How well do you know your country?
-
@Dragnslcr said in How well do you know your country?:
I'll highlight the important part:
No, it's not important. How do you know what the guy would have done if she said "no, oh, and also it's my fertile days, and by the way I feel something kicking"?
You two seem to think abortion is a logical consequence of an unwanted pregnancy. To many people, it's not.
-
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
But one thing is that poverty is actually a relative thing
No. Poverty is a social decision of, "here is this subjective line that we find to be acceptable standard of living". Mostly set around basic needs and utilities based on your country's standard of living. It's not relative to how much other people make. An entire country can be in absolute poverty. Every single individual in it.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
otherwise there will always be feelings of poverty.
When you're talking about progressive tax rates, and your justifications is feelings, progressive tax rates is what led to the middle class being the highest % taxed group. Please, take the time to really think where your definitions are leading.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
matters in an ideal society is as much the feeling of poverty than the real thing
No.
You are so far removed from the medieval concepts of peasantry, they would literally laugh and spit in your face for your feelings. You know what the top 1% of the world is, 32k. That's it. Are you suggesting 1st world poor should be taxed to pay for 3rd world rich? By your definition, if we all had 18k, that's it, world poverty ended.
Poverty is subjectively compared to the standard of living, not the richest people.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
reduce inequality
key words.
Your definition of poverty leads to, the only solution is perfect equality, which we'll never achieve. Because no matter how small the difference, there will be "feelings" of poverty.
We can't stop inequality. We can however, help people achieve an acceptable standard of living. And that won't come from making sure the rich don't earn too much.
-
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
If the least wealthy own 79.8% that leaves 20.2% for the wealthiest 30%. How can that be anything but a contradiction?
I know (and for the record my guess was more around 30%... still got it wrong...), but my point is that understanding that question requires some mathematical fluency. When you see how people struggle with simple things such as rebates in shops ("an item priced 200 has a 50% rebate, how much does it cost?" -> many, many people will say 150, or 50, or anything but the right answer...), I expect that many people had trouble not with the idea behind the question but with the question itself.
True, the question is difficult. However, like for estimates of that rebate I'd expect to see roughly as many under- as overestimates if they really hadn't grasped it at all.
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
Inequality is only a problem where the poor don't have enough, and THE reason they don't have enough is because the rich somehow make it impossible for them to have enough BY taking too much money.
Otherwise inequality is not THE problem, poverty is.
Inequality is still one of the better predictors for a whole bunch of things like mental illness, incarceration rates, drug abuse, teenage pregnancies etc., independently of the absolute level of economic well-being.
However, you do have more personal mobility to avoid poverty, than you did in the past.
Interestingly you also have more of that in countries with a more equalized income distribution. Graph from "The Spirit Level" by Wilkinson & Pickett:
-
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
But one thing is that poverty is actually a relative thing
No. Poverty is a social decision of, "here is this subjective line that we find to be acceptable standard of living". Mostly set around basic needs and utilities based on your country's standard of living. It's not relative to how much other people make. An entire country can be in absolute poverty. Every single individual in it.
subjective, based on your country's standard of living. Your own words that show that this is relative. I don't particularly want to go into a
thread, but you're not making it easy.The fact that an entire country can be in poverty doesn't mean that what is considered as poverty cannot vary across countries, you're missing the point.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
matters in an ideal society is as much the feeling of poverty than the real thing
No.
Yes.
You are so far removed from the medieval concepts of peasantry, they would literally laugh and spit in your face for your feelings.
Probably not as they wouldn't even understand what I'm talking about. So what? Because our goals today are not the same as the goals of people leaving in the past, we should abandon all our goals? Is that what you're saying? Medieval peasants would have been happy with a fire, a broth and some reasonably fresh water, so this is what we should make sure everyone in the society has, and nothing more?
You know what the top 1% of the world is, 32k. That's it. Are you suggesting 1st world poor should be taxed to pay for 3rd world rich?
No.
(you don't seem to be interested in expressing ideas, I don't see why I should do all the work)
Under your definition of poverty, the only solution is perfect equality, which we'll never achieve. Because no matter how small the difference, there will be "feelings" of poverty.
Yep. Congratulations, you manage to understand at least one thing. The next step is to understand that the fact that a goal is ideal doesn't mean we cannot try to go in that direction.
Your position seems to be that since we will never suppress it, then there is nothing to do about it. I guess you are also opposed to any idea of justice and policing, since we will never get rid of crime, there is nothing to do about it.
-
You've edited your post as I was answering, apologies for missing out the bits that actually make most sense...
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
Poverty is subjectively compared to the standard of living, not the richest people.
We can't stop inequality. We can however, help people achieve an acceptable standard of living. And that won't come from making sure the rich don't earn too much.
Now we're getting closer to something we can agree on. If I came across as saying that I wanted to reduce inequality exclusively by capping the richest ones, then I came across wrong.
Yet there aren't that many ways to tackle the problem. Either you assume that the overall wealth can be increased, and then ensuring an acceptable standard of living (to use your words) can be done by ensuring that poor people get a larger share of the growth. Or you consider that the overall wealth is a constant value (or that the growth is too small to make any significant dent in the inequality), and then to improve the status of the poorest, you have to take from the richest. How much you can take and how you take it, is where the ideals turns into politics...
-
I got ranked 28 for the US.
I was a bit surprised to see that it predicts the percentage of Muslim population to grow, specifically over the next 4 years. Were the relevant predictions made before or after Donald Trump won the election?
-
@LaoC said in How well do you know your country?:
Inequality is still one of the better predictors for a whole bunch of things like mental illness, incarceration rates, drug abuse, teenage pregnancies etc., independently of the absolute level of economic well-being.
That's because that level of inequality contains substandard poverty levels. It's not the inequality.
If you manage to move the bottom rung up, you'll have less inequality, that's directly focused on the real problem. However, if you try to solve the problem indirectly, by focusing on moving the top rung down, you won't solve the problem.
@LaoC said in How well do you know your country?:
Interestingly you also have more of that in countries with a more equalized income distribution.
Great, now put a country in abject poverty on that chart. I bet they rank "Low Low".
-
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
subjective, based on your country's standard of living. Your own words that show that this is relative. I don't particularly want to go into a thread, but you're not making it easy.
But you're focused on the wrong thing.
Look
Poverty --------- Standard of Living --------- RichIn your model, both must move relative to each other.
Poverty - Standard of Living - RichIn mine, poverty level can move independent of rich level. Poverty is based on standard of living, not standard of wealth.
Poverty - Standard of Living -----------------Rich@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
Your position seems to be that since we will never suppress it, then there is nothing to do about it.
No.
That's just what you seem to perceive from what I said. You speculated this.
My point is that solving inequality shouldn't be the goal. It's not an inherent good.
Solving poverty should be the goal, and that's independent of solving inequality, even if some solutions overlap.
I'm not interested in solving someone's problem of not having a Lamborghini, but solving their problems of health care, home, and food, and at least some disposable income on the side.
-
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
Poverty --------- Standard of Living --------- RichIn your model, both must move relative to each other.
Poverty - Standard of Living - RichIn mine, poverty level can move independent of rich level. Poverty is based on standard of living, not standard of wealth.
Poverty - Standard of Living -----------------RichBut you are assuming that the standard of living does not change! And the whole point of the relativity in the definition of poverty is that the standard of living does change. For example, the OECD defines poverty as "below 60% of the median income". So mathematically, as you increase the income of the poorest, the standard of living (the definition of poverty) will increase. So that will bring down the gap between "standard of living" and "rich", but not by moving the rich down!
So what happens in your model is not:
Poverty - Standard of Living -----------------Richbut:
Poverty --------- Standard of Living ---------RichAnd suddenly both yours and mine are very similar!
You are still trying to make it sound as if my goal was to move down the rich simply for the sake of moving down the rich, not as a consequence of the rest (that may be one of the components of the system, typically if you ask them to contribute to help the poor that has the logical effect of making them less rich, but it's not the goal, just the consequence of the limited overall amount of wealth available).
Factoring in some contribution from the richest, you end up with:
Poverty - Standard of Living -------RichDoes that seem so wrong to you? We've greatly improved the status of the poorest (they are now above what previously was the poverty line, and even if they are still poor by the new standard, they are still much better off than before), and only slightly reduced the richest ones in absolute terms. Now, in relative terms, the rich are indeed now much closer to the poverty line, so you may argue that they are poorer... but this relative effect is not necessarily a bad thing as this is part of the inequality reduction.
That's just what you seem to perceive from what I said. You speculated this.
Well, that seems to the theme of the discussion. I could say the same of most of your comments.
-
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
I could say the same of most of your comments.
Not really.
I've only said that focus on the wealth of the rich leads to changes that don't really solve the problem. I've said that you're focusing on the wrong problem. I haven't assumed what you want to do.
That's relevant, because the focus politically is on the morality of owning wealth above the standard of living.
The focus should be on the standard of living. If the rich gain or lose, that's not a problem.
I was a little trollish with my first post, initially, but I immediately cleaned that up before the next post.
-
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
I've only said that focus on the wealth of the rich leads to changes that don't really solve the problem. I've said that you're focusing on the wrong problem. I haven't assumed what you want to do.
Well, you're still putting words that I haven't said in my mouth by saying that. I don't think I've been particularly focussing onto the wealth of the rich, apart when you brought that up. My focus has always been about reducing the inequalities.
Now you may disagree with that goal and say that the only thing that matters is reducing poverty (and that it doesn't matter if at the same time the rich become richer i.e. inequality increases). My personal view is that you cannot really decouple the two and that even if no one is poor (forgetting for one moment that the definitions we use make that impossible), a society with a large degree of inequality will be less happy than a more equal one. I am aware that we can't reach perfect equality, not so much as a physical impossibility but rather because that would mean a system with too much unhappiness so that would be opposite to the main goal of society!
That's relevant, because the focus politically is on the morality of owning wealth above the standard of living.
The focus should be on the standard of living. If the rich gain or lose, that's not a problem.
On the short term or as the primary goal, I agree with you. I still believe that on a secondary level, letting inequalities develop does not lead to a better society. I know that this goal cannot, practically, be advanced without a burden on the richest and I think that this is morally right (and I say so while being aware that I am part of the richest -- not 1% in my country, but clearly 1% in the world, as we probably all are here based on the figure you cited earlier). Take this, if you want, as my modern version of Christian charity.
That does mean that there is a higher moral focus on the contributions, in the widest and not only monetary sense, of the richest to society than on those of the poorest. That is indeed a moral focus that you may also disagree with, and I think that our respective backgrounds, US vs. Europe, plays a role in these differences.
I was a little trollish with my first post, initially, but I immediately cleaned that up before the next post.
I've seen that and appreciate it. We've managed to stay out of reach of the
!
-
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
a society with a large degree of inequality will be less happy than a more equal one
Do not care.
It is not a necessity to increase happiness, only to unburden the pursuit of it. If someone fails to find happiness in a system with equal opportunity (which doesn't exist), I do not care.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
letting inequalities develop does not lead to a better society.
And I personally believe that the absence of inequalities, to a certain extent, make society worse.
They don't have to be this mind boggling large, but they need to exist.
That said, systems that don't have financial inequality, tend to find ways to introduce social inequality, or inequality of opportunity. Friends of government, or some other system takes the place of wealth. With a financial inequality, a third party can, by the market, increase your financial position. With social inequality, no third party can improve your position. You have to find favor with the first party.
It's not a difference wealth to eat at a fancy restaurant vs. a drive-thru. Yet, such perks exist in systems of financial equality.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
Take this, if you want, as my modern version of Christian charity.
No. Absolutely not. It subverts Christian charity. As Scrooge says, "I pay my taxes!"
In no manner does forced participation become a moral good. A utilitarian one due to utility being about outcome, but not an inherent moral good. It may have you feel better to live in a society where the rich have the legal burden of helping the needy. But that's not you with that burden. You are benefiting emotionally from someone else sacrifice. That is not a moral thing, it is a necessary evil at best.
-
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
now, feel free to mock feelz > realz and that having enough to feed yourself or whatever metric you choose make people not-poor whatever they may say, but that won't change the fact what matters in an ideal society is as much the feeling of poverty than the real thing
Take a breath. Punctuation is your friend.
-
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
Funny how the government overestimates its knowledge of what the poor have.
They're far easier to estimate than the rich. No bank accounts on the Bahamas and no attorney/administrator in Panama.
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
lured
Riiight.
The only thing history has been able to do, is make the top 1% into government instead of private citizens.
You mean the medieval traders who were richer than the kings as opposed to today's government officials like Buffett, Bezos and Zuckerberg? Makes total sense.
-
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
Inequality is still one of the better predictors for a whole bunch of things like mental illness, incarceration rates, drug abuse, teenage pregnancies etc., independently of the absolute level of economic well-being.
That's because that level of inequality contains substandard poverty levels. It's not the inequality.
It's not the absolute standard of living, that much is for sure. What's a "substandard poverty level"?
If you manage to move the bottom rung up, you'll have less inequality, that's directly focused on the real problem. However, if you try to solve the problem indirectly, by focusing on moving the top rung down, you won't solve the problem.
Currently we're focused very much on moving the top rung up at high speed while the low one gets lowered just slightly.
@LaoC said in How well do you know your country?:
Interestingly you also have more of that in countries with a more equalized income distribution.
Great, now put a country in abject poverty on that chart. I bet they rank "Low Low".
You can do that, it just wouldn't make much sense as that's not a public policy option. In any case I wouldn't bet on it. If getting your hands on a shovel instead of digging with sticks like everyone else can make a big difference, that's in easier reach for poor people than in a place where you have to invest a million before you're even able to work what you're trained to do.
-
@LaoC said in How well do you know your country?:
You can do that, it just wouldn't make much sense as that's not a public policy option.
Really....
That's right, you just ignore all the examples throughout history.
We all know you're the type that thinks socialism fixes all the ills and any faults it has is due to capitalism leaking through the seams, so this conversation is going nowhere.
-
@LaoC said in How well do you know your country?:
You mean the medieval traders who were richer than the kings as opposed to today's government officials like Buffett, Bezos and Zuckerberg? Makes total sense.
So we both agree that socialism fixes nothing.
Good.
I mean, obviously I can't come up with a single example, and socialist countries have existing throughout history, so, there you go.
-
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
@LaoC said in How well do you know your country?:
You can do that, it just wouldn't make much sense as that's not a public policy option.
Really....
That's right, you just ignore all the examples throughout history.
The ones where a government has decided to turn an industrialized country into one living in abject poverty in order to increase social mobility? Tell me about them.
We all know
Is that you and your shoulder aliens?
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
@LaoC said in How well do you know your country?:
You mean the medieval traders who were richer than the kings as opposed to today's government officials like Buffett, Bezos and Zuckerberg? Makes total sense.
So we both agree that socialism fixes nothing.
I mean, obviously I can't come up with a single example, and socialist countries have existing throughout history, so, there you go.
-
@Maciejasjmj said in How well do you know your country?:
@CoyneTheDup said in How well do you know your country?:
There are a lot of people who do, though. I remember being told once, by a woman, about a guy she had intercourse with, out of wedlock. No condom, because he didn't like those; and afterward he asks if she was on the pill. But he was strongly anti-abortion...
Uh, that's not a moral dissonance.
"He said he was against murdering prostitutes, but he had unprotected sex with one! Haha, what a hypocrite, he doesn't understand that knocking up a prostitute logically means that you have to shank her and throw the body in the dumpster! Right, guys?"
Durr durr durr durr durr durr durr! Right, guys?
Durr. durr. [upvote]
Durr. durr. [upvote]
Durr. durr. [upvote]
-
@CoyneTheDup said in How well do you know your country?:
@Maciejasjmj said in How well do you know your country?:
@CoyneTheDup said in How well do you know your country?:
There are a lot of people who do, though. I remember being told once, by a woman, about a guy she had intercourse with, out of wedlock. No condom, because he didn't like those; and afterward he asks if she was on the pill. But he was strongly anti-abortion...
Uh, that's not a moral dissonance.
"He said he was against murdering prostitutes, but he had unprotected sex with one! Haha, what a hypocrite, he doesn't understand that knocking up a prostitute logically means that you have to shank her and throw the body in the dumpster! Right, guys?"
Durr durr durr durr durr durr durr! Right, guys?
Durr. durr. [upvote]
Durr. durr. [upvote]
Durr. durr. [upvote]Quality argument.
Look, I don't even know what the hell you're arguing at that point. That you can't knock someone up, or get knocked up, and refuse to resort to abortion? That those 20 percent will have an abortion anyway when push comes to shove? That extramarital sex is worse than abortion?
-
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
It is not a necessity to increase happiness, only to unburden the pursuit of it. If someone fails to find happiness in a system with equal opportunity (which doesn't exist), I do not care.
I understood as much, and I fear we have a fundamental disagreement here. For me, allowing the pursuit of happiness is good, but not enough. If a significant portion of the society cannot find happiness, I believe we have to find out why, I believe that we cannot simply say "that's their problem". It might not be possible to increase their happiness without decreasing that of others and then we've got to find the right balance, but I do care about everyone being happy, not only being able to make themselves happy.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
letting inequalities develop does not lead to a better society.
And I personally believe that the absence of inequalities, to a certain extent, make society worse.
Again, different opinions. My point of view is that while it is not obvious that absence of inequality by itself would be bad, it is fairly clear that very large inequalities do make society worse and that this is enough to try and limit them. We know we're not going to increase happiness by letting inequalities grow, and we're probably going to increase happiness by decreasing them.
That said, systems that don't have financial inequality, tend to find ways to introduce social inequality, or inequality of opportunity.
Oh yes, and this is why the inequality discussion is not purely in terms of wealth and money. But it is easier to frame it this way, and the same general principles apply to all aspects.
Friends of government, or some other system takes the place of wealth. With a financial inequality, a third party can, by the market, increase your financial position. With social inequality, no third party can improve your position. You have to find favor with the first party.
Meh. That's assuming that the social inequality is entirely in the hands of one homogeneous group, which is kind of the same as the communist rhetoric of the capital being in the hands of one group. This is wrong for capital because all financial actors do not have the same interest and behave in the same way, and I don't see why that wouldn't also be the case in a society where all inequality would be social but not financial (which, to be honest, I have difficulty imagining, so it's rather hard trying to guess what we're thinking about here...).
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
Take this, if you want, as my modern version of Christian charity.
No. Absolutely not. It subverts Christian charity. As Scrooge says, "I pay my taxes!"
I never said to stop at paying your taxes. But you can't consider yourself charitable if you don't pay your taxes (leaving aside issues of whether the collection of taxes or their use is proper, which is kind of what we're assuming in this ideal scenario). It's not enough, but it's part of the deal.
In no manner does forced participation become a moral good. A utilitarian one due to utility being about outcome, but not an inherent moral good. It may have you feel better to live in a society where the rich have the legal burden of helping the needy. But that's not you with that burden. You are benefiting emotionally from someone else sacrifice. That is not a moral thing, it is a necessary evil at best.
Did you miss the part where I said that I am aware of being in the richest ones? I do live with that burden, I am the one paying my taxes and making that sacrifice. Not the biggest one, far from it (as I said, I'm not 1% in my country, and I'm probably very very far from it!), but I definitely put more into the system than what I get from it. And I'm OK with that, because it does not bring me to down to an unbearable level (so no significant decrease of happiness for me), and it helps others (so increase of happiness for others -- again, assuming the taxes and stuff are properly used, which is a different discussion and if we start discussing that I'm much less OK with it...).
Now, where you do have a point is about forced participation. Indeed, forcing a moral standpoint on others is wrong. But then again, this is the whole point of a democratic society, to decide together what we feel the priorities and the moral goals of our society should be, in a manner such that everyone voluntarily abides by the result. Not saying we're living in perfect democracies, but again, that's the ideal. And before that, this is the point of having an enlightened system of education where we teach people to try and think about society as a whole and not only about themselves. And this is why we are discussing that here, rather than me or you shooting people to get what we want.
-
@Maciejasjmj said in How well do you know your country?:
Quality argument.
Well, your post wasn't exactly a prime quality argument either, was it? Did you find that on a reject bubblegum wrapper?
Since you're having such a hard time with this, let me highlight the "reasoning" high points of the guy in my short story...
I remember being told once, by a woman, about a guy she had intercourse with, out of wedlock (Because extramarital sex is obviously not immoral, and besides he was thinking with his little head.). No condom, because he didn't like those (His sexual experience is obviously paramount.); and afterward he asks if she was on the pill (Because when did the little head ever bother to think ahead about a little detail like unwanted pregnancy? Besides, asking might ruin the mood and then the slut wouldn't put out.) . But he was strongly anti-abortion...(So, slut, if I get you pregnant, you'd better bring my issue to term. God forbid abortion, that would be murdering my child. Also, I'll expect visitation and all the other fatherhood rights. But you better not send me a child support bill because that would make you greedy as well as being a slut--as far as money and diaper-changing goes, the kid is your problem.)
And you see no moral or cognitive dissonance with that? Well then you're as much of an idiot as he was.
Recommendation: Think with the big head.
-
@CoyneTheDup You're adding a hell of a lot of assumption there. Why does it follow that the man would want visitation but not want to pay child support? Why does it follow that he thinks she's a slut?
Is this how you think, so you assume others do as well?
-
@CoyneTheDup said in How well do you know your country?:
I remember being told once, by a woman, about a guy she had intercourse with, out of wedlock (Because extramarital sex is obviously not immoral, and besides he was thinking with his little head.).
Because women are obviously unwitting passive parties in sex. And morality is absolute and works according to what you think is moral.
@CoyneTheDup said in How well do you know your country?:
No condom, because he didn't like those (His sexual experience is obviously paramount.);
And as a woman, you have to agree to that, of course. Because you're a woman and God forbid you refuse to have unsafe sex with some other guy.
@CoyneTheDup said in How well do you know your country?:
But he was strongly anti-abortion...(So, slut, if I get you pregnant, you'd better bring my issue to term. God forbid abortion, that would be murdering my child.
And if the woman in question was not okay with that, maybe not having unprotected sex in the first place would be a bit smarter, huh?
And of course, the man has absolute rule over the woman's body, and if the man says you can't have an abortion, then you can't have an abortion. That's how life works, girls.
@CoyneTheDup said in How well do you know your country?:
Also, I'll expect visitation and all the other fatherhood rights. But you better not send me a child support bill because that would make you greedy as well as being a slut--as far as money and diaper-changing goes, the kid is your problem.
And now you're just conjecturing out of your ass what the guy would do. Projecting much?
-
@Jaloopa said in How well do you know your country?:
@CoyneTheDup You're adding a hell of a lot of assumption there. Why does it follow that the man would want visitation but not want to pay child support? Why does it follow that he thinks she's a slut?
Is this how you think, so you assume others do as well?
I'll summarize back-thread for you: This started when someone was surprised at the survey results, which seemed inconsistent. That's because (roughly) 65% of the US thinks abortion is immoral, but only 45% think premarital sex is immoral (and BTW, 95% have had premarital sex). Which seems a bit dissonant, since the same people are being surveyed and the topics share the common thread of unwanted pregnancy.
And I grew up in a public school, in a farming community, but the motifs were very common:
- Frustration because women wouldn't "put out" (have intercourse) before marriage, as if that was a duty on her part.
- A consensus that a woman who did put out was a "slut" (unless the man was "in love" with her)..and especially if she put out for more than one man.
That attitude still exists broadly; for an extreme example, read up on Elliot Rodger. It was almost universal language, in my experience: expected language; I can recall teasing of men who refused to use it.
The guy I was told about above always seemed to me to be a member of the "duty to put out" clan; though I admit that's interpretation on my part. But even leaving out the "slut" part, the moral (re: premarital sex and abortion) and cognitive (waiting until after the act to consider the risks) dissonance remain.
-
@CoyneTheDup said in How well do you know your country?:
65% of the US thinks abortion is immoral, but only 45% think premarital sex is immoral (and BTW, 95% have had premarital sex). Which seems a bit dissonant, since the same people are being surveyed and the topics share the common thread of unwanted pregnancy.
I don't see why you think that's dissonant. Not all premarital sex is unprotected, not all premarital sex that leads to pregnancy is unwanted, not all abortions are from premarital sex. You're throwing a hell of a lot of your preconceived ideas on the statistics and anecdotes, and expecting people to share them, or at least know what they are
-
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
No. Poverty is a social decision of, "here is this subjective line that we find to be acceptable standard of living". Mostly set around basic needs and utilities based on your country's standard of living. It's not relative to how much other people make. An entire country can be in absolute poverty. Every single individual in it.
Strictly, there's two forms of poverty; they often occur together, but are really different things. One is what I'll term absolute poverty, which is where a person is unable to get sufficient of the basics (food, clothing and accommodation suitable to the environment, etc.) and this is the one which it is relatively possible for public action to deal with. When someone is absolutely poor, they're in a bad state and their income such as it is will be spent almost all on necessities, even if not always as effectively as possible.
The other is relative poverty, which is where the person perceives themselves as being poor in relation to others that they feel it is reasonable to compare themselves to. (Yes, it really is based on feelz.) It's not really possible to do very much about this, as economies will end up with distributions of income and wealth, and the consequences for lack of social status are pretty well described, but the impact can be lessened by encouraging people to compare themselves against others who are similar to themselves, not very different. Alas, when the rich feel they need to flaunt everything in public and the poor are encouraged to want to emulate the rich (despite being unable to afford to actually do so) then things aren't getting better.
Of course, absolute poverty is actually relative to the local cost of living, etc. The key difference is that it is entirely possible to ensure that virtually everyone is not absolutely poor, but impossible to stop anyone (or even possibly a majority) from being relatively poor. OTOH, it's probably cheaper to lessen the effects of relative poverty through engineering society so as to value modesty over showing off, whereas absolute poverty requires real spending since it sets actual hard requirements…
-
@Jaloopa said in How well do you know your country?:
@CoyneTheDup said in How well do you know your country?:
65% of the US thinks abortion is immoral, but only 45% think premarital sex is immoral (and BTW, 95% have had premarital sex). Which seems a bit dissonant, since the same people are being surveyed and the topics share the common thread of unwanted pregnancy.
I don't see why you think that's dissonant. Not all premarital sex is unprotected, not all premarital sex that leads to pregnancy is unwanted, not all abortions are from premarital sex. You're throwing a hell of a lot of your preconceived ideas on the statistics and anecdotes, and expecting people to share them, or at least know what they are
Does it help if you understand that Christian religious authority forbids both?
-
@CoyneTheDup so most people who believe both are wrong may well be Christian, others may have their own beliefs, Where's the dissonance?
-
@CoyneTheDup said in How well do you know your country?:
And you see no moral or cognitive dissonance with that?
I like how you really hit your crazy stride here:
So, slut, if I get you pregnant, you'd better bring my issue to term. God forbid abortion, that would be murdering my child. Also, I'll expect visitation and all the other fatherhood rights. But you better not send me a child support bill because that would make you greedy as well as being a slut--as far as money and diaper-changing goes, the kid is your problem
-
@CoyneTheDup said in How well do you know your country?:
Which seems a bit dissonant, since the same people are being surveyed and the topics share the common thread of unwanted pregnancy.
Only if you've never met any people and think that they are very good at living up to what they believe is right or wrong.
-
@Jaloopa said in How well do you know your country?:
You're throwing a hell of a lot of your preconceived ideas on the statistics and anecdotes, and expecting people to share them, or at least know what they are
You must be new to CoynePosts.
-
@Jaloopa said in How well do you know your country?:
Where's the dissonance?
The dissonance comes from not thinking about mitigating the risk until after taking the risk. Pregnancy is undesirable. Aborting an unwanted pregnancy is wrong. Hur, dur; don't do anything to avoid creating a pregnancy.
It's a bit like drunk driving. Drunk driving is bad. I'm going to out drinking. After I drive home, I'll ask my buddy if I was too drunk and should have let him drive. A bit late for that, don't you think?
That said, if the woman was fertile and she had unprotected sex with him anyway, she's a fool, too.
-
@HardwareGeek said in How well do you know your country?:
The dissonance comes from not thinking about mitigating the risk until after taking the risk.
There are other ways to deal with the fallout than abortion. Yes, if you have unprotected sex with someone you don't plan to raise a kid with you're very much an idiot, but that has nothing to do with abortion.
@HardwareGeek said in How well do you know your country?:
Hur, dur; don't do anything to avoid creating a pregnancy.
To be fair, "not doing anything" is a good way to avoid pregnancy.
-
@Maciejasjmj said in How well do you know your country?:
To be fair, "not doing anything" is a good way to avoid pregnancy.
Tell that to Joseph
-
@boomzilla said in How well do you know your country?:
@CoyneTheDup said in How well do you know your country?:
Which seems a bit dissonant, since the same people are being surveyed and the topics share the common thread of unwanted pregnancy.
Only if you've never met any people and think that they are very good at living up to what they believe is right or wrong.
As someone who has very strong, conservative beliefs about what is right and wrong, but who falls very far short of living up to those beliefs, yes, it is dissonant. The difference between what I genuinely believe and what I actually do is mind boggling. I believe a Mozart sonata; I live like a three year old banging randomly on the keys of an out of tune toy piano.
-
@Maciejasjmj said in How well do you know your country?:
To be fair, "not doing anything" is a good way to avoid pregnancy.
QFFT!
-
@HardwareGeek said in How well do you know your country?:
@boomzilla said in How well do you know your country?:
@CoyneTheDup said in How well do you know your country?:
Which seems a bit dissonant, since the same people are being surveyed and the topics share the common thread of unwanted pregnancy.
Only if you've never met any people and think that they are very good at living up to what they believe is right or wrong.
As someone who has very strong, conservative beliefs about what is right and wrong, but who falls very far short of living up to those beliefs, yes, it is dissonant. The difference between what I genuinely believe and what I actually do is mind boggling. I believe a Mozart sonata; I live like a three year old banging randomly on the keys of an out of tune toy piano.
If you were @CoyneTheDup, you'd assume all sorts of awful things about yourself.
-
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
I understood as much, and I fear we have a fundamental disagreement here. For me, allowing the pursuit of happiness is good, but not enough. If a significant portion of the society cannot find happiness, I believe we have to find out why, I believe that we cannot simply say "that's their problem". It might not be possible to increase their happiness without decreasing that of others and then we've got to find the right balance, but I do care about everyone being happy, not only being able to make themselves happy.
But, that's essentially the same thing.
If everyone's not happy, then you need to find out why they aren't. If it's because they're burdened, then unblock them. Most people will seek out happiness. People want to do meaningful work.
There are people you simply can't help though. Also, when social programs become a burden to mobility, then that needs to be removed as well.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
We know we're not going to increase happiness by letting inequalities grow, and we're probably going to increase happiness by decreasing them.
One thing that came up when I was thinking about this.
If you move towards equality, what's to say that this equality will be satisfactory. What's to say that this equality will be above the current standard of living. When everyone has exactly the same amount of stuff, will it be enough?
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
I never said to stop at paying your taxes. But you can't consider yourself charitable if you don't pay your taxes (leaving aside issues of whether the collection of taxes or their use is proper, which is kind of what we're assuming in this ideal scenario). It's not enough, but it's part of the deal.
No, I'm saying that if charity is considered "paying your taxes", then it's very easy to become completely uncharitable while still paying your fair share. Taxes eliminates the humanity of charity. Therefore, taxes as a charity actually subverts Christian charity.
"Give to Caesar what's Caesar's, and give to God what's God's."
You could completely eliminate taxes and still be charitable, but you could completely pay your taxes and be uncharitable.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
I do live with that burden, I am the one paying my taxes and making that sacrifice
Do you give to charity whatever tax deductions you earn?
You can't call a mandated fee a sacrifice.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
And this is why we are discussing that here, rather than me or you shooting people to get what we want.
Right.
But I still don't consider taxes to be charity by any stretch.
-
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
I do care about everyone being happy, not only being able to make themselves happy.
But, that's essentially the same thing.
It's very similar, yes. I think when talking in ideals it probably doesn't make a difference, but it colours differently the actual policies put in place to achieve that goal. I suspect that if we go further in this direction, we'll find out that we have very different conceptions of what society can (in a moral sense) impose on its members...
If you move towards equality, what's to say that this equality will be satisfactory. What's to say that this equality will be above the current standard of living. When everyone has exactly the same amount of stuff, will it be enough?
Again, for me the main point is that in the current state, decreasing inequality by a small amount (i.e. something that is realistically achievable) will probably improve society. Whether that holds for a large change is indeed not so clear but that shouldn't prevent us from making incremental ones and seeing how it goes.
To make a simplifying mathematical comparison, imagine happiness as a function of inequality. At the moment, we are in a part of the curve where the function has a negative slope (more inequality yields less happiness). So in the short term, to maximise happiness we need to reduce inequality (if we ignore other variables for the moment -- again, that's just a simplifying comparison, don't take that as an accurate model!). I don't know whether the curve always has a negative slope, even for low values of inequalities, it might well be a triangular distribution where the peak happiness is not at 0 inequality. Yet as long as we haven't reached that peak, the direction of travel is clear.
No, I'm saying that if charity is considered "paying your taxes",
You still don't understand what I wrote (I'll be charitable ;-) and say that I expressed myself badly). Paying your taxes does not imply that you are charitable, but being charitable implies that, among other things, you pay your taxes.
(again, leaving aside the question of whether taxes are used in the right way -- we are still in an ideal discussion where taxes are used in the best possible way to achieve whatever goal society has set for itself)
Taxes eliminates the humanity of charity. Therefore, taxes as a charity actually subverts Christian charity.
I talked of a modern equivalent, not clearly the exact same thing. You indeed loose the humanity and individual choice that in inherent to Christian charity, but Christianity is concerned with the salvation of the individual, not the improvement of society (and Christian charity is about more than just money!). And the thing is, individual charity breaks down with large societies because of the sheer scale of things. When considering several millions or hundred of millions of inhabitants, or the whole world, you need some wider system than the action of each individual to really change things. Taxes are one way (not necessarily the only one!) to build such a system.
You could completely eliminate taxes and still be charitable
I never said that in a world without taxes no one could be charitable. But if society as a whole as agreed on taxes, then I fail to see how you can claim to be charitable without paying them.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
I do live with that burden, I am the one paying my taxes and making that sacrifice
Do you give to charity whatever tax deductions you earn?
I don't declare most of the charity donations I do (mostly because I prefer making a lot of small donations than a single large one and I can't be bothered to ask for and keep receipts...). But that's beside the point, I wasn't talking about giving individually but participating in the wider system by paying my fair share of taxes.
You can't call a mandated fee a sacrifice.
We're getting closer to what is probably the real core of our disagreement, which is how we see society and what it can impose. I do believe that if this has been properly decided among all participant of society (i.e. in a truly democratic way), then yes, you can do that.
(I'll make a last quick shot at Christian charity: in tight communities where social pressure is strong, how much do you give to charity because you are a good Christian vs. because of social pressure? The Christian answer is that God knows and will judge you accordingly, but if you remove God then you can't always make a difference between voluntary and community-mandated...)
But I still don't consider taxes to be charity by any stretch.
I knew I was likely to get a nice reaction by mentioning Christian charity... that was slightly trollish and provocative on my part...
-
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
but being charitable implies that, among other things, you pay your taxes.
We can't leave out how taxes are being used.
Depends? Right now my taxes is going towards killing people in foreign countries. Am I still being charitable?
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
we are still in an ideal discussion
The ideal is everyone voluntarily paying what is needed according to what they have. That is charity.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
But if society as a whole as agreed on taxes
It never does. That's the problem. Taxes inherently require up to 49% of the population to pay money towards things they don't want to. That's where the charity part breaks down.
As long as we don't live in an ideal, taxes are never charity.
If we live in an ideal, taxes are not necessary.
Again, by any measure, taxes are not charity.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
I wasn't talking about giving individually but participating in the wider system by paying my fair share of taxes.
Are you paying your fair share if you get a deduction?
Are rich people paying their fair share by getting all the deductions they get. Often paying less than middle class people?@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
I do believe that if this has been properly decided among all participant of society (i.e. in a truly democratic way), then yes, you can do that.
You'd have to have 100% support.
At which point, people can just voluntarily give.
Again, not charity.
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
I knew I was likely to get a nice reaction by mentioning Christian charity...
Because it's more dynamic than taxes.
Look, I'm not saying the outcome of taxes aren't good at all. I'm saying it imposes a burden of necessary evil on people. If people were truly charitable, taxes aren't necessary.
And if you look at the early Church in Acts, taxes are completely unnecessary to pay for every need.
In that manner, voluntary socialism, even, is charity. But only if it's voluntary.
-
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
We can't leave out how taxes are being used.
I know, but that's straying out of what we're currently discussing... Yet it does obviously matter in the real world, if anything because no one will ever agree on taxes without knowing their use (that'd be like giving to a charity without having the slightest idea of what they do -- actually, more like giving to an organisation which you don't even know if it's a charity or not...).
Depends? Right now my taxes is going towards killing people in foreign countries. Am I still being charitable?
I don't know, do you feel that it's charitable to kill these people? (joking, joking...)
The ideal is everyone voluntarily paying what is needed according to what they have. That is charity.
Keep in mind that I said it was an equivalent to charity, not charity itself (if the only thing you can see in my words is "taxes == charity", which is the leitmotiv you come to every two lines, please stop...). Charity, especially in Christianity, does have a specific meaning (and a religious one, not only a secular one), so it can only apply there. Now, consider your statement not from the point of view of a single individual, but from the society as a whole. Perfectly used taxes do fit this definition when "everyone" is replaced by "some kind of social agreement" (yeah I know, if you replace the sentence doesn't mean anything...). This is where I consider that the charity equivalent still kind-of-works: not when an individual decides to voluntarily contribute, but when society settles on a mechanism of repartition of riches that is accepted by all. It's still not real charity, especially not in the religious sense, but it does fit the bill of everyone helping the society to be better.
Taxes inherently require up to 49% of the population to pay money towards things they don't want to. That's where the charity part breaks down.
Yes. And this is why we're (at least, I am) talking ideals. The perfect society that I would love to live in is not necessarily one with no inequality at all, it is one where everyone agrees on a way to keep the inequalities under control so that everyone is as happy as possible. That part is not so far from the notion of charity -- if absolutely everyone contributes absolutely freely to a common treasury, then it is charity.
This is an impossible ideal. Taxes in the real world cannot be agreed by everyone. Even if everyone was agreeing on the principle of taxes, they cannot be used in a way that pleases everyone. But:
As long as we don't live in an ideal, taxes are never charity.
Yes. If you'll allow me to push the religious comparison a bit further, this is true in exactly the same way as the fact that in an ideal world, no one would be a sinner, but in the real world everyone is. Yet we (well, those that believe in that...) strive towards a sin-free life. Similarly, we should strive towards a freely accepted and understood society-wide charity network, which for convenience of writing I'll call taxes.
(or something else but I have yet to see another realistic proposal for correcting the imbalances of our societies that does not include taxes...)
Are you paying your fair share if you get a deduction?
Are rich people paying their fair share by getting all the deductions they get. Often paying less than middle class people?That's up to the actual, real world implementation of the tax systems. Do you want me to say that the current tax systems (at least in the countries that I know of) is broken and doesn't work for the greater good? Sure. But you're still confusing the idea and its implementation, and I still believe that the idea of a tax system is the best way there is to balance society.
Look, I'm not saying the outcome of taxes aren't good at all. I'm saying it imposes a burden of necessary evil on people. If people were truly charitable, taxes aren't necessary.
As I said, there is a scale effect. Taxes are one way to scale the effect of charity (not the individual, internal, moral feeling you get from it -- but it should be clear by now that I am looking at society as whole... maybe I shouldn't have started with that word since you seem to have trouble detaching from this individual meaning) above the level of a small community where you can have a personal and direct impact on something. So if you want to avoid the evilness, while still keeping the effectiveness, the only way is to work towards a tax system agreed on by society as a whole. Which is not the current one, but not "no taxes" either.
-
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
Which is not the current one, but not "no taxes" either.
Well, if I at least had leverage in choosing how my taxes were spent, maybe.
This is why localization is very important. It minimalizes the "people are paying for things they don't want" part.
-
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
Which is not the current one, but not "no taxes" either.
Well, if I at least had leverage in choosing how my taxes were spent, maybe.
This is why localization is very important. It minimalizes the "people are paying for things they don't want" part.
Yes. Centralized taxes are probably one of the worst way to implement them as it totally decouples them from the people, getting the opposite of the goal of accepted participation that I was describing. Yet since for me taxes are the socially acceptable way to scale up individual voluntary contributions, you have to centralize them. So it's all in the balance...
Still, my feeling (and at this point we're leaving the ideal territory to try and deal with the real world with all the past history and stuff) is that it's probably easier to fight for a saner tax system, including localising part of it, increasing the say of individuals in it (i.e. have more local consultations and less national backroom deals), than hoping to totally break it (and maybe rebuild a saner one afterwards -- realistically, this is doomed to fail).
As an IT analogy, what we need is a major OS upgrade but we've seen how every total rewrite fail. Rather than a KDE 3 -> 4 change that will break everything, maybe we should aim for a KDE 4.0 -> 4.3 change where small incremental changes turn the thing into something more acceptable. Or, aim for a Vista -> 7 upgrade rather than a XP -> Vista one...
-
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
Taxes inherently require
up to 49% of the populationeverybody to pay money towards things they don't want to.Taxes paid by Liberals support the military and NSA. Taxes paid by Conservatives support welfare, Gender Studies programs at public universities, and saving the snail darter. Nobody wants to support everything they're paying for. And there are probably things that wouldn't be supported by anyone (except the people getting the money) if anyone actually realized they exist, but they're hiding as discretionary spending in some agency's multi-billion dollar budget, and the amount is too small for anyone to notice.
-
@HardwareGeek Right, but the problem is that regarding taxes as a moral good is an impediment to rationally determining whether a tax is a utility gain. This what @remi is not getting from what I'm saying. By comparing it to charity, they are invoking a moral good component to taxation. Whereas taxation is just a mechanic to support the functioning of the government, not a moral device to solve society's ills. If voluntary charity can't solve it, taxation won't. In fact, most of the talk about taxation is "get that other guy to pay their fair share", and not "let me contribute my fair share", making the comparison to charity even more dubious.
I mean, if the top 1% pay 80% of the taxes, why can't we just make them pay more, and then the 99% won't have to pay taxes at all? The vast majority of people could get all the benefits of society without contributing a dime, and why not? Those rich people have enough money already! Now, where did all that charity go?
And I find that liberals continually use a moral argument to support expansion of taxes, without spending the time post formation to determine if they actually did add utility. And, even then, don't realize that taxes are near impossible to revoke. So, if taxation actually makes a situation worse, good luck fixing that.
Applying that to the inequality argument. If there is a tipping point where more equality is negatively affecting society, it will be near impossible to return to previous balance. Not only that, there is no guarantee that equality will land on the right side of providing what people need.
-
@xaade said in How well do you know your country?:
@HardwareGeek Right, but the problem is that regarding taxes as a moral good is an impediment to rationally determining whether a tax is a utility gain. This what @remi is not getting from what I'm saying.
You could have said it like that earlier... That's a better argument than what you said before, IMO. Yet by doing so, even a tax with an obvious gain to society gets opposed beforehand and has to prove its value first. Which, more importantly, means that it is almost impossible to try new things (let's face it, there is a lot of unpredictability in policies so you can't always foresee what will happen). Basically, this is the conservative vision: we know what we currently have and we'll only accept changes that are absolutely necessary or absolutely proven to be good.
There is nothing wrong with that, mind you. But I prefer thinking that our society is sufficiently rich and advanced that we can try different things (potentially in different places) and see how it works. Back to taxes, this is much easier to do if you accept the premise that taxes can be a good thing and that what matters is not taxes by themselves but how much and what for.
taxes are near impossible to revoke. So, if taxation actually makes a situation worse, good luck fixing that.
Mmm... I'm not sure about that. On the top of my head, I can think of several changes to taxes in my country in recent time that were reducing them (some of which were reversed by the next governement but that's another issue). I think you are projecting your own vision of taxes here.
What might be making you think so is that in the past century or so, our society has decided that there are many, many more things where a public oversight is required, and therefore money is needed (education, transport, health...). So it might not be so much that taxes cannot be revoked, but that we have been unable to decide to abandon something that is under public control back to the individuals.
-
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
education, transport, health...
I've been reading How To Be Victorian. I feel like a good, in-depth discussion of what daily life was like for the middle class a hundred years ago should be part of everyone's general education; it really makes one appreciate what our government does for us, and dismantles the myth that the private sector is always the best at running such programs. Our schools can be pretty damn awful, and there's a lot of good ideas we've abandoned we can bring back as well as new ideas we should try out, but compared to the Victorian norm of minimal instruction plus child labor? Overall, an improvement.
-
@Yamikuronue I saw a couple of years ago a documentary on that (a BBC one by Ian Hislop, I think?) that was pretty enlightening, yes. It's amazing to see some of the argument bandied around when society started to decide that protecting children from mistreatment trumped the right of privacy (as in, "why should the state know what happens inside my home? I'll trash my children in private as much as I want!").
Generally speaking, seeing how our society became what it is now is very interesting!
-
@remi said in How well do you know your country?:
(as in, "why should the state know what happens inside my home? I'll trash my children in private as much as I want!")
Look at the modern Evangelical opposition to social work and CPS. It's the same way: they demand "parental rights" and insist that they trump any (to them non-existent) rights the child has. One other thing I've learned is that viewpoints never really go away, they just become such a minority that you can safely forget about them. People still believe in flat earth, in the idea that black people bear the Curse of Ham, in the value of child labor... just about every possible viewpoint you might imagine is gone now.
