Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our economies of wealth are not built "on the back" of the people in the soup kitchens. Those few people who are going to soup kitchens are typically so crippled by their own internal issues (e.g. mental illness, impulsive criminality, addiction, total inability to manage money) that their productivity is extremely low or negative. Nobody's taking anything from them because there's nothing to take. In fact it's the o…
> in a modern economy those with zero or negative human capital are nothing but a liability They're also, you know, human . I blew several hundred dollars on air travel this weekend, for fun. People in soup kitchens are not living on my back. They're maybe living on my pinky nail. Mental illness and addiction, btw, are illnesses. They're no more "crippling internal issues" than, say, diabetes.
>air travel for fun i too enjoy living in an economy that has certain segments that are wildly productive.
>mental illness == diabetes a comment like this must stem from a complete lack of contact with the homeless. i am not virtue shaming you at all. the homeless, as a crowd, can be very off putting. This does not negate their humanity, but it definitely dictates which segments of humanity they regularly interact with. . my time amongst the homeless was a painful and informative experience. if you move around their world, you start to realize just how many of the street fam are where they are by choice. incompatibility with family or community, perplexing and unsettling addictions, habits, and proclivities (i thought people shooting up was going to be bad, but the eating of trash, hair, and feces was far more disturbing), and deep seeded mental trauma make many of the homeless community unreachable by the vast majority of society. the point is, there is no simple solution for outliers when we believe in the primacy of all human life. our society is an inevitable hierarchy, but our values preclude us from instituting a codified caste system. The homeless i encountered, lived with, and eventually fled from see no place for themselves in society in a general sense. specifically, i had conversations with erudite winos and brilliant heroine addicts, their cognitive assets hampered by their chemical addictions. i also got assaulted and chased by 20somethings with wealthy and compassionate family members who would wire them money and beg them to return. then there is of course the individuals who cannot speak coherently, which is a surprisingly huge barrier to community interaction. mental illness and addiction are illnesses, but MRSA and poison ivy rash are both "just" integument afflictions. Calamine lotion (handing out spare change, deifying the retched at snooty parties) will not help a staph infection.