Why is the betterment of humanity seen as a bad thing?

[Krigaren]

Sadly this isn't true; in American politics, both sides offer the exact same economics (a very heavily corporatised form of capitalism that borders on multinational oligopoly), there is really no difference at all - the Fed and Wall Street are mostly Democrats these days

The differences are on their treatments of very specific political/social things like abortion, gay marriage, religion, defense, etc

This is why American politics doesn't interest me much: there is really no choice at all, it's all about money

This is correct. That's why I was pointing out that Democrats are just as guilty of being corporatist shills as the GOP, they're just not as overt about it. The key difference between the GOP and the Dems are the social aspects.

The only reason American politics interests me, aside from the fact that I live here, is that I very much have an interest in what rights are taken away from me in favor of a less-restrictive business environment.

[Jaylock]

You are overtly religious and often vocal about it. So he is referring to the part where you talk about "gifts". It sounded like something divinely ordained. As the Koch Brothers or Mitt Romney or Donald Trump was Divinely ordained to be in the positions they are in.

Again actual ambition and skill is utterly disconnected from the outcomes achieved.

Chris Christie didn't work 1000 times harder then Jesus the Mexican gardener to be where he is. Trump didn't work 10000 times harder then Piotr the mechanic in Volgograd, Russia. And you or I didn't work 1000 times harder or with more ambition to be better off than a "cattle farmer" in Uganda who barely survives off his 6 cows that he personally tends to 14 hours a day.

But they DID work harder.

Thats the failure of logic that all these "we want everyone to be equal!" SJWs don't seem to recognize (or rather omit from recognition because it destroys their argument).

They claim that everyone in a position of wealth got there because of their parents, or it was handed to them, which is most cases is complete and utter bullshit. The question I ask myself, when I see an executive in their 40s who is president or CEO of large companies is: what did they do differently to get to the position they are in? What were they willing to do over and above the mediocre employees only collecting a paycheck? How many hours did they spend working hard, and getting recognized to move up?

The overwhelming answer to these questions is they did a lot more than what most people are willing to do to get there. And then people like the OP have the audacity to shit on people like this just because they have "billions" and there are poor people on the street starving, and also fail to realize / recognize that these people who are wealthy and in power tend to be some of the most charitable people on the planet, often donating millions of dollars to charity organizations.

You think the government and the liberal agenda has your best interests in mind? Fuck no. They just want more POWER and to CONTROL people's lives more and more, and get people DEPENDENT on the government.

[Krigaren]

Somalia.

lol

Does Somalia have a capitalist, democratically elected Republic?

The strongest and most powerful societies in history, those rich with human endeavor were pretty much greed based.

But, but, but Somalia.

lol

Funny that you didn't caveat your earlier comment with, "Human greed and a capitalist, democratically elected Rpublic is what has propelled human ingenuity and entrepreneurship..."

No, your entire premise was based on greed being the primary motivating factor. An example was given where greed is in abundance, but it's not exactly doing squat for "ingenuity and entrepreneurship".

[Deleted]

I do not trust a human to make sound decisions for greater good of humanity. We need impartial AI overlords or a Cultural Mind for that shit.

[Powerogue]

Yes. Few things are more unfair than equality. Inequality is actually more fair that equality... particularly when you're talking about how human beings have historically attempted to establish equality of outcomes. Those with determination and gifts are not permitted to exceed the outcomes of those without those qualities. Of course, the real joke is that (invariably) those who control such attempts/societies set themselves up as above (and therefore unequal to) those they rule.

That is the inherent problem. You can't enforce equality without someone being more equal than the rest being given the power to.

[Bodakane]

then enlighten me
how is taking twenty dollars from a store owner and giving it to one of his customers to spend in the store which that customer does d grows that store owners business

because that is all you are doing by taxing and redistributing that tax money to the poor

economies grow from the creation of wealth not the redistribution of it

Like I said, no freaking idea.

That's not what anyone is suggesting. By all means though, keep making up false scenarios to justify your stance.

[Vash The Stampede]

Most people believe they are independent and self sufficient, and they got there with hard work. Anyone who didn't walk to work through snow, ice, heat, and lava, shouldn't be allowed to get help. That's how they see it.

But these are the same people who likely do get government helps and forgot totally about it. Someone at some point has went out of their way to help them. But humans are pretty good at remembering all the bad, and non of the good. And we like others to suffer, like how we perceive ourselves to suffer.

[breadisfunny]

if there is money to be made for a business to install access ramps so the ones that need to use them to enter the store there for attracting those customers. a business will do so

is there any reason why a business that never had and never will have disabled customers be forced to install access ramps for them?

how do you know they will never have disabled customers? also who are you to decide where disabled people are able to shop at? also how will those disabled people get to the store if there is no disabled access ramps or way for them to get to the store?

[Vyxn]

lol, wow. Okay. Did you get a public education? Are you driving on roads? Do you drink clean water? Do you enjoy the wonders of the electrical grid, enjoy clean air, and live safe in the knowledge that the police and fire departments are there when you need them?

They're called social programs. They are paid for by everyone and exist for the betterment of us all. ALL of us, not just special snowflakes like you.

You're also making the incredibly incorrect assumption that people who use welfare programs haven't or aren't currently paying taxes. They very much are. These people also shouldn't need to earn the right to eat, or the right to go see a doctor, or the right to sleep in a bed or have a refrigerator. Seriously, what kind of monster are you?

and you must not have went to school at all if your reading comprehension is that lacks

what part of welfare programs did you not understand

[Mihalik]

But they DID work harder.

They claim that everyone in a position of wealth got there because of their parents, or it was handed to them, which is most cases is complete and utter bullshit.

Success in later life is intrinsically tied to factors beyond what we can control in our early lives. This like place of birth, nationality, educational attainment, even basic things like health and nutrition.

I am where I am because I benefited from a series of conditions that were decided before I was born. My parents were well off, which guaranteed me a certain education. My parents were well off because while my grandparents weren't wealthy (being political refugees from Eastern Europe), they were themselves from wealthy families which afforded them an excellent education which 60 years ago essentially guaranteed employment.

While up to this point in my life I have never inherited money (I'm doing fine), I have inherited other factors that allowed me to fair better in life than many of my peers.

The idea that most wealth is self created is absurd beyond belief. Most (not all and nobody claimed that) wealth is inherited. Sometimes it is direct in the form of cash and assets, in other cases is more indirect like name recognition (you get a position or a loan or something because you are related or descendant of X), education, or opportunity in general.

[Goatfish]

Communism.

The reason it doesn't work is because people who are worthy, who truly contribute to society receive little higher rewards than those that are lazy. In such a system, no one is motivated to contribute. Those who can contribute don't feel like bothering, considering they get the reward anyway, and the moochers don't feel like bettering themselves, also because they receive the rewards anyway.

This is communism. Communism deludes itself with the idea that people will work to better society by their own volition, people really don't do that, well the vast majority don't. An example of utopian communism is the Federation in the Star Trek series - THAT is communism.

I don't particularly see my views as communism. I see it as everyone at least being given a base status of living. I think that as a society (including the 1%) we could eradicate the homeless "problem", and supply food, water, and basic amenities to those who need it. At least in American society, trying to better yourself when you don't already have a house, job, or regular meals, sleep, and even electricity/phone (plausibly internet) is incredibly difficult. Some people make welfare out to be a horrible thing, but do we really not care about our fellow humans enough to allow them to sleep indoors and eat something they didn't pull out of the garbage? Having less work ethic and different values is not something that should negate what is commonly seen as basic human rights. I mean we give our murderers and rapists a bed, health care, exercise/free time, even free education and warm meals because human rights matter, but getting there with our homeless and needy is full of such contention...

Put simply, the betterment of humanity often comes at the expense of the (powerful) individual.

Selfishness, basically.

Which leads to the problem I see, in that those who get power and give to better humanity are no longer in power. Only those full of greed and self absorption keep the most power and money, even though if all of them gave a portion of their wealth they would still be far above the next in line. Still have all their power.

I isn't the wealthy that keeps people so called "ground down" it is individuals and their piss poor choices they make in life that keeps them selves ground down and because society will never lack in idiots that make those poor choices we have a over abundant supply of those idiots to fill the need of no skill low paid jobs

Even if they make "piss poor life choices", does that mean they should go without basic human rights given even to our death row inmates?

You aren't asking them to do anything, you are wanting the government to force them to pay people more Let's not forget, this is not just being demanded of billionaires, but of most businesses and people. Wanting to force someone else to pay to take care of others doesn't make you generous, it makes you selfish. Voluntarily donating your own time and money makes you generous.

I would personally expect people to have some form of compassion for human life as a whole. While I personally do spend some of my free time outside of my full-time job helping at animal and homeless shelters, or cleaning up parks, I don't demand others do anything. I'm not a rich person and don't know what I would do with the money if I became rich personally. I have no real ambition in life besides getting to a position where I can better help others with my excess. I'm no saint, but being someone who has been in true poverty, I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
-------------------------------
I'll read more later, but first, story time.

Back in the day I dealt with my issues through excessive gameplay. WoW being the game I played, for probably 6-8 hours daily. I always played a support role and eventually got where I was considered one of the best shamans during the BC and WotLK era. Eventually between changes to the game and finding a job I actually enjoyed I grew away from WoW and started focusing my efforts of support on my work. Really, I treat work as I treated WoW. I work as the support role, I float around regardless of my area and absorb information, theorycraft new ways to do things to make life easier, and manage people according to what they enjoy, and not necessarily what they are best at. Treating people with respect and listening to people is the best way I have found to get results, and I find in our community as a whole, those in power don't follow that same methodology. I value peoples happiness and well-being more than their results because when someone is at peace, they work more effectively and help others work better because morale is kept high. The sum results are higher and life is better. I've found all it takes is a little guidance and giving people chances to create success.

I think we expect too much instant perfection with our ingrained ways of doing things.

- - - Updated - - -

As a rough thought experiment, what would people here think about items in life costing a flat percentage of income while keeping a built in sales tax to help cover governmental needs? (not real values at all follows) If an apple cost .05% of your weekly income, it would be affordable for the needy, but would help cover the difference in expenses that the super wealthy bring. i.e. a rich person doesn't put any more back into the economy than a poor person because they have the same base expenses.

[Talsar]

Because the people at the top want to stay at the top and the only way to do that is to keep pushing others down.

[breadisfunny]

i do believe advantages that people do not have access to should be taken apart and destroyed

Affirmative Action is a good example IT'S A PERFECT EXAMPLE you can't get a better example of advantages somebody has over another based on NOTHING

do you support systems that do exactly the thing you're fighting against right now ? are you a hypocrite or did i misunderstand your post




who is stopping people from getting education? who is stopping justice? the legal system in western Countries is constantly changing to make itself better its not like religious law that has been fixed in stone

the worst injustices in western countries i see these days are people taking things out of context by trying to make the criminal look like a innocent person or the law/truth being held back because they do not want to be politically correct

in the case of education. money is. colleges aren't free.

[breadisfunny]

colleges are higher education from my understanding

you have access to a level of education that will allow you to function in the world. this allows you to get a job and with the money you get from this job you can pay for college... where is the problem?

hello problem where are you?

have fun living off minimum wage then.

[Deletedaccount1]

I have my own mental issues that might give me a little different insight into peoples actions... but is actual equality and making sure that everyone is cared for really such a terrible thing?

Humanitarianism and egalitarianism are not the same thing.

[Cthulhu 2020]

a good example of what happens without greed is Half life episode 3

if you played half life 2 and are currently waiting for episode 3.. there is a high chance it will never be published

they do not need the money they were not greedy enough so they just stopped working

if a billionaire is taxed to much he might just close his business... he has enough money to live his life already without greed so many people would lose their jobs

It's funny because this isn't how it works at all.

[breadisfunny]

so there is a age restriction on college? sorry i did not know there was a limited amount of time

it was my understanding that in the USA you can earn money without having a college degree

you can make money you won't make very much of it.

[Luxxor]

I have my own mental issues that might give me a little different insight into peoples actions... but is actual equality and making sure that everyone is cared for really such a terrible thing? It blows my mind that human greed is so deeply ingrained that we would rather watch people starve than ask a billionaire to give their workers higher pay or even just to spend their money at all on improving quality of life.

I understand wanting people to try to help themselves a little, but it seems a common theme that we don't even want them to have the option of asking for help.

Because its fucking naive. Nice guys finish last.

[Krigaren]

i do believe advantages that people do not have access to should be taken apart and destroyed

Affirmative Action is a good example IT'S A PERFECT EXAMPLE you can't get a better example of advantages somebody has over another based on NOTHING

do you support systems that do exactly the thing you're fighting against right now ? are you a hypocrite or did i misunderstand your post

I think you might have misunderstood. I'm not talking about destroying the advantages that people have. If someone is born into wealth, is born white, male, or whatever other thing has inherent privilege, then that's all well and good. What I'm talking about is giving someone who doesn't have those inherent advantages an opportunity as well.

This leads back to the condition that you suffer from. In one world, you'd be left to deal with your disadvantage and that's that. In the world I support, people work toward developing ways to help you achieve what you want to achieve. You say you'll never be a pilot, but what if a doctor develops a treatment or a cure for epilepsy? Those are the kinds of things we, as a society, can do. That's the kind of equality that people seek.

Affimative action? That's a touchy one, because I see the problem on both sides. I see how it disadvantages people who aren't PoC, but I also see the need to have the program in the first place. There's no clear winner, cause people are gonna get screwed with it, and people are going to get screwed without it. It all comes down to whom it is you want to screw.

who is stopping people from getting education? who is stopping justice? the legal system in western Countries is constantly changing to make itself better its not like religious law that has been fixed in stone

the worst injustices in western countries i see these days are people taking things out of context by trying to make the criminal look like a innocent person or the law/truth being held back because they do not want to be politically correct

Nothing is really stopping people from getting an education, since there's no barrier preventing people from enrolling. With FAFSA, it's also relatively easy to get a student loan to pay for it all.

What's preventing people from going to college is usually structural things. They aren't making enough money to go to college and pay for their cost of living, or if they have children, or if they're taking care of a family member. In the US, there isn't the same social safety net that there is in other countries that would help with this. For one, we don't have free or highly subsidized higher learning, we don't have any kind of public programs for day care or after-school for kids, we don't have social programs to help take care of the sick or elderly. All those things exist, yes, but you have to pay for it all, and it's not cheap nor affordable for someone making our ridiculously low minimum wage.

As for justice, just look around. Look at all of the unarmed people who were murdered by police in the last couple of years. With some, sure, there was controversy over the events leading up to it, but what about people like Tamir Rice? A 12 year old murdered in a park by police. John Crawford who was shot and killed by police while on his cell phone in a Wal-Mart. Those people didn't receive justice, because their killers are still free.

The "criminals" who are made to look like innocent people? You mean people like Treyvon Martin who was defending himself from George Zimmerman (who stalked Martin, got of his car to confront Martin after being told not to by police, and who is an adult while Martin was a minor) and got shot and killed for it. Zimmerman is the victim, but Martin is the criminal somehow. Any other incident where an unarmed PoC is shot and killed by police, the first thing that comes up is their criminal history. "They're no saint", etc. Which doesn't matter if they were innocent of whatever they were doing at the time they were murdered by police. The fact that they robbed a store or were caught with weed a couple times in their past doesn't mean that their lives are suddenly worthless, and it's open season to murder them. It's not justifiable. That's what "black lives matter" means.

Yet you then have the Affluenza kid who murdered, what, 6 or 8 people? While drunk as an underage minor. But because he's rich (and, interestingly, is white) he got a slap on the wrist. No jail time for either him or his incredibly negligent parents. The only reason he's in jail now is because he broke his parole, not because he's a murderer.

This is the kind of equality in justice that we're talking about.

[Super Friendly Kitty Cat]

Because the people at the top want to stay at the top and the only way to do that is to keep pushing others down.

Yep, the man is keeping you down. Some outside intangible "boogyman" is the reason!