4 ms·

>* It will always be far less efficient to depend on a few individuals to shoulder large expenses or for disparate organizations (each with their own overhead e

by pdonis 4y ago

>* It will always be far less efficient to depend on a few individuals to shoulder large expenses or for disparate organizations (each with their own overhead expenses) to find and collect smaller contributions than it is for everyone to pay just a small amount and collectively cover an expense through a single origination.* On the assumption that the single organization will actually do the job, perhaps. But it won't. Ask anyone who has actual experience with such government organizations, as, for example, my wife and I have (she far more than me--she was a social worker for 20 years). They don't actually help the people they're supposed to help. So your claim is factually wrong, not mine. I did not claim that private charities are perfect. I only claimed that charity is best done by private institutions, i.e., that on net they do better than government programs.

autoexec 4y ago
Government doesn't always work as well as it should, but you have the power to change that. You can vote for changes and hold your elected officials accountable. That's the strength of government solutions. You and those around you come together to vote on what needs to be done, how it should be done, and who is responsible for overseeing that. I also have family who worked in social services and they always wished they could do more to help people, but too many of the people around them were preventing that. Too many people voted against plans to increase funding and refused to hold officials responsible perhaps because of the letter next to that official's name, or because they didn't want to help "the wrong kinds of people" at all, or because they thought as you do that charity is enough to fix everything. If charities were the answer they'd have already stepped in to fill all the gaps left over after the government has done what it can, but of course they haven't. This is the main weakness of government programs. They depend on people working together and holding their elected officials accountable. People vote against government programs, and refuse to hold anyone accountable, and then complain when the programs don't solve their problems and use that as evidence that the whole system can't work, but it's still clearly the most efficient way to solve many problems, and often the only way some people are currently getting any help at all. Improving it just requires us to put in the effort.
- pdonis 4y ago
  > You can vote for changes and hold your elected officials accountable. That's the strength of government solutions. No, it's the weakness of government solutions. If I want to help people, I can start a private charity and go help people. If I want to government to help people, I have to get a majority of the country to vote for politicians that will make that happen--assuming there even are any. > You and those around you come together to vote on what needs to be done, how it should be done, and who is responsible for overseeing that. If you believe people should be helped, you can go help them. If you and a bunch of your friends all believe that, so much the better: you can get together to help more people. This is how helping is supposed to work, and how it has worked all through human history when it has actually worked at all. If you want the government to force everybody to pay for helping people, you are imposing your value judgments on them. That's not how freedom is supposed to work. It's also lazy on your part: you say you want to help people, but instead of actually doing the work of helping--figuring out the individual needs of individuals who need help, deciding whether they deserve to be helped, and then doing what is needed to help them--you're punting it to a government bureaucracy. Which, as I have already said, won't actually do it anyway. And it's no answer to that to say that, if only people would just vote the right way, governments would magically change. That utopian vision has never worked. > Improving it just requires us to put in the effort. Your efforts would be much better directed at helping people yourself, than trying to use government force to do it.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > If you believe people should be helped, you can go help them. I could, but how is that better? If there's a natural disaster on the other side of the country and I can see that people need help should I immediately pack up my car with water bottles, food, and blankets and drive for three or four days to "go help them?" I have responsibilities here too. I have a job and a family who need me here. Should I just leave them at a moment's notice? And not just me, you want everyone to do this? Have thousands of people drop everything they are responsible for to drive however many days/hours it takes to "go help"? Getting to the people who need the help in a timely manner would be hard enough, but imagine the roads being blocked by all the traffic at a time when emergency responders are trying to work. Clearly my efforts are not better directed at helping people myself. It's stupidly inefficient for everyone to respond to people in need by going to help them. It's sure as hell not how it's "supposed to work" and that's why we've set up the response systems that we have. We need to depend on others to do the helping so that we can contribute to their efforts while still living our lives and without wasting massive amounts of time and resources causing new problems. Because we're stuck depending on others to help collect needed supplies and funding, coordinate with local emergency response teams, and disseminate whatever aid is needed the fewer organizations we task with doing all that the better and more efficiently it all works. > than trying to use government force to do it. "The government" isn't forcing anyone to help people. It's your neighbors, my neighbors, and everyone around and between us choosing to help others. We decided we want state and federal aid for people who need it. It wasn't even a decision we made one time, we continuously decide that it's the best way to handle aid. If we ever change our minds and decide that everyone packing up their cars and rushing in to personally deliver assistance is preferable we can vote to stop it. No one is forcing us, it was our choice. You might not agree with it, but that's just life in a democracy. Collectively we may choose things you don't personally care for, and thank goodness because it sounds like you haven't really thought through your "Everyone go help whoever they think needs it directly" strategy at all.

by pdonis 4y ago

autoexec 4y ago

Government doesn't always work as well as it should, but you have the power to change that. You can vote for changes and hold your elected officials accountable. That's the strength of government solutions. You and those around you come together to vote on what needs to be done, how it should be done, and who is responsible for overseeing that. I also have family who worked in social services and they always wished they could do more to help people, but too many of the people around them were preventing that. Too many people voted against plans to increase funding and refused to hold officials responsible perhaps because of the letter next to that official's name, or because they didn't want to help "the wrong kinds of people" at all, or because they thought as you do that charity is enough to fix everything. If charities were the answer they'd have already stepped in to fill all the gaps left over after the government has done what it can, but of course they haven't. This is the main weakness of government programs. They depend on people working together and holding their elected officials accountable. People vote against government programs, and refuse to hold anyone accountable, and then complain when the programs don't solve their problems and use that as evidence that the whole system can't work, but it's still clearly the most efficient way to solve many problems, and often the only way some people are currently getting any help at all. Improving it just requires us to put in the effort.

pdonis 4y ago
> You can vote for changes and hold your elected officials accountable. That's the strength of government solutions. No, it's the weakness of government solutions. If I want to help people, I can start a private charity and go help people. If I want to government to help people, I have to get a majority of the country to vote for politicians that will make that happen--assuming there even are any. > You and those around you come together to vote on what needs to be done, how it should be done, and who is responsible for overseeing that. If you believe people should be helped, you can go help them. If you and a bunch of your friends all believe that, so much the better: you can get together to help more people. This is how helping is supposed to work, and how it has worked all through human history when it has actually worked at all. If you want the government to force everybody to pay for helping people, you are imposing your value judgments on them. That's not how freedom is supposed to work. It's also lazy on your part: you say you want to help people, but instead of actually doing the work of helping--figuring out the individual needs of individuals who need help, deciding whether they deserve to be helped, and then doing what is needed to help them--you're punting it to a government bureaucracy. Which, as I have already said, won't actually do it anyway. And it's no answer to that to say that, if only people would just vote the right way, governments would magically change. That utopian vision has never worked. > Improving it just requires us to put in the effort. Your efforts would be much better directed at helping people yourself, than trying to use government force to do it.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > If you believe people should be helped, you can go help them. I could, but how is that better? If there's a natural disaster on the other side of the country and I can see that people need help should I immediately pack up my car with water bottles, food, and blankets and drive for three or four days to "go help them?" I have responsibilities here too. I have a job and a family who need me here. Should I just leave them at a moment's notice? And not just me, you want everyone to do this? Have thousands of people drop everything they are responsible for to drive however many days/hours it takes to "go help"? Getting to the people who need the help in a timely manner would be hard enough, but imagine the roads being blocked by all the traffic at a time when emergency responders are trying to work. Clearly my efforts are not better directed at helping people myself. It's stupidly inefficient for everyone to respond to people in need by going to help them. It's sure as hell not how it's "supposed to work" and that's why we've set up the response systems that we have. We need to depend on others to do the helping so that we can contribute to their efforts while still living our lives and without wasting massive amounts of time and resources causing new problems. Because we're stuck depending on others to help collect needed supplies and funding, coordinate with local emergency response teams, and disseminate whatever aid is needed the fewer organizations we task with doing all that the better and more efficiently it all works. > than trying to use government force to do it. "The government" isn't forcing anyone to help people. It's your neighbors, my neighbors, and everyone around and between us choosing to help others. We decided we want state and federal aid for people who need it. It wasn't even a decision we made one time, we continuously decide that it's the best way to handle aid. If we ever change our minds and decide that everyone packing up their cars and rushing in to personally deliver assistance is preferable we can vote to stop it. No one is forcing us, it was our choice. You might not agree with it, but that's just life in a democracy. Collectively we may choose things you don't personally care for, and thank goodness because it sounds like you haven't really thought through your "Everyone go help whoever they think needs it directly" strategy at all.