@RoseOfSharonCassidy said in #6:
> I don't believe that whenever someone talks about "poor people" they actually mean starving africans, if that is who they talk about they specify that.
Not sure what you mean by that. You said that poor people don't exist in the modern world. Especially in the "developed world". I've pointed out that extreme poverty (to the point of starving to death which ludicrously seems to be the only definition of poverty you accept) still does exist albeit not to the extent that it did in the past (thankfully there are worldwide efforts being made to end hunger).
It's not clear to me how you inferred that I was talking about "starving africans [sic!]" only. Charming by the way. Deaths due to hunger and undernourishment happen all over the world. Not just in Africa. Not even predominantly in Africa. Let's take severe food insecurity as a proxy for extreme poverty and starvation. According to ourworldindata (source below):
"Globally, around 697 million were severely food insecure in 2018.
More than half of those living with severe food insecurity were in Asia; nearly 40% were in Africa. The remaining 10% were split between the Americas, Europe and Oceania."
Then I showed that using your inane standards for "actually" poor people (which according to you don't have "shelter, water, food, heating, cooling, TV, the internet, etc."), poor people actually do exist in the "developed world", namely the United States, as well. But I guess those don't count according to you, because too few of them starve or freeze to death.
> I would even say that homeless people today are better off than poor people 1000 years ago, they get food and shelter provided for them, and they make some money since they are buying so many drugs and alcohol no?
Nice. Shifting the goalposts, are we? First you claimed that "[...] if you take a "poor" person today and put him in medieval times with all his possessions he would be living better than royalty." When this absurd claim clearly becomes untenable, you change your claim to "homeless people today are better off than poor people 1000 years ago".
Which by the way is an utterly useless comparison. Poor people 1000 years ago had no access to modern medicine and technology not because they were poor but because these things didn't yet exist. Crucially they didn't have access to most technologies of their day (horses, writing, parchment, firewood, court physicians etc.). Poor people today don't have access most modern technologies (cars/airplanes, heating, MRI or PET scans, a doctor, a dentist etc.). I reckon that throughout the ages the percentage of technologies available to poor people out of all technology already invented by humanity stayed roughly the same (or even decreased). Your entire argument might charitably be condensed into the sentence: The overall wealth and technological capabilities of humanity have increased since the middle ages. Thanks Sherlock. We're all aware of that. But that doesn't mean that there are no more poor people.
The fact of the matter is that 225,000 out of a total of 580,000 homeless people in the US (38.8%) are unsheltered. You may imagine that they all get food and shelter provided for them, but not all of them do.
Your view of homeless people is also pretty stereotyped (as is your view of poor people in general). You think homeless people make a lot of money? Really? Try begging in the streets for a day and see how profitable it is. Poor people 1000 years ago did the exact same thing. They too were beggars. Being poor doesn't mean having zero income. It means having an income that is inadequately suited to provide for a healthy and financially self-sufficient life.
Speaking of which, what do you reckon: how many people in the US are moderately or severely food insecure (definition in the paragraph below)? Zero? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? Maybe 100,000 people?
No. There were 29.9 million people in the US who were either moderately or severely food insecure in 2017. That's about 9.2% of the population. Of those 3.3 million people were severely food insecure. That's about 1% of the population.
What's moderate and severe food insecurity you ask? Definitions, definitions:
"Moderate food insecurity is generally associated with the inability to regularly eat healthy, nutritious diets. High prevalence of moderate food insecurity is therefore an important indicator of poor dietary quality, and the development of health outcomes such as micronutrient deficiencies."
Experiencing moderate food insecurity means you have to compromise quality and variety of food or even begin reducing quantity, i.e. skipping meals.
"Severe food insecurity is more strongly related to insufficient quantity of food (energy) and therefore strongly related to undernourishment or hunger."
Experiencing severe food insecurity means you have to reduce food quantity, skip meals and experience hunger.
Source:
ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishmentAnd you're out here telling me that there are no more poor people.
You do realise that we're talking about one of the wealthiest countries (at least according to its GDP) in the world here, don't you? In most other places, poverty, malnourishment and severe food insecurity is even worse.
> People of all classes struggle, i acknowledged that there is inequality, it's that those of the lower classes should not be called poor, because they are not poor. They are just lower class.
I described a diabetic in the US struggling for mere survival due to their inability to afford horrendously overpriced insulin (price range as of 2022: $100 to $2,000 for a 30 day supply on average depending on the US-state you live in, your health insurance and the amount of insulin necessary for your type of diabetes). All people can develop diabetes (at any point in their life). Not just obese people. Not just old people.
It can affect everyone. It does affect 37 million people in the US alone. Some people are born with diabetes. Some develop it during puberty or early adulthood (20-30 years of age).
And many people in the US don't have health insurance (In 2020, 8.6% of all US citizens didn't have health insurance at any point during the year according to
www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/income-poverty-health-insurance-coverage.html). For some uninsured, non-homeless, hard-working diabetics the cost of insulin is simply too high (compared to the income from their job), they basically have to choose between getting their insulin (which they need for continued health and survival) out of pocket or paying their rent. They acquire crushing medical debt and/or lose their apartment due to inability to pay rent. They plunge into poverty and sometimes homelessness through no fault of their own.
And your answer to this is: "People of all classes struggle, [...]"
No. Not all people struggle for survival. I was clearly talking about the struggle of survival. You are talking about the figurative meaning of struggle because it better suits your argument. That amounts to an equivocation (informal fallacy).
At least you acknowledge that there's inequality. But you have failed to justify the rebranding of poor people as "lower class" in my opinion. This is just a way to unduly minimise the problem of poverty.
People who have an individual income of $100,000 a year or more (only about 9.15% of all US citizens in 2015) for instance don't struggle for survival. They can easily afford insulin (and private health insurance), even though it's extremely overpriced. Thankfully insulin prices (and those of other pharmaceuticals) are finally about to be capped at $35 per 30 day supply in the US in 2023. But it's attitudes like yours (in lawmakers) that hampered this development. It's attitudes like yours that sustain inequality and curb efforts to fight poverty.
By presumptuously asserting that poverty no longer exists.
in case you're dumb enough that you need a definition that would take you ten seconds to google, here you go
