5 ms·

Except when a horse became a cost instead of providing income, it would likely have been slaughtered. I don't think that's the path we want to take with people.

mbetter 14y ago
Based on the glee that a significant proportion of Americans seem to derive from cutting social safety nets, that appears to be exactly the path we seem to be heading down.
- pc86 14y ago
  Yeah those stupid Americans sure do hate poor people, don't they? /s
  - niels_olson 14y ago
    Perhaps you haven't been to the South? Even the poor people hate the poor people. And they have the most poor people. Figure that.
    - mncolinlee 14y ago
      This is too true. Here in Minnesota, we had a state representative equate food stamp recipients to animals in two separate speeches. In her rural district, almost twenty percent are on welfare programs and most residents are under the poverty line and qualify for food stamps. They still vote for her in spite of statewide coverage of her statements. The attitude that everyone else is lazy and abusing the system seems most common in poor rural regions that depend the most on benefits. It usually has racial, anti-urban overtones that imply "we're only suffering because of THOSE people who don't look like us." It's a form of scapegoating.
      - RougeFemme 14y ago
        Agreed. And the people receiving disability don't recognize it as the entitlement program that is.
        MartinCron 14y ago
        Most beneficiaries of entitlement programs don't recognize them as such.
        clarkevans 14y ago
        Perhaps those who are receiving entitlement (and advocating for its abolition), may be using reasoning that you don't recognize. For example, could some of these recipients be very guilty about their use, and, are voting to end them because they don't see any other way out for themselves? Accepting a free handout is a very hard thing in our culture, especially for those that know the gift they receive was forcibly taken from others.
      - jiggy2011 14y ago
        That's an interesting point and I notice similar behaviour in the UK. People will talk up a politician who promises to "end the benefits culture" despite being on benefits themselves. The reasoning is usually along the lines of "oh he's just talking about those other people on benefits who don't deserve them. Not good hard-nonworking folks like us"
      - scarmig 14y ago
        That's a bit of an incomplete description you give, though. Poorer regions that more benefits do tend to vote for people to cut those benefits. But as Andrew Gelman has demonstrated, it's not really the people getting the benefits who want to cut them: it's the professional and ruling class in the area who do. Nearly everywhere the lower classes do want more benefits, but the big difference between regions is what the powerful people want.
    - twinge 14y ago
      One possible explanation is "last place aversion": http://www.nber.org/papers/w17234 http://www.nber.org/papers/w17234 > Why do low-income individuals often oppose redistribution? We hypothesize that an aversion to being in "last place" undercuts support for redistribution, with low-income individuals punishing those slightly below themselves to keep someone "beneath" them. In laboratory experiments, we find support for "last-place aversion" in the contexts of risk aversion and redistributive preferences. Participants choose gambles with the potential to move them out of last place that they reject when randomly placed in other parts of the distribution. Similarly, in money- transfer games, those randomly placed in second-to-last place are the least likely to costlessly give money to the player one rank below. Last-place aversion predicts that those earning just above the minimum wage will be most likely to oppose minimum-wage increases as they would no longer have a lower-wage group beneath them, a prediction we confirm using survey data.
      - niels_olson 14y ago
        Wow. That's exactly it. Having spent most of my adult life below the Mason-Dixon line, that is exactly it. That and the comments noting that people receiving a benefit fail to recognize that program as an entitlement program. We need some serious educational reform . . .
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    There was an article in the WSJ yesterday about a lawsuit over making websites more accessible to people with disabilities: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324373204578374483679498140.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732437320457837... Take a glance at the comments - apart from the usual anti-lawyer screeds, the other main theme is that it'll be way too expensive and they're not worth it. There are some impressively nasty opinions, and a regrettably large number of people who think that way.
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    Yes, yes they do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg7kgO7lFA4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg7kgO7lFA4
nollidge 14y ago
Add to that the fact that we can control domestic horse breeding, whereas controlling human breeding is, you know, frowned upon.
- benologist 14y ago
  Is it? Contraceptives and to some extent education are pretty normal in a lot of societies. There's no stigma involved in buying or using condoms or other means of avoiding pregnancy, although there is with abortion.
  - wonderzombie 14y ago
    The OP means such as forced sterilization. There's precedent for it, and it's widely (and IMHO correctly) regarded as monstrous.
    - pyre 14y ago
      Or "one child" policies.
- davidroberts 14y ago
  Birth rates tend to stabilize in first world countries anyway. The only reason that isn't happening in the US is immigration--legal and otherwise. In Japan, the population is decreasing. In Europe, it's near zero growth in many countries.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    This isn't the only reason; some subcultures in the US continue to encourage large families.
    - dripton 14y ago
      Some people do have a lot of kids. However, the overall total fertility rate in the US was estimated in 2011 at 1.89 kids/woman, below replacement level. So without immigration, population would indeed be shrinking.
pekk 14y ago
You don't have to slaughter them, just let them die on their own accord
niels_olson 14y ago
Perhaps you would like Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal? http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

mbetter 14y ago

Based on the glee that a significant proportion of Americans seem to derive from cutting social safety nets, that appears to be exactly the path we seem to be heading down.

pc86 14y ago
Yeah those stupid Americans sure do hate poor people, don't they? /s
- niels_olson 14y ago
  Perhaps you haven't been to the South? Even the poor people hate the poor people. And they have the most poor people. Figure that.
  - mncolinlee 14y ago
    This is too true. Here in Minnesota, we had a state representative equate food stamp recipients to animals in two separate speeches. In her rural district, almost twenty percent are on welfare programs and most residents are under the poverty line and qualify for food stamps. They still vote for her in spite of statewide coverage of her statements. The attitude that everyone else is lazy and abusing the system seems most common in poor rural regions that depend the most on benefits. It usually has racial, anti-urban overtones that imply "we're only suffering because of THOSE people who don't look like us." It's a form of scapegoating.
    - RougeFemme 14y ago
      Agreed. And the people receiving disability don't recognize it as the entitlement program that is.
      - MartinCron 14y ago
        Most beneficiaries of entitlement programs don't recognize them as such.
        clarkevans 14y ago
        Perhaps those who are receiving entitlement (and advocating for its abolition), may be using reasoning that you don't recognize. For example, could some of these recipients be very guilty about their use, and, are voting to end them because they don't see any other way out for themselves? Accepting a free handout is a very hard thing in our culture, especially for those that know the gift they receive was forcibly taken from others.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      That's an interesting point and I notice similar behaviour in the UK. People will talk up a politician who promises to "end the benefits culture" despite being on benefits themselves. The reasoning is usually along the lines of "oh he's just talking about those other people on benefits who don't deserve them. Not good hard-nonworking folks like us"
    - scarmig 14y ago
      That's a bit of an incomplete description you give, though. Poorer regions that more benefits do tend to vote for people to cut those benefits. But as Andrew Gelman has demonstrated, it's not really the people getting the benefits who want to cut them: it's the professional and ruling class in the area who do. Nearly everywhere the lower classes do want more benefits, but the big difference between regions is what the powerful people want.
  - twinge 14y ago
    One possible explanation is "last place aversion": http://www.nber.org/papers/w17234 http://www.nber.org/papers/w17234 > Why do low-income individuals often oppose redistribution? We hypothesize that an aversion to being in "last place" undercuts support for redistribution, with low-income individuals punishing those slightly below themselves to keep someone "beneath" them. In laboratory experiments, we find support for "last-place aversion" in the contexts of risk aversion and redistributive preferences. Participants choose gambles with the potential to move them out of last place that they reject when randomly placed in other parts of the distribution. Similarly, in money- transfer games, those randomly placed in second-to-last place are the least likely to costlessly give money to the player one rank below. Last-place aversion predicts that those earning just above the minimum wage will be most likely to oppose minimum-wage increases as they would no longer have a lower-wage group beneath them, a prediction we confirm using survey data.
    - niels_olson 14y ago
      Wow. That's exactly it. Having spent most of my adult life below the Mason-Dixon line, that is exactly it. That and the comments noting that people receiving a benefit fail to recognize that program as an entitlement program. We need some serious educational reform . . .
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  There was an article in the WSJ yesterday about a lawsuit over making websites more accessible to people with disabilities: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324373204578374483679498140.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732437320457837... Take a glance at the comments - apart from the usual anti-lawyer screeds, the other main theme is that it'll be way too expensive and they're not worth it. There are some impressively nasty opinions, and a regrettably large number of people who think that way.
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  Yes, yes they do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg7kgO7lFA4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg7kgO7lFA4

nollidge 14y ago

Add to that the fact that we can control domestic horse breeding, whereas controlling human breeding is, you know, frowned upon.

benologist 14y ago
Is it? Contraceptives and to some extent education are pretty normal in a lot of societies. There's no stigma involved in buying or using condoms or other means of avoiding pregnancy, although there is with abortion.
- wonderzombie 14y ago
  The OP means such as forced sterilization. There's precedent for it, and it's widely (and IMHO correctly) regarded as monstrous.
  - pyre 14y ago
    Or "one child" policies.
davidroberts 14y ago
Birth rates tend to stabilize in first world countries anyway. The only reason that isn't happening in the US is immigration--legal and otherwise. In Japan, the population is decreasing. In Europe, it's near zero growth in many countries.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  This isn't the only reason; some subcultures in the US continue to encourage large families.
  - dripton 14y ago
    Some people do have a lot of kids. However, the overall total fertility rate in the US was estimated in 2011 at 1.89 kids/woman, below replacement level. So without immigration, population would indeed be shrinking.

pekk 14y ago

You don't have to slaughter them, just let them die on their own accord

niels_olson 14y ago

Perhaps you would like Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal? http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html