3 ms·

It’s a dream, not an entitlement.

echelon 4y ago
None of us are entitled to anything. Human laws reinforce power and social dynamics, stable equilibrium solutions the result of thousands of years of human conflict. There are no "rules" beyond physics, and the rule breakers often wind up ahead. The rule makers don't want to pay for those that cannot contribute more than they consume. To put it another way, they don't want their taxes to go up. One lever to control this is through immigration policy. The voting class is told unskilled immigrant labor is a net negative. Skilled labor, a positive. One side tells them skilled labor threatens their jobs and total compensation, another side tells them it's alright and that we're at a shortage for labor. There are abstract reasons you can point to for each of these ideologies, but ultimately each side is fundamentally concerned with money. Every one of us is ultimately about consuming energy. For those of us fortunate enough, we can care about Starbucks, how many homes we own, and what kind of luxury goods we have. But at the end of the day, if it were all taken away and we had to fight for food and energy, nearly every one of us would. Step out into the Serengeti alone and you'll be eaten. There are no rules.
- psi75 4y ago
  Entitlement is a weird concept, especially since it is now used as a pejorative only to connote false senses of entitlement (i.e., when people believe they are owed things but have no logical basis for the belief). This deprives us of the language to describe situations in which people actually are, legitimately, entitled to certain things. I am of the mindset that the decent functioning of human society is an entitlement and that people who deliberately cause dysfunction (such as Davos assholes, who are deliberately destroying the U.S. middle class to set some weird kind of example) should be treated as reneging criminals and removed from power using whatever means are necessary. Some people coat doorknobs in feces (or, say, found companies with terrible cultures, support capitalism past its deserving end-of-life) simply because they enjoy the thrill of being the cause; others among us, people of culture, are entitled to a society that protects us from the fecal spreaders. That's literally why we permit the state to exist; so it will protect us. However, it does a terrible job these days. But yes, it is true that, absent the existence of human society, I am owed nothing (since the lions and gazelles and wolves clearly owe me nothing).
slothtrop 4y ago
What becomes a "right" is up to society, it's rather arbitrary. That doesn't necessitate that everything and anything be a right, but each comes with a compromise to varying degrees.
mayoi 4y ago

None of us are entitled to anything. Human laws reinforce power and social dynamics, stable equilibrium solutions the result of thousands of years of human conflict. There are no "rules" beyond physics, and the rule breakers often wind up ahead. The rule makers don't want to pay for those that cannot contribute more than they consume. To put it another way, they don't want their taxes to go up. One lever to control this is through immigration policy. The voting class is told unskilled immigrant labor is a net negative. Skilled labor, a positive. One side tells them skilled labor threatens their jobs and total compensation, another side tells them it's alright and that we're at a shortage for labor. There are abstract reasons you can point to for each of these ideologies, but ultimately each side is fundamentally concerned with money. Every one of us is ultimately about consuming energy. For those of us fortunate enough, we can care about Starbucks, how many homes we own, and what kind of luxury goods we have. But at the end of the day, if it were all taken away and we had to fight for food and energy, nearly every one of us would. Step out into the Serengeti alone and you'll be eaten. There are no rules.

psi75 4y ago
Entitlement is a weird concept, especially since it is now used as a pejorative only to connote false senses of entitlement (i.e., when people believe they are owed things but have no logical basis for the belief). This deprives us of the language to describe situations in which people actually are, legitimately, entitled to certain things. I am of the mindset that the decent functioning of human society is an entitlement and that people who deliberately cause dysfunction (such as Davos assholes, who are deliberately destroying the U.S. middle class to set some weird kind of example) should be treated as reneging criminals and removed from power using whatever means are necessary. Some people coat doorknobs in feces (or, say, found companies with terrible cultures, support capitalism past its deserving end-of-life) simply because they enjoy the thrill of being the cause; others among us, people of culture, are entitled to a society that protects us from the fecal spreaders. That's literally why we permit the state to exist; so it will protect us. However, it does a terrible job these days. But yes, it is true that, absent the existence of human society, I am owed nothing (since the lions and gazelles and wolves clearly owe me nothing).

slothtrop 4y ago

What becomes a "right" is up to society, it's rather arbitrary. That doesn't necessitate that everything and anything be a right, but each comes with a compromise to varying degrees.

mayoi 4y ago