What should we debate?

[LaughingMan]

It's like I want a one on one debate but I just can't decide what would be interesting to debate.

[LaughingMan]

Anybody at all? It's brainstorm time!

[Simms]

Since nobody has taken you up on the offer you will be able to have a master debate all by yourself.

[LaughingMan]

Since nobody has taken you up on the offer you will be able to have a master debate all by yourself.

Are you scared?

[Simms]

Since nobody has taken you up on the offer you will be able to have a master debate all by yourself.

Are you scared?

Yes!

[LaughingMan]

Since nobody has taken you up on the offer you will be able to have a master debate all by yourself.

Are you scared?

Yes!

You're afraid like a scared woman peeing in her panties. That's understandable. These sort of hiccups in life do happen. We must not let fear define us.

Don't be scared.

[Simms]

You're afraid like a scared woman peeing in her panties. That's understandable. These sort of hiccups in life do happen. We must not let fear define us.Don't be scared.

Why turn it into a gender and sexuality issue?
I am scared like a man and maybe I enjoy wearing panties.

[Mr Reasonable]

Let's debate whether the powerless are at fault for their state of powerlessness.

[James S Saint]

Let's debate whether the powerless are at fault for their state of powerlessness.

Define "fault"...
...{snicker}..

[Mr Reasonable]

That which is the catalyst for negative consequences for a person and is part of the will of the person in question. That's just to start. I can do the definition thing all day playa.

[James S Saint]

I can do the definition thing all day playa.

Datskew..
I was actually merely kidding, in reference to Bigus' paranoia about definitions.

But since you "played along", we can go there...

That which is the catalyst for negative consequences for a person and is part of the will of the person in question. That's just to start.

That isn't the definition that I would have chosen, but we can run with it except that you didn't say what side you wanted to defend;
1) Poor is at fault
2) Poor is not at fault?

[Mr Reasonable]

I'll blame em for their state. It'll be fun to make a satirical argument where I just say "hey, they shoulda worked harder and been more responsible" then I can ignore the fact that a lot of circumstances in the world are outside of an individual's control. Yes...I'll say it's their fault.

[iambiguous]

James, I'm not "paranoid" about definitions. I certainly understand the need for them. After all, you've got to start somewhere. It's just that with respect to conflicting human behaviors that come from conflicting value judgments they have to be implicated in the conflicts themselves. You know, sooner or later. And not, as is the case with you, never.

[James S Saint]

I'll blame em for their state. It'll be fun to make a satirical argument where I just say "hey, they shoulda worked harder and been more responsible" then I can ignore the fact that a lot of circumstances in the world are outside of an individual's control. Yes...I'll say it's their fault.

Ballsy. And I suspect this is gong to be a short debate.
Of course you could debate it with Bigus and it could last forever.

So let's get the show on the road... wherever that is.

[Mr Reasonable]

Let's keep the debate about poor people in the US specifically. It's the land of opportunity. So everyone has an opportunity. That means everyone can get money. So some people who don't have it just aren't using thier opportunities, and then out of those who are using them, then most squander what they gain through poor choices, which keeps them poor. It's no one else's fault. The end.

[James S Saint]

Let's keep the debate about poor people in the US specifically. It's the land of opportunity. So everyone has an opportunity.

Opportunity for WHAT?? Snookered into eternal debt? Conned into prison? Hypnotized into blind slavery? Extorted into servitude? Diseased into disability???
Geeezzz...

That means everyone can get money.

Yeah, not everyone locks up their money. And stealing it through the internet isn't totally impossible if you at least have the benefit of being given extreme knowledge of hidden internet security methods and traps, although seriously tough.

So some people who don't have it just aren't using their opportunities, and then out of those who are using them, then most squander what they gain through poor choices, which keeps them poor. It's no one else's fault. The end.

Again, what "opportunities" are you imagining??

Everyone is BORN poor and naive. They have to be given whatever they have else they won't live for even a week. So the whole idea of being "a catalyst" of one's poverty is actually silly. One cannot catalyze an already existent state.

So in reality, the only opportunities that one could possibly have are entirely dependent upon someone giving them sufficient tools; understanding, knowledge, resources, equipment, financing,... and will/incentive. No one is actually born with aspirations of wealth.

Now if someone is truly given all they would require to become wealthy, including any reason or incentive for why they should even try, then by definition, they will become wealthy, else obviously there is something that wasn't given.

The simple truth is that people are almost never given enough of all of the elements required and thus lack sufficiency in any attempt. And the more wealthy people already know that the only way they can maintain their wealth is to ensure that a great majority remain poor (through not ever having quite enough despite the appearance of having a great deal - a casino gambling trick). Wealth is relative.

The whole point in having wealth is to be able to control other things... such as whether or not anyone else can compete with your wealth standing. The wealthy maintain their wealth by ensuring that everyone else doesn't have any real opportunity, merely the appearance of it. Because they are wealthy, they succeed at it.

End of Fault question.


And btw, that is why Pres. Wilson, JP Morgan, and the FED were the death of capitalism and the seed of the USA's new socialism in disguise. Socialism requires poverty to thrive.

[Mr Reasonable]

I wanna know how many "poor" Americans are actually eating rice and saving everything they can and living 10 deep in cardboard huts and shining shoes and and working at a restaurant and panhandling and pimping themselves daily to try and get the American Dream. Everyone knows you can't have your dreams without earning them. All those things I just listed are options that are available to anyone who's willing to put in the hard work to get some money in the bank and start saving.

I figure a kid could start at an early age and set a goal for savings, and by the time he's done getting his diapers changed and out from under his parent's wing he should be able to start a small grass cutting company with just a few lawnmowers and a friend or two. With some hard work and smart investing, next thing you know he's not poor anymore. Poor people just think they're too good for all these things. They want someone else to just hand them a house and a business and a meal. There's enough food in America's trash cans for it to be the case that no poor person should even buy food. Save that money for not being poor and eat the free food that is thrown away by people who can afford to do so. It's just that sense of entitlement that they all have.

If you think about it on a small scale it makes more sense. Imagine you're having a lovely Thanksgiving dinner and a police officer comes to your door with a poor person and points a gun at you and says, "you've gotta let this person sit at your table and eat just like you're eating even though he refuses to behave morally and responsibly and take care of himself. If you don't I'm going to lock you in jail."


Why are you advocating that it's my fault when a poor person hasn't planned properly to ensure that they have a Thanksgiving turkey when the holiday arrives? I don't think it's my fault at all. If I'm guilty of anything it's having enough of a moral compass to be responsible for myself and doing that I should to ensure I have my own turkey when it's dinner time.

[James S Saint]

I wanna know how many "poor" Americans are actually eating rice and saving everything they can and living 10 deep in cardboard huts and shining shoes and and working at a restaurant and panhandling and pimping themselves daily to try and get the American Dream.

Millions, I'm sure come close enough.

Everyone knows you can't have your dreams without earning them.

"Everyone" would be very wrong about that. There are billionare children who certainly didn't earn their billions.

All those things I just listed are options that are available to anyone who's willing to put in the hard work to get some money in the bank and start saving.

Aren't Utopian fantasies fun.

I figure a kid could start at an early age and set a goal for savings, and by the time he's done getting his diapers changed and out from under his parent's wing he should be able to start a small grass cutting company with just a few lawnmowers and a friend or two. With some hard work and smart investing, next thing you know he's not poor anymore.

Yeah, that's what YOU figure. Reality figures it differently.

Poor people just think they're too good for all these things. They want someone else to just hand them a house and a business and a meal. There's enough food in America's trash cans for it to be the case that no poor person should even buy food.

And just how did they get that idea? They weren't born with it.

There's enough food in America's trash cans for it to be the case that no poor person should even buy food. Save that money for not being poor and eat the free food that is thrown away by people who can afford to do so.

That's illegal in the USA.

If you think about it on a small scale it makes more sense. Imagine you're having a lovely Thanksgiving dinner and a police officer comes to your door with a poor person and points a gun at you and says, "you've gotta let this person sit at your table and eat just like you're eating even though he refuses to behave morally and responsibly and take care of himself. If you don't I'm going to lock you in jail."

Sounds like modern USA.

Why are you advocating that it's my fault when a poor person hasn't planned properly to ensure that they have a Thanksgiving turkey when the holiday arrives? I don't think it's my fault at all. If I'm guilty of anything it's having enough of a moral compass to be responsible for myself and doing that I should to ensure I have my own turkey when it's dinner time.

Well, that's easy. It works like this:

Let's say that you were given a young child and you wanted to ensure the child's deserved wealth when he grew up. So you provide him with a special virtual-realty "wealth-game" that is designed to provide knowledge of how to make money as well as provide conditioning toward aspirations to make money for him to play with as his only game/toy. You also provide for a realm of opportunity wherein he isn't having to pay every penny he earns to replace every appliance and automobile every two years, insurance for everything he even might care about; medical, auto, home, law suits..., freedom from disabling mental and physical diseases, freedom from con-artists and thieves, an actual capitalistic society (not merely pretending to be), and a reasonable client/customer base for when he grows up a bit more. Then to ensure it all works well, you also provide a stipend for start up capital.

Now if the child did not become wealthy (or at least un-poor), then you didn't really provide one of those (as a given "by definition" for each item mentioned). So you should certainly expect for him to avoid poverty at least even though he was actually born poor.

But now, what if instead, you provided him with all of the items mentioned but there were 10 indistinguishable games for him to choose from. The probability of him choosing the wealth-game is only 1 out of 10 and the others condition other things likely to not lead to wealth. Now you could only hope for 1 out of 10 chance for him to avoid poverty because he has been conditioned as the games dictate.

In the first case, you have virtually guaranteed wealth. In the second you have 1:10 chance of wealth. If the child chose the wrong one of the 10 games provided, is that a fault in the child?? I don't think so. He couldn't know one game from the others. Out of 100 such children, only 10 would become wealthy. 90 of them got screwed.

So who's fault is it that a naive child can't discern the "wealth-game" from the "poverty-games"?
And when he has to beg for a Turkey dinner at the age of 40, who's actual fault was that?

Who provided him with a distraction of poverty games?
Who provided the environment that provided the probability of poor education and inspiration?

How did you define "fault" again?
Fault ≡ That which is the catalyst for negative consequences for a person and is part of the will of the person in question.

It was You who catalyzed the situation when the child had no way to know anything and thereby guaranteed the negative consequences. It was YOUR will to give him too much when he needed more narrow guidance.


You spoiled him with obfuscated choices. The "Fault" was yours.
Give him the damn turkey and pray he doesn't hate you anyway.

[Mr Reasonable]

That's an awful lot of if's James. But I'm not talking about some hypothetical world. I'm talking about the real world, here in America where a guy can eat good from the trash and panhandle enough money for a low rent place to live. What are you on about all these theoretical games about?

It's not my fault if a guy wants to play all day and never save. I shouldn't be responsible for giving him dinner. He had the same chance as me to get his own.

Here is some historical evidence, that's been around and available to pretty much every society we've ever heard of for a long time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_an ... rasshopper

That story proves my point. If the grasshopper wants to sing, then he may starve like most artists. But if he wants to do a little work and delay his gratification by being disciplined and conscientious in his decision making then he wont have to deal with the fact that the ant doesn't owe him anything and he wont ever have to question who's fault it is that he lacks dignity because he wont when he can take care of himself.

[James S Saint]

That's an awful lot of if's James. But I'm not talking about some hypothetical world. I'm talking about the real world, here in America where a guy can eat good from the trash and panhandle enough money for a low rent place to live. What are you on about all these theoretical games about?

What do you imagine he can do with the little that he begs for, here in "this great nation"?

It's not my fault if a guy wants to play all day and never save.

That depends, was he your child?

He had the same chance as me to get his own.

"Equal opportunity" is a logical impossibility. No one ever has "the same chance". And what it depends on, is what I was talking about, how he was raised and in what environment.
Everyone is born poor. No one dictates the environment they are born into or what rearing they are going to get.
Yet, as explained above, those are what determines the attitude and potential of wealth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper

That story proves my point. If the grasshopper wants to sing, then he may starve like most artists. But if he wants to do a little work and delay his gratification by being disciplined and conscientious in his decision making then he wont have to deal with the fact that the ant doesn't owe him anything and he wont ever have to question who's fault it is that he lacks dignity because he wont when he can take care of himself.

I thought you weren't talking about a "hypothetical world" from ancient Greece days, but today in the good ole US of A.

A little as 100 years ago, a man could wonder off into the woods and cut a life for himself. Today, he would get shot by the DHS. Today is nothing at all like ancient Greece.

[Mr Reasonable]

Wrong.

[James S Saint]

Wrong.

Wronger.

[Mr Reasonable]

Wrongest.

[James S Saint]

Wrongest.

Bigus.

[Mr Reasonable]

So you concede?