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Cards Against Humanity Redistributes Your Wealth

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Re: Cards Against Humanity Redistributes Your Wealth

#141

Post by robbiep »

throwawaycloud wrote: post #76
fjsolwmv wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure they are cancer symptoms? Seems you be dead by now if you and them untreated for so long.

Nope, I have no idea what the blood is from. I can't afford to see a doctor. :) TMI below, so stop reading. Before I switched diets a month ago, I had blood about 80% of the time. It's ... Mixed in, and dark, as opposed to bright red and on the surface. Meaning whatever it is, it's deep inside my intestinal tract. Since a month ago I've seen it only once. I'm holding out hope it's just a stomach ulcer or some weird t…

Hi, Doctor here.

Go to a doctor immediately. There is no way that old blood mixed with stool is from a stomach ulcer. In fact, that’s not how it works anyway (upper gastrointestinal bleeds are modified by stomach acid and enzymes and have a characteristic effect on stool that we call Malena). You may have one of many different things, the most serious of which is, as you fear, a cancer, but the differentials run through benign polyps and vascular malformations.

I understand that you live in a country where you have to make practical choices about your engagement with healthcare VS putting food on the table but if you play your game slightly further out (ie add in the future value of the rest of your life VS the opportunity cost of a colonoscopy soon) it doesn’t make sense. You have a pressing and urgent need to attend to a doctor for referral for colonoscopy

Re: Cards Against Humanity Redistributes Your Wealth

#142

Post by topmonk »

whack wrote: post #120
topmonk wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poorest countries all have something in common, which is overpopulation. It seems as if the poorest have enough offspring so that they are always on the edge of starvation. I wonder if by giving them additional money, so they can have more kids, and even cause a greater strain on the local environment, have we actually done a good thing? If there is an overpopulation of deer, we don't put big buckets of feed in t…

Your comment actually got me thinking... By what metric have you decided that a country is overpopulated? Using the absolute population size? If so, is America far more "overpopulated" compared to every other developed nation? If China were to split up into 20 sovereign nations, would it suddenly stop being overpopulated? Or perhaps you're using population density? If so, Taiwan, South-Korea and Netherlands must be a…

Alright, maybe you're right about that.

But, what about the rest of it? Do you agree that people breed themselves to the natural edge of starvation? Would it be better to give them the means to have even more kids, perpetuating the cycle, or let them be?

Re: Cards Against Humanity Redistributes Your Wealth

#143

Post by fabianhjr »

For anyone that liked this action, you can continue it trough GiveDirectly (https://givedirectly.org/). It gives Direct Cash Transfers (DCTs) to those most in need and produces evidence of the impact of their models and actions.

The short-term impact of unconditional cash transfers to the poorhttps://www.princeton.edu/~joha/publications/Haushofer_Shapi... >

> We find that treatment households increased both consumption and savings (in the form of durable good purchases and investment in their self-employment activities). In particular, we observe increases in food expenditures and food security, but not spending on temptation goods. Households invest in livestock and durable assets (notably metal roofs), and we show that these investments lead to increases in revenue from agricultural and business activities, although we find no significant effect on profits at this short time horizon. We also observe no evidence of conflict resulting from the transfers; on the contrary, we report large increases in psychological wellbeing, and an increase in female empowerment with a large spillover effect on non-recipient households in treatment villages. Thus, these findings suggest that simple cash transfers may not have the perverse effects that some policymakers feel they would have, which has led to a clear policy preference for in-kind or skills transfers [...] and conditional transfers.

EDIT: Added link to GD.

Re: Cards Against Humanity Redistributes Your Wealth

#145

Post by death_and_taxes »

alexasmyths wrote: post #119
harryh wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact is that most Americans pay virtually no federal income tax, This is not really true. Especially when you also look at payroll taxes which are, for all intents and purposes, income taxes. When I...made the median income level for the state I was living in at the time, I still paid no tax (outside of SALT) and got a return larger than what I paid in. This is highly unlikely to be true. I'm sure you remember it…

Only about 1/2 of Americans at any given time work (very roughly - think kids, elderly etc.) so most Americans don't pay tax is technically kind of correct, but not very meaningful at all in any discussion.

Using 2015 as a reference, of the people that work in the US (represented by 141,204,625 tax returns), the top 50% paid 97.17% of all federal income taxes. The statement that about half of Americans don't pay federal income taxes is only for those that are filing taxes (and therefore probably working), so if you want to include the non-working, it's more like 75% of Americans don't pay income taxes. Here is the data from the IRS, look at the last table cell at the bottom all the way on the right. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/15in03etr.xls

Re: Cards Against Humanity Redistributes Your Wealth

#146

Post by CloudYeller »

Inspiring to see why $1000 makes so much of a difference for many recipients: the most common theme was spending time with family.

Sometimes work just seems like random people fighting tooth and nail to earn millions. It would be interesting to see everyone's reasons for acting that way. I bet it usually boils down to "it's for my family". But the real truth there is, having a happy family does not require millions.

Re: Cards Against Humanity Redistributes Your Wealth

#147

Post by death_and_taxes »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #54

Literally every single poor person pictured is obese. That baby is almost certainly going to be overweight in a few years. I'm amazed this isn't a bigger issue politically. Nutrition is a huge driver of health inequality. In 50 years the obesity rate has quadrupled. A return to the eating habits of the 1960s is perhaps the greatest possible welfare achievement right now (in the US), with impact far larger than univer…

Cheap access to truly healthy food would be the most amazing social program, and probably have outsized benefits for its cost.

Re: Cards Against Humanity Redistributes Your Wealth

#148

Post by danjoc »

throwawaycloud wrote: post #46
ridgewell wrote: post #12

>We excluded all Canadians. They already have universal healthcare. They’ll be fine. Yikes. I certainly got a laugh out of that, then an overly reflective period of what I'm grateful for, especially the benefits afforded from being north of the border.

Throwaway for privacy. I've been concealing cancer symptoms for years, mostly because I can't afford to get a colonoscopy. Even the cheapest clinics run well over $1k, which is totally out of reach. The secondary reason is an unhealthy fear of needles and a desire to live without a colostomy bag. I know I need to see a psychiatrist or a therapist to help me get over these irrational fears, but you guessed it: I can't…

>I've been concealing cancer symptoms for years

You want to die? Because this is how you die. Even if you can be saved, the longer you wait, the more expensive the fix. You know, ounce of prevention, pound of cure.

Re: Cards Against Humanity Redistributes Your Wealth

#149

Post by throwawaycloud »

robbiep wrote: post #141
throwawaycloud wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, I have no idea what the blood is from. I can't afford to see a doctor. :) TMI below, so stop reading. Before I switched diets a month ago, I had blood about 80% of the time. It's ... Mixed in, and dark, as opposed to bright red and on the surface. Meaning whatever it is, it's deep inside my intestinal tract. Since a month ago I've seen it only once. I'm holding out hope it's just a stomach ulcer or some weird t…

Hi, Doctor here. Go to a doctor immediately. There is no way that old blood mixed with stool is from a stomach ulcer. In fact, that’s not how it works anyway (upper gastrointestinal bleeds are modified by stomach acid and enzymes and have a characteristic effect on stool that we call Malena). You may have one of many different things, the most serious of which is, as you fear, a cancer, but the differentials run thro…

You have no idea how much I want to, but $1k for a colonoscopy is wildly optimistic. It's probably going to be $3k or $4k minimum. I make $750 bimonthly, which barely pays the rent. My roommate pays the rest of our living expenses. There's $1,800 in the bank.

What do I do? Show up and say "There's no way I can ever pay for this, but see me anyway"? I literally have no idea, and I'd feel like a complete scumbag for doing that.

I know it's pressing and urgent, there's just... It's societal pressure. Am I really going to stare at the receptionist and say "No, I won't give you my debit card info; yes, I want you to see me anyway"? They'll tell me to GTFO.

Would it be ok if I send you an email?

Re: Cards Against Humanity Redistributes Your Wealth

#150

Post by nine_k »

geofft wrote: post #23
jquery wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a stunt to prove socialism is great. What it actually demonstrated is that charity works great. Charity is not socialism.

If charity works great, why doesn't government-mandated charity work even better? There are a lot of things, like civil defense and firefighting and road building, that historically started working more reliably when they became government-run instead of depending on volunteers or private industry. What makes charity different?

Government-mandated things usually work worse than the fame things done without governmental intervention.

This is why government is best left to handle things that cannot be adequately done without a central command, like keeping the military forces, or collecting taxes. It can also step in where private or public efforts fail, but don't expect it to be as efficient.

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