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Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

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Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#271

Post by intended »

chc wrote: post #224
mickey7 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm puzzled and somewhat amused with the downvotes because i'm aiming for maximum honesty and truth. the market organises to elevate the best and raise standards for all others - it's like a force of nature, whereas government seems to systematically mismanage libraries into mediocre grey soulless underused smelly wastelands.

Here's essentially the thought process behind the downvotes: You: "the market organises to elevate the best and raise standards for all others" Everybody else: "And I'm the Queen of England." "The market" is not some intelligent, charitable entity. It's an abstraction employed to talk about how participating entities allocate their resources. It categorically does not help everyone. In fact, in many cases it can hurt…

Further, people don't curl up and die, they tend to do what it takes to survive.

Which our op, with his subscription to police protection, believes he will be protected from.

Course he has to assume that he and the others like him have paid sufficiently to keep his mercenaries/rent-a-cops armed and motivated enough to protect them.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#272

Post by jleader »

lbotos wrote: post #154
tptacek wrote: post #121

Can I add to this one little point, which is a counterintuitive thing you can do to help your local library: Use your local library . During the year we started Matasano our Chicago team spent about 40%-50% of our time working from the Oak Park Public Library, sometimes in meeting rooms we booked, more often at study desks. It was great. The Internet access wasn't amazing but it was totally functional and we could VP…

A friend of Mine just graduated with a Degree in Literature and we talk about the futures of libraries all the time. We often ask what would happen if libraries opened up a small coffee shop/stand inside of them? With enough "marketing" would people go to libraries instead?

Of the 4 library systems I am most familiar with around here:

* One in a city of 36K people doesn't have refreshments, but is located on a street with lots of restaurants and at least 3 coffee shops within a block or 2.

* One in a city of ~56K people has a coffee kiosk under a canopy/tent alongside the library (this is Southern California, weather's not too big an issue).

* The central library in a city of ~140K has a coffee shop in a sheltered part of a patio/courtyard. I don't think the branch libraries have coffee.

* Los Angeles Central library has 2 restaurants inside the main library building (Panda Express, and a sandwich counter), and a pricier white-tablecloth restaurant in the garden in front of the building. I don't know about the branch libraries.

(edited for formatting)

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#273

Post by yummyfajitas »

vacri wrote: post #262
yummyfajitas wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As expected, it doesn't support your absolute conclusion (that the poor don't work). You clearly didn't read even the first paragraph, which shows that just under 80% of the poor don't work (by choice). You can even read further and discover that a big chunk of the working 20% work only part time (also by choice). In America, we obsess over separating the virtuous from non-virtuous poor... No, we don't. We throw mone…

You clearly didn't read even the first paragraph, which shows that just under 80% of the poor don't work (by choice). Wow, talk about spin-doctoring. That 80% figure is people outside the labour pool, including children (specifically stated in the first paragraph ), sick, and elderly people.

Um, this doesn't change the picture significantly. You can compare poor people to the nation as a whole, or you can compare poor adults to adults as a whole.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2130441

The net result either way is that the poor choose not to work at a disproportionate rate.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#274

Post by vacri »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #273
vacri wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly didn't read even the first paragraph, which shows that just under 80% of the poor don't work (by choice). Wow, talk about spin-doctoring. That 80% figure is people outside the labour pool, including children (specifically stated in the first paragraph ), sick, and elderly people.

Um, this doesn't change the picture significantly. You can compare poor people to the nation as a whole, or you can compare poor adults to adults as a whole. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2130441 The net result either way is that the poor choose not to work at a disproportionate rate.

There's a few issues here

- firstly, you've said nothing so far about comparing poor people to anyone, you've just said "80%" flat out, no comparison to anyone wealthier

- the "80%" does change, because the numbers you drew that from - 10 million of 40 million - is 10 million labour force out of 40 million individuals. Anyone in that 43 million that is not of working age or ability decreases your magic percentage. You are trying to paint your 80% as "percentage of people who could work, but don't" whereas it's actually "percentage of poor people in the labour force, including children and the infirm"

- the overall labour force for the US is 65% of the total population. Using this number against the 40 million for those in poverty would suggest ~26 million potential labour force instead. Throw in children, mentally ill, and similarly overrepresented demographics and that number reduces again.

- your linked comment mentions this interesting metric "FTLFPR", used to vilify the poor... which when googled shows only a handful of results which are a combination of typos, random character pages, and your comment. Even chasing your linked comment to a quoted paper about participation a few comment up doesn't exhibit that acronym.

- Even assuming that your acronym is a real measure, it's hardly suprising that people who can't get enough work are poor. Those people who are classed as unemployed are going to be dragging that acronym down signficantly - and almost one in ten of the labour force is unemployed in the US.

- You make the gross mistake of assuming motive. Since the GFC hit, the US unemployment rate doubled from 4.5% to 9%. By your reckoning this means that one in twenty workers in the past few years has decided to just refuse work so they can "buy alcohol, crack cocaine and satellite TV"

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

When it comes down to it, yes, there are some people who game the system. So what - that happens at all levels (try getting tax loopholes fixed...). The real problem is that you are painting the poor as little short of demonic layabouts, which is a grossly exaggerated misrepresentation.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#275

Post by junkbit »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #268
vacri wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6 months ago, I wandered through the Mekong delta, in swampland where half the houses were palm shacks. Standing swamp water all around, no running water (clean or otherwise), shoddy power cables... and yet I still saw the occasional home with a big-screen TV. Sure, older models, CRTs for the most part, but people don't seem too keen on comparing what kind of TVs are around. So some of these incredibly poor swamp-dwe…

You know, the poor in the US don't lack clean water, cooking gas, electricity, etc. Their houses are often climate controlled, and they usually have cars to travel with. Malaria is also a minor issue, as are most infectious diseases. From what I've seen (and statistics seem to bear this out), the "poor" in the US lack virtually no essential goods and services and they have many luxuries. If you disagree, please tell…

Free healthcare and dentistry

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#276

Post by etherael »

mickey7 wrote: post #216
mickey7 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

neighbourhood watch and locally funded andor volunteer police, vigilanteesm & personal responsibility fire insurance includes fire department service. you can go cheap and risk burning down but it's more likely that decent friendly neighbours will gladly cover yours if you can't. or you can move to more affordable housing within your means health insurance with discounts for taking care of yourself competition betwee…

i'm puzzled and somewhat amused with the downvotes because i'm aiming for maximum honesty and truth. the market organises to elevate the best and raise standards for all others - it's like a force of nature, whereas government seems to systematically mismanage libraries into mediocre grey soulless underused smelly wastelands.

Firstly, the downvotes are a recent manifestation of creeping groupthink. They're disheartening, but they're actually a good example in this particular instance as an illustration that people as a whole, even in places where you'd expect them to be, aren't so smart. It's much easier to have a gut reaction to a position and grunt a downvote out than actually engage in reasoned discussion and THINK about it.

Even speaking as an agorist, your faith in the market is a little extreme. It certainly has some useful and beneficial efficiencies to be sure, but believing that it will simply elevate the best and create a rising tide that will raise all standards is a little naive I think with regards to what we see in the world where markets reign.

Assuming humans are perfectly rational agents with equal information it works, but that's not how humans really are. Humans are dumb, panicky, emotional animals, and the difference between the most incompetent of them and say cows are not as wide as our politically correct institutions would like to force us to believe.

You would do well, even in an ancap society, to voluntarily donate to charities that pursued socially beneficial objectives so that you reaped the benefits of their actions. This is pretty much the ancap response to tragedy of the commons. Vaccination and libraries are not a bad example of where this makes sense imho. There's nothing strictly contrary to ancap doctrine to point out that choosing not to clean your proverbial home will result in you living in a mess, so you might want to do that occasionally.

It is not enough to point out that simply because states provably fail, markets are perfectly efficient.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#277

Post by vacri »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #268
vacri wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6 months ago, I wandered through the Mekong delta, in swampland where half the houses were palm shacks. Standing swamp water all around, no running water (clean or otherwise), shoddy power cables... and yet I still saw the occasional home with a big-screen TV. Sure, older models, CRTs for the most part, but people don't seem too keen on comparing what kind of TVs are around. So some of these incredibly poor swamp-dwe…

You know, the poor in the US don't lack clean water, cooking gas, electricity, etc. Their houses are often climate controlled, and they usually have cars to travel with. Malaria is also a minor issue, as are most infectious diseases. From what I've seen (and statistics seem to bear this out), the "poor" in the US lack virtually no essential goods and services and they have many luxuries. If you disagree, please tell…

First you make the argument about luxuries, so I counter about luxuries. Then you decide to make it about basic services. Nice moving of the goalposts there.

If you disagree, please tell me which essential goods and services you feel the US "poor" lack.

Empathy.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#278

Post by yummyfajitas »

vacri wrote: post #277
yummyfajitas wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, the poor in the US don't lack clean water, cooking gas, electricity, etc. Their houses are often climate controlled, and they usually have cars to travel with. Malaria is also a minor issue, as are most infectious diseases. From what I've seen (and statistics seem to bear this out), the "poor" in the US lack virtually no essential goods and services and they have many luxuries. If you disagree, please tell…

First you make the argument about luxuries, so I counter about luxuries. Then you decide to make it about basic services. Nice moving of the goalposts there. If you disagree, please tell me which essential goods and services you feel the US "poor" lack. Empathy.

I'm sorry, my mistake. I should have explicitly specified they have luxuries in addition to all the basic necessities.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#279

Post by DanBC »

etherael wrote: post #276
mickey7 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm puzzled and somewhat amused with the downvotes because i'm aiming for maximum honesty and truth. the market organises to elevate the best and raise standards for all others - it's like a force of nature, whereas government seems to systematically mismanage libraries into mediocre grey soulless underused smelly wastelands.

Firstly, the downvotes are a recent manifestation of creeping groupthink. They're disheartening, but they're actually a good example in this particular instance as an illustration that people as a whole, even in places where you'd expect them to be, aren't so smart. It's much easier to have a gut reaction to a position and grunt a downvote out than actually engage in reasoned discussion and THINK about it. Even speak…

> Firstly, the downvotes are a recent manifestation of creeping groupthink.

Political discussion has, for a long time, been discouraged on HN. Down-voting is one way to encourage people to stop.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#280

Post by justincormack »

philwelch wrote: post #17
xenophanes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The libertarian stance is not "there should be no libraries" but more like "if there is a genuine need for libraries, and value in having them (quite plausible), then Government funding is not the best approach to creating them or running them efficiently". Just because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options. If they are a great idea, why not persuade people to volunt…

Actually, the libertarian stance is closer to "I have an inherent human right not to pay taxes that outweighs the public good of having things like libraries." There's some handwaving about voluntary charity, but if voluntary charity worked, no one would have invented public services to begin with, and the typical libertarian doesn't really care anyway.

Voluntary charity was the origins of public services. The nineteenth century was very libertarian by modern standards, but there were a wave of charitable moves, everything from libraries (Carnegie), homes for the poor (Peabody, many more, even charitable housing investment companies), drinking water, universities and education. This was in a time when stopping children working was seen as intervention in the free market.

The success of this meant that the state got involved, as the benefits were so large and clear, and more was clearly needed.

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