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The history of the end of poverty has just begun

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Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#401

Post by WalterBright »

southerntofu wrote: post #351
WalterBright wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you rehab someone who does not have stable shelter? Put them in a drug rehab facility. It's still not an economic problem, it's a drug addiction problem.

> Put them in a drug rehab facility. Sure why not, but what after that? If you think helping them overcome addiction then throwing them back out on the streets is gonna have any positive effects, i can say with 99% confidence you haven't spent more than a day being homeless.

Once they're dried out, they'll be able to get a job. Jobs are currently going begging.

The homeless who aren't addicts or alcoholics tend to do well with programs to help them back on their feet. The former, nope.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#402

Post by WalterBright »

southerntofu wrote: post #350
amadvance wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just consider antibiotics. A medieval king could die for a banal infection.

There's a fallacy at play here. Some kings died due to lack of knowledge how to treat them. In the US, poor people die from diseases we know how to treat but society refuses to treat them because they don't have money. Measuring the increase in possible outcomes is irrelevant if you don't take into considerable how accessible/affordable those outcomes are. It's just like if you said "but medieval kings didn't have sp…

There is no way that modern poor have worse health care than medieval kings, because those kings HAD NO HEALTH CARE, and in fact, what doctors they did have did harm to their luckless patients. For example, they would bleed a person to try to drain out what was making them sick. For another, they did not wash their hands or their instruments.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#403

Post by WalterBright »

coldtea wrote: post #306
WalterBright wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kings didn't have any. They didn't even have clean water.

Where does that impression come from? Even whole cities had running water, all the way back to the Roman era. Heck, Rome I said? Ancient Knossos, over 3000 years back: "Water technologies included running water within the palaces and other settlements, drainage systems, piping systems, rainwater harvesting, and other technologies." https://iwaponline.com/ws/article/17/4/1106/15032/Hydro-tech...

Running water is not the same thing as clean water. Cholera (from contaminated water) was endemic. Even wells were infected with cholera from sewage.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#404

Post by WalterBright »

mbrodersen wrote: post #284
WalterBright wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kings didn't have any. They didn't even have clean water.

However Kings did have shelter, plenty of food, easy access to sex, lots of fun and games, the respect of everybody, the best protection in the land, the power to behead or torture anything they didn't like etc. So lets be fair when we compare the two.

They died young and were shorter. Shorter is indicative of poor nutrition. If you're in Europe, look at the royal armor in museums. Those would be kid size today.

The same goes for colonial America. Take a look at the clothing in the Fort William museum (from the 1700s). It's so small.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#405

Post by silverberry »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #374
silverberry wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many things I would like to reply to this comment but I'll be brief and direct. If you consider yourself in any way a Marxist or a leftist, you _aren't_, you are pretty far from it. You are not making a rational analysis of society, humanity or reality based on historical materialism. Going back 200-1000 years is not progress. Period. Clearly, underdeveloped tribes living primitive lives are poor in almost…

To be free of the spectacle of the modern world, what a delicious treat!

I don't think anybody is stopping you from living like a hermit in a cabin in the woods, right? But still, you don't.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#406

Post by WalterBright »

coldtea wrote: post #305
WalterBright wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can walk into any emergency room and get free care. Kings had zero access.

Kings had access to the best doctors of their era. Medical knowledge was just less. Not due to lack of access though. And Kings didn't need to do 99% of the back-breaking back modern poor have...

Medical knowledge was negative, not just less.

George Washington was killed by his doctors.

> And Kings didn't need to do 99% of the back-breaking back modern poor have...

What back breaking modern work? Machines do that today. We don't have rope lines of people pulling stones uphill anymore.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#407

Post by WalterBright »

coldtea wrote: post #308
WalterBright wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what it is.

If you're a rich person with stuff in your company's name, or some kind of structured impersonal assets (and ultimately, relatives to take care of you, and friends to do you favors every time you bankrupt and default Trump-style) yes. Otherwise, there are repercusions from one that aren't there on the other - up to incoming a debt slave to your default's arrangement, not getting any credit anymore, and even ending up…

You're still getting something for nothing. And in a few years, your debt is expunged.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#408

Post by WalterBright »

rhcom2 wrote: post #397
WalterBright wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For big evidence, look at the hundreds of thousands of people tramping thousands of miles just for a shot at getting into America.

That isn't evidence for what you asserted. Just evidence that for those people it might be worse somewhere else.

> might be

Maybe you should do them a service and inform them that America is a hell-hole?

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#409

Post by selestify »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #390
selestify wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put in anti-vacancy laws with a sufficiently punitive penalty. Then all that property goes on the market regardless of who snapped it up.

Are anti-vacancy laws easy to enforce? If I'm out of the country for a year, but I want to retain my rental because of the location am I out of luck? I feel that would cause more problems than it would solve.

That's a good question about the enforcement. You'd really only care about the most trafficked dense areas to live in, so gated communities should be less of an issue unless the whole city is made of urban sprawl neighborhoods. If it turns out to be hard to catch, the penalty should take into account the likelihood of getting caught, such that the expected reward from cheating is still negative.

If you're out of the country for an entire year and you want to keep your house empty during an housing crisis, you seem like exactly the kind of person this tax should be levied on. Either rent your home to someone else for the year, or pay the penalty for contributing to the housing crisis.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#410

Post by silverberry »

ricardobeat wrote: post #364
silverberry wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This relativism isn't good for anything. They are poor and also underdeveloped in every sense. That's a fact. If you romanticize them you are not doing them any good. You simply cannot understand what being in their position is like. Any slight inconvenient to a modern society is a very serious event for them, eg. disease, drought, famine, etc. while you have most conveniences in life and most problems solved. As I s…

That is no argument. Not only you're again dismissing it based on opinion alone, now I'm being personally judged for it... I'm not going down that line. Practically every research study on happiness associates it with health, family, culture, friends, purpose, religion. Comfort, physical goods, wealth are always at the bottom. Living in simple conditions doesn't mean forfeiting health or basic sanitation. The questio…

First of all, I'm not judging you, where did I? I'm arguing against your ideas, which are harmful. Second, how am I basing anything on opinion alone?

I never mentioned modern day commodities or technologies, you are arguing against things I've never said, and are completely omitting my main points.

According to your own arguments and words, do "tribes living off-grid" have "a home, clean water, a surplus of food, friends, family, sanitary conditions, access to healthcare"? It seems like you're completely changing what you're saying on the go.

I'll just say this: that's precisely your error, it is not a philosophical question, it is a material one. It is not ideas we're talking about, it's people and their living conditions.

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