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> If there are no consequences, what is the incentive to bear responsibility? Sorry, but if a starving child is not enough of an incentive, I'm not sure we're

> If there are no consequences, what is the incentive to bear responsibility? Sorry, but if a starving child is not enough of an incentive, I'm not sure we're talking about people that can be incentivized. Either they want to provide for their children but are unable to or they just don't care. Punishing the former does nothing to help the child, likely only exacerbates that situation as, last I checked... parents who care for their children really do not like their children being taken away from them. Punishing the latter, you can only incentivize the latter to maybe do the bare minimum, skirting whatever they can get away with. You end up in an endless cat and mouse game needing to constantly check in and monitor kids. I mean child abuse is already illegal, and we don't seem to be able to get this problem solved. Personally, I think it is a lot cheaper to just feed kids than to fund the services needed to constantly monitor parents, all the legal fees to prosecute them, and then all the fees to put children in foster care where the situation might repeat itself. Feeding them also has the added benefit of them not starving while all those things are happening. It guarantees the child gets food. I'm all for punishing negligent parents, I'm not sure anyone is against that. But you know what I'm also against? Starving kids. Stop making this false dichotomy. It just ends up with starving kids.

glitchc 1y ago
I'll try once more. There are children starving globally every day. How many of them are you saving personally? If not all, why not? How many should we save collectively? And which "we" should be responsible for which children (neighbourhood, town, city, country, region)? If so, why? These are not trite questions. Think carefully before answering.
- godelski 1y ago
  Don't move the problem. We weren't discussing world hunger.
  - glitchc 1y ago
    Your objection to the first question is already captured in the ones that follow. Try to put some more thought into it, yeah? Okay, I'll tone down the snark (it's only there because you got my back up). Ultimately as you think about these questions, you will realize that the answers are not absolute, but based on degrees. You might think "hmm, I can't solve world hunger, but maybe I can help all the kids in my neighbourhood/city/state." Essentially what you will settle on a quantity and duration that seems reasonable to you. The thing with reasonable is that if you scratch the surface, it's little more than a line in the sand. Your own personal line based on your personal beliefs and values. Turns out everyone else has a personal line too, just in a slightly different spot, based on their different beliefs and values. That's why there's no one right answer. In civil society, everyone compares their lines and through debate, settle on one. Since it's a compromise, no one is actually happy with the outcome, but it's the best outcome we can arrive at given the problem. Your current position is one of intolerance: It seems impossible for you to understand why the line could be in any spot other than the one you picked. If that's the starting point, then you can never come to an agreement.
    - godelski 1y ago
      I truly believe you do not know how you instigated the aggression. So allow me to clarify: people do not like to be treated like children. Even children don't like being treated like children, so regardless of if you believe we all are, you're going to get nowhere with that attitude. I also want to clarify that you aren't being arrogant, you're being pretentious. Also, you seem to have forgotten we're having a very different conversation in another thread. Here you're acknowledging that people have desires beyond their capabilities. There you accused me of only comprehending pop philosophy for stating such inconsistency. Maybe it is you who were so focused on winning arguments that you lost what the arguments were even about. Yes, I want to solve world hunger. I have no problem understanding that feeding children in US schools does not solve world hunger. But I also have no problem understanding the existence of time, as problems can't be solved uniformly nor instantaneously. There's no magic in the real world. Nor do I have a problem with understanding that this isn't a binary situation. Ensuring kids in the US get fed results in more kids getting fed despite there still being kids globally not being fed. Idk man, there's no inconsistency here. Just because I'd like a billion dollars doesn't mean I won't be happy to get a million. Sure, long way to go, but it's a lot closer than I was. It's only a line in the sand if you stop. Otherwise we call that "progress" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

glitchc 1y ago

I'll try once more. There are children starving globally every day. How many of them are you saving personally? If not all, why not? How many should we save collectively? And which "we" should be responsible for which children (neighbourhood, town, city, country, region)? If so, why? These are not trite questions. Think carefully before answering.

godelski 1y ago
Don't move the problem. We weren't discussing world hunger.
- glitchc 1y ago
  Your objection to the first question is already captured in the ones that follow. Try to put some more thought into it, yeah? Okay, I'll tone down the snark (it's only there because you got my back up). Ultimately as you think about these questions, you will realize that the answers are not absolute, but based on degrees. You might think "hmm, I can't solve world hunger, but maybe I can help all the kids in my neighbourhood/city/state." Essentially what you will settle on a quantity and duration that seems reasonable to you. The thing with reasonable is that if you scratch the surface, it's little more than a line in the sand. Your own personal line based on your personal beliefs and values. Turns out everyone else has a personal line too, just in a slightly different spot, based on their different beliefs and values. That's why there's no one right answer. In civil society, everyone compares their lines and through debate, settle on one. Since it's a compromise, no one is actually happy with the outcome, but it's the best outcome we can arrive at given the problem. Your current position is one of intolerance: It seems impossible for you to understand why the line could be in any spot other than the one you picked. If that's the starting point, then you can never come to an agreement.
  - godelski 1y ago
    I truly believe you do not know how you instigated the aggression. So allow me to clarify: people do not like to be treated like children. Even children don't like being treated like children, so regardless of if you believe we all are, you're going to get nowhere with that attitude. I also want to clarify that you aren't being arrogant, you're being pretentious. Also, you seem to have forgotten we're having a very different conversation in another thread. Here you're acknowledging that people have desires beyond their capabilities. There you accused me of only comprehending pop philosophy for stating such inconsistency. Maybe it is you who were so focused on winning arguments that you lost what the arguments were even about. Yes, I want to solve world hunger. I have no problem understanding that feeding children in US schools does not solve world hunger. But I also have no problem understanding the existence of time, as problems can't be solved uniformly nor instantaneously. There's no magic in the real world. Nor do I have a problem with understanding that this isn't a binary situation. Ensuring kids in the US get fed results in more kids getting fed despite there still being kids globally not being fed. Idk man, there's no inconsistency here. Just because I'd like a billion dollars doesn't mean I won't be happy to get a million. Sure, long way to go, but it's a lot closer than I was. It's only a line in the sand if you stop. Otherwise we call that "progress" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯