pervert responded directly to the OP by saying that one of Thea Logica’s fundamental propositions – that conservative talkshow hosts typically believe that poor people are lazy – is a strawman, and more than that, is incorrect. You’ve responded to pervert by constructing more strawmen: i.e., “are you be calling the OP a liar?”, and refusing to respond directly to pervert’s arguments.
So, in short, you have not responded with any justification for why we should believe the OP’s strawman, nor any support for the assumption that conservative talkshow hosts are responsible for the idea that the poor are just lazy, nor any support for your off-topic strawman in response to pervert.
So who here is sidestepping the issues? Who here is creating diversions? I eagerly await your direct, non-sidestepping response.
Captain Amazing has said it best. The protestant ethic is the basis of captialism. If someone fails it is because they are immoral, lazy, stupid, or all of the above. We are also strong believers in the theory of Social Darwinism. The best survive the weak die out.
Some people work smart/hard and get rich. Some people work hard and never make it. Some people want handouts from the gov’t. And others just don’t give a shit. The United States has more to offer opportunity-wise than any other land. Anyone can acquire wealth. The best advice I’ve gotten: if you want it bad enough, and work hard enough, than you can achieve it. Far better to see it this way than to whine about “this sad little planet”.
Far be it for me to switch horses in mid stream, but imoral, lazy, and stupid are not the only reason that people are poor. There is also uneducated, disabled, or unfortunate to name only three. Some of these can be overcome as can laziness, stupidity, and even immorality.
For the record, you seem to have missed the part where Captain Amazing said that Calvinism has been discredited.
Sorry should have put most Americans instead of we. I am sorry but especially in rural areas like the one that I live in the vast majority see laziness attributed to those qualities. I didnt say that I believe that way, the op wanted to know where the idea came from. That was where that I believe it came from. Yes there are the working poor trying desperately to make ends meet. Yes there are those who simply are disabled so that they cannot obtain a job. BUT the mainstream belief is from the afforementioned qualities. That is where they came from, I was trying to answer the post.
Oh pervert, now that I have reread all the posts, what exactly are you trying to say? The question was where did the idea come from. So far I have only seen you give your opinion as you sidestepped around the question with the sole purpose of insulting everyone else’s views. Dogface gave what he thought was the origin, I gave what I thought was the origin, and yet you attacked us without contributing to this post. As so far as your attack on dogface, wouldnt an origin on this matter probably date to the victorian period as the economy moved into the public sphere. And I said captain america had it right with the protestant ethic. Note the basis of protestant ethic as linked to this idealogy that we are debating the meaning of. Ironically they are the same. This is a widely held belief that may have caused people to have this belief. We are not debating the validity of the actual protestant ethic but the fact that maybe it could have caused this idealogy. What exactly do you think pervert. No sidestepping.
I apologize pervert. As I was fuming I attacked you and it was unwarranted. I apologize and now maybe I am starting to see your point. The attacks werent just for the shake of disproving and insulting they were to clarify. I humbly apologize and I hope you accept my apology.
BTW, just so we are clear as to my position on the origins of the idea that all poor people are lazy, I am contending that it is not as prevelant as has been portrayed. That is, it is more often a misunerstanding of the idea that “laziness can lead to poverty”. Rather than an explicit espression of some universal fault finding. Especially among talk show hosts and SDMB posters, if I may be so bold. I do not think that either of these groups is given to the sort of ignorance expressed by the idea that “if you’re poor, it’s because you’re lazy”.
If any of you have met people who do hold this opinion I believe you. I simply don’t recall any instances of talk show hosts or SDMB posters holding it. I’m certainly willing to be proven wrong.
I wouldn’t know about “growing up Orthodox”. I didn’t do that. There are ways to get sufficient calories on the Orthodox fasting regimen. Tofu is not prohibited, nor are legumes. Likewise, fruits are not restricted.
Did you even bother to read what I wrote? Do try to do that sometimes before commenting upon it. I was stating where I thought the belief came from. I was not stating what I thought the causes were.
Quote SPECIFICALLY where I stated who held such beliefs.
Likewise, give your counter-explanation for why some might believe that poverty is solely a result of laziness. If it is not for the reasons I propose, then what would give rise to the belief?
Ok, so I ow two applogies in this thread. A new record for me. I’m sorry if I implied that you implied anyone held those beliefs. I only used your name in response to a specific point I thoughtgrisham was making. It turns out I was wrong about that.
I never meant to suggest that you suggested any specific person held such a belief. And I was not trying to disparage your explanation of the origins of such a belief. I think it probably predates Calvanism and the Protestant work ethic. I think similar lines of reasoning can be found througout the middle ages and even earlier. As I said, I only mentioned your post because grisham did and to suggest that ideas like those you mentioned may have been prevelant at one time, but are not now. I appologize for leaving the impression that you meant any more than you posted.
Did I insult anyone else? What is the record for needing to appologize in one thread? Does anyone know?
Is it harder work to refuse to accept wealth that you have access to than it is to accept wealth that you have access to?
I’m of the mind that it’s harder work to refuse wealth that you have access to.
That’s why I’m stating that the observation that “poor people are lazier than the wealthy” is false in all instances.
What is harder work? Accepting a billion dollars that you have access to or refusing to accept a billion dollars that you have access to? This moves into the the topic of positive re-enforcement, which in human beings not only makes physical work neutral with regards to effort but actually compells it in an almost addictive manner, such that negative psychological work is occurring. Basically, you have people being paid more for doing LESS work… the definition of less work in general being accepting wealth that you have access to without placing some measure of accountability on your inherent purpose for accepting it.
I’m sure that there are people who have spent MANY more hours on some practice, research, discipline etc… than many of the luminaries of a given discipline, in fact, maybe they’re even better performers in all aspects, who get paid less… not because of the effort, but because of the result.
Take a person who makes 95% of their freethrows in a season of NBA, who has practiced these shots 40 hours a week since they were in the crib. Take another person who has devoted 80 hours a week since the crib in the same exact exersize who only makes 40% from the line. Economics has the 95%'er making 100’s of times more than the 40%'er even though we’re not sure WHY one is more accurate than another, as we don’t even bother as a society to study or even reward the study of how to transfer things like abilities in the first place. Not only that, but you now have a bunch of wealthy people (who actually haven’t done as much work) using all of their clout and wealth to make sure that abilities are not translatable in order to secure their popularity and remove any sort of accountability for the inherency of whether they deserve the wealth that they accept. Basically, you have people doing negative psychological work, negative translation work, moderate physcial work – and they are the highest rewarded individuals – individuals who use their psychology to accept access rather than translate their access, and attack people who attempt to translate access in order to secure their uninherent belief of value.
People who have the most wealth are doing the least work. People who have the least wealth are doing the most work. It’s simply more work to refuse to accept something that you have access to until you can verify that you inherently should accept it. What you observe with wealthy individuals is that they not only don’t test for the inherency of whether they deserve it in a manner consistent with the belief that even allowed them the access in the first place, the act of not doing this verification actually removes them from the act of doing work – they are more like a rat with an electrode zapping it’s brain to eat sugar until it’s dead – yeah, that rat is metabolizing lots of calories and really looking productive – but it’s not productive, it’s a robot of positive re-enforcement. As far as the psychological is concerned, this rat is actually incapable of work, or rather, it’s indentured system for the purpose of doing the work is being automated by the lab technicians.
Unlike rats though, humans are actually capable of placing accountability upon themselves to weed out any possibility of external influence as automating their indentured system so that they can get a clearer veiw of reality than this rat with the electrode zap, so they can get an ultimate handle on their consent. The very act of accepting wealth is exactly like being this rat in the cage, except, arguable, humans at least have the capability to take a stance and verify whether there is any untransparent influence occurring with respect to what they believe their purpose for accepting something is and what the end result will actually be.
you almost said something understandable here. Until I remember that I cannot understand a single thing you say…?? Are you saying that poor people have access to billions of dollars and don’t accept it?
Can you name any person who refuses a billion dollars and has access to it? In the normal everyday meanings of those words?
I’ll refrain from taking yet another thread down this particular hijack.
Without continuing the arguments about the prevalence of the stereotype you’d brought up, Thea, I have say I am in agreement that the modern, and especially American, belief that hard work leads to worldly success, and thus failure (or poverty) come from laziness dates back to the Calvinist beliefs of the Puritans. Of course it’s not something that the Calvinists invented - there’s some of that in Jewish cultural tradition, as well. But the influence of early Puritan beliefs on modern society is hard to exaggerate, IMNSHO.
No, I cannot. This is a hypothetical extreme of people we are quite familiar with… the person who gives people the correct change, returns anything of seeming value that they find to a lost and found, etc… refusing to use undefined terms in conversations to coerce opinions about others and incidentally behavior.
For the most part, if you call someone an idiot, you’re looking at having quite a few friends, lovers, etc… which arguably is the most valuable commodity on earth. These kinds of gossip algorithms are literally worth as much as a dollar – both are EMPTY symbols of wealth… relying upon something not being falsified or transparent in order to circularly convince yourself that what you accepted was meaningfully, inherently, attributed to your effort, your intent, your ultimate consent – it’s used to circularly validate your actions as well.
I’m stating that there is definately a type of work that humans do that is the most critical to the belief that they exist, and that the act of accepting wealth contradicts the ability to be doing this work - the type of work that will ultimately secure ones ability to ACTUALLY retire, instead of virtually retire and then grow old and die against their consent. There’s a human work, and then there is “a rock rolled down a hill” work. I’m trying to make clear that positive re-enforcement without accountability is ANTI work as far as humans are concerned, as in, nothing is actually getting done under the mechanism of “a being aware that it exists”. Motion is happening and energy is shuffling around… but as far as purpose; accepting wealth in all instances is less work than not accepting wealth.
In the unspoken shadows of every billionarre, there’s the person who actually figured the idea out first, built the first working prototype etc… There’s always “so and so in England in 1810” that are little footnotes in history because they weren’t the capitalists – The type of mind that actually brings into being more wealth is not wired to accept wealth, not wired to encrypt a technology, not wired to “play ball” – there is no room for error when you’re producing something that automates a human process that is not human – the inequity of wealth distribution is itself error.
I don’t want to hijack this thread either… there certainly is a point to be made about the difference between accepting and not accepting wealth; and also the difference between psychological and physical work. Most people, rich or poor use undefined terms when they express opinions to mitigate the psychological work or the idea that you’re supposed to falsify whether or not you inherently should accept something that you have access to. In general, most people don’t actually do work in the psychological sense, rich or poor. Given that access to certain people in coersive ways is interchangable with “billions of dollars”, or even considered more valuable – there is certainly an argument to be made that people who can accept a billions dollars don’t accept it, and that; Yes, this is harder work. Resisting the temptation to have in order to determine what allows you to have and/or be had. I find it absurd to suggest that making 100k per year and having lots of coersion over people is hard work; if you go to church and use a few undefined capitalistic platitudes, quote some sports statistics and whatnot, – working 120 hours a week, even at minimum wage, is not difficult. The secrets to success books that you see widely circulated are a joke… because ultimately you need to avoid doing psychological work to push 120 hour weeks; if you want to do that; the methods are very easy – but what work are you doing? You’re using undefined terms to give yourself access to and accept wealth… that’s all fine and well I guess, but you will die if you do that, you are not working for any chance of controlling your ability to not have your intent circumvented. It’s exactly like the rat with the zapper. We then cycle through another generation of greatness defined as who can be the vaguest and least accountable to their purpose for accepting what they have access to.
IIRC, shortly before his son was born, Bill Gates gave away the lion’s share of his fortune to various philanthropic organizations. Seems he didn’t feel like the kid should just have this massive fortune handed to him just because he happened to be lucky enough to spring from the loins of the wealthiest man in the known universe. Something about the kid would be more appreciatve of money if he actually had to earn it. Don’t know if that strictly qualifies. I’m too tired to actually dig up a cite for this, but I do recall hearing the story somewhere. If someone who is less search-engine challenged than I am can help, I’d appreciate it. If I don’t have an answer when I check this thread tomorrow, I’ll try to search it myself (and probably have to slog through several gazillion irrelavant hits)
Anyhoo, it seems like the people who actually found companies have an ethic of paying the employees a decent wage, giving them good benefits, actually listening to their ideas, and generally treating them like human beings. The companies grow and thrive. Then Mr. Sa- uh, I mean, the fouder dies, and his kids (or eventually grandkids) inherit the company, and they have no appreciation for the work it took to build it, or the front line physical labor required to keep the money flowing in, so Rob Wal- er, I mean, the kids see all that lovely money coming in, decide to come up with ways to increase that flow of money, then decide the best way would be to cut costs, usually labor costs, and then the employees start getting screwed.
Reagan’s people promoted the idea. Don’t you remember the welfare queens?
However, it’s important to note that the value of someone’s services often has nothing to do with how hard they work, and more to do with factors a person cannot change unless over the very long run, and usually not even then.
[quote=furt=A lazy person is, however much more likely, sooner or later, to end up poor.[/quote]
This is quite true.
Though I’ve found personally that of the people I’ve worked with, most poor people’s lack of inaction comes after long years of trying and failing to make a difference in their circumstances: basically their spirit and gumption has been worn away more than they are just outright lazy.
It’s in most cases extremely dishonest to cite the fact that some people do make it. Those that do are both rare and usually have special non-transferable talents and circumstances that others do not (or the lack of any of the serious burdens that plauge poor people’s finances and lives).
I’ve seen people cite statistics on class mobility that actually use stories like this: a buddying pizza deliveryman gets unemployed for four years during which he only works part time for a pittance, and yet somehow lands a stockbroker job at Salomon Smith Barney. An american miracle, right! Nope: the average story of your standard child of wealth, afterschool job to college to social capital internship to chosen career. And yet this is somehow counted as a class mobility story, when it’s really just a age-mobility story.
What is the record for needing to appologize in one thread? Does anyone know?