Throughout most of history there wasn't enough food being produced by anyone to feed all the children being born. Today those children survive only to lament their lives of poverty. It's an unavoidable fact of life that only work can create the wealth to fulfill your desires. The more you want to attain, and the greater the transition you need to make, the harder the work. Such work is life, and to expect others to live for you is just unfair. When people can accept that, poverty will be history
when certain people are trapped in a social class why do you expect them to stay there. Black and latin people are tired of cleaning your dishes and floors... Why should they be stuck there, why not offer them the teaching job instead.
So I take it that most of the commenters around here think that, for example, someone born into poverty with one parent in the house in a crime and drug infested neighborhood-- that person has the same odds of being wealthy as Paris Hilton? Is that the claim?
The number one most correlative factor of whether a person will be rich or poor as an adult is whether they were rich or poor as a child. How that could possibly fit into this noxious schema, who can say.
It is demographically inarguable that the if ytou are attempting to guess whether someone will be poor or not as an adult, whether they are born into poverty is the single most predictive factor. Nothing else comes close.
If poverty is a choice, then why do people from the same lineage fall into poverty again and again? Why would the same families and lineages choose poverty every time? Why, it's almost as if life doesn't work in a juvenile, reductive way....
Perhaps because poor parents pass on to their children their own disinclination to work. Children who are abused tend to grow up and inflict abuse on their children, and so on and so forth; so the same reasoning may be applicable here. As the old saying goes, like father like son.
Valid question. I believe it is nevertheless a choice. One eventually reaches the age when it becomes imperative for him to correct his behavior, if it in fact merits correction. But that choice is entirely on the individual. I know because I had to make that choice myself.
The burden class reproduces at a higher rate than the productive class so a time will come when the latter can not afford to house and feed these degenerative types. There will simply be too many for our taxes to bare. Philosophies like these will then be enacted, the burden class will be controlled, nearly fazed out, and the good people of the world will regain a foothold, much wiser for the wear. I'm optimistic.
You're right on the ball, Cropper. I know it because I've lived it. I've been the lazy one, and I'm still paying for it. I've been the enthusiastic worker, and it's paid me back huge dividends.
I've read plenty of Objectivist writings (not Pope Peikoff!) so I know that digging out of a chosen poverty doesn't take a top-down approach, it takes inner drive and reasoned action. Baby steps at first, yeah, but you gotta walk before you can run away. That's what you really gotta do. And me too.
Another more thing to this, it is that maybe in the slum where you worked at, you were the biggest asshole, but now you are making up your version of the story to just vent your daily frustrantions. Perhaps, people would believe you better, including me, if you included the "lazy and poor side" plus a neutral 3rd party.
BTW, what you said, concerning China, is a good way out. Maybe hard line socialism is the way out, not liberalism or the usual sad left solution.
That's what I see in my country, Brazil. But my conclusion is rather different. They have low self steem. They think they are crap, just like everyone in their families, or everyone surround them since they were born. So, if I guy like you just tell them they are going to progress by working, they won't believe. They do not have any proof that working makes someone better, what they do see it is that being born in a weathier family iw worth. They rather sit in their porch.
You know.. there are plenty of people who live in areas where there are no jobs to be had. Or so few. There are those who are discriminated against because of factors out of their control, height, weight, etc.
30,000 at fast food? I find that VERY hard to believe.
Oh yes. My whole goal in life is to respond to you. Its not like I have things I have to do to get by. I have lived on less than you can imagine. I have lived for months eating nothing but a cup of rice a day. I may have been privileged to have that rice, but its more than you could ever say.
Your FAMILY came from america on nothing, YOU have little to nothing to do with that. Get out of your little ivory tower and come to terms with the fact that YOU might be wrong yourself.
Fun part about youtube is, I can respond whenever I like. I love how you try to get me for not responding, then for responding. It shows the way your mind works.
Sweep the floor and put tacos together... Who wouldnt love to do that? $7.00 an hour Mmmmm Sign me up. LOL I used to work at KFC and ive seen people working the same shlt possition for 12 years. Nice regional maniger they made. This jew is completely out of touch with reality.
exactly - i'm willing to pay my tax dollars to ppl who are trying to make something of themselves - but i do NOT want to pay may tax dollars to ppl who want to lounge around and spend my hard earned money!
Right. 1) You rambled on way too much about fastfood restaurants, advertsing it etc, get to the point. 2) I'm sure not EVERYBODY feels that way. 3) Did you think they may be lethargic because of their background? Maybe their parents are always digging stuff into their back, so they go, "eff it. whats the use." and 4) media has given the idea that you cna be a pimp without working a day in your life.
1) The difficulties one faces in their attempt to get out of poverty is no excuse. Yeah it's hard, by life isn't peachy for everyone, so what? This is no excuse. 2) Why would anyone care about your background? We all have baggage, get over it and move on. 3) If your parents or family are dragging you down, leave them. 4) If you are *stupid* enough to think that you will be able to earn someing for nothing, then you deserve to live in squalor and be forgotten about. Stupidity is NOT an excuse.
1) I have a friend who's mum is single with 5 kids plus him, 3 have disabilities. She gets benefits, but these benefits do not allow my friend or his older brother to get a job. So they did it illegally. The gov found out, and stopped her benefits. 2) I didnt say anything about my bg, retard. 3) It's been researched actually, and its called "self prophecy", google it. 4) I agree, pimps exist, but is that fair to take it out on ppl like my friend, who can't do anything about their situation?
now whether or not those people your talking about (in the broadest generalization) would consider themselves in poverty or at much of a disadvantage at all is a matter for them. If your so into your individualist doctrine, why dont you (as you said in video 1) stop judging 'these people' or any people for that matter and as you say 'get on your way'.
actual poverty, being the plight of the very poor in third world countries. Relative Poverty is a more accurate term for what your talking about. This is the kind of poverty where you have trouble making ends meet, perhaps you cant afford to but new clothes for your children, and a couple of portions of veg is all you can push to for meals. See the difference. Stop saying poverty, thats not what your reffering to.
people living in poverty of course being in the best position to move anywhere. plus you fail to make the important distinction between actual poverty, and what you seem to be talking about 'relative poverty'.
The whole point is they don't want to get out of it! They've chosen it as a life style. Getting rich takes too much effort. They just want to relax, and they should be free to do that.
Althought I generally speaking agree on some sort of a general lazy problem, I'd ask if its a "Lifestyle choice" or a way of living, or the result of a seasoning by managers who think youyre lazy to begin with? How does the speaker really know what it is like for those he refers to as "they"? Do you know people who are "them"? Isn't it the best managers who are able to notivate their "subordinates" without thinking of them as lazy but to bring out their best potential?
Preach it brother! If you devote yourself to success every day when your feet hit the floor ANYONE can be wealthy, or at least "middle class" in America. Poverty IS a choice!
Libertarians feign compassion for the poor by saying "Gov't shouldn't do it! Let the private sector", but they forget that the reason gov't intervenes is b/c the private sector is not the end-all be-all. Private sector is not going to give free health care and free job training and unemployment benefits. Get real. They're profit-motivated. I'm so glad I'm no longer a libertarian. Ayn Rand herself denounced libertarianism!
If you used to be a libertarian, then you'd have known that there's no such thing as free healthcare. Not unless the doctors are working for free, which is unlikely.
This video is offensive. How many libertarians and conservatives are going to keep promoting the myth that poverty is just a lifestyle choice and they're all just lazy or the idea that the welfare state actually PROMOTES poverty? I thought we demolished that myth years ago when we declared "war" on poverty with Johnson's Great Society. Poverty will never go away, and to excuse it away by saying they're all lazy is because you're too afraid to do something. You're afraid of social justice.
Nobody has the right to take money that I earned and give it to other people. If you want to buy into the social justice theory then you pony up your own money, stop spending mine. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO STEAL FROM ME AND GIVE TO SOMEONE ELSE!!!!
I'm sorry, but to say that poverty is a lifestyle choice is just foolish. It's based on the old conservative fallacy that "poor people are all lazy bums." Only a small percentage of poor are like that. The others were driven into poverty by things such as unemployment and a lack of jobs, an area with low wages where they can't afford to move, etc. Poverty is a side effect of a market economy, not the result of a "culture of poverty" in which poor people just don't wanna work.
Nobody has a right to a job, nobody has the right to a standard of living, nobody has the right to any material thing that he hasn't earned for himself.
I heard Gandhi liked to give enemas to people who he met and liked. It sounds crazy, so maybe the person telling it was just a Freudian. Was Gandhi Freudian? Where was he educated?
(Response to kompiled). Everyone makes choices of course. But you have to ask why some always make bad choices. You CAN say (Kantian position): well they just use their freedom badly. My position (inspired by Spinoza) is that we can be more or less free to choose, depending on our degree of self-awareness. The rich can lack this resource of course, but the poor have less opportunities for developing it.
Poverty isn't a choice: why would somebody choose a WORSE state? It's true that many poor people are trapped in a passive mentality. But that's precisely part of what defines poverty, which is not just about how much money you've got, but about a whole MENTALITY and THAT's not something one simply chooses or else everyone would already have chosen the best one! To change that would require the action of the WHOLE society to combat its roots: poor education and passive consumerism.
Since when do CEOs not work? They put in 50 or 60 or 70 hours a week. They need a raise. As for Paris Hilton, I don't pay her a thing, so its none of my business.
I'm in favor of freedom, not enforcement of some arbitrary policy.
People don't want to start off at the bottom. True enough. However, when it comes to CEO's, a lot of them gat paid as much for failure as for success. Balloon retirements for idiots who have run companies into the ground.
Throughout most of history there wasn't enough food being produced by anyone to feed all the children being born. Today those children survive only to lament their lives of poverty. It's an unavoidable fact of life that only work can create the wealth to fulfill your desires. The more you want to attain, and the greater the transition you need to make, the harder the work. Such work is life, and to expect others to live for you is just unfair. When people can accept that, poverty will be history
eggory 8 months ago
when certain people are trapped in a social class why do you expect them to stay there. Black and latin people are tired of cleaning your dishes and floors... Why should they be stuck there, why not offer them the teaching job instead.
love83forever 9 months ago
I have to agree with you. I used to be a lazy communist.
natritious1 10 months ago
People don't want an opportuntiy they want a quick fix!!!
MrKurtfinn 1 year ago
Completely irrational hate mongering..
badmuffy 2 years ago
beautiful coudnt said it better myself
wireashly 2 years ago
This is White Power, racist propaganda
bogart114 2 years ago 3
I'm black and I still agree with it. Just because it's a white person telling you this don't make him wrong, it just makes you a racist.
yammyspeed13 2 years ago
Yeaaaa, Cropperb its so easy to look at the problems now. what about historical factors which helped create the mess? MMM short-sidedness indeed
Schmeller 2 years ago
So I take it that most of the commenters around here think that, for example, someone born into poverty with one parent in the house in a crime and drug infested neighborhood-- that person has the same odds of being wealthy as Paris Hilton? Is that the claim?
The number one most correlative factor of whether a person will be rich or poor as an adult is whether they were rich or poor as a child. How that could possibly fit into this noxious schema, who can say.
7freddie7 2 years ago
He is not talking about the odds: he is saying that individuals are free to pursue wealthiness. However, most tend not to act on said freedom.
You, on the other hand, seem to imply that a person"s circumstances at birth wholely determine their outcome in life. Very Marxist of you.
XxxNuMbxxX0301 2 years ago
It is demographically inarguable that the if ytou are attempting to guess whether someone will be poor or not as an adult, whether they are born into poverty is the single most predictive factor. Nothing else comes close.
If poverty is a choice, then why do people from the same lineage fall into poverty again and again? Why would the same families and lineages choose poverty every time? Why, it's almost as if life doesn't work in a juvenile, reductive way....
7freddie7 2 years ago
Perhaps because poor parents pass on to their children their own disinclination to work. Children who are abused tend to grow up and inflict abuse on their children, and so on and so forth; so the same reasoning may be applicable here. As the old saying goes, like father like son.
XxxNuMbxxX0301 2 years ago
If it is passed on, then in what meaningful sense is it a choice at all? How are they responsible for that pathology?
7freddie7 2 years ago
Valid question. I believe it is nevertheless a choice. One eventually reaches the age when it becomes imperative for him to correct his behavior, if it in fact merits correction. But that choice is entirely on the individual. I know because I had to make that choice myself.
XxxNuMbxxX0301 2 years ago
when social morals and ethics are absent, why get a job when you can rob?
hoodrich2012 2 years ago
The burden class reproduces at a higher rate than the productive class so a time will come when the latter can not afford to house and feed these degenerative types. There will simply be too many for our taxes to bare. Philosophies like these will then be enacted, the burden class will be controlled, nearly fazed out, and the good people of the world will regain a foothold, much wiser for the wear. I'm optimistic.
stevemjb 2 years ago 4
You're right on the ball, Cropper. I know it because I've lived it. I've been the lazy one, and I'm still paying for it. I've been the enthusiastic worker, and it's paid me back huge dividends.
I've read plenty of Objectivist writings (not Pope Peikoff!) so I know that digging out of a chosen poverty doesn't take a top-down approach, it takes inner drive and reasoned action. Baby steps at first, yeah, but you gotta walk before you can run away. That's what you really gotta do. And me too.
eksortso 3 years ago 4
Another more thing to this, it is that maybe in the slum where you worked at, you were the biggest asshole, but now you are making up your version of the story to just vent your daily frustrantions. Perhaps, people would believe you better, including me, if you included the "lazy and poor side" plus a neutral 3rd party.
BTW, what you said, concerning China, is a good way out. Maybe hard line socialism is the way out, not liberalism or the usual sad left solution.
MTd2 3 years ago
That's what I see in my country, Brazil. But my conclusion is rather different. They have low self steem. They think they are crap, just like everyone in their families, or everyone surround them since they were born. So, if I guy like you just tell them they are going to progress by working, they won't believe. They do not have any proof that working makes someone better, what they do see it is that being born in a weathier family iw worth. They rather sit in their porch.
MTd2 3 years ago
Correct, correct! Thanks Cropper!
amse 3 years ago
You know.. there are plenty of people who live in areas where there are no jobs to be had. Or so few. There are those who are discriminated against because of factors out of their control, height, weight, etc.
30,000 at fast food? I find that VERY hard to believe.
ShadowSandy 3 years ago
god our stupid, do the math, thats like 11.50 an hour.. i think, i just did that in my head so dont take my word
sexdrugsRnR 3 years ago
Go to a McDonald's in the South and tell them you want 11.50 an hour.
Please record it, for posterity. ;)
ShadowSandy 3 years ago
my family came to north america survivng off pennies... and now we are well off.
those who are rich more or less deserve to be.
those who are incompetent but born rich wont be rich for long.
sexdrugsRnR 3 years ago
no response? exactly. you have no idea what poverty is like outside of america. Those are the REAL poor people with REAL problems.
sexdrugsRnR 3 years ago
Oh yes. My whole goal in life is to respond to you. Its not like I have things I have to do to get by. I have lived on less than you can imagine. I have lived for months eating nothing but a cup of rice a day. I may have been privileged to have that rice, but its more than you could ever say.
Your FAMILY came from america on nothing, YOU have little to nothing to do with that. Get out of your little ivory tower and come to terms with the fact that YOU might be wrong yourself.
ShadowSandy 3 years ago
yea, but you did respond, didn't you?
and thats totally true, if my family goes through hardships, it totally means that i didnt....
..dumbass
sexdrugsRnR 3 years ago
Dumbass eh? Reduced to name calling. Tsk tsk.
Fun part about youtube is, I can respond whenever I like. I love how you try to get me for not responding, then for responding. It shows the way your mind works.
ShadowSandy 3 years ago
"And I'm gonna open my own school." No, no you aren't, ever.
ensrifraff 3 years ago
Too late, dumbass.
Guncriminal 3 years ago
Sweep the floor and put tacos together... Who wouldnt love to do that? $7.00 an hour Mmmmm Sign me up. LOL I used to work at KFC and ive seen people working the same shlt possition for 12 years. Nice regional maniger they made. This jew is completely out of touch with reality.
HardBodyNyC 3 years ago
What jew?
Guncriminal 3 years ago
exactly - i'm willing to pay my tax dollars to ppl who are trying to make something of themselves - but i do NOT want to pay may tax dollars to ppl who want to lounge around and spend my hard earned money!
akamj 4 years ago
Right. 1) You rambled on way too much about fastfood restaurants, advertsing it etc, get to the point. 2) I'm sure not EVERYBODY feels that way. 3) Did you think they may be lethargic because of their background? Maybe their parents are always digging stuff into their back, so they go, "eff it. whats the use." and 4) media has given the idea that you cna be a pimp without working a day in your life.
SafyreX 4 years ago
1) The difficulties one faces in their attempt to get out of poverty is no excuse. Yeah it's hard, by life isn't peachy for everyone, so what? This is no excuse. 2) Why would anyone care about your background? We all have baggage, get over it and move on. 3) If your parents or family are dragging you down, leave them. 4) If you are *stupid* enough to think that you will be able to earn someing for nothing, then you deserve to live in squalor and be forgotten about. Stupidity is NOT an excuse.
nosavage25 3 years ago
1) I have a friend who's mum is single with 5 kids plus him, 3 have disabilities. She gets benefits, but these benefits do not allow my friend or his older brother to get a job. So they did it illegally. The gov found out, and stopped her benefits. 2) I didnt say anything about my bg, retard. 3) It's been researched actually, and its called "self prophecy", google it. 4) I agree, pimps exist, but is that fair to take it out on ppl like my friend, who can't do anything about their situation?
SafyreX 3 years ago
now whether or not those people your talking about (in the broadest generalization) would consider themselves in poverty or at much of a disadvantage at all is a matter for them. If your so into your individualist doctrine, why dont you (as you said in video 1) stop judging 'these people' or any people for that matter and as you say 'get on your way'.
Trybrow 4 years ago
actual poverty, being the plight of the very poor in third world countries. Relative Poverty is a more accurate term for what your talking about. This is the kind of poverty where you have trouble making ends meet, perhaps you cant afford to but new clothes for your children, and a couple of portions of veg is all you can push to for meals. See the difference. Stop saying poverty, thats not what your reffering to.
Trybrow 4 years ago
How do poor people get out of poverty?
Move to a free country and work. Or if you already live in America, get a job.
cropperb 4 years ago
people living in poverty of course being in the best position to move anywhere. plus you fail to make the important distinction between actual poverty, and what you seem to be talking about 'relative poverty'.
Trybrow 4 years ago
This is a great video. This is the subject that many proponents of socialism whine about, saying that people don't choose to be poor, etc.
Nobody gets to the age of 30 without a dime to their name by being earnest workers.
Sam26100 2 years ago 2
The whole point is they don't want to get out of it! They've chosen it as a life style. Getting rich takes too much effort. They just want to relax, and they should be free to do that.
cropperb 4 years ago
Yeah they should be free to do that, BUT I should not have to pay for their relaxation.
Other than that, I'm all for them relaxing.
TheLegalImmigrant05 2 years ago
Althought I generally speaking agree on some sort of a general lazy problem, I'd ask if its a "Lifestyle choice" or a way of living, or the result of a seasoning by managers who think youyre lazy to begin with? How does the speaker really know what it is like for those he refers to as "they"? Do you know people who are "them"? Isn't it the best managers who are able to notivate their "subordinates" without thinking of them as lazy but to bring out their best potential?
veffari 4 years ago
Preach it brother! If you devote yourself to success every day when your feet hit the floor ANYONE can be wealthy, or at least "middle class" in America. Poverty IS a choice!
randy109 4 years ago 3
Libertarians feign compassion for the poor by saying "Gov't shouldn't do it! Let the private sector", but they forget that the reason gov't intervenes is b/c the private sector is not the end-all be-all. Private sector is not going to give free health care and free job training and unemployment benefits. Get real. They're profit-motivated. I'm so glad I'm no longer a libertarian. Ayn Rand herself denounced libertarianism!
Whoo69 4 years ago
If you used to be a libertarian, then you'd have known that there's no such thing as free healthcare. Not unless the doctors are working for free, which is unlikely.
jiffy2001 4 years ago
This video is offensive. How many libertarians and conservatives are going to keep promoting the myth that poverty is just a lifestyle choice and they're all just lazy or the idea that the welfare state actually PROMOTES poverty? I thought we demolished that myth years ago when we declared "war" on poverty with Johnson's Great Society. Poverty will never go away, and to excuse it away by saying they're all lazy is because you're too afraid to do something. You're afraid of social justice.
Whoo69 4 years ago 2
Social justice is a crock. We don't need to excuse what isn't our fault- or our problem.
jiffy2001 4 years ago 3
Nobody has the right to take money that I earned and give it to other people. If you want to buy into the social justice theory then you pony up your own money, stop spending mine. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO STEAL FROM ME AND GIVE TO SOMEONE ELSE!!!!
nosavage25 3 years ago 3
*gasps* My God. You're al-Qaeda.
MicheasTheMighty 3 years ago
I'm sorry, but to say that poverty is a lifestyle choice is just foolish. It's based on the old conservative fallacy that "poor people are all lazy bums." Only a small percentage of poor are like that. The others were driven into poverty by things such as unemployment and a lack of jobs, an area with low wages where they can't afford to move, etc. Poverty is a side effect of a market economy, not the result of a "culture of poverty" in which poor people just don't wanna work.
Whoo69 4 years ago 2
Nobody has a right to a job, nobody has the right to a standard of living, nobody has the right to any material thing that he hasn't earned for himself.
nosavage25 3 years ago 3
"Poverty is the worst form of violence." -Gandhi
bobomber 5 years ago
I heard Gandhi liked to give enemas to people who he met and liked. It sounds crazy, so maybe the person telling it was just a Freudian. Was Gandhi Freudian? Where was he educated?
cropperb 5 years ago
Thanks for the personal experience, informative.
tomdownes1 5 years ago
(Response to kompiled). Everyone makes choices of course. But you have to ask why some always make bad choices. You CAN say (Kantian position): well they just use their freedom badly. My position (inspired by Spinoza) is that we can be more or less free to choose, depending on our degree of self-awareness. The rich can lack this resource of course, but the poor have less opportunities for developing it.
parispeter2 5 years ago
Excellent video, well done. I also enjoyed your recent views on modern art and multiculturalism, keep up the great work.
nicktronic 5 years ago
Poverty isn't a choice: why would somebody choose a WORSE state? It's true that many poor people are trapped in a passive mentality. But that's precisely part of what defines poverty, which is not just about how much money you've got, but about a whole MENTALITY and THAT's not something one simply chooses or else everyone would already have chosen the best one! To change that would require the action of the WHOLE society to combat its roots: poor education and passive consumerism.
parispeter2 5 years ago
Since when do CEOs not work? They put in 50 or 60 or 70 hours a week. They need a raise. As for Paris Hilton, I don't pay her a thing, so its none of my business.
I'm in favor of freedom, not enforcement of some arbitrary policy.
cropperb 5 years ago
People don't want to start off at the bottom. True enough. However, when it comes to CEO's, a lot of them gat paid as much for failure as for success. Balloon retirements for idiots who have run companies into the ground.
dudev 5 years ago