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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

#31

Post by Shenglong »

Drawing a parallel to the Canadian healthcare system:

I haven't been sick in 12 years. Yet, every year, I pay taxes to keep the public healthcare system running. Even though it's not something I use, undoubtedly, there are people who need it, and wouldn't be able to pay for it if it wasn't public.

About a month ago, I exhibited the symptoms of some kind of ventricular tachycardia (heart arrhythmia). As advised by a friend in medicine (in a different city), I tried to get myself booked for an ECG, to see what exactly was wrong. Without getting into the details, let's just say that even to this day, I haven't been able to get one.

I can definitely see why people don't want to pay, not just for services that they'll never use, but for services they'll probably be unable to use, even if they ever need to.

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

#32

Post by ultimatewarrior »

benwerd wrote: post #4

A thousand times this. I find the ultra-libertarian stance that our community sometimes takes to be counter to what web applications have been about. Are we empowering people or aren't we? Libraries are hugely important knowledge transfer hubs (and, as the MeFi commenter rightly says, community centers). Furthermore, selfishly, for us as builders, they're the only place a lot of people will ever come into contact wit…

In Compton, people could give two shits about a web app, but everyone knows that the library is down the street.

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

#33

Post by skymt »

[deleted] wrote: post #28
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…

[deleted]

Now you have a situation where a large part of the population is forced to pay a private middleman for the privilege of interacting with their government. That's not an improvement.

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

#34

Post by anrope »

Maybe I'm just not in a skeptical mood today, but the anecdote in that story points out something that I tend to take for granted. I'm probably not alone, especially here on HN.

That is, the fact that some people just really don't understand the most basic concepts of using a computer. And it's not their fault.

Your breath seizes in your chest, and you realize you have no idea what to do. You have the form that they gave you at the social services office, which has an address, which you sort of know what that does, but you can't quite remember – 17 minutes, by the way. You try typing X City Social Services in a box at the top, a page comes back and says “address not found” with a list of things below it. You're panicking...

I'm all for increasing the use of technology in order to make things work more smoothly and efficiently, but this story points out just how left-behind this can leave some people.

I guess the answer is better education, and not just in schools. I guess I can be glad that there are a lot of people working in that space. Even then, before anyone can use Khan Academy or enroll in online classes, they need to have a better idea of "what a [web] address does", and sometimes even whether to "do a left or right click".

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

#35

Post by yummyfajitas »

I'm going to reject one of the premises of the article, namely the premise that he is helping people who are "barely surviving".

Let's consider people who are receiving cash or non-cash benefits, as the article described. Among these people, 67% have cable or satellite TV. 38% have a playstation. 47% own a computer. 23% have a big screen TV. Only 14% of people receiving government benefits lacked all of these luxuries. [1]

It's only in a nation as wealthy as the US that we could describe such a group of people as "barely surviving".

[1] Data from this csv file: http://explore.data.gov/Energy-and-Utilities/Residential-Ene...

Code definitions taken from here: http://www.eia.gov/emeu/recs/recspubuse05/pubuse05.html

It's my new favorite data set.

[edit: wow, do some data analysis on raw govt data, provide facts, and get downmodded about 3 seconds after posting. Did I accidentally post on reddit?]

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

#36

Post by clintjhill »

xenophanes wrote: post #18
pavs wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ust because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options. if you remove 'good' with 'useful', and it seems to me that this is exactly what tax payers should pay for. There are tons of useless shit tax money is used for, libraries is not one of them.

You seem to have no idea what the libertarian position is. So I'll try to help: Just because something is super good and super useful -- and uncontroversially worthwhile -- like groceries, cars, delivery of packages, the production of beds, health care, retirement savings, and so on ... absolutely does not imply that the Government should be paying for it with tax money. Libertarians believe that Government is kind o…

For things that are super good, super useful but not profitable nor predisposition for voluntary support how does a community get those things? Especially those within the community whom might not afford otherwise? And especially when the lack for them causes cascading affect to the whole of the community?

Seems to me an outbreak of disease by the poor surely effects the whole and that we all would do well to pay a "tax" to prevent that?

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

#37

Post by neilk »

xenophanes wrote: post #18
pavs wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ust because something is good doesn't mean the tax payers should pay for it. There are other options. if you remove 'good' with 'useful', and it seems to me that this is exactly what tax payers should pay for. There are tons of useless shit tax money is used for, libraries is not one of them.

You seem to have no idea what the libertarian position is. So I'll try to help: Just because something is super good and super useful -- and uncontroversially worthwhile -- like groceries, cars, delivery of packages, the production of beds, health care, retirement savings, and so on ... absolutely does not imply that the Government should be paying for it with tax money. Libertarians believe that Government is kind o…

Government is also useful for things which have massive positive externalities. Education is the paradigmatic example.

Libraries are also an example of a good where maintaining the "option to buy" is potentially more important than any service you consume. In other words, having a big pile of books in a building, available for close to no cost, enables us all to act more freely -- knowing we can get more information when we need it.

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

#38

Post by [deleted] »

urbanjunkie wrote: post #13
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…

> If they are a great idea, why not persuade people to voluntarily pay for them? Because, in this specific case, the people who most need libraries can often barely afford to pay for food and shelter. Libraries are such an obvious public good that I will never understand why they're not treated (both in the US and in the UK, and perhaps in other countries), as a basic and absolute necessity. [edited to add not which…

[deleted]

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

#39

Post by xenophanes »

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.

I was trying to present the good side of libertarianism.

The argument you present for libertarians is bad and borderline shameful (and, I think, not representative of the majority of libertarians. but certainly something some of them would say). But there much better arguments with similar conclusions.

The main reason it's an awful position, in my view, is that it's premised on conflicts of interest and compromise -- some things outweigh others, and there are losers which must lose while having legitimate points. It views life as a mixed bag, with inevitable suffering and sacrifice and loss.

This is not the position of, for example, Ayn Rand who argued in Virtue of Selfishness chapter 4 for a very different worldview in which there are no conflicts of interest among rational men.

Your claim that if voluntary charity worked, no one would have invented public services in the first place is incorrect. If voluntary charity didn't work in the context in which Government was first invented, that absolutely doesn't imply that a more sophisticated version of voluntary charity could not work today in a rather different world.

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

#40

Post by clintjhill »

skymt wrote: post #29
clintjhill wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police, Emergency and Fire departments are all "good" and "provide value" however they are not profitable. Nor do people run out to voluntarily pay for them. And there are a few cases where counties/municipalities created subscription like fees for these to the effect of somebody losing a house to a fire while the fire fighters stood to watch. This is the core of the problem with "no taxes" - principally it's good on…

Early fire departments were run by insurance companies to fight fires on their customers' properties. Those who couldn't afford insurance would be left to burn. http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/FireMarksAndPayments.asp

I didn't know about this and it's quite interesting. But I wonder why it no longer exists this way? Is there a reason why a "for-profit" discontinued a service like this?

EDIT: Seems I found a clue ....

"In 1862 insurance companies told the government that they were unwilling to be responsible for London’s fire protection as the cost of compensation was becoming too high. The government decided that the Metropolitan Board of Works would take control."

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