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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Can you be both rich and Christian?
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
How much we need" is quite the moveable feast, though! I have no problem with a welfare system that ensures adequate nutrition and shelter for all, but somehow I suspect that wouldn't be enough for some...
We give 'em three bowls of fortified gruel a day and the use of a clean sleeping tube for 8 full hours. And still they don't seem happy.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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PilgrimVagrant
Shipmate
# 18442
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
I am interested in when we have a moral right to our wealth
There's nothing immoral about earning. ... in practice is hard because we - well, certainly *I* - am naturally selfish and therefore would resist grace.
I think we are all naturally selfish. Indeed, I think our natural tendency to selfishness, biological, inherent, and indivisible from our natures, is precisely what is meant by 'original sin'. The trick is to set up social structures that counter our selfish tendencies. We need societies, incentives, religions, organisations, and discussions that value selflessness, not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of all humanity. And then humanity has some chance of indefinite survival.
Best wishes, PV.
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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost
Posts: 210 | From: In Contemplation | Registered: Jul 2015
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PilgrimVagrant
Shipmate
# 18442
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
With money as with penis size, it isn't what you've got that counts, but what you do with it.
That's a myth put about by men with small penises and small bank balances. Ask any hippy-chick.
Cheers, PV
[ 23. July 2015, 18:38: Message edited by: PilgrimVagrant ]
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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost
Posts: 210 | From: In Contemplation | Registered: Jul 2015
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Little penis people say such silly things!
But,
Let us not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Aye, but the alternative is leaving people to starve in the gutters or die of exposure in the fields. So some compulsory taxation is going to be required. And then the question is, again, how much.
To which my answer is "enough to meet the identified needs". It's not really a question of how much should people be left to live on, which you mischievously suggest is always the amount a given left winger happens to have; it's how much we need, and who is best placed to pay it.
"How much we need" is quite the moveable feast, though! I have no problem with a welfare system that ensures adequate nutrition and shelter for all, but somehow I suspect that wouldn't be enough for some...
Well indeed; but if it wasn't up for debate then there wouldn't be, well, debate.
Given the existence of foodbanks and people choosing between putting the heating on and eating, and
being evicted because they can't afford rent I don't think we're currently meeting even your basic requirements, are we?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Given the existence of foodbanks and people choosing between putting the heating on and eating, and
being evicted because they can't afford rent I don't think we're currently meeting even your basic requirements, are we?
Some assume anyone evicted "deserves it" because they "obviously" wasted their money on gambling or drugs. Is there a way to get rid of that too common assumption?
In USA, you forgot a biggie -- choosing between prescribed medicines and food. Doc told me to try a lotion that contains a NSAID. Didn't tell me it costs $200! But last time I had a bad cough and asked for tylenol #3 (about $6), explaining 1/3rd of a pill at night quiets the cough and allows sleep, he insisted on prescribing a "better" cough syrup - which cost $130!
I'll make my own NSAID cream for a few pennies instead of giving up a month of food for his outrageously expensive one. (See the web for instructions.)
(Pharmacist said go look for a coupon; I found the lotion on the web for 1/3rd the price the local cut rate pharmacy charges, pre-coupon! Most people don't have the leisure to spend hours looking for a lower price. Something's really wrong with medical pricing in USA.)
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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PilgrimVagrant
Shipmate
# 18442
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Posted
The Victorian (English) used to draw a distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor. The deserving poor were the industrious, virtuous victims of fate. The undeserving poor drank.
I think Britain is sliding back into this thinking, as exemplified by Conservative policies, egged on by a Tory press. I further think that this is social regression, and I bitterly regret it. Even, perhaps, especially, the undeserving poor deserve help. Not the direct grant of money, perhaps, that might be spent on vices, but progressive, enlightened policies that seek to rescue people from self destructive behaviour encouraged by exploitative peer groups and dismally impoverished environments.
And, if we do rescue these people, we shall have a stronger society, because of it.
And that is the situation in the developed world; how much more does it apply in the developing world.
Cheers, PV.
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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost
Posts: 210 | From: In Contemplation | Registered: Jul 2015
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
The Victorian (English) used to draw a distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor. The deserving poor were the industrious, virtuous victims of fate. The undeserving poor drank.
I think Britain is sliding back into this thinking...
I don't know if we ever lost this sort of thinking. Certainly it is a prominent theme in conservative American politics.
At a conference I attended recently on homelessness, one of the speakers asked us (all professionals working in the field) what the cause of homelessness was. He suggested that rather than seeing the cause of homelessness as any of the usual suspects-- whether addiction, mental illness, or poverty-- we should see homelessness as a failure of community. He was right.
His point was: the things that have happened to cause a homeless person to end up on the street happen to all of us. All of us make stupid choices, sometimes ridiculously stupid choices. We all waste money on stupid stuff, take foolish risks, or have unforseen health or job or economic challenges. The only difference between "them" and "us" is that when we screwed up, we happened to have been lucky enough at the time to bail us out-- even if it was just letting us sleep on their couch for a week until we worked things out.
I've always liked the story of CS Lewis being reprimanded by a friend for giving $$ to a beggar. The friend piously remarked, "you know he (the beggar) is just going to spend it on drink!". Lewis responded, "that's all I was going to do with it".
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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PilgrimVagrant
Shipmate
# 18442
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Given the existence of foodbanks and people choosing between putting the heating on and eating, and
being evicted because they can't afford rent I don't think we're currently meeting even your basic requirements, are we?
Some assume anyone evicted "deserves it" because they "obviously" wasted their money on gambling or drugs. Is there a way to get rid of that too common assumption?
In USA, you forgot a biggie -- choosing between prescribed medicines and food. Doc told me to try a lotion that contains a NSAID. Didn't tell me it costs $200! But last time I had a bad cough and asked for tylenol #3 (about $6), explaining 1/3rd of a pill at night quiets the cough and allows sleep, he insisted on prescribing a "better" cough syrup - which cost $130!
I'll make my own NSAID cream for a few pennies instead of giving up a month of food for his outrageously expensive one. (See the web for instructions.)
(Pharmacist said go look for a coupon; I found the lotion on the web for 1/3rd the price the local cut rate pharmacy charges, pre-coupon! Most people don't have the leisure to spend hours looking for a lower price. Something's really wrong with medical pricing in USA.)
The problem with the free market is that people will charge whatever they can get away with, and prices tend to rise to meet incomes. There seems to be an inherent disconnect between the cost to produce, the value to the consumer, and the avarice of the shareholder. I favour freedom, mostly, but freedom informed by common sense. The 'free' market is no bad thing, in that 'free' trade has enriched western societies and raised first world standards of living. But I think it only sensible to ensure that everyone gets to participate, no one gets left behind, and none are so poor that they are shut out of the capacity to afford basic essentials.
Cheers, PV.
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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost
Posts: 210 | From: In Contemplation | Registered: Jul 2015
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
The problem with the free market is that people will charge whatever they can get away with, and prices tend to rise to meet incomes.
It is worth saying that in the context of medical bills, we have nothing at all like a free market. We have about the most dysfunctional market that it's possible to have.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
The problem with the free market is that people will charge whatever they can get away with, and prices tend to rise to meet incomes.
It is worth saying that in the context of medical bills, we have nothing at all like a free market. We have about the most dysfunctional market that it's possible to have.
That's because choosing health care is not the same as choosing to buy a pair of shoes. Unlike shoe-shoppers, patients are "involuntary consumers". You can't shop around as easily or effectively as one can compare the shoe prices at store A and store B. You can't walk away if the price is too high. When you walk into an ER with symptoms of a heart attack, even if they knew exactly what services you will require, no one can even tell you what your bill will be or what part insurance will cover. And even if you could compare, you're not really able at that point to leave and go to the hospital 20 miles down the road. All of the factors which make the free market work when you're buying shoes or cars or cell phones are simply not present when buying health care.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
A thought experiment. Let us assume that it is possible to calculate a bottom line for everybody on earth: enough food, shelter, health care to keep you alive. The cost of this is X. If the number of people on earth is Y, then we need x times y dollars to achieve this happy minimal state.
Is there enough value, enough XY, to achieve this? If there isn't, then we need to either lower Y, the number of people (or at least slow down the increase), or decrease that minimum maintenance cost X.
Let's assume that there is enough XY to do this. How then to get from our current dysfunctionality to there? It is probably not possible to impose it by fiat.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
A thought experiment. Let us assume that it is possible to calculate a bottom line for everybody on earth: enough food, shelter, health care to keep you alive. The cost of this is X. If the number of people on earth is Y, then we need x times y dollars to achieve this happy minimal state.
Is there enough value, enough XY, to achieve this?
I've taken several (free 6 week) courses on line from Coursera on sustainability. All agree there is plenty of food, we currently grow enough to feed over 10 billion, but 1/4 to 1/3rd of food grown is wasted (some say 40% in USA). Shelter shouldn't be a major issue.
Medical care - what everyone could use to improve their health probably exceeds the world's GDP. Barely staying alive doesn't help with preventable blindness, restoring some hearing via hearing aids (easily $5000 in USA), months of physical therapy to recover use of joints, brain retraining after a concussion, dental repair to reduce tooth loss -- lots of stuff docs do that are about quality of life, not life or death. Part of the political debate is how to ration care - not if, that's a given, but how - by age, social status, income, residence location, severity of the problem, probability of success, cost, newness of the procedure, all are used various places.
In USA pulling teeth cost a whale of a lot less than saving teeth, so poor people have to have bad teeth pulled, the poor folks insurance doesn't pay for restorations.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
So you are suggesting that our values of X are out of whack. Certainly X is different from place to place worldwide.
Unfortunately dental damage is cumulative; after a certain point they can't save the tooth and pulling it is the only option. My dentist does a good deal of charity work, for people who can't otherwise afford dental care. He says he spends most of his charity time pulling teeth.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
A thought experiment. Let us assume that it is possible to calculate a bottom line for everybody on earth: enough food, shelter, health care to keep you alive. The cost of this is X. If the number of people on earth is Y, then we need x times y dollars to achieve this happy minimal state.
Is there enough value, enough XY, to achieve this? If there isn't, then we need to either lower Y, the number of people (or at least slow down the increase), or decrease that minimum maintenance cost X.
Let's assume that there is enough XY to do this. How then to get from our current dysfunctionality to there? It is probably not possible to impose it by fiat.
Again, this is precisely what Jeffrey Sachs did in his work-- both a good, specific definition of "extreme poverty" (sort of the reverse of what you're asking for here) as well as a comprehensive plan to eliminate it w/in 20 years.
[ 24. July 2015, 20:21: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
All of the factors which make the free market work when you're buying shoes or cars or cell phones are simply not present when buying health care.
Quite. (and insurance just makes it worse, because then it's not even you that's buying the healthcare, it's the insurance company ...)
For elective private surgery (lasik, boob jobs and the like), the market isn't too bad, because you can buy boobs or lasik like you buy shoes. It does not follow that you can buy emergency medicine in the same way, though!
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
A thought experiment. Let us assume that it is possible to calculate a bottom line for everybody on earth: enough food, shelter, health care to keep you alive. The cost of this is X. If the number of people on earth is Y, then we need x times y dollars to achieve this happy minimal state.
In this thought experiment, does everyone get given their shelter and their daily food allowance (parking the question of health care for the time being) for free, no matter what they do ? Or do you require them to fail some form of means test before they qualify ?
For most of human history, most people have been subsistence farmers. If I'm a desperately poor subsistence farmer in some Third World country, will you give me for nothing a shelter and a diet that my father and my grandfather worked hard all their lives to almost-achieve ? While I sit around and do nothing ? Will that give me a meaningful and satisfying life ?
If you go for the means test, why should I not gamble with my neighbour - winner gets all the land and property of both of us, loser gets a meal ticket for life from the nice western lady ?
One rung up from bare-subsistence is the poor farmers who can grow a little extra to trade for luxuries like metal tools. What will it do to them if you flood the market with free food ?
Don't think you've thought this through...
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Russ: For most of human history, most people have been subsistence farmers. If I'm a desperately poor subsistence farmer in some Third World country, will you give me for nothing a shelter and a diet that my father and my grandfather worked hard all their lives to almost-achieve ? While I sit around and do nothing ? Will that give me a meaningful and satisfying life ?
You seem to know a lot about how subsistence farmers think. I happen to speak with them a lot, and I don't think things are as simple as you put it.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
A thought experiment. Let us assume that it is possible to calculate a bottom line for everybody on earth: enough food, shelter, health care to keep you alive. The cost of this is X. If the number of people on earth is Y, then we need x times y dollars to achieve this happy minimal state.
In this thought experiment, does everyone get given their shelter and their daily food allowance (parking the question of health care for the time being) for free, no matter what they do ? Or do you require them to fail some form of means test before they qualify ?
For most of human history, most people have been subsistence farmers. If I'm a desperately poor subsistence farmer in some Third World country, will you give me for nothing a shelter and a diet that my father and my grandfather worked hard all their lives to almost-achieve ? While I sit around and do nothing ? Will that give me a meaningful and satisfying life ?
If you go for the means test, why should I not gamble with my neighbour - winner gets all the land and property of both of us, loser gets a meal ticket for life from the nice western lady ?
One rung up from bare-subsistence is the poor farmers who can grow a little extra to trade for luxuries like metal tools. What will it do to them if you flood the market with free food ?
Don't think you've thought this through...
Best wishes,
Russ
We don't need to. There are experts in the field-- like Sachs-- who have done that work. I'm not an economist-- but Sachs is.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
Don't remember if I posted this one yet, article about Utah's Housing First program. First you get chronic homeless into apartments. Then they go find themselves jobs, get off the booze, etc.,not because they are threatened with expulsion if they don't (no such threats) but because most people, until you have some stability you can't pursue those goals.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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PilgrimVagrant
Shipmate
# 18442
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Don't remember if I posted this one yet, article about Utah's Housing First program. First you get chronic homeless into apartments. Then they go find themselves jobs, get off the booze, etc.,not because they are threatened with expulsion if they don't (no such threats) but because most people, until you have some stability you can't pursue those goals.
I was privileged to attend a presentation about a similar initiative in Bristol, UK, this week. I went along not because I have any professional interest, but because the social entrepreneur involved, Nigel, works out of the same business incubation office space that I do, and I wanted to support him just by being there.
His dream is to house vulnerable people, for whatever the reason they are vulnerable. Maybe mental health issues, maybe ex offenders, maybe drug or alcohol dependency. And he is lining up landlords with a social conscience, who want to help out.
But the theme of the presentation was the seamless integration of multi-agency support, co-ordinated around the needs of the individual concerned. So, there were a whole bunch of people there, from health agencies, the police, from education, from the charitable sector, and so on. It seems such a simple, obvious idea, to respond with a range of specialists to make for a holistic approach to rehabilitating the undeserving poor. But, in the UK at least, agencies often work in isolation from each other, and the result is a patchy response with incoherent strategies and objectives, and, naturally, sub-optimal outcomes.
Cheers, PV.
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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost
Posts: 210 | From: In Contemplation | Registered: Jul 2015
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
PV. This ISN'T a criticism. I love that approach. It's a great, real start. But there's NO SUCH THING as the undeserving poor. Double quotes next time please!
I met a man last night, in care until he was three, adopted and thrown back when he was eight. Beaten. Beaten. Beaten. Hard. In cause and effect. And this is less than 30 years ago. Tracked down his birth mother and cared for her for eight years until she died along with something inside him two years ago.
And he wants the pain to stop.
A met one this morning. He made three hundred grand last year. It means nothing to him. He looks the same as the other guy.
They deserve unconditional love.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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PilgrimVagrant
Shipmate
# 18442
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Posted
Hi Martin60
Sorry, will use scare quotes, in future. But I thought my earlier post on this page had made my attitude to the concept of 'undeserving poor' explicit.
Cheers PV.
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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost
Posts: 210 | From: In Contemplation | Registered: Jul 2015
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PilgrimVagrant
Shipmate
# 18442
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
A thought experiment. Let us assume that it is possible to calculate a bottom line for everybody on earth: enough food, shelter, health care to keep you alive. The cost of this is X. If the number of people on earth is Y, then we need x times y dollars to achieve this happy minimal state.
...
For most of human history, most people have been subsistence farmers. If I'm a desperately poor subsistence farmer in some Third World country, will you give me for nothing a shelter and a diet that my father and my grandfather worked hard all their lives to almost-achieve ? While I sit around and do nothing ? Will that give me a meaningful and satisfying life ?
...
These, and others, are all valid questions. But, Russ, the way you have put it suggests that you think that the hungry and malnourished and economically marginal need to be hungry, and malnourished, and economically marginal for their own good. Please reassure me that this is not what you meant.
Thanks, PV.
[ 25. July 2015, 12:41: Message edited by: PilgrimVagrant ]
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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost
Posts: 210 | From: In Contemplation | Registered: Jul 2015
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
PV. This ISN'T a criticism. I love that approach. It's a great, real start. But there's NO SUCH THING as the undeserving poor. Double quotes next time please!
Despite these well-meaning words, the reality is somewhat different: whichever political reality we accept, there are always the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor. We always decide that some are worth helping and some are not.
On a macroscale today, the migrants fighting their way into England are "undeserving", the Kurdish fighting IS are "deserving" - except when they happen to be the same people.
On a microscale, we each have an internal moral calibration which we use to determine who and what cause to help - which is deserving and which is undeserving.
Claiming that we don't do this is to ignore reality, I'd argue.
And the real hypocrisy of Victorian classifications was not so much that it was arbritary - which it was at times - but that those who profited from the system were the same people who most loudly complained about it. The ones who talked about the dregs of society and the moral decay of the slums were sometimes the same people who secretly were the very slum landlords keeping it there. The crocodile tears of those fighting slavery abroad but prepared to tolerate it in their own factories and mines and so on was astonishing.
But we live in different times today. We don't like to admit that our own lives are dependent on the poverty of others. We'd rather post high-minded, moral-sounding, self-righteous bilge on bulletin boards.
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arse
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Don't remember if I posted this one yet, article about Utah's Housing First program. First you get chronic homeless into apartments. Then they go find themselves jobs, get off the booze, etc.,not because they are threatened with expulsion if they don't (no such threats) but because most people, until you have some stability you can't pursue those goals.
It's actually not unique to Utah, although there's a facebook meme that makes it sound like it is. It's actually a federal program based on the latest research, which has found that getting housing first before working on getting sober, dealing with mental or physical illness, or whatever the underlying causal factors are (as opposed to the reverse, which was the prevailing pattern) is far more effective. The grants to be a part of this program are available to any community in the US, but they haven't been well-used everywhere. The city where I live is one of the very few in our part of Southern Cal that has really invested in this program in the same way that Utah has. I work with the homeless thru several local non-profits so have had a chance to see it up close. It's not without it's problems-- both practical (finding sufficient housing in our densely populated area has been a huge challenge) and even ethical conundrums (it will take us years, if ever, before we are housing all our homeless-- so lots of ethical conundrums about how to triage who gets housed first). But our homeless census was down for the first time last year, our (old school) emergency shelter had space available. So yes, it is making a difference.
quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
But the theme of the presentation was the seamless integration of multi-agency support, co-ordinated around the needs of the individual concerned. So, there were a whole bunch of people there, from health agencies, the police, from education, from the charitable sector, and so on. It seems such a simple, obvious idea, to respond with a range of specialists to make for a holistic approach to rehabilitating the undeserving poor. But, in the UK at least, agencies often work in isolation from each other, and the result is a patchy response with incoherent strategies and objectives, and, naturally, sub-optimal outcomes.
Yes, this is part of what works about the program. "Seamless integration" still hasn't happened, but we're getting there, and that's a big part of the solution. We have a single entry point with social workers that help administer the program and the range of services that are available, that's been an important aspect as well. There's a quick phone # for rapid response much like 911 that allows churches, non-profits, all those people who are apt to be the first contact to quickly access those services to help people find aid.
[ 25. July 2015, 13:35: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
In deed you did PilgrimVagrant, my apologies and I retract my high-minded, moral-sounding, self-righteous bilge ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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PilgrimVagrant
Shipmate
# 18442
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
In deed you did PilgrimVagrant, my apologies and I retract my high-minded, moral-sounding, self-righteous bilge
I am sure mr cheesy will be pleased to hear that. But from my perspective, I know how difficult it is to get the tone of moral discourse correctly acceptable, both to the religiously credulous on the one hand, and the politically cynical on the other. I think we all need to practice that, myself included, and consider every contribution to this thread an experiment in that practice. And it is my thread; I started it, and reserve the right to judge the acceptability of each such experiment.
Cheers, PV.
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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost
Posts: 210 | From: In Contemplation | Registered: Jul 2015
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer
1. Is there theoretically a point at which someone holds TOO MUCH of the world's assets or has too high an income and has a moral duty to distribute some of it?
1A. If yes, why; if no, why not given that some are starving for no moral fault of their own?
2. Is there theoretically a point at which someone holds TOO LITTLE of the world's assets or has too low an income and has a moral duty to keep everything for their own use?
3. Can we identify all the elements (or all the major elements) that go into that (too high or too low) level?
Seems to me that there's a valid point here. It's something like a "hierarchy of needs" argument:
If someone has barely enough to meet their immediate needs - enough calories to keep them alive, enough heat to keep from freezing in winter, etc - then there is no sin in all their spending being directed at meeting these needs.
But if someone has ten times as much, and uses it to consume ten times as many calories, then something is amiss - rather than meeting those first-order needs to excess, it is healthy for their interests to widen to take in second-order considerations. Which might include things like caring for family, friends, neighbours. Art in various forms. Education. Putting money aside for the future. Etc.
And if someone becomes really rich, then similarly it is healthy for the focus of their spending to shift to attempts to make the world as a whole a better place, rather than simply buying more of the same stuff for themselves and their own community. Whether that attempt is through politics, or through any of the various forms of charities (those to do with tackling poverty, or medical or other research, or educational or religious).
On this view, it's not morally reprehensible for people to have "too much" wealth or income as such. But it is morally problematic if they don't broaden their horizons in proportion to the amount they spend, if their philanthropy doesn't keep up with their expenditure.
The sort of materialism that would deny anyone art or education while others are unfed isn't (ISTM) Christian. But neither is a "me first" attitude that l should have everything I could possibly want before I have to think about others. Like many things, we can get this wrong in two opposite directions.
And we're called not to be judgmental about others who don't strike quite the same balance that we do.
Best wishes,
Russ
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
And we're called not to be judgmental about others who don't strike quite the same balance that we do.
Neither are we called to ignore it. Judgmental is in the way we call attention to an issue, not in the calling of attention itself.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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rufiki
Ship's 'shroom
# 11165
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Posted
Has anyone mentioned law enforcement yet? This Ted Talk powerfully argues that no amount of traditional aid programmes will solve poverty if we can't find ways to protect the the poor from violence.
Posts: 1562 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
the way you have put it suggests that you think that the hungry and malnourished and economically marginal need to be hungry, and malnourished, and economically marginal for their own good. Please reassure me that this is not what you meant.
Hi PV.
Not saying that anyone should be malnourished. Saying rather that the poorest need to be nourished in a way that does not make meaningless their own efforts and their own culture. And the efforts of the not-quite-so-poor to keep themselves above that starvation level.
Which can be an unintended consequence of approaches that focus on "feeding the hungry" rather than "assisting the hungry in their own fight for survival".
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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PilgrimVagrant
Shipmate
# 18442
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
the way you have put it suggests that you think that the hungry and malnourished and economically marginal need to be hungry, and malnourished, and economically marginal for their own good. Please reassure me that this is not what you meant.
Hi PV.
Not saying that anyone should be malnourished. Saying rather that the poorest need to be nourished in a way that does not make meaningless their own efforts and their own culture. And the efforts of the not-quite-so-poor to keep themselves above that starvation level.
Which can be an unintended consequence of approaches that focus on "feeding the hungry" rather than "assisting the hungry in their own fight for survival".
There, you see, we are not so politically distant, at all. I agree with all that. The thing is, I think we humans are such an acquisitive lot, that immediately our physiological needs are sorted, we will start working on our other needs and desires; maybe a bicycle, maybe sending our children to school, maybe buying some goats, maybe starting a trading business, maybe financing a private jet. Whatever, I do not think there is much risk that anyone will just sit around and do nothing, simply because they are no longer hungry.
Best wishes, PV.
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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost
Posts: 210 | From: In Contemplation | Registered: Jul 2015
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Re subsistence farming. Nope we haven't been farmers for most of human history, we've been gatherer-hunters. The other side of Eden is low population density and relatively easy food acquisition. Which is still the lifestyle in some remote places. There is an ease of life when connected to the natural world. Need food? Today you can just fish for it or shoot it with modern weapons. When I have been in the north in unspoiled areas the amount of time needed to catch today's fish is usually less than an hour. I think in prefarming times wealth of the indvidual was irrelevant because the garden was so rich.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
So you're saying the solution is lowering Y -- dropping the number of people. Clearly an argument.
One of Isaac Asimov's robot stories carried the all-knowing robot to its logical conclusion -- the fate of mankind was handed over to a master machine that was bound by the Three Laws of Robotics. (If you do not know these, google it.) The problem then was that the larger agenda, the greater good of mankind, was not known. Would mankind be happier if there were only 50,000 of us hunter-gathering across a mostly empty Earth? Who knows? It's sure not us.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Nope, we HAVEN'T been hunter gatherers for most of human HISTORY.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
We emerged from Africa some 750,000 to 1.5 million years ago. We started farming about 10,000 years ago. You might be able to argue 15,000. Most of human history is us living in small tribal groups, hunting and gathering.
Here's a nice link with some introductory info about it.
Eden may well have been living with your tribe, where everyone knew you intimately. I think we mistake paradise for a walled up garden. When it has less to do with a location and more to do with a state of mind.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
no prophet's flag is set so...: We emerged from Africa some 750,000 to 1.5 million years ago. We started farming about 10,000 years ago. You might be able to argue 15,000. Most of human history is us living in small tribal groups, hunting and gathering.
LOL, you didn't get the joke Martin was making about HISTORY?
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
The other side of Eden is low population density and relatively easy food acquisition. Which is still the lifestyle in some remote places. There is an ease of life when connected to the natural world. Need food? Today you can just fish for it or shoot it with modern weapons. When I have been in the north in unspoiled areas the amount of time needed to catch today's fish is usually less than an hour. I think in prefarming times wealth of the indvidual was irrelevant because the garden was so rich.
I read an article some years ago, anthropologists visiting one of the last "stone age" tribes; standard work week was about 25 hours a week for all necessary functions - food finding, meal preparing, clothes making, weapon making, housing, etc. They were horrified when told we work 40 hours a week. (Actually, many of us work a lot more than 40, after the job we do the cooking washing housework yard work, plus the time commuting). Much time as spent socializing, playing with the children -- things we moderns long to do but lack time for.
The solution is not to depopulate. But maybe (significantly) de-electrify? My parents' generation did a lot more socializing back when "everyone" played an instrument because if you wanted music you got together with friends to make it, whether on an expensive piano or home made cigar box guitars. Now people spend hours plopped in front of separate TVs instead of gathering together.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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fausto
Shipmate
# 13737
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Re subsistence farming. Nope we haven't been farmers for most of human history, we've been gatherer-hunters. The other side of Eden is low population density and relatively easy food acquisition.
...
I think in prefarming times wealth of the indvidual was irrelevant because the garden was so rich.
The Garden of Eden story can easily be read as an allegory for the transition of human society from prehistoric hunting and gathering to historic agricultural civilization, rather than for the innate and inescapable depravity of human nature. When Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden, Adam was explicitly sentenced to produce his own food through difficult toil, but not to eternal perdition.
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"Truth did not come into the world naked, but it came in types and images. The world will not receive truth in any other way." Gospel of Philip, Logion 72
Posts: 407 | From: Boston, Mass. | Registered: May 2008
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PilgrimVagrant
Shipmate
# 18442
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Posted
I think it easy to romanticise a past of which we know very little. Seems to me that nostalgia for an age in which people were mainly dead by 30, and venerable rare exceptions at 40, is perhaps a trifle misplaced. These guys didn't even have tabasco sauce, umbrellas, whitening toothpaste or the BBC Radio 4 Today program. And nor would we if we shrank our population back down to prehistoric levels. Modern economies need a critical mass of affluent population to make innovation profitably worthwhile. Otherwise, we stagnate, and all our lives are impoverished.
Cheers, PV.
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Omnes Qui Errant Non Pereunt
Not all who wander are lost
Posts: 210 | From: In Contemplation | Registered: Jul 2015
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
If you get all your history from movies, miniseries on TV and the occasional bodice ripper, then yes: the past does seem romantic. A moment of thought will (I hope!) reveal to you that our ancestors had not so much as an aspirin for pain, no dentists, no aids to vision, walking, birth, contraception, or death, and -- worst of all -- no WiFi.
If your imagination cannot carry you so far, you could broaden your reading. A selection of time travel novels would do you.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
an age in which people were mainly dead by 30, and venerable rare exceptions at 40,
Cheers, PV.
Average life expectancy of 30 does not mean everyone died by about 30. There have always been old people. Every culture has stories of old people.
As to no medicines, antibiotics did (perhaps for only a few decades!) dramatically cut the effects of infections. But before aspirin there was willow bark and other nature-made remedies that are just as effective. It's fashionable in the West to scorn anything not developed in a lab and patented by a chemical company, but tribal groups really did have ways to heal many medical problems. They also didn't have rampant metabolic diseases.
Each era and location has it's problems. A big one in our modern Western culture is loneliness. Many poorer cultures have less medicine and less loneliness - not claiming cause effect just that looking at one aspect of a culture is not a good way to judge it's overall value as a way to live. Romanticizing our culture is no more valid than romanticizing someone else's culture.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
an age in which people were mainly dead by 30, and venerable rare exceptions at 40,
Cheers, PV.
Average life expectancy of 30 does not mean everyone died by about 30. There have always been old people. Every culture has stories of old people.
Average life expectancy is really just that. Average. And, specifically, it refers to Average Life Expectancy at birth. How it works.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I just ran across a medieval manuscript illustration where various people in hell were holding up signs with their ages at death on them. The ages ranged from about 63 to 77.
The big question in premodern societies was whether a given baby would survive to adulthood--heck, even age 5 was a major hurdle. It's the high infant mortality rate that is dragging down the life expectancy average. Adjust for that, and you get a wide age spread just as you do today.
If you made it to adulthood, chances were very good you'd make it to your sixties at least. The major hazards were infections and infectious diseases (particularly for children), accident and violence for men (e.g. war), and pregnancy/childbirth for women. So survive childhood and be mildly lucky in your life circumstances as an adult, and you'd probably make it to old age.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
People were healthy, because if you weren't you died. No lingering for years being ill. It is a cinch that a significant fraction of persons reading this right now would not have survived to adulthood 5000 years ago. I know I would not. (Nearsightedness would have meant I was cougar bait.)
Oh, and no vaccinations, inoculations, or any way to prevent infectious disease. Get friendly once again with smallpox, cholera, typhus and typhoid.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
The Old Testament gives the life expectancy figure of three-score and ten--i.e. seventy.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fausto:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Nope we haven't been farmers for most of human history, we've been gatherer-hunters..
... the transition of human society from prehistoric hunting and gathering to historic agricultural civilization....
Yup, that's it. Hunter-gatherers leave no written records and no remains of built structures - no history. It's when people have settled to farming that they need writing to record who owns what and walls to defend their territory.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
People were healthy, because if you weren't you died. No lingering for years being ill. It is a cinch that a significant fraction of persons reading this right now would not have survived to adulthood 5000 years ago. I know I would not. (Nearsightedness would have meant I was cougar bait.)
There's enough nearsightedness in human populations that I have difficulty believing it's all evolved in the last 5000 years.
I think you're overlooking the degree to which humans are social animals. Most human societies care for the elderly; the difference between being elderly and lingering for years being ill escapes me.
(I once read someone opine that humans are better at recovering from wounds than most mammals; human social groups mean that humans can rest and recover from wounds. But I've not seen any source for that.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Most human societies care for the elderly; the difference between being elderly and lingering for years being ill escapes me.
There is a skeleton of a prehistoric man who had such severe arthritis that other people must have supplied his food for a long time before he died.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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