If the dole were limited to those who CAN’T work and those who can work were put to doing all kinds of public services for modest wages we could have clean streets, gorgeous parks, and many other desirable improvements. As long as we put NO conditions on the hand-out there will be many who are satisfied to scam the rest.
Ok, so I’ll address the question to you. Are you saying that not a single bagger has been promoted insid a grocery store because of apptitude in the last 30 years? Does limiting the question to the last 30 years really reduce the number to 0?
I will definitively state that a bagger has not been promoted as a result of aptitude for anything other than collecting more type A baggers in the last 30 years. As mentioned earlier, exersizing this aptitude for finding and circulating type A baggers is itself laziness, which actually makes the person who accepted the promotion a type B bagger assuming/accepting/exersizing the propoganda of having been a type A bagger.
There is no point, if you plan to have more money than another human being, to giving a promotion to a type A bagger. For one, you’re dismantling an intricate counter-intelligence structure used to define the acceptance of wealth as work, which directly impacts your ability to have more wealth than another human being.
And I will salute your courage in makeing such a definitive statement. Then I will ask you for a cite.
As mentioned earlier, exersizing this aptitude for finding and circulating type A baggers is itself laziness, which actually makes the person who accepted the promotion a type B bagger assuming/accepting/exersizing the propoganda of having been a type A bagger.
I hate (well not really) to be the one to break this to you. But bagging is far from the only job which needs to be done in a grocery store. You need a whole host of jobs to be done to make a store run. One way to find a good worker is to have experience with him in another job. Noting that a particular individual works hard at bagging certainly does not prove that he will be good at checkout. However, it does prove that he is willing to work hard. And speaking as someone who has had to hire and fire people, that is the most important factor in picking an applicant. The details of any particular job can be taught, within reason. It usually falls outside the scope of a managers job, however, to teach a good work ethic.
For one, you’re dismantling an intricate counter-intelligence structure used to define the acceptance of wealth as work, which directly impacts your ability to have more wealth than another human being.
[/QUOTE]
But if they are both type A baggers as defined below, how can you say that the one accepting 80k is lazier than the one accepting 20k. Especially since we have defined this odd hypothetical such that the two baggers are doing the same amount of work. Or, have we gone into some bizaro definition of lazy now?
This has been the crux of my point through the entire thread. I’ve been trying to clarify the whole time why this isn’t a “bizarro” definition of lazy.
Think about it. Who as a human being is worth more to the human race? Who is doing more work? The human who accepts 80k, or the one who refuses it for 20k? Which human being is intrinsically more valuable? Which human being has the highest constitution in the species?
It’s not a difficult question.
You did, this thread. You did not say that it was defensible to say that “SOME people are poor because they are lazy.” You said it was defensible to say that “People are poor because they are lazy.” This statement is absolute. No qualifiers appear in it. It does not say “Laziness is a possible cause of poverty.” It does not say “A proportion of poor people are poor because they are lazy.”
It was an absolute statement, with no qualification to it. It posited an absolute and complete identity. I’ll reproduce it again:
See, it doesn’t say that “some people” are poor because they are lazy. It doesn’t say that people are poor because of many causes, one of which could be laziness. It was an absolute statement. Please point out, quote the SPECIFIC qualifiers within the sentence you find so defensible that do not make in an absolute and unqualified statemen. I await your analysis.
It is, however, a meaningless one(particularly as you have framed the question of “intrinsic value” of humans solely in terms of labor and remuneration).
I think the poor are poor due to being intellectually lazy.
Not physically lazy.
They don`t tend to create situations or place themselves in positions that may increase their worth.
Striving to learn and acting on goals are a couple of the things that could create value for a person, in addition to hard work.
I know plenty of people that have lots of ideas and excellent goals, but never act on them. The mental obstacles are the hardest to overcome if you already have the physical abilities.
It`s funny how it works. You overwork your body and take your mind for granted rather than the other way around.
I stand by the “Work smarter, not harder” mentality.
Yeah, to Hell with all those lazy infants and children!!! If those damned poor two-year-olds were HALF as intellectually industrious as rich two-year-olds, they’d all be doing just fine! Any and all of those poor infants are POOR FOR THEIR OWN FAULT!!!
That is what your claim boils down to.
Can you explain to me how an infant born into poverty is automatically “intellectually lazy” or inferior to an infant born into wealth? Just how did the infant born into poverty earn that status. Please explain it.
Game theory essentially necessitates that many people end up “poor” with a few “big winners” regardless of the characteristics of the players.
It is debatable to what extent everyday economics is a positive-sum game (such that everyone can win something), but what is not in question is that it is absurd to castigate the losers given that they must necessarily exist in order for there to be winners.
Where the hell did that come from?
When did I mention children?
From the context of my post, anyone with half a brain could tell I was referring to an adult with some modicum of control over their situation.
I was addressing the OP directly. I didn`t intend to step on your toes.
dogface, are you trying to assert that certain people just cant become wealthy no matter how hard they try? I wouldnt buy it.
You make this too easy.
You are of the opinion that people who have been severely brain-damaged due to injury or illness have NO IMPAIRMENT, WHATSOEVER, to becoming wealthy other than their laziness. You have nowhere stated that the organically impaired are excluded from your prejudice. Can you prove that EVERY SINGLE poor person you have seen fit to smugly look down upon in the secrecy of your heart did not have some sort of organic impairment?
Likewise, consider the poor who live in North Korea. Are they all, every single one of them, no matter what, no exceptions, “mentally lazy” because of the circumstances they are in. Is YOUR starting condition as hard as theirs, or will your inevitable judgment of them come from a seat of status, comfort, and “let them eat cake”? After all, according to you, if they get machine-gunned trying to escape their lot, they’re just being “mentally lazy”. YOU could certainly have done MUCH better–unless you admit that you are equally as “mentally lazy” or suffer under the delusion that you are some sort of super-spy.
WTF?
Again, I was addressing the OP. The OP isn`t talking about the Mentally Retarded or those in 3rd world countries.
This comment by me;*
“are you trying to assert that certain people just cant become wealthy no matter how hard they try? I wouldnt buy it.”*
was in reference to persons here in our country (the US).
If you will go back and look at the post you will notice that the statement you are jumping up and down about is a quote from another poster. Specifically, I am trying to say that without including the “all” you can say that “people are poor because they are lazy”. Notice I said specifically “if stated just that way”. I was trying to point out that as long as the statement is not over broad then it is defensible. As soon as you try to make the overbroad claim that all lazy people become poor, or that all poor people are lazy is when the statement is no longer defensible.
Your right that I did not say “SOME people”. I was using a quote slightly out of context. I said “people”. As I said before, “people” does no mean in all and every usage “all people”. My dictionary suggests that “people” means: “*any group of human beings (men or women or children) collectively *”.
My point is that the assertion that “all people” are poor because they are lazy comes from a misreading of others statements. Just as you are doing to mine.
Really? You think that a person who refuses 80k for 20k in the above example is an example of a person who is intellectually lazier than the person who accepts 80k?
This gets into the hole of defining intelligence as greed and greed as value and value as intelligence… and greed as WORK.
Greed is anti work. A person who is not greedy is working exponentially more than a person who is greedy, both physically and psychologically.
If you don’t believe me, liquidate your wealth, give it to your next door neighbor or whatever and then simply refuse to accept more than 20k per year for the rest of your life. What is more work?
How is a human being that thrives from 20k per year LESS intelligent and doing LESS work by refusing inequitable ditribution?
The point is, that human being is more valuable in EVERY single possible respect.
They’re more intelligent, they’re doing more work, both physically and psychologically, they are adding to the wealth not only of themselves but of the species at large – they represent wealth itself, they are more intrinsically valuable, they embody wealth within their entity.
I simply don’t see the argument that someone who accepts 80k over 20k in ANY instance can possibly not be lazier than the other person in EVERY respect.
[continuing hijack on “survival of the fittest”]
(making huge effort to dust off long-dormant memories…)
(swallowing pride and googling…)
“A Theory of Population”, 1852. 7 years before “Origin”. Not clear if it’s in the exact form. Bartlett’s Quotations shows Darwin attributing the phrase to Spencer.
Well game theory is essentially wrong. This may be the situation when dealing with beings that aren’t aware that they exist. If you drop suicidal tension in a society down to zero, the only people who will reproduce are people whose minds don’t consider that the purpose for living is making sure that intent is being circumvented. Everyone is under pressure to translate all options and abilities across the board in order to assure individual and collective survival, everyone is required to do actual work.
The game theory you mention only works if the species is intentionally committing suicide, by increasing the suicidal tension in society and removing the pressure from which to abstract how to not intentionally commit suicide. The only reason people can get away with maldefining concepts is because of the increased suicidal tension in society in the first place – what this phenomenon actually is, is – the only reason why humans walk on this earth that aren’t aware that they exist are allowed to intermingle with human society is… a result of the increased suicidal tension in society.
The moment a person becomes accountable to the belief that they have an intent and are doing something of their intent under the auspices of the belief that they exist and are attempting to survive – that game theory at wikopedia becomes irrelevant.
Weird: just saw this somewhat topical, if ancient and possibly irrelevant, bit of coincidence:
Here is a Harvard Business School teacher who says that young George Bush declared in class that “people are poor because they are lazy.”
http://www.glocom.org/opinions/essays/20040301_tsurumi_president/
I hope you don’t mind if I doubt somewhat the accuracy of that quote.
While he certainly may have said something along those lines, I simply doubt that he said anything like “all poor people are lazy”.
Let me give you another proof that poor people are not lazy. If you ever do find someone who believes in such drivel. You don’t have to resort to looking at poor children, Dogface, all you have to do is look at the success stories. Go look up some of the success stories in the link I posted the other day. They were all poor people who worked very hard and eventually had enough wealth not to be considered poor. However, they certainly were poor at one time. The examples used to prove that hard work can raise people out of poverty themselves prove that not all poor people are lazy.