there will be poor always, pathetically suffering

[Lootifer]

@ Saxi OP:

I voted yes; but I firmly believe nature can be overcome and utopia is possible.

Firstly, though, we need to evolve (through the efficient use of markets as BBS always craps on about) up to the point (and probably beyond) of automated sustainability.

Automated (machines are the producers) Sustainability (and they can keep producing forever).

[saxitoxin]

Automated (machines are the producers) Sustainability (and they can keep producing forever).

Haven't you ever read "Dune", hippy? First the Thinking Machines start doing work, then the Evermind takes over, then we have to ban all computers, then Christianity and Islam are merged, a jihad is declared against the Evermind, Earth gets nuked, the Padishah Emperor assumes control of the Known Universe, a ten thousand year breeding program produces the Mahdi, the Emperor is overthrown, the Mahdi genetically alters himself into a sandworm, there's an exodus of refugees to the next galaxy, another ten thousand years pass, the refugees return after they discover automated machines were seeded to that galaxy before the jihad, the process repeats.

ARE YOU REALLY OKAY WITH THAT?

[TA1LGUNN3R]

@ Saxi OP:

I voted yes; but I firmly believe nature can be overcome and utopia is possible.

Firstly, though, we need to evolve (through the efficient use of markets as BBS always craps on about) up to the point (and probably beyond) of automated sustainability.

Automated (machines are the producers) Sustainability (and they can keep producing forever).

All evidence suggest utopia is not possible. John Calhoun's work with mice provide an example of societal disaster despite unlimited resources.

-TG

[Johnny Rockets]

@ Saxi OP:

I voted yes; but I firmly believe nature can be overcome and utopia is possible.

Firstly, though, we need to evolve (through the efficient use of markets as BBS always craps on about) up to the point (and probably beyond) of automated sustainability.

Automated (machines are the producers) Sustainability (and they can keep producing forever).

We overcame nature when we removed Darwin's Law.

Until we license breeding, and before that shed the stigma of eugenics attached to doing this, we'll never eradicate poverty.
(Mainly because the the only thing the uneducated produce faster than a 1/2 dozen kids that they can't afford to feed is a sense of entitlement. That entitlement is the only thing they bother to teach their whelps.)

JRock

[BigBallinStalin]

@ Saxi OP:

I voted yes; but I firmly believe nature can be overcome and utopia is possible.

Firstly, though, we need to evolve (through the efficient use of markets as BBS always craps on about) up to the point (and probably beyond) of automated sustainability.

Automated (machines are the producers) Sustainability (and they can keep producing forever).

You won't get there if the currency system is inherently unstable. See: central banking and the government-enforced monopoly on monies, e.g. federal reserve on federal reserve notes.

[huamulan]

It is such an enormous plate of shit to say that poor people are poor due to their low intelligence, lack of ability or whatever other 'I can stop caring now' clause you feel like pasting onto their CV.

- A single mother of three, working cleaning shifts for three different temping companies and putting in more than 60 hours a week. She still can't afford to educate all three children.
- An unemployed 30-something, living off his inheritance and spending his spare time gambling and drinking.
- A twenty-something who shares a bed with his brother and works manual labor on a farm, after his rich family had all their assets seized by their government and they were tossed out on the streets.
- An eighty year old who built his raw materials empire from nothing.
- His wife, who has never held a job and lives off him.
- An eighty year old who has chosen to live on government benefits and the charity of his friends all his life.

How do you explain the poverty of the poor people in this example? Are they all lazy, stupid and 'deserving' of their position? Or have external forces conspired to prevent some of them from amassing wealth? How about the rich people? Have the all 'earned' their position? Or have some of them been able to achieve wealth through effortless bottom-feeding?

Perhaps you think that everyone in the world is capable of great wealth and success if they could just pull their finger out. Those foolish Rwandan orphans - if they could JUST throw on a tie and finish their education they'd be running McDonald's by now.

[huamulan]

The reason there will always be poor people is because there will always be people happy to exploit those around them and live amongst inequality. Is the person reading this post happy to pool their wealth with one disadvantaged resident of Sub-Saharan Africa and then split the pot equally?

No. The world of the 'haves' is a world in which material wealth is a carrot to be held above the heads of the 'have nots'. The 'haves' are either aware that they are behaving in an exploitative manner, and they don't care, or they are unaware, so sure are they that their wealth is the result of their hard work and raw ability and that the explanation for disadvantage lies solely in the behavior of the disadvantaged.

People are taught from birth that you have to 'earn' or 'deserve' wealth. That the idea of simply sharing the world's resources equally is ludicrous, because some people have achieved more than others and that their achievement entitles them to horde the world's resources. And they in turn pass this system down to their children, who grow up into people who tell homeless men to 'get jobs'. People frame the world around them as a competition, and with this mentality people will never strive for equality. And so until people stop seeing life as a competition there will always be poor.

[BigBallinStalin]

Are poor people being exploited if they work in a low-tech industrial factory which pays more money than a life of subsistence in agriculture?

[huamulan]

Is it exploitative if I pay a foreign worker a fraction of what I would pay a domestic worker, when the domestic worker works fewer hours and under better employment conditions than the foreign worker?

[TA1LGUNN3R]

The reason there will always be poor people is because there will always be people happy to exploit those around them and live amongst inequality. Is the person reading this post happy to pool their wealth with one disadvantaged resident of Sub-Saharan Africa and then split the pot equally?

No. The world of the 'haves' is a world in which material wealth is a carrot to be held above the heads of the 'have nots'. The 'haves' are either aware that they are behaving in an exploitative manner, and they don't care, or they are unaware, so sure are they that their wealth is the result of their hard work and raw ability and that the explanation for disadvantage lies solely in the behavior of the disadvantaged.

People are taught from birth that you have to 'earn' or 'deserve' wealth. That the idea of simply sharing the world's resources equally is ludicrous, because some people have achieved more than others and that their achievement entitles them to horde the world's resources. And they in turn pass this system down to their children, who grow up into people who tell homeless men to 'get jobs'. People frame the world around them as a competition, and with this mentality people will never strive for equality. And so until people stop seeing life as a competition there will always be poor.

Saul Alinsky?

-TG

[Lootifer]

You won't get there if the currency system is inherently unstable. See: central banking and the government-enforced monopoly on monies, e.g. federal reserve on federal reserve notes.

Details-smeatails...

And yes saxi, my future genetic line will be pro worm riders.

[Maugena]

I wouldn't call it a law, per se, but it definitely persists in nature.
I guess I'm just disagreeing with your word choice.

[BigBallinStalin]

Is it exploitative if I pay a foreign worker a fraction of what I would pay a domestic worker, when the domestic worker works fewer hours and under better employment conditions than the foreign worker?

No. Well, that was easy.

It depends on the means. E.G. if the worker signs up voluntarily, then okay. If there's fraud involved, then that's not okay.

[huamulan]

So what if I throw a drowning man a life jacket, pull him to the side of my boat and then say: 'Hey, one last thing. It's a lot of effort hauling you up. That part of the rescue will cost $500.'?

He has a choice. He is perfectly free to turn down my offer and attempt to swim to shore. So I am not exploiting him?

[pmchugh]

It is such an enormous plate of shit to say that poor people are poor due to their low intelligence, lack of ability or whatever other 'I can stop caring now' clause you feel like pasting onto their CV.

Finally, a post made by someone who isn't a deplorable and egotistical ass hat.

[jgordon1111]

A show of hands from those of you in this discussion who have been truly money poor,for oh say at least a year of your adult life.

Remember some very wealthy people started out very low on the ladder, So much of what most of you are theorizing is a pure bs ( I have never been poor)point of view.

Poor is a state you are in,you have a choice as always, bear down,suck it up,learn from yours and others mistakes,or give up.

If your not a quitter, odds are you will find yourself less poor.

There are two different kinds of education,the book one and the life one. Its best you have both.

Here is the part to remember,If you only have the book one,the odds are if the shit hits the fan you are fuked. If you have the school of hard knocks education,and shit hits the fan, you have a better chance if you were wise enough to get the book education to go with it. Either way this guy wins,because when you are pissing yourself and scared shitless,he has already been there its nothing new to him. He will survive.

Give me the second guy or girl every time lol.

[jimboston]

For Cosmo Barros, a 37-year-old bartender who works in the down-at-heel neighbourhood of Brás in central São Paulo, finding ways to save money for his family of six, which survives on R$2,000 ($1,038) a month, is vital.

“We can’t be more than five minutes in the shower. To save water and electricity, I have to turn the shower on, get wet, then turn it off, soap myself, then turn it on again,” he says.

Despite this seemingly frugal attitude Mr Barros still likes to splash out. He once spent R$300 on Carolina Herrera 212 eau de cologne and aftershave balm, for example, after managing to persuade the shop owner, who is a friend, to give him a discount.

According to on-the-ground interviews in São Paulo and an online survey with 1,000 consumers nationwide, carried out by the Financial Times’ Brazil research service Brazil Confidential, spending this kind of proportion of monthly wages on beauty and personal care products is the norm among lower-income consumers, who value both brand image and quality.

ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4402bc0c-95eb-11e1-9d9d-00144feab49a.html

Is poverty a law of nature?

It's funny... the OP's original quote has less to do with the question of wether or not there will always be poor... and more to do with the idea that many "poor" people spend significant money on "beauty and personal care products" when they can't afford to feed and house their families.

Show maybe we should talk about that.

Are these "poor" people being exploited by marketing firms... or are they just stoopid?

I can afford brand name shit... but more often than not I 'opt for the generic products. "No Ad" sunblock works just as well as Coppertone... and generic Ibuprofen has the same chemical make-up as Advil.

"Image" matters if it can impact your opportunities to grow in your field... this does matter sometimes and at those times it's often worthwhile to 'splurge'... because in doing so you are creating economic opportunities for yourself. Outside that... if the choice is cologne or bologna for my kids... I go with the bologna.

[BigBallinStalin]

So what if I throw a drowning man a life jacket, pull him to the side of my boat and then say: 'Hey, one last thing. It's a lot of effort hauling you up. That part of the rescue will cost $500.'?

He has a choice. He is perfectly free to turn down my offer and attempt to swim to shore. So I am not exploiting him?

It depends on the law and how it would develop in a free society. I'd say that demanding a fee immediately or throwing him back into the sea is just being an asshole.

Then again, rescue operations are risky and do deserve some form of compensation. I'm sure he could agree, and if the amount was exorbitant, they could haggle in the courts.

[BigBallinStalin]

For Cosmo Barros, a 37-year-old bartender who works in the down-at-heel neighbourhood of Brás in central São Paulo, finding ways to save money for his family of six, which survives on R$2,000 ($1,038) a month, is vital.

“We can’t be more than five minutes in the shower. To save water and electricity, I have to turn the shower on, get wet, then turn it off, soap myself, then turn it on again,” he says.

Despite this seemingly frugal attitude Mr Barros still likes to splash out. He once spent R$300 on Carolina Herrera 212 eau de cologne and aftershave balm, for example, after managing to persuade the shop owner, who is a friend, to give him a discount.

According to on-the-ground interviews in São Paulo and an online survey with 1,000 consumers nationwide, carried out by the Financial Times’ Brazil research service Brazil Confidential, spending this kind of proportion of monthly wages on beauty and personal care products is the norm among lower-income consumers, who value both brand image and quality.

ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4402bc0c-95eb-11e1-9d9d-00144feab49a.html

Is poverty a law of nature?

It's funny... the OP's original quote has less to do with the question of wether or not there will always be poor... and more to do with the idea that many "poor" people spend significant money on "beauty and personal care products" when they can't afford to feed and house their families.

Show maybe we should talk about that.

Are these "poor" people being exploited by marketing firms... or are they just stoopid?

I can afford brand name shit... but more often than not I 'opt for the generic products. "No Ad" sunblock works just as well as Coppertone... and generic Ibuprofen has the same chemical make-up as Advil.

"Image" matters if it can impact your opportunities to grow in your field... this does matter sometimes and at those times it's often worthwhile to 'splurge'... because in doing so you are creating economic opportunities for yourself. Outside that... if the choice is cologne or bologna for my kids... I go with the bologna.

That guy is just an idiot, but it doesn't have to be luxury goods too. Many people spend vast amounts of alcohol, cigarettes, etc. even though they can't "afford" them. Marketing isn't as effective as you think it is. For many products, it's mostly about creating an awareness, and it's erroneous to think it exhibits this "mind-control" influence.

[huamulan]

Again, you just prove my point. A man is drowning and you think it is only fair to demand money after rescuing him? What is wrong with saving someone out of compassion? I once had to intervene and chase two rapists away from a woman they wanted to attack. I took a great risk. The attackers might have been armed and attacked me. Should I have visited her the next day and asked for money?

This is what I mean when I say that there will always be a rich-poor divide as long as people view life as a competition and feel that the hording of resources is acceptable. You seem to feel that helping another human in distress makes you entitled to compensation. You are worthy of greater material wealth because you got off your ass rather than watching someone die.

Say you had the exact same material wealth as the person you rescued. After rescuing them and pursuing compensation you will have become richer than them. 'I took a risk' is how you are justifying this newly created inequality. To you, creation of inequality would be justified in this circumstance.

As long as there are people who feel it is okay to create inequality and live amongst inequality, inequality will always exist. And there will always be poor.

[saxitoxin]

Examples like aborted rapes and shipwrecks are a little extreme and anomalous for the purposes of this thread.

To BBS' larger point, human survival has always been about competition against other humans for scarce resources. This was, and remains, food, shelter and breeding opportunities. Convincing people - like the Brazilian fellow - to give you their resources - in turn helping you maximize your access to food, shelter and breeding opportunities - through the application of mass psychology to create an artificial need (desire) is just easier and less risky than beating him to death. To simply label this as a free exchange of commodities in an open market is evasive in the face of the alternate, off-label products from which Cosmo had to choose (that Jim selected).

Procter and Gamble's Old Spice Man ad campaign realized 107% increased revenue for P&G's shareholders. People who were influenced to change body wash to Old Spice as a result of it are the same people who would have had their woman seized from them by a stonger male in prehistoric times. Government was created as a more efficient way of managing the farming of humans.

This is neither good nor bad, it's just nature. One is entitled to dislike the brutality of nature, but not to deny the fact it exists.

[BigBallinStalin]

Again, you just prove my point. A man is drowning and you think it is only fair to demand money after rescuing him? What is wrong with saving someone out of compassion? I once had to intervene and chase two rapists away from a woman they wanted to attack. I took a great risk. The attackers might have been armed and attacked me. Should I have visited her the next day and asked for money?

There's nothing wrong with demanding no monetary compensation. The underlined is not my position, so <shrugs>.

This is what I mean when I say that there will always be a rich-poor divide as long as people view life as a competition and feel that the hording of resources is acceptable. You seem to feel that helping another human in distress makes you entitled to compensation. You are worthy of greater material wealth because you got off your ass rather than watching someone die.

Say you had the exact same material wealth as the person you rescued. After rescuing them and pursuing compensation you will have become richer than them. 'I took a risk' is how you are justifying this newly created inequality. To you, creation of inequality would be justified in this circumstance.

As long as there are people who feel it is okay to create inequality and live amongst inequality, inequality will always exist. And there will always be poor.

And all of the above is based on strawman fallacies. Congrats.

I don't understand your second paragraph. I created inequality because of earning money from taking a risk? So, if I don't do that, then no inequality is "created"? I saved that person, so I'm a rescuer and he's some poor sob who needs rescuing. There's inequality! That doesn't make sense. (see below)

As long as there are people who feel it is okay to create inequality and live amongst inequality, inequality will always exist. And there will always be poor.

Inequality exists, regardless of whether you want it to, or if people "create" it. Here is an accountant, here is a waiter. They're not equal!

Or, when I entered the work force, I wasn't equal in experience or skills. Inequality!

The poor will always exist because whenever we compare incomes, there's going to be a group of lowest earners... (of course, that's just income as a means of measurement; I'm sure results vary with different variables).

[pmchugh]

Communism anyone?

[saxitoxin]

Communism anyone?

Communism as westerners imagine it is just socialism, which is another theory on the best way of farming humans, maximizing their productive capacity and taking their resources. Westerners don't include the destruction of the state itself within the vocabulary of communism.

Intellectually dull, lumpenproletariat slogans like "Tax the Rich" is a three word description of the seizure of resources by one group to maximize the food access and breeding opportunities of a second. The poor are predators, too, just unsuccesfull ones. The Brazilian man, Cosmo, is no more morally pure than Bernie Madoff, he's just weaker. Giving him Madoff's chain mail and sword does not result in a net increase of good.

[saxitoxin]

I voted yes; but I firmly believe nature can be overcome

Obviously this is a religion, then ... a belief in the supernatural guided by faith. This is a non-deity based religion (like Buddhism) without a clergy (like Mormonism), but a religion.

No offense, but atheists are a slighlty bigger joke than theists. The religious nuts at least acknowledge their delusion at some level.