Why I don't support social Darwinism
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In all seriousness, all the discussion to date hinges on one thing. If my standard of living and cost of living can be lowered, by causing people less fortunate than me to be worse off, I'm not interested in that. Given a choice, I'd accept a drop in my standard of living, if it caused the standard of living of other hard working people who live in poverty, to improve.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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In all seriousness, all the discussion to date hinges on one thing. If my standard of living and cost of living can be lowered, by causing people less fortunate than me to be worse off, I'm not interested in that. Given a choice, I'd accept a drop in my standard of living, if it caused the standard of living of other hard working people who live in poverty, to improve.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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In all seriousness, all the discussion to date hinges on one thing. If my standard of living and cost of living can be lowered, by causing people less fortunate than me to be worse off, I'm not interested in that. Given a choice, I'd accept a drop in my standard of living, if it caused the standard of living of other hard working people who live in poverty, to improve.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
Christian Graus wrote:
Given a choice, I'd accept a drop in my standard of living, if it caused the standard of living of other hard working people who live in poverty, to improve.
But how much of a drop are you willing to accept? How about if that drop affects your family? Would you give up your savings and return to 9~5 work? Would you sell your house and live in a rented flat? Would you eat nothing but mince meat?
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Christian Graus wrote:
Given a choice, I'd accept a drop in my standard of living, if it caused the standard of living of other hard working people who live in poverty, to improve.
But how much of a drop are you willing to accept? How about if that drop affects your family? Would you give up your savings and return to 9~5 work? Would you sell your house and live in a rented flat? Would you eat nothing but mince meat?
Josh Gray wrote:
Would you eat nothing but mince meat?
What's wrong with mince meat? You can make cottage pie, spag bol, hamburgers and all sorts of other things with it. :-D
Regards David R --------------------------------------------------------------- "Every program eventually becomes rococo, and then rubble." - Alan Perlis The only valid measurement of code quality: WTFs/minute.
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Josh Gray wrote:
Would you eat nothing but mince meat?
What's wrong with mince meat? You can make cottage pie, spag bol, hamburgers and all sorts of other things with it. :-D
Regards David R --------------------------------------------------------------- "Every program eventually becomes rococo, and then rubble." - Alan Perlis The only valid measurement of code quality: WTFs/minute.
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Christian Graus wrote:
Given a choice, I'd accept a drop in my standard of living, if it caused the standard of living of other hard working people who live in poverty, to improve.
But how much of a drop are you willing to accept? How about if that drop affects your family? Would you give up your savings and return to 9~5 work? Would you sell your house and live in a rented flat? Would you eat nothing but mince meat?
Josh Gray wrote:
But how much of a drop are you willing to accept?
Well, obviously it's more of a thought experiment, because it would be hard to make it happen. I'm not sure how I'd quantify it, except to say that in general, I'd prefer to make choices for the common good, than exploit others for my own benefit.
Josh Gray wrote:
How about if that drop affects your family?
Well, it plainly would. I am thinking more of having less access to 'stuff', than I am thinking of actually having to go hungry, or not have a place to stay.
Josh Gray wrote:
Would you give up your savings and return to 9~5 work? Would you sell your house and live in a rented flat?
Both of those things are a short term, one off step that would have little impact on the world as a whole. I mean, I'm not exactly rich, the cost of selling my home wouldn't buy that much rice. I was thinking more that I'd accept less pay, if it meant people elsewhere who do the same work to the same standard, got paid closer to what I do, and that I'd pay more for basic goods, if the money went to the primary producers. For example, I only buy fair trade coffee for my coffee machine.
Josh Gray wrote:
Would you eat nothing but mince meat?
Actually, I am working towards being able to feed myself as much as I can from my own land. I didn't really mean that I'm willing to live in poverty, although I see how it came out that way. I more meant that a pure capitalistic system would strive to give me goods as cheap as possible, in order to compete in the market, and gives no thought to the people who make the goods, move the goods, and sell me the goods. I would prefer to pay higher prices for goods, than for those people to not be fairly paid. That's why I am trying to find sources of meat ( for example ) where I deal direct with the farmer, get antibiotic free meat, and pay a fair price to the person producing it. While I think welfare in Australia is out of control, I have no problems with paying a medicare levy and then paying for private health, so that my family takes strain off the public system, but supports it for the benefit of those who have no other options. I am quite happy for my taxes to be used to help support people who cannot support themselves, although where possible, I would like that supp