those that could afford it, then the point still stands.
- bluGill 6y ago
  You don't need to build out of concrete. In fact concrete isn't a great material to build from, it just happens that the mass needed to work around its limits also stand up to hurricane winds. Conventional stick framed houses do fine in hurricanes when engineered to modern building codes. You see it once in a while when modern houses are near old ones in a hurricane.
peglasaurus 6y ago
I think we learn more about the assumptions of the complainer rather than who wrote the "witty reply". That and the spoiler can be applied to any number of people in government agencies who are meant to be taking precautions and setting up contingencies.

malandrew 6y ago

abduhl is correct. Those who are not poor within a community should be prepared to help others in their community. As someone who is a director of engineering at a tech company in one of richest zip codes in the country, what have you done to prepare to help both yourself and others within your community that are more vulnerable such as the poor, elderly and infirm? Or will you be another helpless victim adding to the burden that FEMA responders will have to attend to? If you are not prepared yourself when you have the financial means and technical capacity to do so, you're taking away resources from those that actually need that support in the event of a disaster.

ohazi 6y ago
You're missing or ignoring a long history of extreme poverty in the American South, and deliberate policy decisions to under-invest in those communities in order to maintain the status quo. Nobody in this thread is proposing that FEMA help idiots in their multi-million dollar Florida oceanfront mansions that regularly get decimated by hurricanes. Those people can and regularly do bail out and return to their other homes in California or Nevada at the first sign of trouble. Your stated position is not based on reality -- most rich people do very little to help their communities. But even ignoring this fact -- random towns along the Mississippi coast don't have a lot of lawyers or doctors or directors of engineering with overflowing bags of money to graciously spend on their community, even if such philanthropy was common (which, again -- it isn't). Everyone in those communities is poor, and struggles to get by during good times. That's what FEMA is supposed to be for. And under-investment in FEMA's hurricane preparedness is yet another deliberate policy decision to throw these poorer communities under the bus, in favor of the wealthier communities where terrorists seeking visibility are expected to focus their efforts.
- malandrew 6y ago
  > deliberate policy decisions to under-invest in those communities You're missing or ignoring the fact that government is funded by economic activity. The government invests in protecting the revenues streams that allows it to continue to operate with surplus and those communities that don't provide much if any revenue benefit disproportionately relative to how much they contribute to funding the government they rely on for help. What you're proposing is to divert dollars from activity that creates the very surplus that affords the government the budget to help those that can't help themselves. Pretty much all countries cannot provide even a fraction of the support the US is able to provide to its disadvantaged communities. This is largely due to the fact that our government makes the smart decision to protect its cash cows. We have so much surplus that we're actually able to provide to many disadvantaged and advantaged communities beyond our own borders. We can of course debate the particulars of how much goes to protect the cash cows and how much goes to the communities less capable of contributing, but what's not up for debate is that the optimal solution we should both be solving for is the one that creates the greatest surplus. Many of these poorer communities are often better prepared than the cities where well off people are. During Katrina, much of the support rendered came from people outside the city that are self-reliant. They even had a name for these people, the Cajun Navy and they did far more to help the poor people in New Orleans than the rich people in New Orleans. So I ask you again, as someone who is a director of engineering at a tech company in one of richest zip codes in the country, what have you done to prepare to help both yourself and others within your community that are more vulnerable such as the poor, elderly and infirm? Or will you be another helpless victim adding to the burden that FEMA responders will have to attend to?