Don’t Make Housing for the Poor Too Cozy, Carson Warns
43 replies, posted
It never ceases to surprise me just how out of touch and entitled the GOP can be.
The GOP stance regarding the poor is literally "cruelty is kindness; kindness is cruelty."
They believe that our nations' poor [I]choose[/I] to live in misery and desperation because they are too lazy to work hard, and that enforcing such cruel conditions is just a necessary filter for weeding out people who don't "deserve" better lives.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;52186394]it's more ignorance of what they're actually eating. they still can overeat, even while thinking they are actually eating less (plus the kinds of foods and the frequency and times of when you eat having an impact too).[/QUOTE]
Then they can record everything they eat (this is so easy now-a-days with apps) and have no doubt, but that requires more effort than a lot of people are willing to do.
Ignorance really can't be an excuse in the modern era.
[QUOTE=sgman91;52186439]Then they can record everything they eat (this is so easy now-a-days with apps) and have no doubt, but that requires more effort than a lot of people are willing to do.[/quote]
yeah but humans aren't rational machines that go to such lengths to detail everything they eat, when, and where. until recently most people weren't fat, and now quite suddenly you have a growing and worsening obesity epidemic. telling people to "stop eating so much" hasn't been working for decades when there are probably other reasons for it
[quote]Ignorance really can't be an excuse in the modern era.[/QUOTE]
i think it is, given how so much information these days can't even be verified, and how so much of the information produced and disseminated these days is often utterly useless noise that we're incapable of sifting through
[QUOTE=VenomousBeetle;52183925]He's essentially saying that if you give too much for free they won't feel compelled to work their way up from my understanding.
The title says poor but the article itself makes it clear they're talking about homeless shelters, not people scraping by in low-income apartments/trailer parks.
[editline]3rd May 2017[/editline][/QUOTE]
I've hobo'd around for years. It doesn't matter what you put in the Shelter, homeless is homeless. If somebody doesn't want to work, they're not going to work. you get those types, but for the most part its people trying to get by. It doesn't matter if you put spikes, mats, whatever on the floor for them to sleep on. The televisions don't matter earthier, most Homeless have smartphones and a library. All they need is a place to sleep for the night, and that's what the shelter does. It keeps them off the street. Mr. Carson has never been Homeless, and doesn't know what he's talking about. you have a bad economy, you're going to have homeless people. Taking away televisions won't do anything.
[QUOTE=sgman91;52186439]Then they can record everything they eat (this is so easy now-a-days with apps) and have no doubt, but that requires more effort than a lot of people are willing to do.
Ignorance really can't be an excuse in the modern era.[/QUOTE]
I can fathom several reasons why fat people stay fat, and coming from a person who's lost a dramatic amount of weight in recent years, I think my say has some value here.
1) Effort. It's a lot of work to lose weight, simply cutting out food doesn't really work for many people. Yes, calories in and calories out is how weight fluctuates, and I'm not arguing that this isn't how it works. It is. The part about that, that doesn't work for most fat people, is that they've broken their hunger reflexes. They have little practical control over this. A fat person in that situation can eat more than they require, and still be hungry. This is a problematic situation which is very hard to overcome and change, biologically it's not something that reverts very easily.
2) Cost. It's not that healthy food costs a lot, and it's not that unhealthy food is cheap, though I'm certain neither situation actually helps. It's the time/money/cost ratio for making healthy food that is quite high, and a lot of people don't want to invest their time into that, to be less satisfied, and frankly, most people don't have the skills to actually make healthy food or understand what they need to eat. Blame the schools/parents from their youth.
3) Pressure. There's a lot of pressure on fat people to conform to societal norms. I don't know if this is a healthy pressure, I genuinely don't think it is though. Fat people, in my experience, often get a lot of stares, physical looks, glares, and passive aggressive disdain. As a person who's fought very hard to lose my weight and keep it off, I too share a decent amount of disdain for the people who refuse to do so, but at the same time, I have to recognize that that isn't productive, and that kind of shit didn't help me.
[QUOTE=Destroyox;52183918]What is with the GOP and its insistence on hardline classism? Poor people can't have good homes, poor people can't have good meals, poor people can't vote. Modern day counts and dukes.[/QUOTE]
Because poor people are just lazy and they need to be punished for it until they stop being lazy and become wealthy.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52187054]I can fathom several reasons why fat people stay fat, and coming from a person who's lost a dramatic amount of weight in recent years, I think my say has some value here.
1) Effort. It's a lot of work to lose weight, simply cutting out food doesn't really work for many people. Yes, calories in and calories out is how weight fluctuates, and I'm not arguing that this isn't how it works. It is. The part about that, that doesn't work for most fat people, is that they've broken their hunger reflexes. They have little practical control over this. A fat person in that situation can eat more than they require, and still be hungry. This is a problematic situation which is very hard to overcome and change, biologically it's not something that reverts very easily.
2) Cost. It's not that healthy food costs a lot, and it's not that unhealthy food is cheap, though I'm certain neither situation actually helps. It's the time/money/cost ratio for making healthy food that is quite high, and a lot of people don't want to invest their time into that, to be less satisfied, and frankly, most people don't have the skills to actually make healthy food or understand what they need to eat. Blame the schools/parents from their youth.
3) Pressure. There's a lot of pressure on fat people to conform to societal norms. I don't know if this is a healthy pressure, I genuinely don't think it is though. Fat people, in my experience, often get a lot of stares, physical looks, glares, and passive aggressive disdain. As a person who's fought very hard to lose my weight and keep it off, I too share a decent amount of disdain for the people who refuse to do so, but at the same time, I have to recognize that that isn't productive, and that kind of shit didn't help me.[/QUOTE]
I don't disagree with anything you've said. When the perceived cost of being fat is greater than all those other perceived costs combined, then you will do what is necessary in order to lose weight.
[QUOTE=reedbo;52184206]How could anyone honestly believe that poor people enjoy being poor?[/QUOTE]
bootstraps!
rich people always disparage the poor, we even tax them while they're in jail.
[QUOTE=sgman91;52187114]I don't disagree with anything you've said. When the perceived cost of being fat is greater than all those other perceived costs combined, then you will do what is necessary in order to lose weight.[/QUOTE]
The whole basic assumption you are making about opportunity costs are completely incorrect. Fat people do not actively choose to be overweight, poor people do not actively choose to be poor.
Everything that both elowin and I have said to you is correct. You are either unable or unwilling to consider the foundation of your own arguments. You're just blindly asserting what you believe to be true with no logical basis or evidence to support it.
A good test to see if what you are saying is actually logical would be to put the words "I believe" in front of it and see if it actually makes what you say make more sense.
As in,
"When the perceived cost of being fat is greater than all of those perceived costs combined, then you will do what is necessary in order to lose weight."
Becomes,
"[b]I believe[/b] that when the perceived cost of being fat is greater than all of those perceived costs combined, then you will do what is necessary in order to lose weight."
With that rephrasing, it becomes clear that what you're stating is your personal opinion and not a logical argument or a self-evident fact.
[editline]5th May 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=sgman91;52186344]I agree that people often don't accurately know the true opportunity costs involved in their decision making. That's why I said perceived opportunity cost as opposed to actual opportunity cost.
I do factually disagree that most fat people are fat based on ignorance. [b]They know that they will lose weight if they eat less food.[/b][/QUOTE]
This is factually incorrect, eating less food does not automatically correlate to eating less calories. Many food items can contain more callories than their actual size would suggest and others that are advertised as having low or no calories are also falsely advertised and can instead contain a large number of calories due to legal loopholes.
The recent rise in the number of cases of morbid obesity are owed to the increase in fatty ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup combined with manipulative marketing and lack of public education (although in the past, that education would've been unneccessary). It has nothing to do with 'opportunity costs' or people choosing to be fat.
Similarly, poverty is caused by various socioeconomic factors such as ghettoization and lack of access to opportunities in many places, not by people choosing to be poor based on some perceived 'opportunity cost'.
[QUOTE=sgman91;52185500]Yes, it is a strawman. He said that Carson thinks people like being poor when that has nothing to do with the argument. It makes the argument much easier to dismiss and attack instead of dealing with the real issues involved.[/QUOTE]
It isn't a strawman, but rather it's an indication that you don't understand the argument or the underlying assumption that both you and Carson need to make in order to believe that poor people are choosing to remain poor because of some perceived 'opportunity cost'. You seem to be incorrectly applying the straw man fallacy because you believe that Carson's argument is self-evident. As a result, you're going to accuse any point anyone argues against him of being a straw man because you are unable to recognize that the assumptions made are different.
Even if you personally believe that the only reason a person could ever be poor is that they have deliberately gauged an 'opportunity cost' and decided that they prefer to be poor rather than receive the benefits of working, even if you personally believe that the only reason a person could be fat is if they have deliberately decided to be fat based on the perceived 'opportunity cost', you must be able to consider the possibility that poor people are poor and fat people are fat because of external factors or circumstances that are beyond their control. If you cannot even consider the possibility, then regardless of how much evidence anyone presents to you, you will continue continue to believe the incorrect argument.
This may idea sound strange to you, surely, you may be asking, if someone is correct then they are correct and if they are wrong then they are wrong. But consider this, what if you are wrong? From your perspective, how would you know if you are wrong about something if you are mentally incapable of considering any possibility other than being correct?
[QUOTE=Zyler;52187957]It has nothing to do with 'opportunity costs' or people choosing to be fat.[/QUOTE]
I think the whole "opportunity cost" concept is a flaw with sgman's perceptions of others here to begin with. He seems to be assuming that everybody only runs on pure logic which is very very far from the case in reality. Most people don't actually put any thought into that sort of thing when making a decision.
[QUOTE=Alice3173;52188042]I think the whole "opportunity cost" concept is a flaw with sgman's perceptions of others here to begin with. He seems to be assuming that everybody only runs on pure logic which is very very far from the case in reality. Most people don't actually put any thought into that sort of thing when making a decision.[/QUOTE]
That's true, I was thinking more inline with the assumption that these circumstances result from individuals who clearly make those decisions in the first place rather than being affected by outside forces. Essentially, there's an underlying assumption there that poor people choose to be poor or that fat people choose to be fat.
In order to be able to fairly engage with ideas you disagree with, you need to at least be aware of the assumptions behind your own arguments.
[QUOTE=snookypookums;52183735]This guy would probably have an aneurysm if he saw "the luxury" of some scandinavian prisons.
[t]http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5482155969beddd00e8b4567/why-norways-prison-system-is-so-successful.jpg[/t][/QUOTE]
[IMG]https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-441ac056a1c7974a7d89efe67c127032-c[/IMG]
You'd expect hospital's to be cozy, since they're where people who are sick/hurt stay while they recover. I had to stay in one for a few days as I needed surgery about 2 years ago.
That cell I just posted made the recovery room I was in look like prison in comparison. Unbarred windows? A guitar? Desktop Computer? What the hell?
How's the food, I wonder?
[url]https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-scandinavian-prisons-are-superior/279949/[/url]
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