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The percentage of humans living in poverty around the world has never been lower [0]. How is that just spin? I also can’t relate to your “all we hear about” po

by cactus2093 6y ago

The percentage of humans living in poverty around the world has never been lower [0]. How is that just spin? I also can’t relate to your “all we hear about” point at all. I feel like I really have to go out of my way to find any discussion about anything good in the world, the vast majority of what I hear is negative takes like yours about how everything is horrible and everyone is oppressed. [0] https://data.worldbank.org/topic/11 https://data.worldbank.org/topic/11

cfn 6y ago
It really depends on the definition of poverty. I pretty much took the argument you are making for granted until recently. I mean, how can we argue against raising people out of poverty, right? But recently I watched this interview with Paul Kingsnorth and he makes a compelling case for why these numbers don't tell the whole story. I am linking to the middle of the interview more or less this is mentioned but the whole interview is quite interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojZjl8M921U&t=2534s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojZjl8M921U&t=2534s
sudosysgen 6y ago
Sadly for the argument, this decrease in poverty only happened as a result of China - if you remove China there basically is no difference anymore. If you adjust your definition of poverty to local inflation, you also barely see any difference anymore.
- cactus2093 6y ago
  But... Chinese people are still people? Who deserve to not live in poverty. I don’t understand your point. I have also heard some compelling arguments that a similar transformation is likely on the way in sub-Saharan African over the next few decades. Also these are real dollars, they are adjusted for inflation.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    Inflation in different countries goes at different rates. You can't use dollar inflation for these conditions, as prices rise much faster in those countries. As for Chinese people, it is amazing that they came out of poverty. But clearly it's not thanks to free market capitalism.
tsimionescu 6y ago
Those numbers mean nothing. First of all, anything before maybe 1900—1950 is meaningless, as no one was collecting data about how people actually lived. They are only estimates based on national fortunes, for periods of time when many people mostly lived off the land. The poverty line is also arbitrarily low, with many countless people over the poverty line who are dying of hunger. A more realistic poverty line would probably be several times bigger than the current value, which would fuether skew the numbers. Not to mention, as others have pointed out, the vast majority of people taken out of poverty were taken out by dictatorial China's social programs, not capitalism.

cfn 6y ago

It really depends on the definition of poverty. I pretty much took the argument you are making for granted until recently. I mean, how can we argue against raising people out of poverty, right? But recently I watched this interview with Paul Kingsnorth and he makes a compelling case for why these numbers don't tell the whole story. I am linking to the middle of the interview more or less this is mentioned but the whole interview is quite interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojZjl8M921U&t=2534s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojZjl8M921U&t=2534s

sudosysgen 6y ago

Sadly for the argument, this decrease in poverty only happened as a result of China - if you remove China there basically is no difference anymore. If you adjust your definition of poverty to local inflation, you also barely see any difference anymore.

cactus2093 6y ago
But... Chinese people are still people? Who deserve to not live in poverty. I don’t understand your point. I have also heard some compelling arguments that a similar transformation is likely on the way in sub-Saharan African over the next few decades. Also these are real dollars, they are adjusted for inflation.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Inflation in different countries goes at different rates. You can't use dollar inflation for these conditions, as prices rise much faster in those countries. As for Chinese people, it is amazing that they came out of poverty. But clearly it's not thanks to free market capitalism.

tsimionescu 6y ago

Those numbers mean nothing. First of all, anything before maybe 1900—1950 is meaningless, as no one was collecting data about how people actually lived. They are only estimates based on national fortunes, for periods of time when many people mostly lived off the land. The poverty line is also arbitrarily low, with many countless people over the poverty line who are dying of hunger. A more realistic poverty line would probably be several times bigger than the current value, which would fuether skew the numbers. Not to mention, as others have pointed out, the vast majority of people taken out of poverty were taken out by dictatorial China's social programs, not capitalism.