Poll of the Day > Economic inequality proven to not be result of poor people making bad choices

(+) Yeah! (+)

or rich people making good choices

https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/economic-inequality-cannot-be-explained-individual-bad-choices

Anyone with three brain cells knows why the economic gap exists, and it isn't because of "the peasants".

The system was made by the 1% to serve the 1%. It's made so the 1% gets richer and the 99% gets poorer. When someone from the 1% joins the 99% or vice versa, it's a statistical anomaly.

LonelyStoner posted...

Anyone with three brain cells knows why the economic gap exists, and it isn't because of "the peasants".

But my taxes would surely almost disappear if we just let those dirty poors die! There certainly isn't any other alternative that involves shifting the tax burden to ensure that those more capable of handling it do so, and there's definitely no way that welfare consistently yields a worthwhile return on investment and comprises only a tiny fraction of my total tax bill.

Instead, we narrowly conclude that biased decision-making does not alone explain a significant proportion of population-level economic inequality

Did anyone arguing in good faith believe otherwise?

Rasmoh posted...

Did anyone arguing in good faith believe otherwise?

No I've never heard the claim made before.

This sounds a bit like someone saying they did a study to prove something nobody was really disputing.

ForteEXE3850 posted...

This sounds a bit like someone saying they did a study to prove something nobody was really disputing.

Sometimes you need to throw numbers at someone's face

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They tend not to be the sort of people that are willing to accept concrete evidence that conflicts with their opinions, though. Something something bootstraps something avocado toast something.

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adjl was agreeing with you

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I believe this would be those who aren't arguing in good faith.

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That doesn't mean they're arguing in good faith.

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Disproving what, exactly? The idea that those people are arguing in good faith?

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What are you even talking about at this point?

Proven to be my fault!!!

Ok you guys are arguing over something not really related to the topic. This is about income inequality, you know the exponential growth in the income of the richest people in the country and the stagnation of the regular people. It's not a result of the individual decisions we all make.

The topic at hand isn't really about the poor per say. I will just comment that as I live in one of the most conservative states in the country there are people, a LOT of them, who genuinely lack the capacity to understand that if we got rid of welfare it would have little to no impact on their taxes.

BlackScythe0 posted...

The topic at hand isn't really about the poor per say. I will just comment that as I live in one of the most conservative states in the country there are people, a LOT of them, who genuinely lack the capacity to understand that if we got rid of welfare it would have little to no impact on their taxes.

The Nordic countries, which are closer to socialism, actually have the best universal welfare and healthcare in the world, and yet they pay significantly less taxes than American citizens. You are being ripped off.

I mean yeah, for every case of a poor person being poor because of bad decisions/rich person being rich because of good decisions there is like 100,000 cases of the opposite.

"The rich are rich because they make good decisions!"
Meanwhile, Elon Musk pays billions to ruin Twitter for no reason and 6 billionaires die in a submarine that any person with nautical expertise could tell you was a death trap.

Rasmoh posted...

That doesn't mean they're arguing in good faith.

Arguably, very few arguments on issues like this ever happen in good faith regardless of which side you're on, since by definition arguing in good faith means seeking to reach a resolution and being willing to compromise where needed. Believing in your position is an inescapable prerequisite for arguing in good faith (since otherwise you're arguing toward a resolution you don't actually think is good, which is just arguing for the sake of arguing), but the fact that people generally aren't willing to consider evidence against their position or change their minds regardless of how the argument goes prevents it from being a good faith argument. When people argue about stuff like this, it's usually just because they think they're right and want other people to agree with them, rather than being willing to see other viewpoints and update their opinion if the argument convinces them to do so.

I've actually changed my opinion because opposing arguments in a debate convinced me that my initial position was incorrect. It doesn't happen often, but I recall switching sides in the middle of an argument on many occasions. Usually, when my opinion changes, it's gradual. People who can't do that and who prefer to defend their flawed position to the bitter end like a fanatic are some of the worst kind of people. Unfortunately, there are quite many of them.