Do we have a moral obligation to help the 'less fortunate'?
- Thread starter Altron
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MrBishop
Well-Known Member
In answer to your question, Altron.
We live in a society and not a vaccuum. We help out where we can (whether that's financially, through giving time or effort) in much the same way we ourselves are helped.
Nobody is purely self-reliant. While it's true that for many of the items where we require help, we pay for with money (someone to build our houses, lay streets, build cars, drive buses, provide electricity, farming our food, killing and butchering our meat, etc etc...) - it's not always the case. We don't pay our friends to help us move from apartment to apartment, we don't pay our parents to babysit our kids etc... all a number of things where we require help...or render help.
All this to the benefit of the society as a whole.
Are we morally obligated to help others? No more than others are morally obligated to help us.
Is it to our benefit to help others? Certainly. Nobody knows who may give them a hand later in life...nor what positive contribution the person you're helping today will give back to society tomorrow.
We live in a society and not a vaccuum. We help out where we can (whether that's financially, through giving time or effort) in much the same way we ourselves are helped.
Nobody is purely self-reliant. While it's true that for many of the items where we require help, we pay for with money (someone to build our houses, lay streets, build cars, drive buses, provide electricity, farming our food, killing and butchering our meat, etc etc...) - it's not always the case. We don't pay our friends to help us move from apartment to apartment, we don't pay our parents to babysit our kids etc... all a number of things where we require help...or render help.
All this to the benefit of the society as a whole.
Are we morally obligated to help others? No more than others are morally obligated to help us.
Is it to our benefit to help others? Certainly. Nobody knows who may give them a hand later in life...nor what positive contribution the person you're helping today will give back to society tomorrow.
Professur
Well-Known Member
MrBishop
Well-Known Member
Yeah...about 240,000 years ago, and even then...in a village with other people who also helped out.
MrBishop
Well-Known Member
..I'm afraid that you'll have to go further back than that, Prof.
Vassalage goes back a few hundred years - relatively modern. Even if you go back to hunter/gatherer times in North America alone 12,000 odd years, you'll find mothers minding not only their children but grouping together to raise all the children, while the men hunted together and whole villages/encampments made homes, prepared foods, defended themselves etc.. as a group, and not merely by bloodline alone.A president on playgrounds 100 years ago: nothing is more important to the welfare of city youth - Printable Version - January 10, 2009 - 0 Comments
On May 11, 1909, The New York Times ran the following letter from President William H. Taft to Luther Halsey Gulick, President, Playground Association of America, on the eve of the association’s third annual congress:
“I do not know anything which will contribute more to the strength and morality of that generation of boys and girls compelled to remain part of urban populations in this country than the institution in their cities of playgrounds where their hours of leisure can be occupied by rational and healthful exercise. The advantage is twofold:
"In the first place, idleness and confinement in a narrow space in the city, in houses and cellars and unventilated dark rooms is certain to suggest and bring about pernicious occupation and create bad habits. Gambling, drinking, and other forms of vice are promoted in such a restricted mode of life.
"In the second place, an opportunity for hard, earnest, and joyous play improves the health, develops the muscles, expands the lungs, and teaches the moral lessons of attention, self-restraint, courage, and patient effort.
"I think every city is under the strongest obligation to its people to furnish to the children, from the time they begin to walk until they reach manhood, places within the city walls large enough and laid out in proper form for the playing of all sorts of games which are known to our boys and girls and are like by them.
"I sincerely hope that your present convention may be a success, and that the work which you have begun may go on until no city in this country is without suitable playgrounds for the children of those who but for such city assistance in this regard would be without them.”
Courtesy of the Trust for Public Land. Source: The New York Times, original pdf from newspaper here.
The whole greater than the sum of it's parts is how we survived all these millenia. The chain only as strong as it's weakest link...so strengthening the link made the chain that much stronger.
BeardofPants
New Member
Figures he'd come outta lurking at the slightest sniff of bop sprogs.
*slaps bish, minky & winky upside the head
Smarty pants.
Professur
Well-Known Member
The existance of welfare in the past didn't invalidate the family as a support institution. That only happened recently, as people started to view old folk as decrepid instead of valuable knowledge resources. Children as financial burdens instead of the wellspring of the future.
don't know much about metal, do ya? There's a problem with trying to strengthen metals: it tends to make them brittle if you're not really careful. Then there's the issue of strengthening one part without considering how that's going to affect the whole. You soon discover that while you thought you were removing a point of failure, all you've done is move it to a different location. And usually that failure is much more spectacular and disasterous than the original point. Look up fuses if you don't believe me.
As for survival .... there's two survival tactics practiced in nature. Herd mentality, and the guardian mentality. Herd mentality says that the strong survive and the weak fall prey. Works pretty well, as the entire species improves. You lose some, maybe many, but the best usually survive.
Guardian mentality works better at saving everyone ... right up until the Guardian (bull, alpha, mother bear, whatever) meets it's match and falls. Then what happens? Everyone winds up dead, since they're completely incapable of defending themselves.
Guess which one you're rooting for.
MrBishop
Well-Known Member
We're talking people, not metal. By teaching/training the weakest link, you make them less of a burden..if you prefer another analogy, give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish..you get the idea...but in this case, he can fish for himself, and his family, and his community. Refuse to teach/train those who don't know, or worst, let them die off because they're not immediately useful, and you end up with a very small and homogeneous community with very specific skills and no growth.
You protect your children until they can become more self-reliant, and fuller members of the community....what's wrong with doing the same for those who have fallen on hard times?
The 'herd mentality', which is the one you seem to be rooting for, reminds me an awful lot of sheep waiting for slaughter. Baa.
You protect your children until they can become more self-reliant, and fuller members of the community....what's wrong with doing the same for those who have fallen on hard times?
The 'herd mentality', which is the one you seem to be rooting for, reminds me an awful lot of sheep waiting for slaughter. Baa.
Professur
Well-Known Member
Oooo ... so close to right, yet so very very wrong. Let's run that back in slow motion and look at where the wheels came off, shall we?
Actually, we were using analogies.
Yes. But that would seem to me to be the OBLIGATION of the breeders, not the blind society. Hence the phrase ... "Can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em"
Oh, so you were aware we were using analogies. That kind of makes your first sentence look kinda dense.
A brilliant ideal, mirrored in the institution of Apprentiships. An institution destroyed by the socialistic idea of public schooling. Teach them all sorts of things instead of concentrating on what they need to survive. I'm sure my kids are all gonna go so much further for their ability to chant Martin Luther King songs than if they could .. oh, I dunno, maybe gut a fish.
Ah, was that a lugnut I heard hit the ground? Let's see, let's teach them to fish ... and fish well. In fact, let's teach everyone to fish well. Oh, wait a minute. They learned only what you taught them, and you taught everyone the same thing, didn't you? So what happens when all those fishermen go out and destroy the fishing grounds because you taught them to fish, but since they only learned what you taught, they didn't learn anything about the rest of the system. Might want to go listen to Jurassic Park, the little rant at the dinner table by the mathematician. Something about standing on the shoulders of giants. Insufficient learning. Here's a few lessons of that type.
Learning to drive makes you a helpless victim when the car breaks down on the highway.
Learning to use a calculator makes you a helpless victim when the batteries die.
For my children, I've lead and guided their development. I know what they've learned. I'm easily the best suited to know what their next step should be. I can't say that about the stranger on the street. Neither can you, nor can the politician doling out my hard won cash. And as for 'fallen on hard times' ... I've no problem with that. Indeed, that's why we had two agencies. Unemployment and welfare. Unemployment is a form of insurance. Everyone who works pays into it. Lose your job, and you draw back out of it. And it's limited. You've got long enough to make a serious effort at getting another job, and they're extend you time if you're showing a serious effort but need more time to retrain (but, if I'd been left my money, I could have saved it myself and had it when I needed it, without having to pay a bunch of buracrats.) Welfare gives, and gives, and gives to people who don't pay into it, and never will.
I'm not particularly rooting for anything. But don't forget that you are dealing with sheep. Expecting a predator mentality to work for sheep is doomed to failure. If the populace was anything other than sheep, we wouldn't be having this discussion, as they're be performing the Guardianship themselves and teaching those behind them to take over. The only ones learning that are the politicians.
Actually, we were using analogies.
Yes. But that would seem to me to be the OBLIGATION of the breeders, not the blind society. Hence the phrase ... "Can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em"
Oh, so you were aware we were using analogies. That kind of makes your first sentence look kinda dense.
A brilliant ideal, mirrored in the institution of Apprentiships. An institution destroyed by the socialistic idea of public schooling. Teach them all sorts of things instead of concentrating on what they need to survive. I'm sure my kids are all gonna go so much further for their ability to chant Martin Luther King songs than if they could .. oh, I dunno, maybe gut a fish.
Ah, was that a lugnut I heard hit the ground? Let's see, let's teach them to fish ... and fish well. In fact, let's teach everyone to fish well. Oh, wait a minute. They learned only what you taught them, and you taught everyone the same thing, didn't you? So what happens when all those fishermen go out and destroy the fishing grounds because you taught them to fish, but since they only learned what you taught, they didn't learn anything about the rest of the system. Might want to go listen to Jurassic Park, the little rant at the dinner table by the mathematician. Something about standing on the shoulders of giants. Insufficient learning. Here's a few lessons of that type.
Learning to drive makes you a helpless victim when the car breaks down on the highway.
Learning to use a calculator makes you a helpless victim when the batteries die.
For my children, I've lead and guided their development. I know what they've learned. I'm easily the best suited to know what their next step should be. I can't say that about the stranger on the street. Neither can you, nor can the politician doling out my hard won cash. And as for 'fallen on hard times' ... I've no problem with that. Indeed, that's why we had two agencies. Unemployment and welfare. Unemployment is a form of insurance. Everyone who works pays into it. Lose your job, and you draw back out of it. And it's limited. You've got long enough to make a serious effort at getting another job, and they're extend you time if you're showing a serious effort but need more time to retrain (but, if I'd been left my money, I could have saved it myself and had it when I needed it, without having to pay a bunch of buracrats.) Welfare gives, and gives, and gives to people who don't pay into it, and never will.
I'm not particularly rooting for anything. But don't forget that you are dealing with sheep. Expecting a predator mentality to work for sheep is doomed to failure. If the populace was anything other than sheep, we wouldn't be having this discussion, as they're be performing the Guardianship themselves and teaching those behind them to take over. The only ones learning that are the politicians.
Smarty pants are good for stealing.Figures he'd come outta lurking at the slightest sniff of bop sprogs.
*slaps bish, minky & winky upside the head
Smarty pants.
Ah... so you are a proponent of abortion under these circumstances? Interesting.
Professur
Well-Known Member
Ah... so you are a proponent of abortion under these circumstances? Interesting.
Wow. I've heard of jumping to conclusions, but that takes it to whole new levels. Stargate levels even. Taking "Can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em" as an endorsement of abortion makes as much sense as taking someone saying "Bless you" to you when you sneeze as a marriage proposal.
I'm a proponent of "Keeping it in your pants" and "Think first".
MrBishop
Well-Known Member
Prof, need I remind you that you are the one who started using physics to try and break down an analogy? Seems to me that you were the one unaware that we were using analogies. You did it again with the fishing analogy.
Speaking of analogies. School is the modern apprenticeship... you start broadly, giving wide-ranging skills (Readin' ritin' and rithmatic), then you begin specializing and teaching application of the original skills in new ways (geography, history, physics, chemistry), then specialize even more..all the while allowing for growth in new ways of thinking and problem-solving (politics/GVT, social sciences, philosophy), and give them enough information to find what they're interested in learning..which path they want to take.
Speaking of analogies. School is the modern apprenticeship... you start broadly, giving wide-ranging skills (Readin' ritin' and rithmatic), then you begin specializing and teaching application of the original skills in new ways (geography, history, physics, chemistry), then specialize even more..all the while allowing for growth in new ways of thinking and problem-solving (politics/GVT, social sciences, philosophy), and give them enough information to find what they're interested in learning..which path they want to take.
Professur
Well-Known Member
I beg your pardon, but school bears absolutely no resemblance what so ever to an apprenticeship. That you'd even make such a statement shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that continuing to discuss that point with you is a total waste of time.
As for the rest of that drivel, take a some time to look up continuing education debt on the web. Should be a topic your familiar with. You've got lawyers so in debt when they come out of school that they'll be retired before they pay it all off if they don't defaut and declare bankruptcy immediately upon graduating. All your schooling only teaches the end result of what someone else discovered. Very seldom does it teach everything that person learned on the way .. such as what doesn't work, and what not to do again. And it frequently takes 10 times longer to do it, since the classes can only go as fast as the slowest student, and they have to include useless diversion time.
As for the rest of that drivel, take a some time to look up continuing education debt on the web. Should be a topic your familiar with. You've got lawyers so in debt when they come out of school that they'll be retired before they pay it all off if they don't defaut and declare bankruptcy immediately upon graduating. All your schooling only teaches the end result of what someone else discovered. Very seldom does it teach everything that person learned on the way .. such as what doesn't work, and what not to do again. And it frequently takes 10 times longer to do it, since the classes can only go as fast as the slowest student, and they have to include useless diversion time.
2minkey
bootlicker
that's not been my experience. you don't learn theoretical science beating on HVAC stuffs in an elementary school basement. sure ya ain't rationalizing something here?
MrBishop
Well-Known Member
Again, you fail to understand the term analogy.
There are no modern apprenticeships, as seen several generations ago... there are some watered down versions of it "Doing a 'stage' for a company for a short period of time" is a good example...but indentured servitude of an apprentice to a Master in exchange for being taught an art, starting at a young age until majority? Nope. Technical and Trade school don't even come close.
But as an analogy...aah.
Smithing. The kid doesn't pick up a hammer and starts making wrought-iron gates on day #1. Doesn't even touch the tools until s/he learns about the basics surrounding the art... when to use oil, salt-water for cooling and why. How to guage temperature by eye, use of the bellows, etc etc... eventually learning cooling, then hammering, then shaping, then repairs, then sharpening etc...getting more and mroe specialized until you get a smith that is great with weapons, or one that's great with horse-related stuff, etcetc... Your specialists.
There are no modern apprenticeships, as seen several generations ago... there are some watered down versions of it "Doing a 'stage' for a company for a short period of time" is a good example...but indentured servitude of an apprentice to a Master in exchange for being taught an art, starting at a young age until majority? Nope. Technical and Trade school don't even come close.
But as an analogy...aah.
Smithing. The kid doesn't pick up a hammer and starts making wrought-iron gates on day #1. Doesn't even touch the tools until s/he learns about the basics surrounding the art... when to use oil, salt-water for cooling and why. How to guage temperature by eye, use of the bellows, etc etc... eventually learning cooling, then hammering, then shaping, then repairs, then sharpening etc...getting more and mroe specialized until you get a smith that is great with weapons, or one that's great with horse-related stuff, etcetc... Your specialists.