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What you describe has something to do with this: Being poor is expensive. Everyone who struggled financially at some point in their time intuitively knows how

by dgb23 3y ago

What you describe has something to do with this: Being poor is expensive. Everyone who struggled financially at some point in their time intuitively knows how much harder it is to make (and keep) money if you're poor. Saving your first 10 bucks is _way_ harder than saving your first 100 bucks so to speak. And this is even more true if you're losing money / are behind. Paying off a dollar of debt is monumentally harder than saving a dollar. And it is much more taxing and stressful to boot. If you don't pay off that dollar, someone (perhaps the police even) will come knocking. This is one of the reasons why I believe a society should collectively provide the basics (like a family does) for everyone as long as that's possible. Even completely ignoring the ethical concerns. We would progress much faster if nobody had to worry about fundamental issues like shelter, food, basic transportation, education and so on. Imagine all the Einsteins and Picassos we are missing out on, because they struggle to pay their rent and can't afford education. Even ignoring the geniuses, think of all the little compounding things that would happen. All the craftspeople who don't have time to tinker. All the nurses who don't have time (and energy) for bedside manners etc. A lot of things we produce (and put a lot of energy into) would be less necessary, because they didn't have to fight the symptoms of a broken system.

jareklupinski 3y ago
> if nobody had to worry about fundamental issues like shelter, food, basic transportation, education and so on unfortunately, the people who are able to make this a reality tomorrow also hold to a strange viewpoint: they truly believe that, in the absence of some pressure, a person who has their basic needs provided will ultimately venture to do nothing completely failing to see the greatest irony of their belief, that even doing nothing would arguably be a better life than the debt-ridden existence you mentioned...
- dgb23 3y ago
  This viewpoint existed (to a more extreme degree) in the 18th and 19th century too. "If we give everyone the vote then...", "If workers have protections then...", "If women had equal rights then..." etc. It's interesting how stubbornly this false and negative image of humanity has persisted even though every time we made progress the opposite was found to be true. Yes, we are lazy, greedy and dumb. But we are also disciplined, helpful and smart to a much higher degree. Not because someone holds a whip, but because we just want to. We should maybe stop optimizing society to cater to the few people (or circumstances) where this isn't the case.
  - keester 3y ago
    Of course not everyone gets the vote. Not everyone gets the worker protections or can be women with equal rights, as you put it. The issue here is not if we should provide these things but actually to provide them to as many people as possible. Sadly, people think we can just agree to do it or something and it magically happens. My take is move slowly. Anyone who doesn't food and housing, try to make that happen for them as best we can. That's different than just decreeing from on high that ALL PEOPLE SHALL HAVE HOUSING!!
- scruple 3y ago
  > they truly believe that, in the absence of some pressure, a person who has their basic needs provided will ultimately venture to do nothing. They might venture to not work for the 5 richest men for starters. And we just can't have that happening now, can we?
- deepfriedchokes 3y ago
  A little bit of suffering drives growth, too much and things start to decline. If you go work out at the gym your muscles will grow, but if you fatigue them to an extreme you’ll get rhabdo and they’ll start to break down. We’re at a point where the majority of humanity is struggling with cost of living while others live in excess at their expense. This will cause species level decline if we don’t fix it. Capitalism is abusive and exploitative; it abuses people and the environment to feed itself. It is a vampire. If humanity is going to survive we need to start acknowledging Capitalism for what it is: abuse!
  - jareklupinski 3y ago
    > A little bit of suffering drives growth i think if we hope to finally achieve our species' true might and leave biology behind, we have to question whether this too may be a fallacy thermodynamics has the rest of the universe; maybe we can squeeze out of it?

by dgb23 3y ago

jareklupinski 3y ago

> if nobody had to worry about fundamental issues like shelter, food, basic transportation, education and so on unfortunately, the people who are able to make this a reality tomorrow also hold to a strange viewpoint: they truly believe that, in the absence of some pressure, a person who has their basic needs provided will ultimately venture to do nothing completely failing to see the greatest irony of their belief, that even doing nothing would arguably be a better life than the debt-ridden existence you mentioned...

dgb23 3y ago
This viewpoint existed (to a more extreme degree) in the 18th and 19th century too. "If we give everyone the vote then...", "If workers have protections then...", "If women had equal rights then..." etc. It's interesting how stubbornly this false and negative image of humanity has persisted even though every time we made progress the opposite was found to be true. Yes, we are lazy, greedy and dumb. But we are also disciplined, helpful and smart to a much higher degree. Not because someone holds a whip, but because we just want to. We should maybe stop optimizing society to cater to the few people (or circumstances) where this isn't the case.
- keester 3y ago
  Of course not everyone gets the vote. Not everyone gets the worker protections or can be women with equal rights, as you put it. The issue here is not if we should provide these things but actually to provide them to as many people as possible. Sadly, people think we can just agree to do it or something and it magically happens. My take is move slowly. Anyone who doesn't food and housing, try to make that happen for them as best we can. That's different than just decreeing from on high that ALL PEOPLE SHALL HAVE HOUSING!!
scruple 3y ago
> they truly believe that, in the absence of some pressure, a person who has their basic needs provided will ultimately venture to do nothing. They might venture to not work for the 5 richest men for starters. And we just can't have that happening now, can we?
deepfriedchokes 3y ago
A little bit of suffering drives growth, too much and things start to decline. If you go work out at the gym your muscles will grow, but if you fatigue them to an extreme you’ll get rhabdo and they’ll start to break down. We’re at a point where the majority of humanity is struggling with cost of living while others live in excess at their expense. This will cause species level decline if we don’t fix it. Capitalism is abusive and exploitative; it abuses people and the environment to feed itself. It is a vampire. If humanity is going to survive we need to start acknowledging Capitalism for what it is: abuse!
- jareklupinski 3y ago
  > A little bit of suffering drives growth i think if we hope to finally achieve our species' true might and leave biology behind, we have to question whether this too may be a fallacy thermodynamics has the rest of the universe; maybe we can squeeze out of it?