Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, but most folks aren't ready for the share-shifting of privilege that that would entail.
I’m gonna need you to cite a source for that claim.
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What’s it like to live on less than $2 a day?
61–70 of 181 posts
Re: What’s it like to live on less than $2 a day?
#62Many people have stopped living on less than $2 a day in the past decades, according to the article. But does this take inflation into account? Surely the value of $2 has also dropped in these decades?
It does. From the linked World Bank article: "The Bank uses an updated international poverty line of US $1.90 a day, which incorporates new information on differences in the cost of living across countries (the PPP exchange rates). The new line preserves the real purchasing power of the previous line (of $1.25 a day in 2005 prices) in the world’s poorest countries."
Re: What’s it like to live on less than $2 a day?
#63Re: What’s it like to live on less than $2 a day?
#64There are so many folks in the comments who seem to be focused on a particular narrative. There's a lot of comments saying "It's so much better than it used to be!" While true, this feels to me like a deflection. It seems to come up any time inequality is mentioned here. It feels like an excuse. "yes things may be hard for someone making $2 a day, but they're better now so it's all ok." I find it to be a distraction.…
>> I don't care if things are better than ancient times. The world population living in poverty has decreased from >1.7 billion to 700 million over the past 25 years. So, it's not a comparison to ancient times. We've made considerable progress in just the past couple decades. There's still a lot of work to be done, and we should celebrate the progress made at the same time.
Another way of looking at it is that two of richest countries in the world from 300 years ago spent the most of the past 300 years with most of their citizens in extreme poverty. Now that those countries are catching up again, we're seeing these reductions in extreme poverty.
In other words, these improvements are not the result of a valiant effort to fight poverty, but a regression to the historical meaning happening because the effects of colonization are beginning to fade away.
Re: What’s it like to live on less than $2 a day?
#65There are so many folks in the comments who seem to be focused on a particular narrative. There's a lot of comments saying "It's so much better than it used to be!" While true, this feels to me like a deflection. It seems to come up any time inequality is mentioned here. It feels like an excuse. "yes things may be hard for someone making $2 a day, but they're better now so it's all ok." I find it to be a distraction.…
>> I don't care if things are better than ancient times. The world population living in poverty has decreased from >1.7 billion to 700 million over the past 25 years. So, it's not a comparison to ancient times. We've made considerable progress in just the past couple decades. There's still a lot of work to be done, and we should celebrate the progress made at the same time.
Why does a decrease in world poverty matter in a thread about living on $2 a day?
I really don’t care about your stats, make your own post if you wanna talk about them. My point is that folks like you redirect the topic because you’re uncomfortable with reality.
I don’t think we’re anywhere close to “celebrating”
Re: What’s it like to live on less than $2 a day?
#66It's important to remember that the world has been unbelievably successful at getting people out of extreme poverty (inflation-adjusted $1.9 per day). We went from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 0.65 billion in 2018. Ways to go, but it is a truly amazing achievement of humanity. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the past 30 years. https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
And it's not just money. Very tangible measures such as mortality before age 5 have greatly improved.
From https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality#global-decline-of...
In 1800 the health conditions of our ancestors were such that 43% of the world’s newborns died before their 5th birthday. These estimates are shown in the visualisation below.
In 1960 child mortality was still 18.5%. Almost every 5th child born in that year died in childhood.
Over the last decades we have seen a very rapid decline of child mortality globally. In 2015 child mortality was down to 4.3% – 10-fold lower than 2 centuries ago. You have to take this long perspective to see the progress that we have achieved.
Re: What’s it like to live on less than $2 a day?
#67There are so many folks in the comments who seem to be focused on a particular narrative. There's a lot of comments saying "It's so much better than it used to be!" While true, this feels to me like a deflection. It seems to come up any time inequality is mentioned here. It feels like an excuse. "yes things may be hard for someone making $2 a day, but they're better now so it's all ok." I find it to be a distraction.…
I agree, such a positive tone encourages complacency. And the reality is that we could do so much better:
https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2018/8/30/the-moral-egregio...
"We shouldn’t be looking at the cost of ending poverty as a percentage of total world income, but rather as a percentage of the income of all the people who are not poor; say, those who live on more than double the poverty line. In 1990, it would have cost 12.9% of their total income to end poverty. In 2013, it would have cost only 3.9%. According to this measure, our capacity to end poverty has improved by a factor of 3.31."
Re: What’s it like to live on less than $2 a day?
#68There are so many folks in the comments who seem to be focused on a particular narrative. There's a lot of comments saying "It's so much better than it used to be!" While true, this feels to me like a deflection. It seems to come up any time inequality is mentioned here. It feels like an excuse. "yes things may be hard for someone making $2 a day, but they're better now so it's all ok." I find it to be a distraction.…
I disagree with this, somewhat.
I think the problems of poverty and extreme poverty are undeniable when you look at the examples gates gave. OTOH, in terms of political discussion^ it is a mistake to avoid including positive trends in a discussion. Trends are a huge part of understanding. Does the world need a break from the processes ongoing or do we need to double down and continue/accelerate the trend?
The idea that good news is bad because it distracts from the bad news that still needs attention is shortsighted... and common in change oriented politics.
^id argue when arguments like deflection and staying on message come into play, it's a sign that this is a political discussion
Re: What’s it like to live on less than $2 a day?
#69[flagged]
Please, could you suggest an alternative to capitalism? How would you implement it? Are you also likening people in extreme poverty to cows? Is that not extremely vile? I would like to have a discussion with you, but I fear I can't really hear you from your moral high ground: could you please come down to my basic level and try to explain? English is also not my first language, so lets keep the phraseology simple.
The problem is that every system is doomed to fail if it is based on pure ideology, be it capitalism or communism. The reality is that you need something in between. One which rewards effort but ensures a safety net, and provides the means and opportunity. Where one draws the line in balancing the good of capitalism and communism is the spot where wisdom lies. Communism obviously failed. Capitalism of the kind you have in the US also appears unsustainable as does the socialist underpinnings of countries such as India - just too much ideology involved. Of course countries ridden with extreme corruption have no hope whatsoever until the corruption can be reduced.
Re: What’s it like to live on less than $2 a day?
#70There are so many folks in the comments who seem to be focused on a particular narrative. There's a lot of comments saying "It's so much better than it used to be!" While true, this feels to me like a deflection. It seems to come up any time inequality is mentioned here. It feels like an excuse. "yes things may be hard for someone making $2 a day, but they're better now so it's all ok." I find it to be a distraction.…
>> I don't care if things are better than ancient times. The world population living in poverty has decreased from >1.7 billion to 700 million over the past 25 years. So, it's not a comparison to ancient times. We've made considerable progress in just the past couple decades. There's still a lot of work to be done, and we should celebrate the progress made at the same time.
Yet these statistics don't matter to individuals for whom life is mostly suffering. We're together in our happiness, but alone in our grief. The Gates note here recounts such stories, and even they haven't captured the deep anguish and helplessness that consumes individuals when they have no money to eat (and worse, to feed their children), and when they can't treat family from curable ailments.
Often people seem to use ideas in Factfulness (Rosling) to assuage the guilt of living well and free when there is suffering all around. This is fine, but this also seem to give ammunition to others who argue that people's fates are in their hands alone, minimum wages should be abolished, and being a rickshaw driver is fine - because they need jobs, and it is as good a job as any for people "like them". The reasoning from "things are improving" to "society don't owe individuals succor" seem to be illogical, but reoccuring nonetheless.