Survival of the fittest.

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Admitting that it exists and that its a strong force behind human nature in no way shape or form means that the person who believes that *likes* it. I'm hard pressed to think of anyone who does.

The argument plays a bit like "Who enjoys oppression so much that they believe in gravity?" - anyone who doesn't want to try walking across a chasm and falling to their death?

Yes that is fair, just like there are successful people who will step on others in the name of the success or profit.....there are not so successful people who will abuse things like unemployment. I certainly do not advocate given everyone a free ride but I would never leave someone to their own misery if there was something I could do to help. That being said unless you are a fairly decent con-artist you're probably not going to get enough unemployment or welfare benifits to pay all of their needs, wants and desires. I mean the fact that I have mental problems that limit the amount of stress I can handle makes it very difficult for me to get help I do kind of need...this is why I decided not to reapeal their decision to deny me SSI this time around because I felt it would interfere too much with college considering all the paper works, consultations with disability lawyers and that whole mess. I say the system needs to be rather reformed so its not as easy to abuse, and is a bit easier for people who need help to get it.

Well actually I was just making a point, if you did not get it I imagine that is your issue....and what habit of pointless fluffery?....If you knew me you would know I always have a reason for what I say. If expressing my thoughts and feelings the best way I can is pointless fluffery than Obama is a flying unicorn.

He was talking to pandabear, not you. Which is why he quoted him.

Well if what we have here is a 'welfare state' it sure is a crappy one....also do you suggest we go back to before there were any government regulations on buisness. Should we go back to child labor? should we go back to employers abusing their employees with no regulations standing in their way?

Chairity is nice but it does not address all the issues that exist.

Oh, I read that wrong...sorry about that.

So much for "explicitly stated". - as I thought.

Actually, how far would ANY political party get if they made clear and explicit statements in setting up a platform?

Now you will explain how "getting rid of Obamacare" is tantamount to "leaving people to die".

Yes except now they have designed a lot of dumpsters to prevent that very behavior....because apperantly someone somewhere is losing money from all the dumpster divers I guess.

Not sure what you are getting at so sorry if I am reading it wrong.....but you do realise I do not support Obamacare right?

@OP: Look up Ayn Rand, if you haven't already heard/read of her. (Unless you're in a bad mood; that'll make it worse.) She's possibly the most unabashed proponent of that mindset. People like Paul Ryan (the "let's voucherise Medicare" guy) makes his interns read her books. I think she serves to embolden people with such views, nowadays.

Apparently, in one of Rand's books, a guy becomes rich & powerful because he invents some new kind of steel that revolutionises train travel (the book was written before mass air travel). He is a hero. So, the view seems to be that if you're rich, it's because you are smart and industrious, and so you deserve to be rich. (People on Wall Street appear to think that way, from an interview I saw.) And, conversely, if you are poor, it's because you are stupid and lazy. There are no other possibilities, in the minds of some people.

Of course, in the real world, the new steel would be invented by some people in a lab -- who signed contacts that give the CEO/company ownership of all of their inventions. The only "smart" thing the CEO does is legally insert himself into the position of stealing other people's ingenuity and hard work. But people still tend to worship the CEO, rather than the nerds in the lab. (How many of the general public know who Steve Wozniac is?)

Anyway, I'm getting off the point. I think that there are people who think that "success," in the most banal form, is an indication of superiority in the purest way, because to them it implies intelligence, dilligence, and good moral character -- because G-d/the-universe is just and would not reward someone of low moral character. And, therefore, if a person is not "successful," it is because, and only because, they are dumb, lazy, and of poor moral character.

"So, if someone is poor, then they deserve to be. They 'choose' it. If the world is 'punishing' them with hunger, cold, no medical care... those are a natural consequence of the person's choices. So, once again, they deserve it. It would actually be immoral to interfere with that process." -- that's my best parody/simulation of that mindset

Ugh. I have a thought here, but I can't seem to write it out. I think that the mindset you're talking about is deeply rooted in certain human instincts, which is what is what makes it impervious to reality, logic, or common sense.

Let us note that "survival of the fittest" applies both in the "get to the top or be trampled" model and the "all in this together" model. As it does in the anthill and meadow [cf ruveyn]. But it is a question of fitness for a particular environment.

I as it happens am NOT well adapted to either the wolf pack or the bee hive.

But SOMEBODY is on the bottom and SOMEBODY is on top ein either system and any between.

I would love the Religious Right to point out to me where it says in the Bible that the poor should dive into dumpsters to get their food.

Last edited by androbot2084 on 15 Aug 2011, 12:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

A quibble: 'Survival of the fittest' and 'social Darwinism,' as they are popularly conceived, have nothing to do with actual evolutionary theory or with Darwin's theory of natural selection. A better catch-phrase for the ToE would be, 'She with the most grandchildren wins.'

IF we assume that anyone on the so-called right says anything of the sort - which even in this day of absurd extremist rhetoric is just as unlikely as the proposition that anyone on the so-called left is actually calling for secret good-thought police - we may rest assured that such a policy is not based on a biblical precept.

This whole "Religious Right" thing is frankly ridiculous. It has been talked around for years - I remember being rather shocked by one of my colleagues, back in my atheist days, getting all sweated up about Christian coups - but come on!

Reproductive successive is related to having those characteristics which lead to survival (number 1) and further reproductive success (number 2). That is what "fit" means. There is a good fit between one's genetic characteristics and one's reproductive success.

All nature "cares about" is reproductive success in the longer term.

ruveyn

In the LONGER term we are all extinct, even the enlightened cockroaches.