3 ms·
And yet, to an amazing extent, they aren't. If you look back in 200 years, poor people starving to death was simply an accepted fact of life. Today, poor peopl
by btilly 1y ago
And yet, to an amazing extent, they aren't.
If you look back in 200 years, poor people starving to death was simply an accepted fact of life. Today, poor people get fat. Do their lives suck? Absolutely! Just look at the craziness around housing. But in terms of resources per person available to the poor? Very few of us realize how good we've got it.
The extreme poverty line has remained essentially the same (adjusted for inflation) for a few decades. Projecting backwards in time, most people in every country used to be in extreme poverty. We are on track to eliminating extreme poverty within our lifetimes. They've adjusted the poverty line upwards. But just watch, life keeps on improving.
- appointment 1y agoWhere are people living on $3/day getting fat?
- wizzwizz4 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwashiorkor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwashiorkor (note: distressing images)
- mrguyorama 1y agoImportant distinction: That is not "fat" in the same way that someone with cirrhosis isn't fat, that is diseased >The name, introduced by Williams in 1935, was derived from the Ga language of coastal Ghana, translated as "the sickness the baby gets when the new baby comes" Christ that's sad.
- jahnu 1y agoPeople in extreme poverty are not getting fat https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/obesity-vs-gdp https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/obesity-vs-gdp
- btilly 1y agoNo, people in extreme poverty are not getting fat. But poor people do in great numbers in many countries. For example there are many obese Americans on food stamps. Thanks to social services, the number of Americans who are in extreme poverty is approximately zero. When I compare to history, I far prefer this state of affairs to what used to be the norm.
- s5300 1y ago[dead]
- dartharva 1y ago> Thanks to social services, the number of Americans who are in extreme poverty is approximately zero. I wish I could make myself have such confidence in any government entity as much as you seem to have in US social services
- JoachimSchipper 1y agoYou're commenting on an article about people consuming less than $3/day; Americans on food stamps (SNAP appears to be about $4-6/day alone, not counting any other benefits) are a distraction, simply not part of the population that the article is discussing.
- cwmoore 1y agoSo $10/day for 8.2B people is only $30 trillion a year. Tax the bots for UBI. AGI could make that in a weekend.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago>For example there are many obese Americans on food stamps. All of their own fault. I recently saw a youtube compilation of tiktok clips of Americans on food stamps making videos flaunting their overfull supermarket shopping carts and it was all name brand junk food made up of refined carbs, fats and sugars, and to no ones surprise, they were all obese. No vegetables, no fruits, no leafy greens, no legumes, but all junk food which costs more than the healthy stuff. Who's fault is that? At what point is personal accountability supposed to kick in? If you can afford a roof over your head, a car, and entire shopping carts full of name brand junk food(which is more expensive than healthy food) to make yourself obese, you are anything but poor, you are just stupid and glutenous. Edit: I see the downvotes, but notice nobody is saying that I am wrong? ;) So then we agree that I'm right.