39 ms·

Good options were available? What if there weren't? What if you were conditioned to not take them? What if you became a child addict? What if literally nobody a

by vkou 4y ago

Good options were available? What if there weren't? What if you were conditioned to not take them? What if you became a child addict? What if literally nobody around you escaped the cycle of addiction and poverty? There's a difference between growing up in an environment where *a fourth-grader in your class is always scrounging for cigarette butts to smoke (that's what my dad grew up with), and your entire community being fucked up every way to Sunday before they get into high school. A town with a life expectancy of 50 is far closer to the latter than the former. Throw in violence, maybe a bit of domestic abuse passed down the generations, crime against you, and a dollop of literally nobody outside of it wanting to deal with your shit, and good luck escaping that environment. But I guess that since it's technically possible for a legless man to crawl a marathon, the rest of his peers are just not trying hard enough...

citizenpaul 4y ago
>literally nobody around you escaped the cycle of addiction and poverty I guess your righteousness is greater than your reading comprehension. I left home as a minor. I have not spoken to anyone from that time including "family" since then. They were all garbage people that created their own poverty and trouble. > child addict I did drugs given to me by "adults" as a minor. I realized it was not a good path and rejected it. edit:The downvotes are a good reason that I never talk about this. I've learned that privileged people rarely like to hear real stories about poverty. Go back to your 100% accurate view of the world as shown on 60 minutes.
- vkou 4y ago
  > I guess your righteousness is greater than your reading comprehension I think that's a more appropriate criticism to levy against you. Whatever you dealt with, things could have always been worse. No man is an island, and you could only do what you did because there were opportunities around you. If they didn't work out, or they weren't present, or if you went for them, and got bitten for worse than you gained, you could have well ended up back in that shitty environment, homeless, or dead, or in prison. Sometimes shit just happens, and is too much to deal with. Sometimes the effort required to get out is greater than any one person can put in. There's no shortage of bums living under the I-5 overpass who also had great plans for leaving their shitty town, and making a better life in the big city. They all have two things on common - nobody they could lean on when things went to shit, and things going to shit for them. When you're born in a shitty environment, the first box gets checked for you at birth, and any man only has partial control over the second one. Tell me your life story, and I'll happily throw a 'but, what if...' that, had it gone the other way, could have put you under that overpass. The world isn't some deterministic puzzle where if you make the right moves, everything will work out. Sometimes, you can do everything right, and still lose in the short-term. People who have safety buffers to fall back on can bounce back from that. People who don't get to move to that overpass.
mjevans 4y ago
As a thought experiment. How might an AI trying to follow the intent of Azimov's three laws of robotics help the humans? Initial conclusion: the community is broken and dangerous to humans. Evacuation of at risk life necessary. Distribute and re-integrate across functional settlements.
- vkou 4y ago
  That conclusion might be adjusted a bit when the AI reads into our history, and observe that our track record for resettling people is not great.
  - mjevans 4y ago
    Negative examples might be easy to think of since they get tons of word of mouth and press coverage. Many of the negative examples (E.G. of 'native americans') you think of involve breaking up a functional community and relocating it against it's will en-mass. Positive examples get much less coverage. Such as refugees that are spread out and integrated with host families and communities. Lives can be improved, and oversight and improvements might be had with the consultation or creation of experts in the subject.
citizenpaul 4y ago
>Good options were available? I'm speaking relatively. Like stand on the corner selling drugs and probably go to jail or get up at 6AM every day to a shitty hard job that pays you hourly. The choices are not great but one is good compared to the other. One has a potential path to something better one day, the other all but guarantees you a cycle of poverty.

by vkou 4y ago

citizenpaul 4y ago

>literally nobody around you escaped the cycle of addiction and poverty I guess your righteousness is greater than your reading comprehension. I left home as a minor. I have not spoken to anyone from that time including "family" since then. They were all garbage people that created their own poverty and trouble. > child addict I did drugs given to me by "adults" as a minor. I realized it was not a good path and rejected it. edit:The downvotes are a good reason that I never talk about this. I've learned that privileged people rarely like to hear real stories about poverty. Go back to your 100% accurate view of the world as shown on 60 minutes.

vkou 4y ago
> I guess your righteousness is greater than your reading comprehension I think that's a more appropriate criticism to levy against you. Whatever you dealt with, things could have always been worse. No man is an island, and you could only do what you did because there were opportunities around you. If they didn't work out, or they weren't present, or if you went for them, and got bitten for worse than you gained, you could have well ended up back in that shitty environment, homeless, or dead, or in prison. Sometimes shit just happens, and is too much to deal with. Sometimes the effort required to get out is greater than any one person can put in. There's no shortage of bums living under the I-5 overpass who also had great plans for leaving their shitty town, and making a better life in the big city. They all have two things on common - nobody they could lean on when things went to shit, and things going to shit for them. When you're born in a shitty environment, the first box gets checked for you at birth, and any man only has partial control over the second one. Tell me your life story, and I'll happily throw a 'but, what if...' that, had it gone the other way, could have put you under that overpass. The world isn't some deterministic puzzle where if you make the right moves, everything will work out. Sometimes, you can do everything right, and still lose in the short-term. People who have safety buffers to fall back on can bounce back from that. People who don't get to move to that overpass.

mjevans 4y ago

As a thought experiment. How might an AI trying to follow the intent of Azimov's three laws of robotics help the humans? Initial conclusion: the community is broken and dangerous to humans. Evacuation of at risk life necessary. Distribute and re-integrate across functional settlements.

vkou 4y ago
That conclusion might be adjusted a bit when the AI reads into our history, and observe that our track record for resettling people is not great.
- mjevans 4y ago
  Negative examples might be easy to think of since they get tons of word of mouth and press coverage. Many of the negative examples (E.G. of 'native americans') you think of involve breaking up a functional community and relocating it against it's will en-mass. Positive examples get much less coverage. Such as refugees that are spread out and integrated with host families and communities. Lives can be improved, and oversight and improvements might be had with the consultation or creation of experts in the subject.

citizenpaul 4y ago

>Good options were available? I'm speaking relatively. Like stand on the corner selling drugs and probably go to jail or get up at 6AM every day to a shitty hard job that pays you hourly. The choices are not great but one is good compared to the other. One has a potential path to something better one day, the other all but guarantees you a cycle of poverty.