Btw OP, have you ever read any book on meritocracy? Search for geni index, social mobility, nowadays society is worse than Indian caste hierarchy society in the 1970. Do therapy also, you may have issues to solve with your therapist. Good luck.
Dude, Trump needs to drain this swamp first bro ...
@Thalassokrator said in #44:
> Not sure what you mean by that. You said that poor people...
What i meant is obvious, you bring up global statistics on "poverty" which is going to heavily lean on the undeveloped world, which nobody is referring to when talking about "poverty".
> Nice. Shifting the goalposts, are we...
Nope, you brought up the homeless as comparison to actual poor people, both statements stand, low class people today live better than old royalty, and homeless people today live better than poors of old.
> Which by the way is an utterly useless...
It is a useful comparison because if "poor" people today have such abundance that they shadow what the upperclasses had access to a few hundred years ago, then they should not be given the same level of care or charity that has always been shown to actual poors.
And obviously people today have more Access to technology than in the past, even the lower classes, you don't think a low person has access to cars? Maybe they don't own one but they use the bus, domestic flights are cheap, even a low class person can afford one once a year at least, and obviously they have access to heating, TV's, smartphones, computers, the internet, etc. The total volume of technology maybe larger, but technology is also more specialized, as in most people would have no use for most technologies even if they had access to them, like what would a McDonalds worker going to do with a microchip making machine?
What technologies do rich people have access which they regularly use that low classes don't?
> The fact of the matter...
See by your own data a majority of the people you say are "poor" actually have shelter, to say nothing about how many have access to abundant food, and smartphones, and everything else.
> Your view of homeless people is also pretty stereotyped...
Only because the stereotype is true, and poor people 1000 years ago did not have a welfare state that gave them all their basic needs, which is how most homeless people make their money (with some labor and crime thrown in the mix)
> Speaking of which, what do you reckon: how many people...
Food insecurity is not the same as starvation, and your data is knowingly deceiving people by combining people who don't have access to healthy food and people who are hungry and everyone in between those two. Again why should i care about people who don't know to eat good food?
> You do realise that we're talking about one...
Yes, there's probably 2 people in the US that are actually starving and most homeless people have shelter even if it's temporary. And as i have said i don't care about global poverty.
> No. Not all people struggle for survival. I was clearly talking about the struggle of survival...
Yes all people struggle to survive all the time, i guess you forgot that people always die? Nobody is promised a long life, you are only promised death. And medical care is just like any other commodity, is everyone who can't afford one single commodity, however important, considered poor? There are medical treatments that even upper class people can't really afford, that doesn't make them poor.
> At least you acknowledge that...
Yes that is exactly right, there is no poverty problem, and no one should have to care about low class people.
> Not sure what you mean by that. You said that poor people...
What i meant is obvious, you bring up global statistics on "poverty" which is going to heavily lean on the undeveloped world, which nobody is referring to when talking about "poverty".
> Nice. Shifting the goalposts, are we...
Nope, you brought up the homeless as comparison to actual poor people, both statements stand, low class people today live better than old royalty, and homeless people today live better than poors of old.
> Which by the way is an utterly useless...
It is a useful comparison because if "poor" people today have such abundance that they shadow what the upperclasses had access to a few hundred years ago, then they should not be given the same level of care or charity that has always been shown to actual poors.
And obviously people today have more Access to technology than in the past, even the lower classes, you don't think a low person has access to cars? Maybe they don't own one but they use the bus, domestic flights are cheap, even a low class person can afford one once a year at least, and obviously they have access to heating, TV's, smartphones, computers, the internet, etc. The total volume of technology maybe larger, but technology is also more specialized, as in most people would have no use for most technologies even if they had access to them, like what would a McDonalds worker going to do with a microchip making machine?
What technologies do rich people have access which they regularly use that low classes don't?
> The fact of the matter...
See by your own data a majority of the people you say are "poor" actually have shelter, to say nothing about how many have access to abundant food, and smartphones, and everything else.
> Your view of homeless people is also pretty stereotyped...
Only because the stereotype is true, and poor people 1000 years ago did not have a welfare state that gave them all their basic needs, which is how most homeless people make their money (with some labor and crime thrown in the mix)
> Speaking of which, what do you reckon: how many people...
Food insecurity is not the same as starvation, and your data is knowingly deceiving people by combining people who don't have access to healthy food and people who are hungry and everyone in between those two. Again why should i care about people who don't know to eat good food?
> You do realise that we're talking about one...
Yes, there's probably 2 people in the US that are actually starving and most homeless people have shelter even if it's temporary. And as i have said i don't care about global poverty.
> No. Not all people struggle for survival. I was clearly talking about the struggle of survival...
Yes all people struggle to survive all the time, i guess you forgot that people always die? Nobody is promised a long life, you are only promised death. And medical care is just like any other commodity, is everyone who can't afford one single commodity, however important, considered poor? There are medical treatments that even upper class people can't really afford, that doesn't make them poor.
> At least you acknowledge that...
Yes that is exactly right, there is no poverty problem, and no one should have to care about low class people.
@RoseOfSharonCassidy
"What i meant is obvious, you bring up global statistics on "poverty" which is going to heavily lean on the undeveloped world, which nobody is referring to when talking about "poverty"."
To quote Peter Sellers: "Is most stupid theory I ever heard!"
I suggest you buy a dictionary, look up words like poverty and poor, and then reintegrate them into your vocabulary with their real meanings, as opposed to the meanings that you think they should have been given in the days of yore.
Because I'm bored and enjoy discussions of economic systems, I will now shoot down some of your particularly insane points:
"Yes, there's probably 2 people in the US that are actually starving and most homeless people have shelter even if it's temporary. And as i have said i don't care about global poverty."
Have you ever been to a city in the US? I live in a high-income city, and I see homeless people sleeping on the streets quite often.
"What technologies do rich people have access which they regularly use that low classes don't?"
Capital. It's where the term "capitalism" comes from. Capital is literally the technology that capitalists have that allows them to produce wealth. The main complaint about capitalism is that the wealthy are the only ones who can afford capital.
"...you don't think a low person has access to cars?"
A) Why don't you just call them "untermensch" at this point?
B) Not everyone has a car and a license.
"Only because the stereotype is true, and poor people 1000 years ago did not have a welfare state that gave them all their basic needs..."
1000 years ago, society operated under manorialism, in which lords were tasked with providing land and security to peasants in return for tax revenue. In other words: the state was tasked with providing basic needs to the poor people.
"...which is how most homeless people make their money (with some labor and crime thrown in the mix)"
I agree. We should fix this by kicking engineers and scientists out of their homes. That way, more homeless people would be earning their money in a professional workplace environment.
"Yes that is exactly right, there is no poverty problem, and no one should have to care about low class people."
How shocking. You are engaging in dishonest tactics and outright lies to spout your sociopathic classist rhetoric.
"What i meant is obvious, you bring up global statistics on "poverty" which is going to heavily lean on the undeveloped world, which nobody is referring to when talking about "poverty"."
To quote Peter Sellers: "Is most stupid theory I ever heard!"
I suggest you buy a dictionary, look up words like poverty and poor, and then reintegrate them into your vocabulary with their real meanings, as opposed to the meanings that you think they should have been given in the days of yore.
Because I'm bored and enjoy discussions of economic systems, I will now shoot down some of your particularly insane points:
"Yes, there's probably 2 people in the US that are actually starving and most homeless people have shelter even if it's temporary. And as i have said i don't care about global poverty."
Have you ever been to a city in the US? I live in a high-income city, and I see homeless people sleeping on the streets quite often.
"What technologies do rich people have access which they regularly use that low classes don't?"
Capital. It's where the term "capitalism" comes from. Capital is literally the technology that capitalists have that allows them to produce wealth. The main complaint about capitalism is that the wealthy are the only ones who can afford capital.
"...you don't think a low person has access to cars?"
A) Why don't you just call them "untermensch" at this point?
B) Not everyone has a car and a license.
"Only because the stereotype is true, and poor people 1000 years ago did not have a welfare state that gave them all their basic needs..."
1000 years ago, society operated under manorialism, in which lords were tasked with providing land and security to peasants in return for tax revenue. In other words: the state was tasked with providing basic needs to the poor people.
"...which is how most homeless people make their money (with some labor and crime thrown in the mix)"
I agree. We should fix this by kicking engineers and scientists out of their homes. That way, more homeless people would be earning their money in a professional workplace environment.
"Yes that is exactly right, there is no poverty problem, and no one should have to care about low class people."
How shocking. You are engaging in dishonest tactics and outright lies to spout your sociopathic classist rhetoric.
@RoseOfSharonCassidy said in #54
> What i meant is obvious, you bring up global statistics on "poverty" which is going to heavily lean on the undeveloped world, which nobody is referring to when talking about "poverty".
You made the general statement that poverty doesn't exist. You wrote that it especially doesn't exist in the developed world.
Both statements are wrong. That's why it's appropriate to talk about the global problem that is poverty. You can retroactively claim whatever you want, this thread is and was about poverty in general from the very beginning. I've talked about both global poverty as well as poverty in the US in my previous posts. But I see that you apparently don't care about the global poverty problem.
> Nope, you brought up the homeless as comparison to actual poor people, both statements stand, low class people today live better than old royalty, and homeless people today live better than poors of old.
Homeless people in the US today might live a bit better than homeless people (to end up like this you would have had to be cast out by your lord as clousems has rightly pointed out) did in the middle ages. But that doesn't mean that they don't need help. Most people live way, way, way better than they did in the middle ages. That's general progress.
Things don't have to be at the worst they've ever been in all of history to still be very bad. And to still warrant efforts to fix the problem. But hey, at least you made one statement that's not utterly ridiculous for once. It's all downhill from here unfortunately:
Why? Because now you double down on your absolutely preposterous original statement that "low class people" today live better than royalty did 1,000 years ago. Arguments and statistics don't seem to have an impact on you, so I'll make this real easy for you. Corporate needs you to find the differences between these pictures:
Where and how people with low income (not homeless, not unemployed) of today live:
wmaproperty.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Bad-Neighborhoods-And-Low-Income.jpg (Picture of a run-down house in the US)
www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2022-04-21/mold-broken-pipes-health-problems-apartment-complex (story about tenants, a 24-year-old medical assistant among them, whose plight due to severe habitability issues is ignored by their landlord and who cannot afford to move)
How some people with very low income (and most homeless people) are buried:
cremationsocietyofsocal.com/product/plastic-temporary-urn/
(comparatively affordable urns for direct cremation)
www.us-funerals.com/cheap-funeral/ (guide on how to organise a budget funeral)
www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-unclaimed-dead-2016/ (Unclaimed remains of more than 1,400 to be buried in a single mass grave)
Now compare that to royalty of old (more than 1,000 years ago):
First, Ramesses III, Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh, reigned from 26 March 1186 to 15 April 1155 BC. Where he lived (and later was buried):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortuary_Temple_of_Ramesses_III#Gallery (his palace was immediately adjacent to his personal temple)
How he was buried (he died aged 61-62):
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sarcophagus_of_Ramses_III,_Louvre,_egyptologie_22.jpg (in his elaborate sarcophagus)
Let's also look at Darius the Great, King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, who reigned from 522 BC until his death in 486 BC. Where he lived:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis (yeah, among other projects he had an entire city built for himself in the middle of nowhere)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Darius_in_Susa (another palace built for him)
How he was buried (he died aged approximately 64):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Darius_the_Great (a nice piece of rock-cut architecture)
Lastly, Charlemagne (2 April 747 – 28 January 814), King of the Franks (from 768) and the first Holy Roman Emperor (from 800). Where he lived:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Aachen (a modest palace by comparison but private thermae must have been nice)
How he was buried (he died aged 66):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlsschrein (in a gilt silver shrine)
I see it coming. You will object that Darius the Great could not use a motorised bus or car, didn't have a TV and couldn't buy a cellphone. I wish you could hear me laughing! That's comedy gold! Clearly Darius the Great was poorer than low income families in the US living in mould-covered apartments. Because their access to a smartphone and a car (which, surprise, weren't available in 500 BC) REALLY helps their lungs cope with the poison they involuntarily inhale eight hours a day.
> It is a useful comparison because if "poor" people today have such abundance that they shadow what the upperclasses had access to a few hundred years ago, then they should not be given the same level of care or charity that has always been shown to actual poors.
We fundamentally disagree about the usefulness of this comparison.
And yeah, incredible abundance. Such an abundance of abundance in fact, that 1% (3.3 million people) in the US experience severe food insecurity and cannot put enough food on the table. And another 8.2% (26.6 million people) in the US experience moderate food insecurity (cannot afford to vary food leading to malnutrition). See my post #44 for more background on that.
> And obviously people today have more Access to technology than in the past, even the lower classes, you don't think a low person has access to cars? Maybe they don't own one but they use the bus, domestic flights are cheap, even a low class person can afford one once a year at least, and obviously they have access to heating, TV's, smartphones, computers, the internet, etc.
Here we go. Of course some people with low incomes have a car. That doesn't mean they are not poor. Many people need a car to have any income at all because they cannot afford to live where they work (or use their car to work, Uber, deliveries, etc.). Selling their car would make them even poorer, possibly homeless and/or severely food insecure. Same with a smartphone. It's often necessary to make money (again, Uber app, delivery service app, etc.). Poor people regularly don't have reliable access to heating (broken pipes, indifferent landlords). Look at the LA Times article I've linked above.
"[...] domestic flights are cheap, even a low class person can afford one once a year at least [...]"
This is the most inane one yet. What in the world do you do with a domestic flight ticket, when you cannot afford to go on vacation?! What good is it? Sure, you can fly to another city for $49. And then what? You're poor, remember? You're working your butt off every day and still can't afford to put enough (varied) food on the table. What the hell are you going to do in another city? Where you have no place to sleep and no work.
A plane ticket is something you can in principle afford to buy, but you cannot afford to make use of. Unless you want to risk eviction and unemployment. It's not the nominal cost that's too high, it's the opportunity cost.
> The total volume of technology maybe larger, but technology is also more specialized, as in most people would have no use for most technologies even if they had access to them, like what would a McDonalds worker going to do with a microchip making machine?
Make microchips, what else?
But seriously, having a machine doesn't mean having access to a technology.
A nobleman (or clergyman) in the year 1,000 might have similarly asked what an illiterate pauper would do with a quill and a piece of parchment.
So you see, technology has always been specialised. Most people don't know how to use most technologies without expert help. Otherwise we'd all be inventors. That has nothing to do with the accessibility of technologies though. Accessibility includes access to experts who know how to use the technology and either teach you how to use it or apply the technology for you. Your question is meaningless.
The CEO of McDonalds wouldn't know how to operate a microchip making machine either. The only difference being that he could hire someone who does and buy the microchips off them while the employee of one of his franchisees (your charming example) couldn't do that. One does have access to the technology while the other one doesn't. Same with writing 1,000 years ago.
It has nothing to do with the knowledge either one has of the technology.
> What technologies do rich people have access which they regularly use that low classes don't?
Wow, now you've got me. Let me think. What might it be?
Maybe:
MRI scans, PET scans, all sorts of expensive pharmaceuticals, regular dental checkups (extremely beneficial to dental health), orthodontics, preventive care for all sorts of cancers and diseases, regular eye exams, several expensive technologies involving glasses (multifocal lenses, anti-reflective coating, absorptive polarizers), transportation in an ambulance to the hospital in case of a medical emergency (greatly increasing chance of survival), cutting edge safety features in cars (greatly increasing survivability of crashes or outright preventing crashes), most insurances (don't argue, that's a technology based on book-keeping and administration), insulating glass and other insulation technologies (reducing heating costs). These are just the most essential technologies I could think of on the spot.
The list could go on with less essential technologies:
Amateur astronomer equipment, most photography equipment, most musical instruments, most sports equipment, hi-fi equipment, OLED (for the most part), home automation, etc.
I feel it, next you're going to say that poor people don't need a hobby (or should choose a less expensive one) and are not entitled to have access to every technology. Yeah, that's what the words "less essential" indicate. I'm not arguing that everyone should have access to every technology. But you pretended like there are no useful or desirable technologies that rich people have access to and regularly use that poor people don't have access to. And that's simply bunk as I've just showed.
> See by your own data a majority of the people you say are "poor" actually have shelter, to say nothing about how many have access to abundant food, and smartphones, and everything else.
Having temporary shelter does not mean you are not poor. Sheltered homeless people don't have a permanent shelter (the vast majority of homeless shelters kick you out in the morning; in the evening you have to queue again and hope you're early enough to still get a place to sleep the night; if you're too late, all the beds will already be taken and you'll sleep on the street). And they don't necessarily have access to "abundant food" or water either. Quick reality check for you:
www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-01/midnight-mission-running-out-of-water-drought-story
And whether or not it's a majority is irrelevant anyways. Your claim was that there are no poor people in the developed world. Now you're treating the fact that 61.2% of homeless people in the US have temporary shelter as some sort of gotcha. What a lame attempt at an argument.
> Food insecurity is not the same as starvation, and your data is knowingly deceiving people by combining people who don't have access to healthy food and people who are hungry and everyone in between those two. Again why should i care about people who don't know to eat good food?
I never claimed it was. It's a precursor to starvation. I even provided the exact definition of what it is. And you claim I'm deceiving anyone? Ridiculous.
Moderate food insecurity does not mean that someone is too stupid to eat good food, as you callously imply. It means that someone is financially forced to reduce the variety of food they can afford. This means you experience involuntary malnutrition (bordering undernutrition).
Severe food insecurity means people have to reduce the amount of food (nutrients) they consume, because they cannot afford a normal and healthy amount of food. This results in the experience of hunger. You get fewer calories than needed by your body (basal metabolic rate + whatever is needed to replenish the energy used to do work). 26.6 million people in the US are affected by moderate food insecurity and you have the gall to suggest that they are just too dim-witted to know how to eat good food.
> Yes, there's probably 2 people in the US that are actually starving and most homeless people have shelter even if it's temporary.
Keep burying your head in the sand then. There are 3.3 million people in the US who experience hunger (severe food insecurity, defined in #44). I.e. starve. They don't starve to death. But they still starve (in the colloquial sense). Which has really ugly health risks (stunting, wasting, underweight, etc.) associated with it even when you don't die from it directly.
Temporary shelter often times means: shelter for the night. The next night is another story.
> And as i have said i don't care about global poverty.
What a surprising turn of events! Nobody would have seen that one coming!
> Yes all people struggle to survive all the time, i guess you forgot that people always die? Nobody is promised a long life, you are only promised death. And medical care is just like any other commodity, is everyone who can't afford one single commodity, however important, considered poor?
A Type 1 diabetic (with zero natural insulin production in their body) who doesn't get the artificial insulin they need "will fall ill within 12 to 24 hours [after the last injection] and [go into] diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) within 24 to 48 hours":
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetic_ketoacidosis
DKA can lead to unconsciousness. If the diabetic is not found and immediately rushed to the emergency room, they WILL die:
"Beyond that, mortal outcomes would likely occur within days to perhaps a week or two. But I could not see someone surviving much longer than that."
www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/ask-dmine-lifespan-sans-insulin#How-fast-does-it-take-to-get-sick-without-insulin?
And that's just one (and the most drastic) outcome. There are a myriad of bad health outcomes associated with chronic undersupply of insulin as well.
And no, not all people struggle for survival like this. To say so is absurd. To compare this situation with the remote possibility that an accident could kill an affluent person at any point in time is asinine.
Essential medical care is not a commodity. Consciously depriving someone of basic, well-known (to reliably work), necessary medical care desperately needed for continued health and survival, no matter how poor they are, violates their dignity and human rights. Depriving someone of the newest TV (which is a commodity) is not the same thing.
> There are medical treatments that even upper class people can't really afford, that doesn't make them poor.
Upper class people can afford any health insurance of their choice. And should an expensive treatment become medically indicated the health insurance will pay for it (unless the insurer denies the request because they deem the treatment experimental).
So yeah, even upper class people sometimes don't have access to rare, experimental treatments, which when it happens unduly can be an injustice as well (and such cases have been litigated).
And yes it makes them poor in comparison with very wealthy people who can afford to fly to another country and pay for experimental procedures (homeopathic cancer treatment and such nonsense) that are not known to work out of pocket. But upper class people get all basic, well-tested treatments that are known to work. So it's extremely rare that they are denied critical treatment.
And even when they are denied treatment, it doesn't necessarily diminish their chance of survival or full recovery greatly (because the treatment is more likely to be ineffective when it's truly experimental). Only in some, not all cases the treatment unduly denied by a insurer would have been able to save the person's life.
Diabetes on the other hand, is not extremely rare. It affects at the very least 28.7 million people in the US. And the therapy for it is known to work. It's unethical to deny treatment under such circumstances.
When it is denied (over a prolonged period of time), it necessarily greatly diminishes the diabetic's chance of survival and/or full recovery. Comparing the upper class's lack of access to some experimental homeopathic cancer treatment resort for millionaires in the Swiss Alps to the US lower class's lack of sufficient access to the most basic and essential treatments like insulin is, pun intended, rich!
> Yes that is exactly right, there is no poverty problem, and no one should have to care about low class people.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LGX8TbvGew
> What i meant is obvious, you bring up global statistics on "poverty" which is going to heavily lean on the undeveloped world, which nobody is referring to when talking about "poverty".
You made the general statement that poverty doesn't exist. You wrote that it especially doesn't exist in the developed world.
Both statements are wrong. That's why it's appropriate to talk about the global problem that is poverty. You can retroactively claim whatever you want, this thread is and was about poverty in general from the very beginning. I've talked about both global poverty as well as poverty in the US in my previous posts. But I see that you apparently don't care about the global poverty problem.
> Nope, you brought up the homeless as comparison to actual poor people, both statements stand, low class people today live better than old royalty, and homeless people today live better than poors of old.
Homeless people in the US today might live a bit better than homeless people (to end up like this you would have had to be cast out by your lord as clousems has rightly pointed out) did in the middle ages. But that doesn't mean that they don't need help. Most people live way, way, way better than they did in the middle ages. That's general progress.
Things don't have to be at the worst they've ever been in all of history to still be very bad. And to still warrant efforts to fix the problem. But hey, at least you made one statement that's not utterly ridiculous for once. It's all downhill from here unfortunately:
Why? Because now you double down on your absolutely preposterous original statement that "low class people" today live better than royalty did 1,000 years ago. Arguments and statistics don't seem to have an impact on you, so I'll make this real easy for you. Corporate needs you to find the differences between these pictures:
Where and how people with low income (not homeless, not unemployed) of today live:
wmaproperty.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Bad-Neighborhoods-And-Low-Income.jpg (Picture of a run-down house in the US)
www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2022-04-21/mold-broken-pipes-health-problems-apartment-complex (story about tenants, a 24-year-old medical assistant among them, whose plight due to severe habitability issues is ignored by their landlord and who cannot afford to move)
How some people with very low income (and most homeless people) are buried:
cremationsocietyofsocal.com/product/plastic-temporary-urn/
(comparatively affordable urns for direct cremation)
www.us-funerals.com/cheap-funeral/ (guide on how to organise a budget funeral)
www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-unclaimed-dead-2016/ (Unclaimed remains of more than 1,400 to be buried in a single mass grave)
Now compare that to royalty of old (more than 1,000 years ago):
First, Ramesses III, Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh, reigned from 26 March 1186 to 15 April 1155 BC. Where he lived (and later was buried):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortuary_Temple_of_Ramesses_III#Gallery (his palace was immediately adjacent to his personal temple)
How he was buried (he died aged 61-62):
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sarcophagus_of_Ramses_III,_Louvre,_egyptologie_22.jpg (in his elaborate sarcophagus)
Let's also look at Darius the Great, King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, who reigned from 522 BC until his death in 486 BC. Where he lived:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis (yeah, among other projects he had an entire city built for himself in the middle of nowhere)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Darius_in_Susa (another palace built for him)
How he was buried (he died aged approximately 64):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Darius_the_Great (a nice piece of rock-cut architecture)
Lastly, Charlemagne (2 April 747 – 28 January 814), King of the Franks (from 768) and the first Holy Roman Emperor (from 800). Where he lived:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Aachen (a modest palace by comparison but private thermae must have been nice)
How he was buried (he died aged 66):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlsschrein (in a gilt silver shrine)
I see it coming. You will object that Darius the Great could not use a motorised bus or car, didn't have a TV and couldn't buy a cellphone. I wish you could hear me laughing! That's comedy gold! Clearly Darius the Great was poorer than low income families in the US living in mould-covered apartments. Because their access to a smartphone and a car (which, surprise, weren't available in 500 BC) REALLY helps their lungs cope with the poison they involuntarily inhale eight hours a day.
> It is a useful comparison because if "poor" people today have such abundance that they shadow what the upperclasses had access to a few hundred years ago, then they should not be given the same level of care or charity that has always been shown to actual poors.
We fundamentally disagree about the usefulness of this comparison.
And yeah, incredible abundance. Such an abundance of abundance in fact, that 1% (3.3 million people) in the US experience severe food insecurity and cannot put enough food on the table. And another 8.2% (26.6 million people) in the US experience moderate food insecurity (cannot afford to vary food leading to malnutrition). See my post #44 for more background on that.
> And obviously people today have more Access to technology than in the past, even the lower classes, you don't think a low person has access to cars? Maybe they don't own one but they use the bus, domestic flights are cheap, even a low class person can afford one once a year at least, and obviously they have access to heating, TV's, smartphones, computers, the internet, etc.
Here we go. Of course some people with low incomes have a car. That doesn't mean they are not poor. Many people need a car to have any income at all because they cannot afford to live where they work (or use their car to work, Uber, deliveries, etc.). Selling their car would make them even poorer, possibly homeless and/or severely food insecure. Same with a smartphone. It's often necessary to make money (again, Uber app, delivery service app, etc.). Poor people regularly don't have reliable access to heating (broken pipes, indifferent landlords). Look at the LA Times article I've linked above.
"[...] domestic flights are cheap, even a low class person can afford one once a year at least [...]"
This is the most inane one yet. What in the world do you do with a domestic flight ticket, when you cannot afford to go on vacation?! What good is it? Sure, you can fly to another city for $49. And then what? You're poor, remember? You're working your butt off every day and still can't afford to put enough (varied) food on the table. What the hell are you going to do in another city? Where you have no place to sleep and no work.
A plane ticket is something you can in principle afford to buy, but you cannot afford to make use of. Unless you want to risk eviction and unemployment. It's not the nominal cost that's too high, it's the opportunity cost.
> The total volume of technology maybe larger, but technology is also more specialized, as in most people would have no use for most technologies even if they had access to them, like what would a McDonalds worker going to do with a microchip making machine?
Make microchips, what else?
But seriously, having a machine doesn't mean having access to a technology.
A nobleman (or clergyman) in the year 1,000 might have similarly asked what an illiterate pauper would do with a quill and a piece of parchment.
So you see, technology has always been specialised. Most people don't know how to use most technologies without expert help. Otherwise we'd all be inventors. That has nothing to do with the accessibility of technologies though. Accessibility includes access to experts who know how to use the technology and either teach you how to use it or apply the technology for you. Your question is meaningless.
The CEO of McDonalds wouldn't know how to operate a microchip making machine either. The only difference being that he could hire someone who does and buy the microchips off them while the employee of one of his franchisees (your charming example) couldn't do that. One does have access to the technology while the other one doesn't. Same with writing 1,000 years ago.
It has nothing to do with the knowledge either one has of the technology.
> What technologies do rich people have access which they regularly use that low classes don't?
Wow, now you've got me. Let me think. What might it be?
Maybe:
MRI scans, PET scans, all sorts of expensive pharmaceuticals, regular dental checkups (extremely beneficial to dental health), orthodontics, preventive care for all sorts of cancers and diseases, regular eye exams, several expensive technologies involving glasses (multifocal lenses, anti-reflective coating, absorptive polarizers), transportation in an ambulance to the hospital in case of a medical emergency (greatly increasing chance of survival), cutting edge safety features in cars (greatly increasing survivability of crashes or outright preventing crashes), most insurances (don't argue, that's a technology based on book-keeping and administration), insulating glass and other insulation technologies (reducing heating costs). These are just the most essential technologies I could think of on the spot.
The list could go on with less essential technologies:
Amateur astronomer equipment, most photography equipment, most musical instruments, most sports equipment, hi-fi equipment, OLED (for the most part), home automation, etc.
I feel it, next you're going to say that poor people don't need a hobby (or should choose a less expensive one) and are not entitled to have access to every technology. Yeah, that's what the words "less essential" indicate. I'm not arguing that everyone should have access to every technology. But you pretended like there are no useful or desirable technologies that rich people have access to and regularly use that poor people don't have access to. And that's simply bunk as I've just showed.
> See by your own data a majority of the people you say are "poor" actually have shelter, to say nothing about how many have access to abundant food, and smartphones, and everything else.
Having temporary shelter does not mean you are not poor. Sheltered homeless people don't have a permanent shelter (the vast majority of homeless shelters kick you out in the morning; in the evening you have to queue again and hope you're early enough to still get a place to sleep the night; if you're too late, all the beds will already be taken and you'll sleep on the street). And they don't necessarily have access to "abundant food" or water either. Quick reality check for you:
www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-01/midnight-mission-running-out-of-water-drought-story
And whether or not it's a majority is irrelevant anyways. Your claim was that there are no poor people in the developed world. Now you're treating the fact that 61.2% of homeless people in the US have temporary shelter as some sort of gotcha. What a lame attempt at an argument.
> Food insecurity is not the same as starvation, and your data is knowingly deceiving people by combining people who don't have access to healthy food and people who are hungry and everyone in between those two. Again why should i care about people who don't know to eat good food?
I never claimed it was. It's a precursor to starvation. I even provided the exact definition of what it is. And you claim I'm deceiving anyone? Ridiculous.
Moderate food insecurity does not mean that someone is too stupid to eat good food, as you callously imply. It means that someone is financially forced to reduce the variety of food they can afford. This means you experience involuntary malnutrition (bordering undernutrition).
Severe food insecurity means people have to reduce the amount of food (nutrients) they consume, because they cannot afford a normal and healthy amount of food. This results in the experience of hunger. You get fewer calories than needed by your body (basal metabolic rate + whatever is needed to replenish the energy used to do work). 26.6 million people in the US are affected by moderate food insecurity and you have the gall to suggest that they are just too dim-witted to know how to eat good food.
> Yes, there's probably 2 people in the US that are actually starving and most homeless people have shelter even if it's temporary.
Keep burying your head in the sand then. There are 3.3 million people in the US who experience hunger (severe food insecurity, defined in #44). I.e. starve. They don't starve to death. But they still starve (in the colloquial sense). Which has really ugly health risks (stunting, wasting, underweight, etc.) associated with it even when you don't die from it directly.
Temporary shelter often times means: shelter for the night. The next night is another story.
> And as i have said i don't care about global poverty.
What a surprising turn of events! Nobody would have seen that one coming!
> Yes all people struggle to survive all the time, i guess you forgot that people always die? Nobody is promised a long life, you are only promised death. And medical care is just like any other commodity, is everyone who can't afford one single commodity, however important, considered poor?
A Type 1 diabetic (with zero natural insulin production in their body) who doesn't get the artificial insulin they need "will fall ill within 12 to 24 hours [after the last injection] and [go into] diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) within 24 to 48 hours":
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetic_ketoacidosis
DKA can lead to unconsciousness. If the diabetic is not found and immediately rushed to the emergency room, they WILL die:
"Beyond that, mortal outcomes would likely occur within days to perhaps a week or two. But I could not see someone surviving much longer than that."
www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/ask-dmine-lifespan-sans-insulin#How-fast-does-it-take-to-get-sick-without-insulin?
And that's just one (and the most drastic) outcome. There are a myriad of bad health outcomes associated with chronic undersupply of insulin as well.
And no, not all people struggle for survival like this. To say so is absurd. To compare this situation with the remote possibility that an accident could kill an affluent person at any point in time is asinine.
Essential medical care is not a commodity. Consciously depriving someone of basic, well-known (to reliably work), necessary medical care desperately needed for continued health and survival, no matter how poor they are, violates their dignity and human rights. Depriving someone of the newest TV (which is a commodity) is not the same thing.
> There are medical treatments that even upper class people can't really afford, that doesn't make them poor.
Upper class people can afford any health insurance of their choice. And should an expensive treatment become medically indicated the health insurance will pay for it (unless the insurer denies the request because they deem the treatment experimental).
So yeah, even upper class people sometimes don't have access to rare, experimental treatments, which when it happens unduly can be an injustice as well (and such cases have been litigated).
And yes it makes them poor in comparison with very wealthy people who can afford to fly to another country and pay for experimental procedures (homeopathic cancer treatment and such nonsense) that are not known to work out of pocket. But upper class people get all basic, well-tested treatments that are known to work. So it's extremely rare that they are denied critical treatment.
And even when they are denied treatment, it doesn't necessarily diminish their chance of survival or full recovery greatly (because the treatment is more likely to be ineffective when it's truly experimental). Only in some, not all cases the treatment unduly denied by a insurer would have been able to save the person's life.
Diabetes on the other hand, is not extremely rare. It affects at the very least 28.7 million people in the US. And the therapy for it is known to work. It's unethical to deny treatment under such circumstances.
When it is denied (over a prolonged period of time), it necessarily greatly diminishes the diabetic's chance of survival and/or full recovery. Comparing the upper class's lack of access to some experimental homeopathic cancer treatment resort for millionaires in the Swiss Alps to the US lower class's lack of sufficient access to the most basic and essential treatments like insulin is, pun intended, rich!
> Yes that is exactly right, there is no poverty problem, and no one should have to care about low class people.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LGX8TbvGew
Sometimes I question everything we as humankind have defined, like a meter being a meter, why decided we the length of a meter to be a meter? I am not talking about the usage of the system, but about the length of the system. The same goes for everything else: Why did we decide which time zone to use where, who's bad and who's good, who's poor and who's rich?
But then I snap out of it again, saying to myself: "You could have asked these questions when you were younger, when you weren't used to live with the decided definitions, now it's too late. Besides, you don't have to think about everything, and changing the definition would result in just a change of the name, though it would still be the same."
But then I snap out of it again, saying to myself: "You could have asked these questions when you were younger, when you weren't used to live with the decided definitions, now it's too late. Besides, you don't have to think about everything, and changing the definition would result in just a change of the name, though it would still be the same."
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