It is not wrongful entitlement to want people to help you so you don't suffer and die. Such entitlement is healthy, normal, natural and good. Like animals, human beings can't help but have a strong desire to avoid pain and death. The only human beings who do not have this strong desire are extremely brainwashed to be disposable cannon fodder or have strong beliefs that suppress this strong desire. Do you also think it is wrong for someone to call the police if someone is trying to murder him or her? Wrongful entitlement is throwing a temper tantrum because your parents wont buy you an iPhone or throwing a temper tantrum because your boss wont pay you enough every month to live a luxurious lifestyle. If you don't want help from anyone when you are facing suffering and death, then I see no problem with that. But it would be wrong to make it so others, have to face suffering and death when they don't want to. You being tougher on these criminals also wouldn't really put an end to crime. It would just force these people to be more sneaky or more violent(to avoid capture). It is also very cruel of you because in the end, you are just punishing people for wanting to avoid lots of pain and death. It is also really cruel to create such an environment that forces people to turn to crime to avoid extreme suffering and death, then punish with them extreme suffering or death if they get caught... Being hard on criminals is only righteous if you are being hard on criminals who only became criminals to avoid work or to spread suffering and death to satisfy their dark soul.

A little over a month ago, I kept wondering how an middle-aged man on the rural Thai market selling some kind of home made sweets or popsicles for 5 THB a piece (= 12 eurocents) can make any kind of living, especially since it wasn't like there was a queue of people wanting to buy them. Yet, somehow he apparently did, and he was possibly even lucky compared to many others, at least he had a stand to sell something on the market.

The real kicker is that when these same people go over the border to Cambodia (or the nearby area where people from Cambodia come to sell goods to Thai people, some kind of "free market zone" across the border), these poor Thai people feel they are rich (this is not my own guessing, this is what one local told me). They have so much more purchasing power than the Cambodians that come to sell things to them.

Back to Finland, here the discussion about basic income (the model where everyone gets a certain amount of pay from the state, whether they are working or not, and anything they get from working is on top of that) has started again. According to one poll, most people feel around 1000 euros per month (per person) would probably be fine. Some have suggested that is too low, not enough for rent and food etc. if you want to live in Helsinki city area where the cost of living is higher etc. (apparently moving to cheaper areas is out of question then, especially if you are not working at all but wanted to live on that basic income alone?)

How different realities we live in...

A lot of these poor people in poor countries don't have to deal with a high cost of living like in the USA. They make very little money but they don't need much money to survive(if physically and mentally healthy) because they have access to affordable housing and food. They are still a lot of people suffering and dying in those countries though due to the lack of free healthcare, welfare and other benefits. I also believe in these poor countries, sleeping outside and building a shelter is not illegal like it is in the USA. So a healthy person could avoid suffering and death by just making enough money for food if that is possible for him or her. But of course, as soon as these people get health problems that prevent them from making money, they are fucked if they don't have family or friends to take care of them. I guess it's no surprise that in these poor countries, there are strong tightly knit communities and strong tightly knit families.

Is there a high cost of living across all US? Of course if you intend to work in certain place, you should get a wage that allows you to live so near that you can actually go work there daily. Even in this "metropolitan" area where I live, there are quite big differences in housing costs depending on the area. Some people insist on living in the center where all the action is and rents (and especially the price of apartments, if you intend to buy one) is much higher, while some live 30 minutes outside and have quite a bit cheaper living.

Don't the housing costs depend mostly on what people afford to pay? If there are lots of people in the area with lots of money, the housing costs will go up. If not, then not. E.g. I recall reading you can buy veeery cheap houses in Detroit (but then I guess that is because there might be lots of unemployment there).

You may be right in general level, but just to clarify that I think at least in Thailand there is kind of a free healthcare, ie. poor people can go to a local hospital to get treatment. Not a fancy hospital, but one where a doctor will look at them and maybe even treat them. Even I've used it, I went to the local doctor when I had a small motorcycle accident and hurt my hand (she cleaned the hand and wrapped it up so that it could heal). I think the system is that for locals such treatment is free and foreigners pay for it (sounds like it should be, travel insurance should cover the expenses), but in that case she didn't demand any money from me but gave it free.

At least I was quite happy by that example of Thai free healthcare, but then it wasn't like I needed some costly operation or anything.

It seems I was wrong about Thailand. Thailand doesn't sound as bad as other poor countries. The cost of living is high in every part of the USA where there are jobs available that isn't a hell hole wasteland with tons of murders, robberies and rapes happening on a daily basis. Basically, everywhere sane people would want to live, the cost of living is high. And a lot of people don't get to choose their wage here, they have to just accept it. And every day, good jobs are being shipped from the USA to other countries so corporations can make more profit with cheaper labor. Basically the USA is a country with very few good jobs and mostly low paying minimum wage service industry jobs and an insanely high cost of living, that makes most countries in the world cheaper to live in. You also need a car to survive here unless you live in the most expensive areas. And cars are like black holes when it comes to money. And it's hard to buy a car when you are in rags.

Yes it is. Dying and suffering are inevitable and natural - from arthritis to heartbreak. Just accept it. :) See, different morals.

Going a bit deeper though, I have no issue with the desire to avoid pain and death - I'm really not such an hypocrite and I avoid them myself, thank you very much - but feeling and acting entitled that my wellbeing becomes morally tied to others and imposes obligations on them, that is a no go. Others commitment to me must be voluntary - from my wife, my children, my colleagues, my neighbours, my fellow citizens, my fellow humans.

I find that a beautiful ideal. Do you see the fundamental difference we have here? I don't find it must be cruel to say no to someone, even if they die because of it and I know that is the consequence of my inaction - it may be cruel, but it is not necessarily cruel. I simply am not a consequentialist to that degree.

I guess Rush Limbaugh talking about Mars is kind of funny. It's like a monkey trying to use an iPhone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irYGaMG1qao

You laugh now, but when the apes and monkeys finally learn you can use the iPhones also as weapons (by throwing them at humans), the revolution will start.

I, for one, welcome our new iPhone monkey overlords.

It is rather typical of extremist people to not focus on the actual topic...because they don't understand what the topic is, especially when it comes to science. Instead they they obsess over semantics, since that is all their simple and lazy brains can deal with.

Nope, I'm serious. You fancy yourself as some neutral traffic policeman on these boards (because, hey, i suppose that in your own universe you're very centered), and you have zero grasp of how your own ideology and social convenience biases your ability to see, comprehend, notice, react to anything around you. The very fact that you openly label your own superficiality as "deep" and "objective" precludes any reflexivity, and ensures that you'll stay at that level. You do not realise how many things fly above your head, during your "conversation summaries" (which regularly illustrate it), your circular argumentations, or reactions to quotes you don't understand. You don't realise it, because hey, why would you even look upwards.

So, be it about racism and xenophobia, or about political rhetorics, or even morals, there are background reasons (which you'll never question) why you don't get everything, and dismiss anything that goes beyond the perception field that suits you. And this makes your self-description (ad self-perception) as some neutral referee funny. Quino funny.

It happens to not be the case, and that's an asymetry you are blind to. Even european communists aren't communists anymore (okay, in Greece you can still find stalin-worshipping communists banging against their formalin jar, but, again, in Greece you also find nazis in the parliament). Even communist China is capitalistic. If you're playing the communist scare, you're deluded, and fossilized in old maccarthyst rhetorics. If you're thinking of "basic income" philosphers, they do not oppose free enterprise, they even require it. If you're thinking of anti-authoritarian leftists (the ones that used to get exterminated by communists), they haven't found any wide-scale alternative to capitalism yet, and merely seek to regulate it just like police regulates interpersonal relationships to minimize harm and power abuse. However, from the standpoint of neoliberals and foaming libertarians, this is enough to be classified as "communism". Because, heck, infringing on the Holy Freedom to Crush Thy Neighbour and be Judged By Intrinsically Moral Money Transfers Alone is an Abomination. Because, rhetorically, redistributive taxation is, itself, conflated with nationalization (of All Commercial Endeavours). Because, ethical limitations and legal accountability are seen as an Unbearable State Intrusion In Private Business.

You have movements that breach the individualist totalitarianism of ultracapitalists and libertarians. They limitate it. But this totalitarianism by definition can't accept these limitations : these limitations define "communism" in deliberately ignorant rhetorics ("oh noes, the Staaate restricts our Freeeedom, this is dictatorshiiip"), so any impurity of capitalism is designated as intolerable, and as the cause of all evil. And there comes the campaigns for the eradication of welfare, the demonization of taxations, the destruction of public services, the freedom to reduce wages to peanuts, to pollute at will, to forbid protest strikes, to lay off on a whim, etc.

But you do not have, on the other side, a current for the strict nationalization and state-centralization of all formerly private endeavours, and the eradication of any private enterprise or initiative. Even limitations of profits is not that. Even ecologic constraints is not that. Even minimal wages is not that. Forbidding a man to rape his children and beat his wife to death is not forbidding him to have a home, but it's introducing some rules from outside within his home, and this already shocks abusers enough. No matter the right-wing rhetorics, these are just limits put to a capitalistic system (as "background"), and not its replacement - however, it IS the replacement of its totalitarian ideology (as "pole") with some collective awareness and mutual responsability. The struggle is between a mixed system (with extreme-left proponents) versus a totalitarian system (with extreme-right proponents) which sees a mixed system as "communism".

Debates should be about the balance within these mixed systems, but positions within that debate are asymetrical. It's not pure communism (with state-owned-everything) versus pure capitalism (with the market as only regulating referential). It is socialism (state-owned-basic-services, which shouldn't be driven by profit, and state-policed private activities, which should have moral boundaries) versus pure capitalism (market as the only regulating referential, profit as the only value). The rest is rhetorics. Self-serving rhetorics.

And void little idiocies of the "racism against racists" genre (such as the rhetorics of "two extremes"), that just give idiots an opportunity to sound cool to their own ears.

Oh, it's this guy! Awesome!

Who the f**k is this again?

Actually scrap that, I don't really care.

I don't fancy myself as neutral anything. I admit the biases I am aware of, and can't admit any I'm not aware of. Logical so far?

I label as deep anything that took me further than my superficial judgement and/or perception, and as objective anything which is factual and at least somewhat fair. Doesn't matter to me whether those are my contributions or others. For example, you yourself are always deep, and often objective and when you are not objective it's because of reasons we have discussed. I don't consider all my posts to be objective by the way. I try to make them always factual, but particularly in the political ones if I believe the other is confrontational I don't care about being fair. And why should I?

Of course I don't realize what things fly over my head, that's by definition. Well other than airplanes and storks... I'm sure those fly over my head frequently. :) My summaries are an invitation to fill in the blanks which I use when the conversation has gone for long enough that even the context of how we got to where we are is starting to escape me. So I also use them as memory aid. They are not a trench I will die on inevitably. Why do you take that kind of communication technique to be so inherently confrontational Telika? Aren't you just associating your personal dislike of me / my opinions onto my rhetorical methods?

Again, this is precisely why dialogue matters. What I will never question can only be questioned by others. That you think I am somewhat ignorant of that, when I constantly tell you I'm trying to do that to you, is prima facie evidence of your lack of trust. In which case you should just ignore me dude, as it's wasting my time, and aggravating you emotionally to keep this up. Move on already.

I'm not sure to address the other level of discussion, because again, I more and more think you just don't believe me. So let's take one thing at a time.

We're talking about civilized/industrialized first-world countries here, not third-world dumps like Thailand...

Free bananas for everyone and all legal disputes settled with poo flinging. I'm in. :P

You're kidding right? Socialism enabled Russia to transform from an almost entirely rural medieval country into a modern industrialized nuclear superpower within a single generation, DESPITE having nearly been completely ruined TWICE, once due to World War I and the Russian Civil War, and again by Nazi Germany and it's allies in WWI.

The human cost was massive, but then again it always is. If anything socialism and the USSR were too advanced and ahead of it's time.

Look at the world today, look at the boom and bust cycle of capitalism, look how the vast majority of humans still live in squalor and the vast majority of wealth is controlled by a tiny percentage of the population.