Getting away from useless work

[Ominous Gamer]

No, cleaning up shit filled diapers is not rewarding.
Knowing you have someone that is relying and trusting you to take care of their (so far) uncontrollable functions is rewarding.

Brandy and I both have full time jobs now. Don't recall house chores ever coming up as "useless work"

[Lewkowski]

I dunno, maybe develop in such a way as to encourage a culture of cooperation and support and love

Specifics please...

Most ideas for bettering society prompted by liberals typically entail forcing people at the point of the gun to do or not do something.

[Aimless]

Specifics please...

Eg. if people were okay with some of their money going towards giving the poor and/or sick access to quality healthcare, education, that sor of thing. Basically, a compassionate society of the kind that Jesus might have approved if he'd been real.

Most ideas for bettering society prompted by liberals typically entail forcing people at the point of the gun to do or not do something.

Conservatives, however, actually pull the trigger. Well, when toothpaste is involved anyway.

Another example might be an end to the mafia-activities of various labour-unions

Another example would be to not beat or rape your sweatshop-workers

[Lewkowski]

Eg. if people were okay with some of their money going towards giving the poor and/or sick access to quality healthcare, education, that sor of thing. Basically, a compassionate society of the kind that Jesus might have approved if he'd been real.

I'm all in favor of charity. You know the *voluntary* giving of ones self. I'm asking what policy are you supporting or are you just wishing things were different?

[Aimless]

I think it's difficult to bring about lasting social change by forcing people to do things against their will. If anything that approach may have the effect of increasing resistance and hostility. While I think that many taxes in a welfare state are used for good things I know that they are not always gladly paid, and I know that it would be better if they were. No-one's going to want to surrender anything if it may jeopardise their well-being, of course.

I'm all in favor of charity. You know the *voluntary* giving of ones self. I'm asking what policy are you supporting or are you just wishing things were different?

Is giving to charity the most effective way to bring about good things, or is it just the most palatable way? I ask because my impression is that that approach is often unsystematic and unreliable and unsustainable and has as it's major function giving people the feelgoods.

I recognise, of course, that government use of tax-money isn't necessarily all that great.

[Aimless]

But yes I am mostly wishing things were different, I can't think of any policy-changes off the top of my head that could deal with the possibility of there being a larger number of people that are even less employable than they are now and that have crappy lives.

[Lewkowski]

Is giving to charity the most effective way to bring about good things, or is it just the most palatable way?

Depends on what you refer to as "good thing." I mean feeding the homeless may meet their immediate need but a charity that requires them to work as volunteers in order to get room and board at the shelter probably does more good.

Giving the homeless guy on the street 5 bucks probably makes you feel better but there is a possibility that money will go towards booze or drugs. Giving money to a shelter, food bank or heck just giving the guy food would probably be a better use of resources.

[Aimless]

Depends on what you refer to as "good thing." I mean feeding the homeless may meet their immediate need but a charity that requires them to work as volunteers in order to get room and board at the shelter probably does more good.

I think the former may be a good thing while the latter may be a better thing

Giving the homeless guy on the street 5 bucks probably makes you feel better but there is a possibility that money will go towards booze or drugs. Giving money to a shelter, food bank or heck just giving the guy food would probably be a better use of resources.

Yes, the best use of resources would probably be to put that money into an effective organisation, and effective organisations need to be able to make money reliably, either through charity or through providing useful services.




On this matter of charity, I don't have a bias towards taxation in a scenario where charities are effective enough to fix or to ameliorate social problems. That world needs to be better than the world we presently live in, though.

What can encourage enough people to give reliably to effective charities? And what needs to change if we're to bring about a world where people don't become dependent on charities? What needs to change if we're to bring about a world where people don't spend their lives not being able to live?

I ask you

[Aimless]

And, btw, my answer is that the world needs to become a place where people can feel safe in being compassionate and being generous and being concerned about social problems.

I realise this is drifting a little from the OP

[Loki]

So for your solution to work, your solution needs to already be in place. Great plan.

[Aimless]

For my solution to work the world needs to be a safer place, which can only be accomplished through heavy taxation of basketball players.

[GGT]

Depends on what you refer to as "good thing." I mean feeding the homeless may meet their immediate need but a charity that requires them to work as volunteers in order to get room and board at the shelter probably does more good.

Giving the homeless guy on the street 5 bucks probably makes you feel better but there is a possibility that money will go towards booze or drugs. Giving money to a shelter, food bank or heck just giving the guy food would probably be a better use of resources.

I shudder to think what you'd expect a poor person to "do" for dialysis, chemotherapy, open heart surgery, or joint replacements. Or how 'Charity Hospitals' would work on a national scale.

[littlelolligagged]

Giving the homeless guy on the street 5 bucks probably makes you feel better but there is a possibility that money will go towards booze or drugs. Giving money to a shelter, food bank or heck just giving the guy food would probably be a better use of resources.

And why is that such a terrible thing? Even if your assumption is true, since your charity isn't likely to cover rehab for the poor guy (and rehab often doesn't work so well if the person isn't actually ready to make the change) - why not let him avoid the pain (not to mention possible death) and humiliation of withdrawal instead. I think you can be reasonably sure that if his most pressing need was a bit of food he'd get that instead.

(now, if your homeless guy had a child he was responsible for that's a whole different ball game)

[Lewkowski]

And why is that such a terrible thing? Even if your assumption is true, since your charity isn't likely to cover rehab for the poor guy (and rehab often doesn't work so well if the person isn't actually ready to make the change) - why not let him avoid the pain (not to mention possible death) and humiliation of withdrawal instead.

Society shouldn't be enablers for some homeless guys choice to be a drug addict.

[Nessus]

Society shouldn't be enablers for some homeless guys choice to be a drug addict.

I thought the Free Market meant that money's allocated in the best way; if some parts of society want to enable the homeless person's drug addiction via donation, why would you want to discourage that? And moreover, how is that any different from society enabling the drug addiction/alcoholism of someone working at Mickey Dee's or in a corporate office somewhere? I will bet you dollars to donuts that there are alcoholics in all areas of life, including the business world. Each and every person contributing to that person's salary is therefore enabling their addiction. How horrible!

[littlelolligagged]

Society shouldn't be enablers for some homeless guys choice to be a drug addict.

So, how are you going to fix it? Going to pay for the costly rehab as many times as it takes?

Or just feel smug knowing you gave him food he couldn't even manage to eat (or keep down) because his withdrawal symptoms are so bad.

[Aimless]

Society shouldn't be enablers for some homeless guys choice to be a drug addict.

I think I'm inclined to agree with you on this point, but I'd like to amend it:

Society should enable an addict's choice to stop using. To do that effectively society needs to first recognise that there are a lot of things that factor into the "choice" to be an addict.

There are things that get in the way of understanding the problem: lack of compassion, lack of empathy, and lack of knowledge. I think that's part of the reason why so many are content to just dismiss it as a matter of people freely choosing harmful lifestyles.

I think another important reason is that it's costly and difficult to address the issues that must be addressed in combating addiction, and a lot of people don't want much of their money to go to these individuals.

[Lewkowski]

I thought the Free Market meant that money's allocated in the best way; if some parts of society want to enable the homeless person's drug addiction via donation, why would you want to discourage that?

Inefficient allocation of resources. NOTE: I said "should" not "make" or "force" or "demand." That is the difference between people support freedom and those who support despots.

So, how are you going to fix it? Going to pay for the costly rehab as many times as it takes?

All an addict needs to do to stop is to decide to stop.

[Aimless]

All an addict needs to do to stop is to decide to stop.

Is this actually true, and to what extent is it true?

[Nessus]

Inefficient allocation of resources.

What's the most efficient way of allocating recreational water-ethanol mixtures?

[Illusions]

What's the most efficient way of allocating recreational water-ethanol mixtures?

I'm more interested in who Lewk believes I should give my dollar to when buying things like lawn chairs, gasoline, or computers, because apparently I, and other regular people like myself, can't be trusted to efficiently allocate our dollars in the homeless person market, so it must obviously be a problem in other markets as well.

[Aimless]

I'm more interested in who Lewk believes I should give my dollar to when buying things like lawn chairs, gasoline, or computers, because apparently I, and other regular people like myself, can't be trusted to efficiently allocate our dollars in the homeless person market, so it must obviously be a problem in other markets as well.

It's inefficient if we assume that society's goal should be to reduce addiction.