I just don't understand how you can consider his criticism valid when he hasn't used the system he's criticizing. That's like saying a book is bad but you have never read it. Or maybe that's just the way I look at it.
I think, you don't have to experience communism, capitalism or a dictatorship
per see to criticise it or to see the flaws. Of course, we are talking about a reasonable analysis here. Not just saying, it's bullshit because of propaganda or becaues Marx had no job - that one should be obvious
. Since we are already talking already about it, I think Marx was not really a communist, I mean as far as I know communism didn't even exist yet as a term, when Marx published his thesis. But I could be wrong.
You guys should really not take someone like Ilumanity too serious, who's in favour of racism and denying the Hollocaust, by the way.
If you paid 30% of your income for 10 years, that gives you about three years of justifiably taking money out of the system - assuming that it's the same amount of money we're talking about. Let's say four, since you give a third of your disability away too. So if you intend to live on those payments for more than four years, that's not giving your fair share and enjoying the benefits, that's being a welfare leech.
You do understand, that even the Nazis actually didn't just got rid of welfare? Right? The so called Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt. Which was even expanded during Nazi-rule, which was heavily exploited by their propaganda. Obviously it was motivated like most of their ideas by racist concepts, but even the
you're-nothing-your-folk-is-everything-guys understood the implications of insurances and how important stability is in the population. Because propaganda alone, doesn't feed people.
So the whole argument here is that you have to be nice to the poor in order to avoid getting lynched? Even if their poverty is no fault of your own? How does that even tangentially relate to any notion of morality?
Here is a little hint, it doesn't. I am not arguing about morale. We can completely ignore that. If you have some sense of self preservation, than you want to make sure that people don't get on the streets well lynching someone. Because this someone could be you, or anyone who's a member of your
class, if you want so. That's simply common sense. Or so I thought. And I am sorry to tell you this, but people as a large group are not very reasonable, and it doesn't matter who we're talking about. Once a certain dynamic has taken place there really are not many options left. You can't reason with a mass of people that is either in panic, or crying for blood etc. If you don't have the necessary force to deal with them.
You really don't have to look very far to find examples. The current situation with the police shootings in the US should tell you already enough what some people do when they perceive that there is a certain injustice that is out of their controll. It takes a lot of effort to build a working society. But it takes only a handfull of people to fuck it up for everyone. It doesn't matter what ever if it is their fault or not. When someone uses a car bomb to drive in a building killing hundrets of people because he didn't got the correct treatment for his mental instability, none of this matters to the killed. Sorry, that you have some trouble to see the bigger picture here.
And really, it doesn't matter if we're talking about some corporate state with companies ruling over everyone or an authoritarian government. If you don't want thousands of people marching around fucking shit up, than you have to give them a feeling that things are at least on the basic level, fair. Be it with wages, jurisdiction or if you want to get even more basic, food. For fucks sake, it have been people like Ford and Bismarck that invented a lot of safeties, insurances and support for the normal people. Those people very well understood the powder keg that social injustices represents. Not just for their workers, but also for themself, you know.
Hogwash, when talentless hacks are born into wealth and power, they tend to lose it rather quickly. And when there is a genius amongst the poor, he is almost certain to make himself rich. The reason this happens rarely is because poor people are not that smart, and therefore don't usually have smart children.
That is actually a very outdated view by now. In the past psychologists and sociologists held the opinion, that gifted children/people will always find their way to excell, regardless the economical circumstances. Today the view on it is somewhat different:
Gifted Potential and Poverty - Department of Psychology
(...)
Will Poverty Produce Fewer Gifted Students? Robinson's discussion strongly suggests that shifting the focus of underrepresentation from race to economic status is not expected to result in parity. Children in poverty are "behind the eight ball from the moment of conception"(p.253). "Fewer of the marginalized children will develop to the full measure of their potential or acquire advanced intellectual competencies and academic skills that are clearly ahead of the norm for their age" (p. 253). Use of traditional assessment scores, which, as Robinson contends, meaningfully reflect "that some children have been deprived of needed cognitive and academic sustenance" (p.257), will necessarily result in disproportionately low numbers of children of poverty identified as gifted.
http://www.psych.wisc.edu/henriques/papers/kitano.pdf
However, this is true for intelligence and development of intellectual abilities in general, not just the exceptionally gifted.
California Association for the Gifted
A Position Paper
(...)
Every individual is born with unique genetic patterns and the potential for intellectual growth. Research has verified that each child must have appropiate and continious simulation, enriched environments, and quality educational opportunities to be able to develope the unique intellectual abilities of the human brain to high levels and prevent the regression of abilities already evident. There is a misguided belief that gifted learners can maintain their abilities even when classroom instructions is restricted to the use of grade level concepts and materials.
(...)
Further more:
(…)
Among those at risk academically and intellectually are the children living in the culture of poverty, a culture in which a child often lacks the resources and opportunities needed for optimal intellectual growth. Children living in poverty are not typically offered trips to museums, aqariums, or concerts. They seldom are given special art classes, private music lessons, or other opportunities that are out of the familiy's economic reach. The Possible gifts and talents of such children may not be realized
(…)
Really, it is like trying to grow plants in environments that's not suited for them. It will never reach the same potential like under ideal conditions.
The reason this happens rarely is because poor people are not that smart, and therefore don't usually have smart children.
Yes, and poverty is very often to blame for that. The 50s and 60s saw a lot of programs to combat that, with some huge effort, where people despite of income and race have been allowed to gain access to some of the best education. It is sad to see how many of those ideas and concepts are dismantled today. Obviously, with the effect that the US is loosing slowly but steadily its leading position in research, technology and in science. Something that as famous scientists like Neil Degrasse Tyson criticise heavily.
We are talking about a highly complex problem. And of course you could ask, why bother? The issue here is, that without fundamental research, you won't have the benefits of the technological application that come from it at some point. And this goes into all fields. Students with an interest in certain fields, do not only need a chance for education and learning, but also the opportunity to actually use that, be it in laboratories or at some comparable fascility with the resources to do some actuall research, with the best possible equipment. Or, those scientist will simply go to those places where they can get it. Like the LHC in Europe.
? But with saying this ... yeah, you probably could just tell people that it's someone else fault. I mean NK is living on propaganda for the last 60 years. And quite succesfully ... but I think they are the exception to the rule. I mean the US had already revolutions and one civil war. The US is a very open society, who knows where the tipping point is? Before people are so frustrated that they just want to fuck things up.
