Underrated comment, and easily the most important factor involved when it comes to discussions like this.

Think about how stupid/ignorant/whatever most of you believe me to be, and then consider that I am undeniably in the top 15% of the population based on whatever metric you choose to use.

How many of you blew a few blood vessels over how angry you were about people not wearing masks for the last year? Do you think logic and reason will prevail in matters of personal finance for those same people?

How's that ?

You think smoking is keeping people in poverty and equality is impossible.

Since people aren't going to stop smoking or being unequal the gap will naturally compound over time.

And there's nothing we can do about it because.....even if we send everyone to Harvard it's still going to occur.

What do I have wrong ?

Really any metric? You sound smrt

So you favor a more paternalistic government welfare state? Instead of helping out low-income people with checks that they decide how to spend themselves the government should build public housing for them, buy them food, pay for their healthcare directly, etc.?

This is already how it works.

I said above that I'd support UBI replacing all that and you can toss the administrative savings into a higher overall benefit payout.

Once upon a time, my family was on WIC for a little bit. Back then, there were actual coupons that you'd show up to the store with and it dictated you had to get certain products. We'd end up making donation trips to the food bank because of all the excess we'd end up with. I think the current system sort of stops that problem because it's just a set amount of money and you can buy whatever you want. That's more flexible, but you still have people selling their EBT benefits on Twitter for 50 cents on the dollar because they want to spend that money on something other than food. UBI takes it one step further and just gives people cold hard cash to spend, and that's probably a good thing, but I don't think it'll be a major breakthrough in solving poverty. No amount of money can save people from themselves.

I'm also the guy who is on record supporting fully government funded military-style boarding schools to replace the absolute disaster that is many urban school districts though. So on one hand yeah I think government should just give people a long leash and accept that some will hang themselves with it, but I draw a line when otherwise innocent kids are being taken down at the hands of their shitty parents.

Again more strawmen and you know this as well, I'm not going to devolve into thread aids going down this path as you're not posting in good faith here

you seem way too worked up over this, relax

See, you don't get it. Because you're spinning your wheels in the level one thinking

Zoom out

Hundreds of years of law has led to those "irresponsible people" among other outcomes that we see in front of our face and have data for

The whole point of a proper social safety net and redistribution systems is to reduce the number, both nominally and in likelihood, of ending up with "irresponsible people"

Something as simple as throwing less people in jail so parents can be present rather than not, or in rehab treatment to become productive and present in their child's life has an impact. But because people look at the worst of the worst, they lose all charitability and the inclination for empathy. **** em. Lock everyone up and throw away the key. Do that less, harden less people...Single parent households don't always end up that way because of poor choices and that's a predictor of kids in households growing up and ending up committing crimes

Literally no one disagrees with it being wrong to have no personal responsibility. Like I said, you're just stating the obvious. The problem is there is more to it than that, and your "if my aunt had balls, then she'd be my uncle" retort is nonsense. I'm not claiming we should all get free Harvard educations and you're smarter than that anyway

It's not just about equality or equity or whatever tf the buzzwords are these days. It's about having a closer to optimal system that addresses more than just whatever capitalism has a hardon for. We can preserve a mighty economic engine and still be less callously indifferent and not-morally reprehensible at the same time

Inso in the 85th percentile for maths knowledge, track and field, ny times bestseller list and penis size

Clown college flunkies in these parts

Again, while you spend your entire life heralding such underrated comments which are mere statements of the obvious, it would behoove you to think a little bit further than that

Also, I don't believe you to be stupid/ignorant. I just think you look at Milwaukee and think all kinds of things that are just simply not entirely correct

You act like others don't know what you're talking about. I'm from both the suburbs of Philly and the city itself. I've seen the pasty white rich **** suburbs and know 1%ers and I've seen the literal worst parts of the city because I have family who still ****ing lives in them. I got a cousin who served multiple tours overseas but will be in prison for 20 years. I guarantee you if his father had gotten treatment for drug addiction rather than hard time, then it would have been less likely he'd have beat his son while growing up. Do you think my cousin is more or less likely to commit grotesque crimes of his own had he had a father who went to rehab instead of jail? The obvious answer is less likely, and that's the point. And that's just one person. A cousin who is smart as **** but doesn't know any better. He ****ed up and I'll never not let him know he ****ed up if I ever see him again, but you have to remember we aren't just the sum of our decisions, our decisions are influenced...We are the sum of both nature and nurture. It's not simply one and not the other. I can point along with you toward the irresponsible and reckless and careless. They share blame. But it's not just their fault. It's ours too.

That argument works just as well against social security, medicare, or universal public K-12 schooling. Yet nobody seems all that passionate about eliminating those.

In a properly randomized group of 100 people, I think I'd nail this list.

Jfc, this thread has become charicature where silly analogies costly intended primarily as a dig on mods are taken literally and applied blanketing everything to invent brand new argue menus out of thin air

I said inequality is not new nor easily solved and quite possibly not even attainable, jfc guys be better than this

I don't think anybody actually believes equality can exist bc we are not equal. If you gave everybody 50k a month for life there would be drastically different outcomes

I, um, WTF?

At this point I'm pretty sure you don't know what a straw man is.

you seem way too worked up over this, relax

No.

Worse, imagine the outcome if we got rid of SS. Sure, some would continue to save/invest the same portion but enough wouldn't to make the notion untenable as far as I'm concerned.

That's basically where the dissonance shows up for me because back in the day I probably would have been against SS for essentially the same reasons I'm opposed to a UBI today. Not surprising since they're essentially the same thing just with an earlier age draw and the ability to work while receiving it without penalty.

And there's the payoff

Hey, if it's just a silly troll and I've been rickrolled, then fair enough. I actually don't care if it's a shot at me, it just seemed a weird spot for some kind of "mods are losers and all work at McDonald's" kind of shot that we see every now and then, if that's what it was.

Yes I was just messing about, this politics sub wound way too tightly everyone misses obvious jokes and sarcasm

I just don't understand why everyone is looking to argue over inane points and find minor disagreement to nitpick over and so much of the discussion here isn't grounded in reality but rather utopian visions of how they assume things should be.

How is pointing out inequality exists a genuinely hot take over in these parts?

It's not a hot take? Everyone agrees that inequality exists. Everyone here (I think) agrees it is here for the foreseeable future. Thus, pointing out that a social welfare policy doesn't get rid of inequality doesn't really say anything about whether we should support it. The point of social welfare programs are generally to either mitigate the harms of inequality/poverty or lessen inequality/poverty, both of which are achievable. Yes, people do stupid things, and many are responsible for their place in life. That doesn't mean that good policy can't help people do fewer stupid things or, if they do them anyway, to not suffer such dire consequences. Of course, such policies are not cost-free, so they are not always worth it, but that is the point of discussing them.

I agree with everything you said, but that's not what was being discussed, people weren't talking about policy beyond the most general terms

it rather boiled down to people stating how unfair the world is and dissecting each other's posts instead of moving conversation forward

As I recall you were telling us how great you were and how your whole home town is jealous of you. (In a thread discussing people who are trying to survive on below poverty income)

I honestly can't imagine why the conversation didn't shoot off like a rocket from there.

See now it's ad hominem, utterly pathetic. You ever notice it's the same ten people in every thread in this sub forum?

I blame the mods.