# "10% of the population could just never get it together." **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 19, 2013, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-population-could-just-never-get-it-together/669222 "2013-09-19T12:38:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-population-could-just-never-get-it-together/669222/41 "2013-09-20T03:12:52Z")
Something hard to account for is the recent change to an age of technology. Hard to say how many will not be able to adapt to this and most of our manufacturing jobs are gone. I have no doubt this will and has affected the number of those on public assistance of some kind. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-population-could-just-never-get-it-together/669222/42 "2013-09-20T03:32:46Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > Something hard to account for is the recent change to an age of technology. Hard to say how many will not be able to adapt to this and most of our manufacturing jobs are gone. I have no doubt this will and has affected the number of those on public assistance of some kind. > **[Unfit for Work: The startling rise of disability in America](https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/)** > > In the past three decades, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed. The rise has come even as medical advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job and new laws have banned workplace discrimination against the... ---
**Author:** ![Oedipus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Oedipus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oedipus)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-population-could-just-never-get-it-together/669222/43 "2013-09-20T12:40:25Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > When you factor in all the people with severe mental illness (borderlines, PTSD, schizophrenics, depressives, anxious types, autistics, retarded, etc) a good % are going to be incapable of functioning, esp when you consider that treatment was mostly non-existent until recently and even now is only so-so. A lot can and do function, but w/o treatment a lot cannot. > > Add in all the people who were horribly abused as kids until their minds were fucked, the social outcasts, invalids, the geriatric, etc. and yeah I can see 10% of people living on the fringes and unable to function. I’d like to run with this a little bit…THROUGHOUT history has this been the case? I would assume it has been so. Whether you look at India and the untouchable population or Biblical times and the lepers (I mean, they’re sick, but its still kind of the same point.) you can point to a certain population that just stuck out and didn’t fit within the larger society. BTW: HERE’S THE VIDEO OF SHANE SMITH TALKING ABOUT IT. He doesn’t say much extra about 10% but at least this is the video. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player\_detailpage&v=Jx2dyhRBkHA#t=6439](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Jx2dyhRBkHA#t=6439) ---
**Author:** ![DylanMcKean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ab097/32.png) [@DylanMcKean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DylanMcKean)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-population-could-just-never-get-it-together/669222/44 "2013-09-20T15:38:28Z")
Actually for this economic situation government should take some serious steps, it’s really huge population which is unemployed or not in good condition. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-population-could-just-never-get-it-together/669222/45 "2013-09-20T17:03:09Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > 😕 You seem to be assuming that only those who “rule everything” count as a “functioning productive member of society”. Peasants and serfs in pre-modern societies had pretty rough lives but they were hardly dysfunctional freeloaders on the efforts of wealthy elites. Indeed, the stereotypical peasant living in a leaky twig hut with no bed and only decaying rags for clothes was estimated by Barbara Tuchman to be only around – 10% of the population. The rest of the peasantry had more belongings and rights than we typically think. Now, like you say, not even all of _these_ poorest of the poor weren’t productive members of society. Some of them were serfs who just didn’t hold\* much land or were down on their luck. But some of them were displaced workers without even ancestral rights to farm the land as a serf, surviving on odds jobs or working other people’s fields. \*I say hold rather than own because of course in theory the land belonged to their lord, unlike the freeholder peasant. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-population-could-just-never-get-it-together/669222/46 "2013-09-23T02:08:45Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yeah, the OP should be less specific. X% is probably correct, where x \< 10% but \> 2%. > > I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw this hold true in the societies of our closest ape relatives, too. I’m highly dubious about this line of thinking, given the variance in the employment/population ratio for given age groups over long spans of time. In other words X isn’t fixed across societies or time: it varies. That said well over 2% in the US are institutionalized, recently institutionalized, elderly, under 16, or disabled and are therefore not suitable for highly productive employment. ETA: That was a reasonable attempt to sharpen the OP though. ---
**Author:** ![Oedipus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Oedipus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oedipus)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-population-could-just-never-get-it-together/669222/47 "2013-09-23T12:12:53Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Indeed, the stereotypical peasant living in a leaky twig hut with no bed and only decaying rags for clothes was estimated by Barbara Tuchman to be only around – 10% of the population. The rest of the peasantry had more belongings and rights than we typically think. Thats pretty interesting. I never actually knew that to be honest. Maybe I’ve just watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail too much. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-population-could-just-never-get-it-together/669222/48 "2013-09-23T16:11:42Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I think it’s kind of important to take care of the poor because hardship has a tendency to spread throughout society. I’d much rather shell out of a few bucks every year so that a broke-ass guy will have some food rather than pay thousands of dollars in hospital bills after he stabs in my throat while mugging me. > > A hungry mob is an angry mob. But hungry people don’t generally turn into angry mobs just because they are hungry. Let’s face it. Some lazy fuckup isn’t going to rise up in any meaningful way because no one sees injustice in a bunch of jobless stoners blazing up all day in their filthy flophouse. Not even the stoners themselves (beyond maybe some incoherent drug induced philosophical ramblings). Angry mobs form when people who do all the right things and play by the rules of society feel that the system no longer works for them. When smart, hardworking, ambitious people are left out of society that their anger causes them to start using their intelligence, ambition and work ethic to bring down that system. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-of-the-population-could-just-never-get-it-together/669222.md?page=2)