Do you want a meritocracy?

[UpaLoompa]

you're really trying hard to shoehorn something into the equation that isn't there.

You acted surprised that people were objecting to social welfare put forward by the church. I described why and elaborated as to how if you had a shred of intellectual honesty that fits into your overall world view. I'm not shoehorning, you're just intellectually inconsistent and dishonest.

 

[chardog]

Free education until 18 is pretty good for equalization. I wouldnt even mind free education till 22-24, however a large portion of the population just dont care for college or schooling in general, and a vocational training should be an elective. I technically started my vocational training in high school and I could have been working well before a BS degree. Did spend a lot of time in college dicking around, so with full education provided, we would have a meritocracy or at minimum, true equalization.

 

[IDL]

You acted surprised that people were objecting to social welfare put forward by the church. I described why and elaborated as to how if you had a shred of intellectual honesty that fits into your overall world view. I'm not shoehorning, you're just intellectually inconsistent and dishonest.

So because there are issues that you see with the church, there can't also be positive things?

I'm not getting you.

It seems like you are in favor of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here.

 

[ripskater]

Not recently.

Maybe we should go back to the way we used to treat our neighbors?

 

[UpaLoompa]

So because there are issues that you see with the church, there can't also be positive things?

I'm not getting you.

It seems like you are in favor of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here.

Of course there can be good things, I'm pointing out your intellectual dishonesty here.

As for doing away with churches, yes, I'm definitely in favor of that.

 

[IDL]

Of course there can be good things, I'm pointing out your intellectual dishonesty here.

As for doing away with churches, yes, I'm definitely in favor of that.

So my view that this type of charity is a positive thing is somehow mutually exclusive to other issues?

I'm still not getting your little shoehorning exercise. It's really forced.

 

[UpaLoompa]

Maybe we should go back to the way we used to treat our neighbors?

So, couple thousand years and, even then, only if we knew them.

 

[UpaLoompa]

So my view that this type of charity is a positive thing is somehow mutually exclusive to other issues?

I'm still not getting your little shoehorning exercise. It's really forced.

Of course you find logical consistency difficult.

 

[IDL]

Of course you find logical consistency difficult.

Alrighty then, carry on I guess.

 

[chardog]

You acted surprised that people were objecting to social welfare put forward by the church. I described why and elaborated as to how if you had a shred of intellectual honesty that fits into your overall world view. I'm not shoehorning, you're just intellectually inconsistent and dishonest.

church may not solve an institutional problem, however, there's too much emphasis on the poor/welfare recipients as if they would die if it ran dry. There's a large portion of the hispanic population in santa ana for instance, that cant qualify for welfare, so they cohabit like a mofo. You see that with many inner city families that dont qualify. The idea or assumption that they'll be on the streets rotting corpses and all, is far fetched.

 

[panamaican]

A true meritocracy? I'd be all for it.

Of course I think I'd do great under such a model. I do fine with this one so Column A, Column B, I guess.

 

[UpaLoompa]

church may not solve an institutional problem, however, there's too much emphasis on the poor/welfare recipients as if they would die if it ran dry. There's a large portion of the hispanic population in santa ana for instance, that cant qualify for welfare, so they cohabit like a mofo. You see that with many inner city families that dont qualify. The idea or assumption that they'll be on the streets rotting corpses and all, is far fetched.

Uhm, okay? I didn't make that assumption. We can actually look at human history, recent history in fact, and see what societies are like without social safety nets. Sure the poor aren't all starving to death but they're not exactly doing well.

 

[UpaLoompa]

A true meritocracy? I'd be all for it.

A question worth considering: What currency?

 

[Jack V Savage]

That's probably how it used to be. And people probably helped their neighbor out before welfare.

Churches used to be able to compel payment, which they could then redistribute. And that was still far less effective than our current system of providing for the needy.

Anyway, as I've pointed out many times, most poor people in America are in groups that are largely unable to work (children, the disabled, and the elderly). We deliberately target 5% unemployment of people who are willing and able to work. Adult students have time constraints, and generally people entering the workforce for the first time will not make enough to be out of poverty. If we cover all those gaps, and also make it so entrepreneurial or artistic failure isn't a death sentence (to encourage more people to try), I would support a more meritocratic system (where inheritances are limited and educational opportunity is more widespread).

 

[Falsedawn]

Interesting. What about with a guaranteed minimum income / living standard? Should contributions, e.g. artistic, intellectual, etc. be awarded beyond that or simply rely on the assumption that people will pursue and excel at what they're inclined toward?

Once you get to post-scarcity, minimum income/living standards become basically useless because there is a surplus of everything (so in a way, everything is free). Obviously not EVERYTHING will be free, but labor is effectively reduced to a maintenance level with the advent of technology to do it for us. You could mandate 10 hours of maintenance work a week and leave all surplus labor to the people to research, discover, and create according to their wills, not their needs. It's a perpetual state of self-actualization, in which a person is bound only by their inherent genetic limits.

When you get to that point, social recognition becomes a currency in itself, where the exceptional are revered in the pantheon of humanity, while average people can live average lives as they see fit without worry of basic necessities.

Edit: I'm a huge fan of Marx, and here is his take on Post-scarcity, from The Grundrisse

As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the great well-spring of wealth, labour time ceases and must cease to be its measure, and hence exchange value [must cease to be the measure] of use value. The surplus labour of the mass has ceased to be the condition for the development of general wealth, just as the non-labour of the few, for the development of the general powers of the human head. With that, production based on exchange value breaks down, and the direct, material production process is stripped of the form of penury and antithesis. The free development of individualities, and hence not the reduction of necessary labour time so as to posit surplus labour, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them. Capital itself is the moving contradiction, [in] that it presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as sole measure and source of wealth. Hence it diminishes labour time in the necessary form so as to increase it in the superfluous form; hence posits the superfluous in growing measure as a condition – question of life or death – for the necessary. On the one side, then, it calls to life all the powers of science and of nature, as of social combination and of social intercourse, in order to make the creation of wealth independent (relatively) of the labour time employed on it. On the other side, it wants to use labour time as the measuring rod for the giant social forces thereby created, and to confine them within the limits required to maintain the already created value as value. Forces of production and social relations – two different sides of the development of the social individual – appear to capital as mere means, and are merely means for it to produce on its limited foundation. In fact, however, they are the material conditions to blow this foundation sky-high. ‘Truly wealthy a nation, when the working day is 6 rather than 12 hours. Wealth is not command over surplus labour time’ (real wealth), ‘but rather, disposable time outside that needed in direct production, for every individual and the whole society.’ (The Source and Remedy etc. 1821, p. 6.)

 

[panamaican]

A question worth considering: What currency?

The gold standard of course.

In seriousness, I guess the dollar? I don't think a true meritocracy is plausible so I'll admit to not being sure how currency matters, unless I'm misunderstanding the question.

 

[UpaLoompa]

Once you get to post-scarcity, minimum income/living standards become basically useless because there is a surplus of everything (so in a way, everything is free). Obviously not EVERYTHING will be free, but labor is effectively reduced to a maintenance level with the advent of technology to do it for us. You could mandate 10 hours of maintenance work a week and leave all surplus labor to the people to research, discover, and create according to their wills, not their needs. It's a perpetual state of self-actualization, in which a person is bound only by their inherent genetic limits.

When you get to that point, social recognition becomes a currency in itself, where the exceptional are revered in the pantheon of humanity, while average people can live average lives as they see fit without worry of basic necessities.

I.e. Star Trek.

I like it.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Once you get to post-scarcity, minimum income/living standards become basically useless because there is a surplus of everything (so in a way, everything is free). Obviously not EVERYTHING will be free, but labor is effectively reduced to a maintenance level with the advent of technology to do it for us. You could mandate 10 hours of maintenance work a week and leave all surplus labor to the people to research, discover, and create according to their wills, not their needs. It's a perpetual state of self-actualization, in which a person is bound only by their inherent genetic limits.

When you get to that point, social recognition becomes a currency in itself, where the exceptional are revered in the pantheon of humanity, while average people can live average lives as they see fit without worry of basic necessities.

I can see that. There's no particular moral reason why we'd order our economic system to reward wealth creation (or especially rent-seeking), but there has been a good practical reason. If that no longer holds, we should definitely reconsider. I don't think we're there yet, though.

 

[UpaLoompa]

The gold standard of course.

In seriousness, I guess the dollar? I don't think a true meritocracy is plausible so I'll admit to not being sure how currency matters, unless I'm misunderstanding the question.

Sorry, I was using currency in a different manner. How is merit quantified?

 

[HunterSdVa29]

i wish we had a system where merit/or actual skill and ability really paid dividends, and it does but only to a certain degree and in certain fields.

But that being said, i actually have no problem admitting i don't care about poor people. Like some obese person, poor people are poor for a reason.....I'd literally be fine w/ removing virtually all forms of social welfare, including to the old and young. It would suck for the kids of the poor, and worthless old people for a generation, but oh well...Didn't save for retirement? oh well, not my fault. Have kids, and on social welfare? get none for any remaining kids born after the fact.

We existed as societies for literally millennium w/o those types of things, and people adapted and overcame, or they died. That's life.

As it is now, there is literally zero incentive for poor people NOT TO HAVE KIDS as most assistance is not only needs based, but size of family contingent as well. On top of that, somehow the lower classes are now Entitled as well, which frankly is astonishing