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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
there are different people in the world and different ways these people are formed. a simple "give people power and they'll vote bread for themselves" may be true on a grand scale of approximation, but you have to be suspicious about the smoothness of that grand vision as well as the readiness with which it is asserted/imagined. the fact is, your brain is equipped with these large sized concepts that do not so much model the world as project onto teh world a narrative. we call this ideology.
now, on the level of reality, let's say we get 500 of the leading scientists and social thinkers in a room and give them power. they'll probably be discussing how to build a successful society. (in a more american situation, imagine TEH FOUNDERS in a room. are you still going to assert that they are primarily motivated by selfishness? i doubt it.) the readiness with which you project large scale d00m scenarios decrease as soon as you zoom in and actually see the world in more complex light.
btw even if you let the residents of say pruitt igoe, vote in a direct democracy, they'll be pretty reasonable. the amount of hidden prejudice projected onto people you have no idea about is staggering.
nobody wants to be living in squalor and nobody really wants to live a life of dependence. it's not empowering. you have to be pretty fucking blind to empirical reality to think of the world as divded into hard working people like yourself and morally defective lazy poor. typically it is the spoiled kids who are doing the dumbing.
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On November 16 2012 01:41 oneofthem wrote:
there are different people in the world and different ways these people are formed. a simple "give people power and they'll vote bread for themselves" may be true on a grand scale of approximation, but you have to be suspicious about the smoothness of that grand vision as well as the readiness with which it is asserted/imagined. the fact is, your brain is equipped with these large sized concepts that do not so much model the world as project onto teh world a narrative. we call this ideology.
now, on the level of reality, let's say we get 500 of the leading scientists and social thinkers in a room and give them power. they'll probably be discussing how to build a successful society. (in a more american situation, imagine TEH FOUNDERS in a room. are you still going to assert that they are primarily motivated by selfishness? i doubt it.) the readiness with which you project large scale d00m scenarios decrease as soon as you zoom in and actually see the world in more complex light.
btw even if you let the residents of say pruitt igoe, vote in a direct democracy, they'll be pretty reasonable. the amount of hidden prejudice projected onto people you have no idea about is staggering.
nobody wants to be living in squalor and nobody really wants to live a life of dependence. it's not empowering. you have to be pretty fucking blind to empirical reality to think of the world as divded into hard working people like yourself and morally defective lazy poor. typically it is the spoiled kids who are doing the dumbing.
I was more advocating for balanced view and acknowledgment of a truth on a "grand scale of approximation".
I agree when you zoom in with experts people are less likely to be selfish.
I read the wikipedia page on Pruitt-Igoe as I'd never heard of it. The interesting part I got out of it were situations where when a few families shared a landing/common space it was well taken care of, but as soon as no-man's land was shared by a certain number of people (20+ I'm not sure) it fell into disrepair and no one took responsibility.
You're quick to point out the dignity of humankind which I agree with wholeheartedly. I don't think anyone wants to live in squalor nor did I imply that. You talk about what happens in empirical reality. Many of my interactions with people on government assistance do things like turn down more hours at work so they can keep getting food stamps etc. Their words. They later complain about not having enough for food but got a manicure yesterday they're more than happy to show you. This is all anecdotal, I freely admit that. It just rubs me the wrong way when you talk about reality and assume I'm the rich hard-worker angry at the "morally defective poor". Don't project that on me because I bring up a "truth on a grand scale" for the thread to consider.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
i've encountered the same kind of people in my time spent in chicago as well, but when you understand the lack of opportunity and despair that is a cosntant condition of these people, as well as a completely different view of life (no well established families, for historical reasons) you'll see that these things are really basic conditions that tie them down. the attribution of blame does not address the problem adequately, if at all.
for people on welfare, there is a destructive requirement that a household without a working man can get more benefits. so that causes families to be forcefully separated. the drug infestation in these places is even more destructive.
the private sector isn't going to hire a typcial guy from the hood with records and no habits for reliability (raised by a good family). yes, that's a problem. but any cursory understanding of why this is would not let you paint a simple morality tale. a solution takes much more interaction between the society and the ghetto. the historical trend though points to more of the same. welfare is just a convenient excuse for blame, while there is no genuine good faithed effort to give a fuck.
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On November 16 2012 02:11 oneofthem wrote:
i've encountered the same kind of people in my time spent in chicago as well, but when you understand the lack of opportunity and despair that is a cosntant condition of these people, as well as a completely different view of life (no well established families, for historical reasons) you'll see that these things are really basic conditions that tie them down. the attribution of blame does not address the problem adequately, if at all.
for people on welfare, there is a destructive requirement that a household without a working man can get more benefits. so that causes families to be forcefully separated. the drug infestation in these places is even more destructive.
Sorry if I came across defensive, I was just thinking maybe I should add that in an edit 
I agree these are things that need addressed. It's all very complex and I can't really offer more than that for the time being. There's a lot of factors, which is why two people in similar situations and jobs can view policies differently.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
you are alright. i'm not for calling people names, because that never helps in communication. partisanship is accompanied by a feedback loop of sort, where you get people seeing each other as caricatures and thus get further and further from actually understanding each other's arguments. in the case where one side is not so well informed, they'll form their caricatures on incomplete information and reject the presentation of the required information as propaganda.
so yea i'd attribute things to lack of information rather than racism. i mean, everyone thinks afro studies etc is bunk but rarely do people read the actual literature and understand where the opponent is coming from. having a proper view of the importance of social conditions required for the good life as well as the history of continued depravation of these conditions in the ghettos. it's pretty much required for a discussion on these topics.
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silly oneofthem, the good life is just freedomz
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
i need to get this username changed. fuck.
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I don't know what that means.
But, apropos of the above conversation
I think it is important to understand that the cultural problems and the economic problems cannot be disentangled. You cannot solve one without solving the other.
When the conservative says that the economic problems are due to cultural problems, that is only half right. The cultural problems are also due to economic problems (even leaving aside historical problems of the legacy of slavery, jim crow etc).
If you complain that people give up work in order to get more food stamps
Maybe you should think about ways to have jobs that are not meaningless, degrading, dead-end
People don't want to work hard? Maybe they just realize what you refuse to acknowledge, that hard work gets you nowhere in our society
edit:
"...Themistocles' retort is relevant here. When someone from Seriphus insulted him by saying his high reputation was due to his city, not to himself, he replied that, had he been a Seriphian, he would not be famous; but nor would the other, had he been an Athenian."
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
^ Quotes like that make my day. <3
Good posts, oneofthem.
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I'm not even in disagreeance here. I would love if jobs were not meaningless, degrading, dead-end. I wish my job right now was less meaningless. (It's really not pointless but I don't feel satisfied or fulfilled really)
[quote]People don't want to work hard? Maybe they just realize what you refuse to acknowledge, that hard work gets you nowhere in our society[/quote[
Gets you nowhere is such a hyperbole. We can talk about mobility sure. I've been convinced by a lot of the evidence presented in this thread, no argument. But nowhere? This is so defeatist. We talk about people wanting dignity and not being dependent. How is sacrificing things like cigarettes, manicures, alcohol, eating out so that you can live within your means and get ahead. Giving up unprotected sex so you don't have to support children out of wedlock. These are all steps that can be taken. There are people in the same jobs doing this so that they can better their lives and not be dependent. I approve and encourage this behavior. This is dignity and independence. You can imagine its frustrating as they watch peers receive benefits but not making similar sacrifices.
Again I agree this is an issue that needs to be addressed on a cultural and economic front but lets not blind ourselves to the fact people are not pure. I would think you can put people in all the right and ideal situations to succeed and they would still choose not to.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
You have to differentiate between "people" and "how many people?" Obviously we can never have a perfect world where everyone will always work hard. But as of this moment, by all measurable standards, we can improve by great bounds. People aren't born wanting to waste their lives away.
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On November 16 2012 06:00 mordek wrote:
I would think you can put people in all the right and ideal situations to succeed and they would still choose not to.
your mistake is thinking that people exist prior to situations
edit: (yes, I sometimes speak hyperbolically)
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On November 16 2012 06:00 mordek wrote:I'm not even in disagreeance here. I would love if jobs were not meaningless, degrading, dead-end. I wish my job right now was less meaningless. (It's really not pointless but I don't feel satisfied or fulfilled really) Show nested quote +People don't want to work hard? Maybe they just realize what you refuse to acknowledge, that hard work gets you nowhere in our society Gets you nowhere is such a hyperbole. We can talk about mobility sure. I've been convinced by a lot of the evidence presented in this thread, no argument. But nowhere? This is so defeatist. We talk about people wanting dignity and not being dependent. How is sacrificing things like cigarettes, manicures, alcohol, eating out so that you can live within your means and get ahead. Giving up unprotected sex so you don't have to support children out of wedlock. These are all steps that can be taken. There are people in the same jobs doing this so that they can better their lives and not be dependent. I approve and encourage this behavior. This is dignity and independence. You can imagine its frustrating as they watch peers receive benefits but not making similar sacrifices. Again I agree this is an issue that needs to be addressed on a cultural and economic front but lets not blind ourselves to the fact people are not pure. I would think you can put people in all the right and ideal situations to succeed and they would still choose not to.
"If only we give up everything that can help us stand this miserable life, we'll have a chance to have a better life when we can't enjoy it as much..."
It's odd you think that the poor in this country should play a "perfect game" to move up just 1 or 2 rungs on the ladder.
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On November 16 2012 01:41 oneofthem wrote:
there are different people in the world and different ways these people are formed. a simple "give people power and they'll vote bread for themselves" may be true on a grand scale of approximation, but you have to be suspicious about the smoothness of that grand vision as well as the readiness with which it is asserted/imagined. the fact is, your brain is equipped with these large sized concepts that do not so much model the world as project onto teh world a narrative. we call this ideology.
now, on the level of reality, let's say we get 500 of the leading scientists and social thinkers in a room and give them power. they'll probably be discussing how to build a successful society. (in a more american situation, imagine TEH FOUNDERS in a room. are you still going to assert that they are primarily motivated by selfishness? i doubt it.) the readiness with which you project large scale d00m scenarios decrease as soon as you zoom in and actually see the world in more complex light.
btw even if you let the residents of say pruitt igoe, vote in a direct democracy, they'll be pretty reasonable. the amount of hidden prejudice projected onto people you have no idea about is staggering.
nobody wants to be living in squalor and nobody really wants to live a life of dependence. it's not empowering. you have to be pretty fucking blind to empirical reality to think of the world as divded into hard working people like yourself and morally defective lazy poor. typically it is the spoiled kids who are doing the dumbing.
Also there seems to be an underlying assumption in all these anti-bread arguments that America is a poor country. However, America is NOT a poor country. It is a rich country. We can easily afford to give everyone bread, yes, even lazy undeserving people. The fact that there isn't even a general dole at all (that's right, Europeans, for all the complaining about welfare Americans do, there is literally no form of Federal cash assistance in the United States at all for childless people who are not on time-limited unemployment benefits from recently having been laid off), that there are no Huey Long politicians to vote for in the first place, should be pretty telling. Why worry about people being too selfish and voting too many things for themselves when it has never actually happened, or even come all that close to happening, in American history?
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On November 16 2012 06:18 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2012 06:00 mordek wrote:I'm not even in disagreeance here. I would love if jobs were not meaningless, degrading, dead-end. I wish my job right now was less meaningless. (It's really not pointless but I don't feel satisfied or fulfilled really) People don't want to work hard? Maybe they just realize what you refuse to acknowledge, that hard work gets you nowhere in our society Gets you nowhere is such a hyperbole. We can talk about mobility sure. I've been convinced by a lot of the evidence presented in this thread, no argument. But nowhere? This is so defeatist. We talk about people wanting dignity and not being dependent. How is sacrificing things like cigarettes, manicures, alcohol, eating out so that you can live within your means and get ahead. Giving up unprotected sex so you don't have to support children out of wedlock. These are all steps that can be taken. There are people in the same jobs doing this so that they can better their lives and not be dependent. I approve and encourage this behavior. This is dignity and independence. You can imagine its frustrating as they watch peers receive benefits but not making similar sacrifices. Again I agree this is an issue that needs to be addressed on a cultural and economic front but lets not blind ourselves to the fact people are not pure. I would think you can put people in all the right and ideal situations to succeed and they would still choose not to. "If only we give up everything that can help us stand this miserable life, we'll have a chance to have a better life when we can't enjoy it as much..." It's odd you think that the poor in this country should play a "perfect game" to move up just 1 or 2 rungs on the ladder.
Yes, this is really it. Our lingering puritanism shines through. One should give up all worldly pleasure and work hard because... well... idle hands and the devil, you know?
edit: @above, yeah, we could solve a lot of our problems just by realizing how rich we actually are. That's why we have advertising to convince us that we're not.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
This is such a liberal circle-jerk right now. :p
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On November 16 2012 06:28 Souma wrote:
This is such a liberal circle-jerk right now. :p
Conservatives are still in mourning.
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On November 16 2012 06:28 Souma wrote:
This is such a liberal circle-jerk right now. :p
I was trying to provide a little balance 
Can you expand on people not existing prior to situations samizdat? I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're getting at. Enlighten me!
Ok, I'm just going to play the other side, please entertain me. Play the perfect game to get up a rung. I guess if you don't want to get up a rung don't worry about it? Don't complain if you'd rather have the pleasures to stand a miserable life I guess. If working up leaves you just as miserable... what's the point. Why are we fighting for people that make this choice. Call it puritanism, I can see that. You can make the choice.
Is the counter to that some people don't have to make that choice? They get success and pleasures?
I'll admit guys, I'm someone who's been saving money and as cheap and thrifty as they come since I was ten years old. Told my parents to buy a bond with what little money I had because I wanted to make interest on it until I needed it for college. I guess this comes down to my environment/nurturing? It's just hard to stomach people complaining when they blow a huge percentage of their income on cigarettes and alchohol. I think it's a priority between the now and the future. It's choice, better housing or get to party on the weekends.
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I mean that your thought experiment supposes that you take "a person" and put them into a situation, at which point they would make a choice.
But my contention is that "persons" are produced by situations - that is, it is nonsense to think of the choice as existing independent from the situation. People make the choices they do because of the situations they are in. Their way of thinking, acting, looking at the world - all of that is already generated by the fact that they have grown up in a certain situation. So at best you can take a person from situation A and place them in situation B, and see what they do - but I don't understand the point of thinking that way.
there's just no "generic person" you can use as a benchmark for comparison
so if you say "if you take these people and put them in an ideal situation" it is a nonsensical hypothetic to me
Because if they were in that ideal situation they would not be "these people."
(it is not my contention that there will never be useless, lazy people - far from it.)
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On November 16 2012 06:28 Souma wrote:
This is such a liberal circle-jerk right now. :p
It does feel pretty good to be liberal right now.
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EPT
