> twosidedeath wrote:

> "tend to be more ethical (hence why they are poor)"
do you honestly think that having ethics causes a person to become or stay poor? or an important part of survival that is adapted?

In an inherently corrupt society, where lying and deceit is normal business practice, where wasteful systems are reinforced through anti-trust activity and innovation is intentionally thwarted or highly regulated for the sole purpose of maintaining the status quo, where specters of freedom and liberty are commodities sold only to those who can afford them, where every corporation, business, employer must be complicit with this systemic subversion of ethics in order to compete in a botched 'free'-market; when employees must shut up, stop thinking, and just comply with it or face losing their jobs; when the system itself forces everyone who would survive to be complicit systemic debauchery of virtue so as to garner enough wealth to fulfill basic needs, then, yes, being ethical and thus in opposition and not participating in such a system, results in poverty.

>and to the overall statement of a one child policy. are you trying to concentrate the wealth even more?

It would be a temporary solution, until a new socio-economic paradigm is established, one in which the best of our species rather than the worst are more biologically successful.  Remember, we'd be taxing their wealth, too, so it doesn't matter if it concentrates their wealth further, just as long as they stop breeding and perpetuating their propensity for such base behavioral motivators.

We have long tolerated neo-malthusianistic manipulations of population growth, especially against the poor, to the detriment of our species as a whole.  We've even supported one-child policies, and, currently, turn a blind eye when those policies are applied only to the poor and not the rich.  Yet it is the rich who propagate the prevalence of base behavioral motivators in our species by their biological success.

A system which provides for the biological success of those of a species who harbor such sinister 'virtues' is doomed to devolve, and if we as a sentient species ourselves are to take hold of our evolution and choose what sort of characteristics we wish to be more biologically successful, then we need a paradigm shift in our economic model to one which fosters the biological success of those with honesty, integrity, intelligence, critical thinking, skepticism, questioning, inquisitiveness, creativity, innovation. 

The fact of the matter is if you put those key words in a resume you'd be disqualified for job ANYWHERE; those traits would see one kicked-out of high school.  Ours is a civilization that breeds the best traits out of us, because it is s system designed by those who want, above all else, quiet, stupid complicity with an inherently corrupt system.

If the rich insist on having the best of our species frustrated in perpetual poverty and justify it with some sinister neo-malthusian ethic, while they, the worst of our species, due to their propensity for base motivations of greed, lust, deceit, etc., are the ones actually causing our species to devolve, perhaps a one-child policy enforced upon them is in order to stem the tide of the prevalence of these base behavioral motivators in our species, at least temporarily until a proper paradigm shift in our socio-economic model is possible.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

"The poor, by virtue of being poor, tend to demonstrate more cooperation (by necessity), tend to be more ethical (hence why they are poor), and tend to innovate more (again, due to necessity). "

Apart from the Billionaires Boys Club, not many rich people form murderous gangs and kill people to prove they're good murderers.

I'm happy to view any argument with an open mind.

But when you completely ignore the fact that many people earn much more than they otherwise would have _because_ they're ethical, _because_ they're cooperative, and _because_ they innovate, that's just stupid. All three of these qualities frequently contribute to people's success.

And then, on top of that, ignoring the fact that many people are unsuccessful _because_ they have no work ethic, _because_ they're creepy with no regard for morality, _because_ they're not compassionate toward others is just stupid as well.

One could argue that, somehow, there are better values/morals/genetics among the poor, but absolutely no evidence of that has presented here. Furthermore, it would have to be so much evidence that it overrode the fact that these positive, desirable traits are rewarded in the free market and, generally, are rewarded with more success.

The OP doesn't even make the argument that needs to be made. The OP simply states "The poor have more desirable culture/genetics, so government ought to forcibly reward them for having more children." Nevermind the fact that the USA already does this, or that there are massive moral implications of the taxation of [who SHOULD be] FREE people to pay for this: There's absolutely no basis for these presumptions even mentioned here. There's not even a mention of supposed reasons, let alone ANY argument, let alone STRONG arguments.

I think threads like this would be better if they contained complete thoughts. "Poor people are superior, so government should forcibly socially engineer to produce more of them" is not an argument, it's a bizarre statement with no rationale behind it.

As always, 100% content, 0% personal. Cry about it.

To whit if he was serious about his goal... the poor would be limited to one child and the rich would be required to have ten or more children.

I didn't flame anyone.

Do you have a problem with me calling an idea I think is stupid "stupid"? Yes, you do.

Do you over-generalize that I've "flamed" someone because I've not only logically ripped their bizarre statement to shreds (and asked for an argument, which we could actually talk about), but explained why I described it as bizarre? Yes, you do.

I'm talking about ideas and you're responding with inaccurate over-generalizations, claiming that I should be nice to ideas which I believe (and explain why) are, quite frankly, stupid.

The forum was closed because a trolling child cried, not because I was mean to his ideas. I was mean to his ideas. And I have absolutely no problem with anyone being mean to my ideas. The meaner the better: I'll have to explain my ideas well. I might even change a few of them. I have on several topics over the years since I've been posting here. I'm glad people were mean to my ideas which I've since abandoned.

There's nothing wrong or uncivil about thinking. There's nothing wrong or uncivil about disagreeing. There's nothing wrong or uncivil with thinking an ideas is bizarre, absurd, or--you guessed it--stupid. If you explain why you think that an ideas is wrong/stupid/bizarre/absurd, then you've communicated information in a legitimate discussion in which both sides make their positions more clear to the other.

I have absolutely no problem with you thinking any of my ideas are stupid. It doesn't offend me at all. I only ask that you please tell me why, or you're just trolling and we're not discussing anything.

Selectively responding to arguments against one's position is similarly pointless. If you can't tell someone why you disagree with something they said--or why, despite what they said, you still disagree with their position--then there's no point in repeating talking-points and ignoring that which you have no response to. If you still hold a position though you have absolutely no response to certain arguments against it, that's a position of faith. There's no point in discussing faith.

There is something wrong with crying about fictitious ad-hominem attacks when you have no defense of your position and abandon the topic the moment someone disagrees in favor of attacking that poster. Accusing others of ad-hominem attacks which very clearly never happened is an ad-hominem attack.

Maybe you should leave until you can control yourself. Or at least post on the topic.

I love the idea of engineering "biologically successful."

Free people doing what makes them happy isn't good enough. Humanity needs to be bioengineered into something greater! There's this guy who had similar ideas... what was his name. Oh yeah, Hitler. Adolf Hitler.

Wouldn't you be flooding the poor pool with noninnovative greedy uncooperative types?

oh wait

http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/paul-mccartney.jpg

> Mister Spock wrote:

> I love the idea of engineering "biologically successful."

Free people doing what makes them happy isn't good enough. Humanity needs to be bioengineered into something greater! There's this guy who had similar ideas... what was his name. Oh yeah, Hitler. Adolf Hitler.

I invoke Godwin's Law before argument even starts, lol.  Jeeze, Kemp, you make it way too easy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

+1 xeno!

Tell me, Kemp, why is it you don't have a problem with forced eugenics on the poor, but on the rich - oh, well now that's criminal.