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Well, if zozbot234 meant "systemic" then I have no idea how > Thinking you can even have a "systematic approach" to either explaining or mitigating something a

by gjm11 5y ago

Well, if zozbot234 meant "systemic" then I have no idea how > Thinking you can even have a "systematic approach" to either explaining or mitigating something as complex as poverty, deprivation and marginalization can only be described as the highest sort of arrogance. makes sense; I can understand how someone might think that looking for a systematic approach to something very complex is arrogant, but not how they would think the same about a systemic approach. I'll gladly take your word for it that you did mean "systemic" but I confess that I'm then not sure what a "systemic mind" would be that "takes a [systemic] approach". (My guess, for what it's worth, had been that fineIllregister probably meant "systemic" even though they wrote "systematic", that zozbot234 followed fineIllregister in writing "systematic" but also meant "systematic", and that since you were responding to zozbot234 you probably meant "systematic" too.)

zozbot234 5y ago
For the record, I fully agree that a lot of poverty out there is systemic. Look at North Korea, maybe contrast it to South Korea then try to tell me that they don't have widespread systemic poverty. Look at the latest garden-variety tin-pot dictatorship in Africa or elsewhere and try to tell me the same thing. The individual alone explains pretty much zilch; every single one of us in the developed West is living in an incredibly complex society featuring a huge variety of institutional arrangements of all kinds. There's no reason to think that these institutional factors don't affect social and economic outcomes; indeed, there's plenty of evidence to the contrary! (And it would be just as arrogant to think that the institutional arrangements prevailing in a random Western country as of 02022 are already "optimized" in any sense. So yes, there is room for some meaningful improvement.)

by gjm11 5y ago

zozbot234 5y ago

For the record, I fully agree that a lot of poverty out there is systemic. Look at North Korea, maybe contrast it to South Korea then try to tell me that they don't have widespread systemic poverty. Look at the latest garden-variety tin-pot dictatorship in Africa or elsewhere and try to tell me the same thing. The individual alone explains pretty much zilch; every single one of us in the developed West is living in an incredibly complex society featuring a huge variety of institutional arrangements of all kinds. There's no reason to think that these institutional factors don't affect social and economic outcomes; indeed, there's plenty of evidence to the contrary! (And it would be just as arrogant to think that the institutional arrangements prevailing in a random Western country as of 02022 are already "optimized" in any sense. So yes, there is room for some meaningful improvement.)