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Does your opinion apply to children born into poverty? Kids whose parents can't afford healthy food for them so their brains don't develop? Kids who are unabl

Does your opinion apply to children born into poverty? Kids whose parents can't afford healthy food for them so their brains don't develop? Kids who are unable to get educated because their schools are corrupt and 90% of the high school students graduate illiterate? People who were abused as kids and so have mental illnesses and live on the street because they can't hold a job? People who had their health insurance scam them and had to go $100,000 into debt to pay doctors? Kids who were brainwashed from birth by parents, teachers, media that they no matter what the expense they must go to university, and now find themselves 22 years old and $100,000 in debt with nothing to show for it? You live in an extremely exploitative society where the powerful coast while the vulnerable drown. The majority of the sufferers are people who were born into their situation. They are chronically ill from lack of access to healthcare and quality food. They are mentally ill from being abused and discarded and having nowhere to turn. They are in financial ruin by following the mainstream, standard advice regarding mortgages, investing, and education. If you were King of America, what would you do with all the destitute? You're right - there were already tons of miserable pre-2008. I just want to know what your plan for the unwashed, stupid, suffering masses is. Because it sounds like you're saying we should just let them wallow in their misery and watch as more cities crumble like Detroit. When you tell mentally ill homeless addicts to "use their bootstraps" you're really just advocating for the growth of the vast American ghettos that are already the shame of the nation.

Jach 15y ago
I voted the comment up not because I agree with the view, but because I think it's an interesting blurry-mirror into society at large (not necessarily the "1%"). Similar to Tim Minchin's "Fuck the Poor" song. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcdtVD8X1-A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcdtVD8X1-A ) People might claim to care about mentally ill homeless addicts and strongly disagree with the comment, but their behavior suggests otherwise. How much effort do people spend lobbying the government for a structural change that could help the mentally ill homeless addicts? How much money do people donate to them? How many of their actions directly benefit mentally ill homeless addicts? People care about the poor a lot less than they profess; I don't think that means they should necessarily stop professing (though it is worth an examination to see if what they are professing is the best thing to be professing), but instead to work a bit harder on making their professed beliefs better match their behaviors by changing their behaviors.
- forensic 15y ago
  How many people can afford to lobby the government? By talking to people I am reaching out trying to make structural change. There is no poverty in Sweden. America does not need to be such a heartless country. I've dedicated my entire career to helping people who are wallowing in misery and are simply unable to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But it's an extremely hard job because the nature of the economic system is that the most valuable services such as healthcare, education, psychological treatment, healthy food, and child card are NOT available for the people who are desperate for them. You have any idea how many mentally ill people people, after much misery, have told me they simply cannot afford the treatment they need and they simply go without? If you saw these cases like I have you would have nightmares. The easiest way to make money is to sell to the already rich who don't really need your services. The easiest way to be poor is to spend your time helping the miserable ungrateful masses who have nothing to give back. For my own sake I wish I could just forget about the miserable poor because my life would be a lot easier. But the demands of conscience make it impossible for me to slide into the comfortable cognitive dissonance of silicon valley. You're implying that I'm all talk, but I'm not. But talk does go a long way. Right now silicon valley elites have enough money, talent, and resources to reshape society into either a technocratic heartless corporate grinder, or into an egalitarian higg tech civil society that recognizes the inherent worth of all people ala Sweden. I left the computer field years ago to enter the mental health field. From my new perspective, of being in contact with the underclass, I am continually horrified at the heartless elitism displayed by computer people who I used to consider my brothers and sisters in creating a better world. Political change isn't a fucking mystery. You tell your politicians to take care of the poor, you tell them to fix crony capitalism, you tell them to stop their imperial wars of aggression, and if they accept bribes you tell everyone you know how corrupt they are. You build a positive vision of a society without ghettos. You hold up examples like Sweden - a social structure that mos Americans would prefer if they just looked into it.
oelewapperke 15y ago
"You live in an extremely exploitative society where the powerful coast while the vulnerable drown." Dear God, man. You need perspective. Visit middle Afria, northern Africa, and throw in some place in southern Asia. They're much, much worse. Oh and the vulnerable may "drown" in America, they're killed in these places. But don't worry, those are far, far from the worst places to be poor. Go to the middle east, look how the poor run in panic when the police comes by. That's not a coincidence. And in the worse places, notice how women flee in panic from you. Not because they fear you, in fact quite the opposite, but because they'll be immediately attacked if seen talking the least little bit to an infidel (or even a muslim foreignor). Even if it's stumble bump "oh, excuse me". Not that they're free from attack if they don't, but ... I've not seen this personally, but the really unlucky ones here are orphans (and there's a lot of them, since half these women are prostitutes out of necessity and don't have access to condoms). Oh and local muslims will tell you they pay "zakat" to help these people. Needless to say, you will find Imams almost exclusively with a well-stocked table and a pipe that makes one dizzy from 3 meters distance in the most expensive "teahouse". The government hands out a little bread, irregularly. And those are just places I've seen directly. I've heard from a few colleagues similar situations exist in other places (Dubai seems to be about the worst, where they withold water from the poor) The worst poor in America don't have a roof over their heads at night
forensic 15y ago
In reply to the dead comment by oelewapperke, I just want to say that while the poor in many countries are worse off, this kind of palliative comparison should not make anyone feel better. America as a whole puts its best and brightest to work on playing zero-sum wall street games and making trivial things like FarmVille, while America's poor and the world's poor descend into barbarism and resurrect horrible forms of social organization long thought on their way out, from slavery to theocracy to communism. "Even the IMF was forced to admit in a 2000 report that "in recent decades, nearly one-fifth of the world’s population has regressed. This is arguably one of the greatest economic failures of the 20th century"." http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111130121556567265.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111130121... The most powerful and wealthy nation to have ever existed, spanning a continent, with a global empire and previously unimagined technology, is overseeing global economic collapse because it is too short sighted to even look 5 years in the future and reign in blatant destabilizing social injustice.
justin_vanw 15y ago
No, this has nothing to do with poverty. This has to do with people who believe they are entitled to the 'american dream' but refuse to sacrifice or work hard, or compromise in any way to achieve that dream. I was raised on government cheese. I am alive because of foodstamps. You are arguing with strawman. I'm all for helping the poor. We need a safety net, specifically to help children. However, that doesn't mean that every hippy who hasn't succeeded is the victim of some grand conspiracy where the rich tilt the system in their own favor. Who wants to fix schools? Schools are corrupt in bad neighborhoods not because they are being sabotaged (they often have very high levels of funding), but because bad neighborhoods have bad parents and a poor PTA, so there is nobody with any incentive to fix the schools that also have the ability and experience to do anything about it. A poor inner city parent has never seen a school that works, and has never recieved any education to speak of, so they have no idea how to 'fix' their child's school, and most of the time they don't even know that is something they should be concerned about. Their priorities are all fucked. How is that the fault of me or anyone else in the 1%? How is protesting wallstreet in any way related to this? Your points are all entirely off topic. Health insurance scam them? What does that have to do with wallstreet? Seriously, though, if your biggest problem is long term debt, you are pretty fucking rich in absolute terms. There are people in Africa who's #1 problem is starving to death. After all, our western legal system is completely friendly to debtors these days, they can have all debts removed (other than student loans) by declaring bankruptcy. It's not my fault people are too stupid to major in a field that will let them pay back their student loans. The humanities do not lead to jobs, everyone knowns this. Hell, it's repeated so much it's a cliche! Blaming other people because you wanted to do an easy major and fuck girls in college while going into debt is an insult to those of us that worked our asses off so that we could make money later. This is just 'the ant and the grasshopper', don't blame the ant. Actually, I was born into and lived in poverty almost my entire life before the age of 18. I attended many bad schools, and had no support. I don't feel exploited at all, in fact I think I'm lucky to live in an age where even the poorest people, who's parents make the worst decisions (drug use, alcohol abuse, child abuse) are able to attend school, and in fact are compelled to. If you can afford a big screen TV, and you have 500 channels of television, you are not being exploited. Turn off the TV and do something before you start bitching about how unfair life is. Everyone has access to quality food. If you are too poor to afford quality food, foodstamps are provided for you and your family. If you choose to buy McDonalds and cheetos anyway, what then? Are we supposed to force feed people carrots? Because that is the only way you'll get many poor people to eat healthy food, by forcing them to. Is that what you advocate? I think if you turned the anger down, you would see that there isn't a class of evil conspirators at the top. The solutions to our problems are not clear cut, and you don't have any answers to any of the problems you think you see. There is no silver bullet to the problems of society, and it takes a lot of time and a lot of lessons to move forward a little bit every generation.

Jach 15y ago

I voted the comment up not because I agree with the view, but because I think it's an interesting blurry-mirror into society at large (not necessarily the "1%"). Similar to Tim Minchin's "Fuck the Poor" song. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcdtVD8X1-A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcdtVD8X1-A ) People might claim to care about mentally ill homeless addicts and strongly disagree with the comment, but their behavior suggests otherwise. How much effort do people spend lobbying the government for a structural change that could help the mentally ill homeless addicts? How much money do people donate to them? How many of their actions directly benefit mentally ill homeless addicts? People care about the poor a lot less than they profess; I don't think that means they should necessarily stop professing (though it is worth an examination to see if what they are professing is the best thing to be professing), but instead to work a bit harder on making their professed beliefs better match their behaviors by changing their behaviors.

forensic 15y ago
How many people can afford to lobby the government? By talking to people I am reaching out trying to make structural change. There is no poverty in Sweden. America does not need to be such a heartless country. I've dedicated my entire career to helping people who are wallowing in misery and are simply unable to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But it's an extremely hard job because the nature of the economic system is that the most valuable services such as healthcare, education, psychological treatment, healthy food, and child card are NOT available for the people who are desperate for them. You have any idea how many mentally ill people people, after much misery, have told me they simply cannot afford the treatment they need and they simply go without? If you saw these cases like I have you would have nightmares. The easiest way to make money is to sell to the already rich who don't really need your services. The easiest way to be poor is to spend your time helping the miserable ungrateful masses who have nothing to give back. For my own sake I wish I could just forget about the miserable poor because my life would be a lot easier. But the demands of conscience make it impossible for me to slide into the comfortable cognitive dissonance of silicon valley. You're implying that I'm all talk, but I'm not. But talk does go a long way. Right now silicon valley elites have enough money, talent, and resources to reshape society into either a technocratic heartless corporate grinder, or into an egalitarian higg tech civil society that recognizes the inherent worth of all people ala Sweden. I left the computer field years ago to enter the mental health field. From my new perspective, of being in contact with the underclass, I am continually horrified at the heartless elitism displayed by computer people who I used to consider my brothers and sisters in creating a better world. Political change isn't a fucking mystery. You tell your politicians to take care of the poor, you tell them to fix crony capitalism, you tell them to stop their imperial wars of aggression, and if they accept bribes you tell everyone you know how corrupt they are. You build a positive vision of a society without ghettos. You hold up examples like Sweden - a social structure that mos Americans would prefer if they just looked into it.

oelewapperke 15y ago

"You live in an extremely exploitative society where the powerful coast while the vulnerable drown." Dear God, man. You need perspective. Visit middle Afria, northern Africa, and throw in some place in southern Asia. They're much, much worse. Oh and the vulnerable may "drown" in America, they're killed in these places. But don't worry, those are far, far from the worst places to be poor. Go to the middle east, look how the poor run in panic when the police comes by. That's not a coincidence. And in the worse places, notice how women flee in panic from you. Not because they fear you, in fact quite the opposite, but because they'll be immediately attacked if seen talking the least little bit to an infidel (or even a muslim foreignor). Even if it's stumble bump "oh, excuse me". Not that they're free from attack if they don't, but ... I've not seen this personally, but the really unlucky ones here are orphans (and there's a lot of them, since half these women are prostitutes out of necessity and don't have access to condoms). Oh and local muslims will tell you they pay "zakat" to help these people. Needless to say, you will find Imams almost exclusively with a well-stocked table and a pipe that makes one dizzy from 3 meters distance in the most expensive "teahouse". The government hands out a little bread, irregularly. And those are just places I've seen directly. I've heard from a few colleagues similar situations exist in other places (Dubai seems to be about the worst, where they withold water from the poor) The worst poor in America don't have a roof over their heads at night

forensic 15y ago

In reply to the dead comment by oelewapperke, I just want to say that while the poor in many countries are worse off, this kind of palliative comparison should not make anyone feel better. America as a whole puts its best and brightest to work on playing zero-sum wall street games and making trivial things like FarmVille, while America's poor and the world's poor descend into barbarism and resurrect horrible forms of social organization long thought on their way out, from slavery to theocracy to communism. "Even the IMF was forced to admit in a 2000 report that "in recent decades, nearly one-fifth of the world’s population has regressed. This is arguably one of the greatest economic failures of the 20th century"." http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111130121556567265.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111130121... The most powerful and wealthy nation to have ever existed, spanning a continent, with a global empire and previously unimagined technology, is overseeing global economic collapse because it is too short sighted to even look 5 years in the future and reign in blatant destabilizing social injustice.

justin_vanw 15y ago

No, this has nothing to do with poverty. This has to do with people who believe they are entitled to the 'american dream' but refuse to sacrifice or work hard, or compromise in any way to achieve that dream. I was raised on government cheese. I am alive because of foodstamps. You are arguing with strawman. I'm all for helping the poor. We need a safety net, specifically to help children. However, that doesn't mean that every hippy who hasn't succeeded is the victim of some grand conspiracy where the rich tilt the system in their own favor. Who wants to fix schools? Schools are corrupt in bad neighborhoods not because they are being sabotaged (they often have very high levels of funding), but because bad neighborhoods have bad parents and a poor PTA, so there is nobody with any incentive to fix the schools that also have the ability and experience to do anything about it. A poor inner city parent has never seen a school that works, and has never recieved any education to speak of, so they have no idea how to 'fix' their child's school, and most of the time they don't even know that is something they should be concerned about. Their priorities are all fucked. How is that the fault of me or anyone else in the 1%? How is protesting wallstreet in any way related to this? Your points are all entirely off topic. Health insurance scam them? What does that have to do with wallstreet? Seriously, though, if your biggest problem is long term debt, you are pretty fucking rich in absolute terms. There are people in Africa who's #1 problem is starving to death. After all, our western legal system is completely friendly to debtors these days, they can have all debts removed (other than student loans) by declaring bankruptcy. It's not my fault people are too stupid to major in a field that will let them pay back their student loans. The humanities do not lead to jobs, everyone knowns this. Hell, it's repeated so much it's a cliche! Blaming other people because you wanted to do an easy major and fuck girls in college while going into debt is an insult to those of us that worked our asses off so that we could make money later. This is just 'the ant and the grasshopper', don't blame the ant. Actually, I was born into and lived in poverty almost my entire life before the age of 18. I attended many bad schools, and had no support. I don't feel exploited at all, in fact I think I'm lucky to live in an age where even the poorest people, who's parents make the worst decisions (drug use, alcohol abuse, child abuse) are able to attend school, and in fact are compelled to. If you can afford a big screen TV, and you have 500 channels of television, you are not being exploited. Turn off the TV and do something before you start bitching about how unfair life is. Everyone has access to quality food. If you are too poor to afford quality food, foodstamps are provided for you and your family. If you choose to buy McDonalds and cheetos anyway, what then? Are we supposed to force feed people carrots? Because that is the only way you'll get many poor people to eat healthy food, by forcing them to. Is that what you advocate? I think if you turned the anger down, you would see that there isn't a class of evil conspirators at the top. The solutions to our problems are not clear cut, and you don't have any answers to any of the problems you think you see. There is no silver bullet to the problems of society, and it takes a lot of time and a lot of lessons to move forward a little bit every generation.