Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
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User ID: 1864
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
7d ago
When poverty is defined as a percentage of median household income and explicitly excludes food and housing aid, the problem simply cannot be solved
I'm confused; wasn't there a brouhaha about this specific point just in the last year? Where some folks on the right said the census bureau was cheating as they redefined poverty to include food and housing aid, to make it seem like we've made progress eliminating poverty when really all we've done is increase government handouts?
I remember a number of articles like this one:
In the late 1950s, the poverty rate in the U.S. was approximately 22%, with just shy of 40 million Americans living in poverty. The rate declined steadily, reaching a low of 11.1% in 1973 and rising to a high of nearly 15% three times – in 1983, 1993 and 2011 – before hitting the all-time low of 10.5% in 2019. However, the 46.7 million Americans in poverty in 2014 was the most ever recorded.
Also articles like this. Apparently there's also absolute and relative poverty. Oh well.
Regardless, the fact that definitionally 49% of people will be forced to earn sub-median incomes isn't necessarily a reason to shrug away poverty and/or the degree of income inequality in society. As evidenced by the last decade of politics. Do you think that the anger at elites is unfounded (given nobody falls below your definition of poverty anymore), more related to status than income (although definitionally 49% of people will also be sub-median statuswise...) or are you more sympathetic to discourse around income inequality than poverty?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
25d ago
Capitalism as a source of problems, perhaps, rather than an unalloyed good? There's likely a difference between textbook definitions in the communist manifesto or the little red book and the way people use these terms colloquially. If you want the former, I'm not your guy. I read both a decade and a half ago and that was about the extent of my interest. Reading Hayek now, it's interesting to see how much the meaning of the term 'liberal' has shifted in the last 70 years. Gives me a better understanding of the gap between the way my generation uses these words and the way I expect some of the older posters here think.
To turn the question on it's head - if I supported free markets, welfare and socialized medicine, am I a communist? It's advantageous for the right to say so because communism calls to mind Soviet Russia, gulags, starvation, stasi, etc. But I'd argue there's a very material difference between Canada and the USSR, and only the latter would widely be regarded as 'retarded.' I'd agree that many intellectuals on the left fetishize Canada (if Trump wins a second term, this time we're definitely moving meme), but the number who'd want to live in a USSR-style communist hellscape is much lower.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
13d ago
If it wasn't Putin, any other Russian leader would be beset with the same scenario and conditions.
If it wasn't Zelensky, any other Ukrainian leader would be beset with the same scenario and conditions.
If it wasn't Biden, any other American leader would be beset by the same scenario and conditions.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
14d ago
I freely profess my ignorance of Russian politics. To clarify, do you think if Putin had not wanted to invade Ukraine in 2022, it would have happened regardless? Or if Putin had wanted to invade and his advisors had not, it would not have happened? Or is your position some bailey that Strelkov's actions set in motion a series of events that made Putin's decision to invade inevitable?
Because option 3 still sounds like Putin had plenty of agency to me.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
25d ago
To your mind, is there no difference between the various flavors of social democracy and communism? Because:
Intellectuals think Communism is great (though many are smart enough nowadays to not call it that).
simply isn't true. Most leftist intellectuals would support various levels of welfare, various levels of socialization of the healthcare system and so on but aren't interested in a centrally-planned economy, one-party rule, state-run media, etc.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
13d ago
This is not to say that Russia's aggression is justified. But the notion that the West is just minding it's own business is ridiculous.
I wouldn't say the West is minding it's own business - there seems to be a tit for tat in terms of proxies, espionage, fraud, hacking, etc. I would say that I've seen no evidence of attempts on Putin's life nor anything that could remotely be construed as NATO showing any interest in invading Russia or violating Russian territorial integrity. Would you disagree with that?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
13d ago
It beat's not existing at all. Which is where Ukraine's demographics are heading after sending most of their men off to die in trenches and their women are finding new lives abroad. But I guess Zelensky can pat himself on the back, king of the ashes, when the TFR of native Ukrainians is 0.21 ten years after his "victory".
While I share some of your concerns around TFR, it isn't the sole measure of worth of a nation. Somalia has a TFR of 6.3, mid-19th century Ireland had a TFR of 4 while illiterate peasants slaved on increasingly small plots of land and starved. Continuity is important, but so is the right to self-determination. If the Ukrainians had rolled over and collapsed, I expect there would have been a lot of finger wagging and recriminations but we wouldn't be having this conversation. If they choose to fight and are willing to die for their country, if they choose to risk their country being reduced to rubble and their TFR being reduced to some arbitrarily low number you pulled out of your ass, I don't think it's your place to lecture them.
Or when their political future is now determined by the flood of migrants which repopulates the region, as opposed to their coethnics in Moscow.
Somehow I suspect Ukrainian affection for their 'coethnics' in Moscow is experiencing a bit of a dip at the moment.
But sure, "Ukraine" would still be an independent nation, even if no Ukrainians are left in it. Not sure why a Ukrainian today should fight for that future though, being cut out of it completely.
Again, that's not really your or my determination to make, is it? I'm not supporting pressuring them into fighting a war, I'm strongly against NATO troops ever fighting in Ukraine, but revitalizing our defense manufacturing infrastructure while arming Ukrainians to fight for independence strikes me as the best action we could take at the moment.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
28d ago
But I do believe it's possible for people to change their minds, even if just in small ways. Then small mind changes lead to bigger ones.
It's happening, just centered around the local Overton window. I admit to having my mind changed on a number of issues, although most weeks this place is a parade of events that make the left look bad while events that paint Red tribe in a bad light are largely ignored. If you want to see the future of the Overton window, look at the two recent threads on natural selection and epistemology. They actually generated discussion and genuine disagreement in ways that posts about Trump, trans issues, gun rights, police violence, immigration etc. never do anymore.
Cthulhu swims ever farther right. I have to say, it is interesting to have watched it happen over my last five odd years here.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
8d ago
And I've read Babel, so between us we've got the whole bibliography.
Spoiler: It was bad.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
13d ago
Are we pretending Yanukovych wasn't overthrown?
Indeed; the automaton peasants (who lack agency) of Ukraine were told by their CIA handlers (who have agency) to riot and oust the hapless Yanukovych (who lacks agency) and was replaced by American puppet Zelensky (who has agency and should use it to sue for peace). This led noble leader Putin (who lacks agency; anyone in his shoes would do the same) to regretfully declare war.
"Presidents come and go but the policies remain the same." - Vladimir Putin
Makes sense. As you say, they're beset by the same scenario and conditions. Anyone in their shoes would do the same.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
7d ago
This is the same problem America had in the occupation of Afganistan. A true occupation and social change would need significant more support and time than what the American politics around. It would probably need a full generation to be educated as well as an extreme prejudice to crackdown on Islamic extremism for Afganistan to actually significantly change, maybe 40-60 years.
This is a feature, not a bug. The problem was that we tried to occupy Afghanistan in the first place.
The strength of our system is it's inherent antipathy towards totalitarian control or abuse of human rights in the service of some end, however well-intentioned we think that end may be. The fact that American fails at empire is a good thing, both for us and for the world. The fact that the American people doesn't have the stomach for re-education camps, massive censorship and generational occupations of foreign countries is again a strength rather than a weakness. We shouldn't try, and we should actively prevent other nations from trying where the realities on the ground allow.
The problem America is currently facing is not entirely related to HBD, which is a low hanging fruit for discussing antisocial behavior. Rather, it is the culmination of various American policies which have created an underclass which sucks endless resources and only returns crime. It is plenty possible to gainfully employ low intelligence people into socially acceptable positions even as technology improves and our AI overlords come near. In fact, it would probably significantly increase the quality of life of many jobs having lower intelligence people working menial tasks to the best of their ability alongside more trained and capable individuals. The problem is that we have created a society in which there is not enough incentive or will to create the stability necessary to turn around these neighborhoods and communities.
What you're describing seems unlikely to work without resorting to heavy-handed authoritarian policies like forced labor - what will you do when you offer subsidies to Amazon to hire people from low-income households, and nobody takes you up on the deal? Not to mention in some ways your program already exists considering that many low-wage workers are already heavily subsidized by the government.
I won't pretend to know the solution to poverty, but sacrificing the ideals the West was built on to become China-lite is not worth it.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
14d ago
Will they tire of being NATO's cat's paw? Ukrainian men are getting a raw deal in an effort to reconquer lost territory, whose residents probably want to be part of Russia anyway. Why should Ukrainians fight and die for some abstract geopolitical goal of NATO?
Are you suggesting that the existence of Ukraine is an abstract geopolitical goal of NATO? The fighting today may center around the east, but the Russian invasion was clearly aimed at decapitating the Ukrainian regime and either installing a puppet government or annexing it outright. If the Ukrainian army crumbles, is there any doubt that Russia would roll into Kyiv and Ukraine would functionally stop existing as an independent nation?
Since you seem concerned about the right to self-determination of Ukrainians, let me ask you which course of action better serves that goal - arming them so they can defend themselves, or paternalistically telling them 'Sorry, we've all decided your cause is hopeless, now you have to take peace on whatever terms you can get it. Good luck!' People below have argued that Boris Johnson (and presumably the US was on the same page at the time) sabotaged early peace talks - I'd agree with them that this was bad, and Ukraine should be able to choose for themselves - but others have linked polls showing strong support among the Ukrainian public for the war.
As for your language about Ukrainians just being our hapless puppets that we carelessly throw into the meatgrinder, I feel like you've fallen for Putin's narrative. The west has a propensity to believe that they are the only actors on the world stage with any kind of agency; see the oceans of ink spilled about how the west is solely responsible for every conflict and humanitarian crisis in the past 100 years whether they've been directly involved or not. The one actor responsible for this war is Putin, and all the kvetching about NATO expansion and Euromaidan elides the fact that Putin singlehandedly launched an expansionary war of aggression to conquer territory, massage his ego and restore the glory of the Russian empire. Putin was under no personal threat from the west, nor was Russia.
Lastly, for those complaining about the atrophied defense production capacity of the west and shipping money off to Ukraine: two thirds of the 60 billion is earmarked to be spent with American defense manufacturers. If your goal is increasing defense manufacturing capacity in the west, how would you do it if not spending money on domestic defense manufacturing?
Permananned for being naughty while arguing with the HBD people.
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