Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 38056
Berkeley CSUA MOTD
 
WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ
http://csua.com/feed/
2025/07/09 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/9     

2005/6/9-10 [Politics/Domestic/SocialSecurity, Politics/Domestic/Immigration] UID:38056 Activity:high
6/9     "The last two decades have witnessed a revival of the American credo
        of personal responsibility, championed by conservatives as an
        all-purpose tonic to every social ill." I will agree that many
        conservatives use personal responsibility as the solution to all
        life's problems. However, I also get upset when liberals seem to run
        from personal responsibility too.  I think that this is a false
        choice. The fact is we need both personal responsibility and social
        responsibility. People need to responsible for the lives they are
        given and be responsible for their fellow man and woman. It's not an
        either/or, but a both/and.  I need to find a job. That's my
        responsibility, not the government's. However it should be the
        government's responisibility to make sure I have adaquate health
        care, and other stablizers in order to keep me slipping towards
        poverty. That's what makes a social contract: I will do something
        for you and in return you will do something for me.  As a pragmatic
        moderate who is experiencing economic insecurity, I know we need to
        have government play a more expanded role. However, let's not
        sideline personal responsibility in process.
        \_ From what I have seen with my own eyes, the actual number of
           cases where people are simply unwilling to find a job is nearly
           negligible compared to the cases where economic realities are
           enough to make socialized assistance a good idea. Living in
           Berkeley was not good for my perspective since that "negligible"
           number of people were right in my face everyday. Outside Berkeley,
           I've mainly seen people working their asses off and barely getting
           by. From that I've concluded that personal responsibility, at least
           as far as getting a job, is an easy go-to emotional push button for
           people who don't think socialized assistance (and that comes in many
           many forms) is a good idea. It is an easy way to distract otherwise
           well meaning people from a larger reality. -- ulysses
           \_ A large majority of Republicans would say that people working
              their asses off and barely getting by is how it should work.
              The people working their assess off and doing better than that
              "deserve" it because they came up with a better mousetrap, or
              are children of those who already succeeded (inheritance, family
              connections).  They also say the lazy wealthy will spend all
              their cash in one generation, and it's no one's right to tax
              their inheritance away -- their kids will be working their asses
              off and barely getting by again.
              \_ Actually the Chinese say that.  It's an old proverb that says
                 "wealth doesn't last past 3 generations".  There's also an
                 old Chinese proverb to the effect that "weath creation is
                 hard, but wealth maintenance is even more difficult."
                 \_ The Chinese also say something to the effect of "Only the
                    good die young".
                    \_ Don't know that one.  Lots of famously Chinese sayings
                       really aren't.  What is it in Chinese?
                       \_ I'll go ask my girlfriend.  Maybe she got it off of
                          soap operas or wu xia novels.
                          \_ There is a descriptive phrase that says "noble
                             spirit is dead early", but this is descriptive
                             rather than prescriptive.
                    \_ The good die young because only the young die good.
        \_ You know, I had been experiencing economic insecurity more than once
           in my life, but it never occurred to me to conclude I need the
           government to play a greater role in my life and help me.  People
           are very different I guess.  There is this microloan bank (fully
           peasant-owned) in South-East Asia somewhere.  They are doing really
           well (most of their loans are not defaulted on).  This is because
           for most poor people there, it is a matter of honor to return the
           loan, so they work hard on their 'microbusiness' which the loan
           helped them bootstrap, and almost always end up better off, and
           paying off the loan.  Most poor people HATE relying on charity.
           Do you know how I learned about this bank?  Dr. Breyer (Inktomy fame)
           Do you know how I learned about this bank?  Dr. Brewer (Inktomy fame)
           was giving a talk at UCLA about, among other things, how
           charity-based efforts to uplift the third world poor tend to work
           badly, while capitalist methods like microloans tend to be very
           effective.  -- ilyas
           \- microcredit is good at some problems but it isnt going to
              help with things like malaria, flood control, post-flood
              recovery, arsenic in the water etc [BTW, this list is based
              on development issue in bangladesh, where the grameen bank
              started, not SE Asia]. what about govt promostion of business?
              started, not SE Asia]. what about govt promotion of business?
              this isnt just obvious corporate pork or things like tax holidays
              but subtler things like city leaders going on trade promotion
              tours, the import-export bank etc.
              \_ Breyer's thesis is that 'development' (which is the real
              tours, the import-export bank etc. --psb
              \_ Brewer's thesis is that 'development' (which is the real
                 way to affect things like malaria and response to natural
                 disasters) has to happen in a capitalist way, or it is not
                 sustainable.  The typical example he gave was a World Bank
                 project going in, spending some money for a few years, and
                 leaving once the grant ran out.  The structures they have
                 build immediately dissipate because charity does not build
                 sustainable development structures, whereas a business does.
                 I don't think he was particularly hung up on microloans as
                 the universal panacea, nor was he saying charity has no place.
                   -- ilyas
                   \- to say development is the way to solve something like
                      endemic malaria or various other problems killing
                      10x the tsunami's total death toll per year is just
                      an excuse to do nothing, a lot like the people who
                      keep saying "oh first we have to solve the governance
                      and transparancy issues otherwise we will be throwing
                      good money after bad". without a doubt these long terms
                      policies are what do you need to accomplish long term
                      results and solutions but to avoid the problem is to
                      consign a lot of people to cheaply avoidable death and
                      misery.
                      \_ Partha you often accuse libertarians and
                         market-oriented folks of 'ulterior motives' for their
                         beliefs.  Why is that?  Do you really think they are
                         really more likely than any other political group of
                         having ulterior motives?  Actually this touches on
                         'the motivation problem' which is something that
                         has been on my mind for many years now.  At any rate,
                         I don't think those kinds of arguments are very
                         convincing.  It's kind of like accusing the pro-charity
                         folks of having excuses for feeding unjust
                         dictatorships.  -- ilyas
                                 \- go count how many reasonably
                                    well governed countries there are
                                    in africa that could use some help.
                                    there is more to africa than
                                    uganda, congo, sierra leone, liberia,
                                    sudan etc. you never hear about most
                                    of those countries.
                                       \- BTW, I think you should be more
                                          specific when you are talking about
                                          charities. I am not sure whether
                                          you are talking about the SF Opera
                                          or Breast Cancer or organic food
                                          in the ghetto or free cateract
                                          operations for poor people in the
                                          3rd world. why do some rightwingers
                                          only talk about the latter kind of
                                          thing as fostering a culture of
                                          dependence? hey let's have breast
                                          cancer sufferers suck it up and the
                                          SF opera singers can build their own
                                          sets. --psb
                                          \-Finally: it really says something
                                            about the right-wing today to have
                                            me lumped in with the leftists.
                                            I mean this is truly new levels
                                            of mendacity ... doesnt mining
                                            nicaraguan harbors or iran-contra
                                            just seem quaint now. --psb
                         \- my point about randroids is pretty specific.
                            my overall view is a lot of libertarians dont care
                            about others and dont choose to admit it and
                            a lot of liberals dont want to admit there are a
                            lot of stupid poor people who dont know what is
                            best for themselves so they let libertarians
                            bash them over and over with "are you saying
                            poor people dont know what is best for them" ...
                            yes, a lot of parents dont give a rats ass about
                            their kids, yes, a lot of people are too dumb to
                            manage their money. thats part of the problem with
                            some voucher and privatization plans. dumb richer
                            people can game the system after making a mistake
                            [orange county bailout]. there is a lot of
                            hypocrisy on both sides [family values sex fiends,
                            leftwingers advocating things that will drive up
                            costs of goods for poor people]. the angry
                            right wing mobilize in a way that advances their
                            interests while the angry left wing just foams.
                            the moderate left wing are too hedonistic to
                            bother to do much. the moderate leftwin now
                            consderates any day a democratic congressman
                            doesnt wet his pants on TV a successful day, see
                            recent judicial "compromise". the moderate right
                            wing is assessing whether they can throw money
                            at the problem and avoid the problems the angry
                            right might drag them into. --psb
                            \_ Firstly, I find it supremely amusing you wrote
                               4 separate replies.  Secondly, I was not lumping
                               you with anybody, although I would say your
                               beliefs qualify you for a 'liberal' in the
                               American sense.  Thirdly, to reiterate a point
                               I perhaps did not state sufficiently strongly,
                               I have no problems with charities.  I love
                               charities, in fact, because I view them as a
                               more viable alternative over government-managed,
                               tax-funded programs, in many cases.
                               \- on a lot of specific policy areas ...
                                  regulating pollution and other environmental
                                  issues, trade unions, free trade, tort law,
                                  govt paid for sex change operations ... i
                                  hardly endorse the traditional liberal
                                  position. but it's hard for to ignore
                                  hypocrisy, racism, and rank criminality
                                  because i agree with them on welfare
                                  reform. if i have to choose between some
                                  loser getting a free sex change operation
                                  and halliburton ripping us off for millions
                                  of dollars, it doesnt really matter to me
                                  whether the transsexual is straight, gay
                                  or bisexual. for example i have a reasonably
                                  hard attitude toward illegal immigration,
                                  but 1. the arguments for and against free
                                  trade in goods largely apply to free movement
                                  of labor 2. this new idea of creating a
                                  semi-official second class status of persons
                                  is really offensive ... it isnt excused by
                                  being pareto superior. the right is sinking
                                  to a new low on big issues that are hard to
                                  ignore or compromise on becaues of their
                                  extremeism or magnitude.
                         having ulterior motives? -- ilyas
                         more likely than any other political group to have
                         ulterior motives? -- ilyas
                                  \_ I suspect libertarians such as ilyas are
                                     actually a bit handicapped understanding
                                     the perception of the libertarian pov.
                                     ilyas, alone among the libertarians who
                                     I've read here over the years, generally
                                     sounds like he's convinced libertarianism
                                     is a correct means to an end. All the rest
                                     I've read, my impression has been that one
                                     scratched their argument a bit and it was
                                     a bit of Limbaugh-esque flim-flam painted
                                     over naked greed or blame-mongering.
                                     -- ulysses
           \_ Everyone agrees microloans > charity, doing nothing.
              However, is it that:
              microloans > charity > doing nothing, or
              microloans > doing nothing > charity
              Also, above poster contends certain things are difficult to
              microloan on.
              \_ I would say charity is better than doing nothing, but I
                 think charity tends to be a very inefficient means to
                 achieve desirable long-term positive effects, because of
                 the mentioned lack of sustainability of effects charity
                 produces.  I think people who want to enact long-term
                 change ought to spend more time thinking about the best
                 way to spend their charitable contributions than just
                 blindly give to a charity, and telling their conscience
                 to shut up.  Breyer gave an example of developing a
                 malaria blood tester machine that can be used 'in the field'
                 as a PhD thesis.  Then you can put in your CV "my work
                 saved 50 million lives."  -- ilyas
                 way to help than just blindly give to a charity, and telling
                 their conscience to shut up.  Breyer gave an example of
                 their conscience to shut up.  Brewer gave an example of
                 developing a malaria blood tester machine that can be used
                 'in the field' as a PhD thesis.  Then you can put in your CV
                 "my work saved 50 million lives."  Hard to argue with that.
                 This touches on a larger philosophical problem of moral
                 actions being generally uncomputable (you don't have time,
                 \_ I think most people agrees with what you wrote,
                    up to ".  Breyer ...".
                 and doing nothing is also immoral). -- ilyas
                     \- i am not familar with your "blood tester" but you can
                        look at jay keasling's [ucb/lbl] work on "e coli"
                        factories to bring down the cost of an anti-malarial
                        as well as something like ashok gadgil's [lbl]
                        UV waterworks. BTW, i am sure Brewer is a "breyte"
                        guy [are we talking about Brewer?] but why dont you
                        read a development export on this stuff? like say
                        jeffrey sachs or AMARTYA SEN. you might be interested
                        in SEN: DEVELOPMENT AS FREEDOM. --psb
                        in SEN: DEVELOPMENT AS FREEDOM.
                        \_ It is Brewer, sorry.  Fixed.  I forget what disease
                           the field blood tester was for.  It might not have
                           been malaria. -- ilyas
                 \_ I think most people agree with what you wrote,
                    up to ".  Breyer ...".  As for Breyer, well, I think he's
                    up to ".  Brewer ...".  As for Brewer, well, I think he's
                    just stating the obvious, except he is a startup founder
                    and Berkeley CS professor (but that's just my opinion).
                    The "obvious" being:
                    microloans (and other aid which encourages self-reliance
                    and comes with long-term benefits)
                      > short-term charity, doing nothing
                    \_ If, as you say, most people agree with what I wrote,
                       it is very curious that there is so much controversy
                       about whether it is better to uplift the poor in the
                       United States using capitalist or charity-based methods.
                       Is there something fundamentally different between the
                       situation here and in the Third World? -- ilyas
                         \- yes. in jeffrey sachs rather disturbing phrase,
                            some people are "too poor to live". by and large
                            the poverty in the united states is not "the
                            poverty that kills". --psb
                            \_ Yes, I am of course aware of that.  This
                               actually makes the 'uplift through charity'
                               argument harder in the case of the US poor.
                       \_ Let's go back to:
                          Everyone agrees microloans > charity, doing nothing.
                          However, is it that:
                          microloans > charity > doing nothing, or
                          microloans > doing nothing > charity
                          The problem is that the process hasn't been created
                          to efficiently microloan everything but only a
                          limited number of projects.
                          Let's say the U.S. government could potentially spend
                          $10 on aid.  Practically speaking, we can only spend
                          $1 on microloan type stuff.  So, do you:  spend $9
                          on charity, keep the $9 (do nothing), spend $4.5 on
                          charity and keep the rest, spend $9 on developing the
                          process for microloan type stuff and give nothing
                          to charity, or some combination of the above?
                          It is on these practical issues on which most of
                          the substantive arguments are about.
                          Plus, you have Dems who think that GOPers prefer
                          doing nothing over giving charity and think
                          micro-loans are really about doing nothing; and
                          you have GOPers who think Dems prefer giving charity
                          over doing nothing and micro-loans.
                          From my perspective both parties are making the wrong
                          assumptions about the other side, and this is a
                          major part of what a lot of the bickering is about.
                          In an ideal world, both parties are having arguments
                          on the substantive differences, not the imagined
                          ones, but oh well (what better way to rally the base
                          than to say that the other side would like nothing
                          better than spending zilch on charity, or say the
                          other side prefers putting the lazy on the dole
                          forever).
                          In the real world (which includes soda), the vast
                          majority of arguments are about imagined differences,
                          or are situations where 80% of the difference is
                          imagined/non-substantive and 20% of it is
                          substantive.
                          majority of arguments are situations where 80% of the
                          difference is imagined/non-substantive and 20% of it
                          is substantive.
                          \_ I don't think this is really true.  Some people
                             really do not trust market and self-interest-based
                             solutions. -- ilyas
                             \_ I am not excluding that.
                                People who understand the valid points held by
                                the other side are having the substantive
                                arguments.
        \_ So you are experiencing economic insecurity and you want the gov
           to fix it all up for you? What is this kindgarten? If you are
           really worried about economic insecurity, why don't you save money
           to get through the tough times?  How about trying to get another
           degree or something?
           \- if you owe the bank $100, you have a problem. if you owe the
              bank $1m, the bank has a problem.
              \_ Why get yourself in a position where you owe the bank
                 $1m (or $100) and don't have the means to pay? (Serious
                 question - I've never carried long term debt and don't
                 understand why you would want to)
2025/07/09 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/9     

You may also be interested in these entries...
2013/2/10-3/19 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush, Uncategorized/Profanity] UID:54603 Activity:nil
2/10    I like Woz, and I like iWoz, but let me tell ya, no one worships
        him because he has the charisma of an highly functioning
        Autistic person. Meanwhile, everyone worships Jobs because
        he's better looking and does an amazing job promoting himself
        as God. I guess this is not the first time in history. Case in
        point, Caesar, Napolean, GWB, etc. Why is it that people
	...
2012/5/16-7/20 [Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:54390 Activity:nil
5/16    Can anyone tell me what Greece is hoping for by rejecting austerity?
        From here it seems like the austerity is a pretty generous attempt
        to keep Greece from imploding entirely.   Are they hoping the
        Germans will put them on eternal state welfare, or what?
        Also, why would an outright default mean they must leave the Euro?
        Is it just that they won't be able to pay basic gvmt services
	...