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Originally Posted by mookiemookie
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There's a
name for that? Hah, color me stupid! The closest approximation I could ever come up with was schadenfreude, but it's not really the same thing. I always figured that phenomenon was just a natural result of millions of years of competitive co-evolution and sexual selection pressure expressing itself, but everyone already knew it so we didn't need a name for it.
This is why I read your posts, Mark. Once again, I can honestly say that I learned something today because of you.
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Originally Posted by mookiemookie
Blame the victim. "If you're out of a job, it's because there's something wrong with you and you're lazy."
Maybe you guys should be open to the idea that bad things happen to good people who aren't lazy drains on the welfare rolls. It's not all the fault of the system, and it's not all the fault of the individual.
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Well said, but I would offer the counterpoint that most of "us guys" don't have such an ignorant attitude. For one thing, we know perfectly well that bad things happen to good people, including ourselves. That's what makes people like GoldenRivet so remarkable; they know the risk involved in throwing everything they have into an endeavour, and they do it anyway. Most of the time they fail, but they keep trying. They also provide good work for us lesser mortals in the process, which is why we support them rather than trying to effectively punish them with taxes and restrictions imposed by people who don't create jobs or wealth. You could call the attitude simple, but there is an elegance to simplicity.
Secondly, we are not without consideration for those who fall through the cracks. The most generous contributors to the public welfare are the privately wealthy in every sense. Percentage of income, total amount, effective results, whatever. You name it, they're on top. You might think that the government has contributed more in terms of total wealth donated or total good done, but you'd be wrong. Virtually every cent of what the government contributes is taken from someone. Not earned or generated, but taken, by force if necessary. Even then, it operates at considerable loss.
If that's not enough, just look at the good they have done thus far. The whole reason we are even having this discussion is because the government has failed to do what it promised to do at every level. Two-thirds of the annual taxed income of the wealthiest nation on the planet devoted to entitlements that nobody is happy with!? And you think that the same mechanism that enabled such a thing by promising equality is going to acheive it by imposing penalties on the producers of wealth, as if they had enough wealth to solve the world's woes in the first place?
How can someone intelligent enough to be concerned with the common welfare be so blind to the mechanisms that produce it? I assume that you have a better ideal than free-trade, but I'm curious as to how you would ever manage to implement such a thing without driving trade away in the process.
My dog ate my wealth-generating successful business. Where's yours?