> The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank – dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace.
So no agenda there then.
So no agenda there then.
From wikipedia:
> Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions.
So no I used the word with it's correct meaning.
I'm not sure I understand. Did you censor this because of my comment or because of the thread?
The bigger issue is shilling...
> The bigger issue is shilling
Based on the data I see, I'm pretty sure that's false. But any user with specific concerns about astroturfing or shilling should email hn@ycombinator.com with links. When we get an email like that we look for evidence, and when we find evidence we act on it.
Well it was. I don't understand why you censored my OP. I clarified my point about the GP before you censored the thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10447015. I've further clarified post-censorship https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10453441.
> Based on the data I see, I'm pretty sure that's false. But any user with specific concerns about astroturfing or shilling should email hn@ycombinator.com with links. When we get an email like that we look for evidence, and when we find evidence we act on it.
This is in effect a non-policy. This is pseudonymous forum. Users don't have any evidence other than heuristics (i.e. what the poster actually writes). Given that you don't accept that as evidence they have no possibility to raise serious questions unless there is blaringly obvious mistake on the shill's part.
EDIT Would the downvoter like to pitch in and actually contribute?
That's a high word count on "censor", but I'm not sure what else there is to say.
> This is in effect a non-policy.
It sounds like you've misunderstood. Anyone with suspicions about astroturfing is welcome to email us; it's we who have the data and will look for evidence. What's not allowed is groundless accusation of other users in HN comments.
What is interesting about the results (which include peer reviewed studies - the one in mentioned by the NYT doesn't seem to be peer reviewed) suggesting that cash handouts are more efficient than than more complicated welfare programs is that the cash handouts would eliminate the middle man and maximise the bang for buck of helping people in poverty. I.E. minimising the size of the charity or the government bureaucracy.
Either the ideas/points are valid, backed-up by evidence, etc. Or they're not.
1. I did well therefore why can't everyone be like me?
This is rather tired argument that I have seen dismissed 3 times last week on HN alone. Refuting this is a waste of everyone's time hence I ignored it.
2. Here is a think tank publishing sponsored pseudo-science with a political agenda.
This is what I commented on. In science, especially in controversial fields, the source of funding and acknowledgement of conflicting interests is almost as important as the findings for any given study. Not mentioning funding or conflicting interest is a viable grounds for withdrawal of peer reviewed publication.
Your point: > Either the ideas/points are valid, backed-up by evidence, etc. Or they're not.
Refer to my comment on the OP's point 2. To expand. Evidence can be selectively gathered and selectively presented. This is what peer review attempts to mitigate. A publication funded by a libertarian think-tank would (like a publication by a socialist think tank) face severe questions during peer review to try to determine whether there is bias. Neither TFA nor the stuff refereed to by the OP are (yet) citable research sources.
All else is largely pencil-pushing. If you want to shape economic policy that is sustainable & impactful, it has to make a large allowance for how people feel about welfare.
Let me elaborate.
You can make well-reasoned arguments and appeal to the sound nature of people and hope that they will understand & internalize your case for welfare. You can back it up with scores of studies that have data stretching multiple decades. You can provide touching anecdotes that tug at the heart strings. You can do all that and yet people will not have a change of heart for more than a fleeting moment.
I will give you an account of how workaday people - sensible people - really think about welfare and handouts in general.
For this, I will stick to America & Americans although this could easily be extrapolated to other parts of the world.
I strongly believe that most non-welfare dependent ( & even most welfare-resenting ) Americans are like me. For this purpose let me also exclude the portion of the population that are impetuously dismissive of the "freeloaders" and "deadbeats". Including them would not be helpful here.
Having said that I think most sensible Americans are fine with some form of "public assistance" ( lump into this whatever forms of unearned perks, benefits, allowances, tax breaks, subsidies etc that the government lavishes on the low income or even some middle income people ) for those people who have fallen on hard times.
Most sensible Americans are also fine with those same forms of "public assistance" being bestowed upon those same sections of the public for even extended durations of their lifetimes. I think sensible Americans get that the ill effects of an impoverished childhood & other social curses can stretch for the better part of a generation, if not more.
What most sensible Americans won't stand for is when those benefits are still lavished on those sections of the society even when those previously disenfranchised people are now, well, no longer beggared.
Take the case of San Francisco.
It is not uncommon to find yourself dining at a restaurant where your fellow diners constitute a good chunk of these previously beggared classes.
You think ,"good for them."
It is not uncommon to find them shopping at upmarket home furnishing stores.
You think,"hmm...okay..they share my taste in rugs."
It is also not uncommon to find them gushingly sharing photos & videos of their fantastic vacations to Iceland or Namibia.
You think, "I wish I could take a month away from work. Well, perhaps next year."
It is not uncommon to find your kids struggle to stuff their applications to the same top tier colleges as these previously beggared classes who are suddenly competing with your flock, to be one among the lucky 6% or 7% that constitute the incoming class at a Yale, Columbia or Harvard.
Now you think, "screw all these welfare programs for deadbeats and moochers."
That's what it all boils down to.
Everyone's fine with handouts until it starts to get too close to home.
Your entitlements end where my feelings of hurt begin.
We can differ on the degree & scale but that's the general sentiment of most sensible workaday Americans.
Have you directly stopped and talked to those people buying rugs? Or at a restaurant? Are you sure they are not just hipster kids wearing second-hand clothes but who might work at Google or have a rich daddy with a trust fund?. Maybe you did, but I doubt it.
So a lot of opinions and "feels" people have about welfare is what they are _told_ to have. By their parents, teacher, media, friends, TV, magazines, movies, etc.
I lived with a conservative family for many years, and I was of firm opionion that welfare queens are everywhere wasting pulblic's money and that's where all out taxes were. It was a very sincere and string opionion. But it was put in not head not my socializing with "welfare queens" but by White Middle Class Americans, who also didn't really socialize much with welfare recipients, but instead listened to Fox News all day every day.
So to make story short, it is about the "feels" but the feels are often easily updated/manipulated/used by whomever you let control your thought processes.
This stuck out for me.
I got the impression that she has mixed feelings about assistance programs but recognises their importance whilst wanting them to be applied fairly.
Yeah I agree with that point they made. I just didn't explicitly say it. I should have probably.
What I focused on was the idea that it often boils down to a feeling. And I agree with that too, but I wanted to point that it is important how people arrive at those feelings.
GP showed some example, but I didn't find those convincing. I think a lot of what people believe and think gets acquired and filtered through 3rd party sources (media, friends, parents, teacher etc). And even though a lot of people have strong feelings about welfare, they might not have gotten those from their own experiences.
And then of course there are whole industries (marketing, pr, propaganda) whose goal is manage feeling, perceptions and ideas in others.
Anyway, to recap I didn't disagree with their main idea, just wanted to expand on one part of it.
Let those people be thankful they have a job, instead of complaining about the one who don't. If they are not satisfied, let them ask for a raise or quit and join people on welfare.
Your feelings of "hurt" makes me chuckle. Handouts have the merits of inhibiting crime and violence. You do not want to have so many people on the street without anything to put a foot on, ready to organize for riots and reaping chaos.