Comment by Deestan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Deestan | Hacker News Reader

People should not have to live or die depending repeated random acts of kindness from strangers.

So many American feel-good news stories are utterly dystopian, where some person completely fucked dry by the government or corporate interests have disaster temporarily staved off by friends or colleagues desperately sacrificing their time or money. Either that, or it's about some billionaire dropping pocket lint on a good cause.

Sites like https://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news just make me depressed:

https://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news/3283/Man-Shares-Chick-Fi... - man starving on the streets gets one meal our of sheer luck

https://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news/3279/7-Eleven-Owner-Catc... - starving children win the getting-fucked-for-life vs eating-a-meal lottery one single time. Thoughts and prayers go to their next 1000 times they need to play.

https://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news/3270/Unused-Cafeteria-Fo... - starving children (Why is this even a thing anywhere?) are allowed to eat leftovers.

> People should not have to live or die depending repeated random acts of kindness from strangers.

That is true, but the flip side is that people should not have to live or die depending on compelled acts of strangers either.

No ideological purity survives the myriad of real world circumstances; but the normal case should be that people don't need charity because when life hits them hard there are avenues where they can live a dignified life through their own hard work.

>> No ideological purity survives the myriad of real world circumstances

Just wanted to praise the way you've been able to summarise something I find so true.

If all it took was hard work to live a dignified life there would already be plenty of dignity. The fact of the matter is the world doesn't work on dreams, hopes, and hard work. Silicon Valley had plenty of failed companies to prove this. It works on the fact that bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people and the vast majority of your ability to deal with that comes from how much money your parents had, something over which you have no control. The fact that you have to pay dues in the form of taxes to be part of something like the United States shouldn't be a hard choice to make. We're all willing to pay for corporate welfare, military excess, public land give aways to private entities, but heaven forbid we give up a little bit of cash in the form of taxes to help our fellow citizen. If you look at the outrage on taxes it's always when it comes to helping other people. Access to healthcare shouldn't be a political issue. There is no liberty in a life where one must make the choice between certain death and loss of freedom. As a citizen you're also not compelled to stay in the United States. You can gain all the benefits of citizenship and live in another country. You can even choose to become a citizen of another country. This idea that you're forced to help your fellow citizens is plainly a falsehood. As soon as you become an adult you're free to leave the country. Compulsion is an illusion.

No, you are not free to leave because the supposed other country might not take you in and even if they do it is a big process, nor are the costs of travel negligible.

I think every country offers an immigration program of some kind. To get super pedantic you can show up in Svalbard and live there forever with no immigration process - you just get off the plane and tell the Norwegian governor you live there now. So there is always somewhere you can go. I think the travel costs are the smallest part of immigrating somewhere new (especially since most immigration programs are employment sponsored). That’s not to understate the scope of what you’re doing, it’s a big decision, though it definitely is an option. I guess I’m saying “yes and no.”

What you’re describing is what we call “society.” In a society we compel acts from others as they compel ours and in exchange we’re all better off for it. The whole “you can’t make me” argument in the face of death and suffering evokes a screaming match between a 10 year old and their parent over cleaning their room. It’s not a good look.

The fact is an individual in America who “made it all by themselves” was the beneficiary of myriad social service: public education, roads, water, rail, police, fire, the courts, the army, the regulators and the agencies like the EPA. Drawing the line at healthcare, sick time, and paid leave rules is just a truly arbitrary line in the face of all this.

> No ideological purity survives the myriad of real world circumstances...

Well said. In my opinion the default should be that you can live a comfortable life, and if you are successful you should be rewarded with outsize returns. In part because we as a society can afford to treat everyone well, and also because a baseline of comfort frees you to take risks. It’s how people who do well at a startup suddenly have money, and many more of them on average go on to start their own.

What a ridiculous website. Never thought I’d see a front page with more clickbait than BuzzFeed. Out of all the stories of perseverance you could find, why did you link 4 articles from this website? Are you trying to help them with SEO?

None of the articles are sourced and it even looks like they’re taking videos from other news publications like ABC and playing their own 15 second ads over them.

I for one didn't click on any of the links, why would I.. and even if all of the 3 stories were fake, it wouldn't change the point -- which, as I see it, is about such things being considered "feel good" stories, as if we already accepted the background of suffering that makes them stand out. I know I see that stuff in the wild all the time. But I don't bookmark that stuff, and if I searched for, it I would probably end up on a "farm" for it, too.

This is possibly my favourite ever HN comment. When people talk about how terrible social media echo chambers are they're often overlooking the fact that they're living in one of a much larger scale. I find it utterly baffling that the people of the United States aren't at the gates of the Whitehouse with pitchforks over even just the healthcare issue.

You ruled out everything we know/have tried, though. What is your idea?

IMHO we should improve technology in such ways to replace social security.

The question is who owns the technology we are improving. For whose financial interests does that technology work?

Open source?

Variant of charity. Or company sponsored. Also has a sustainability crisis where maintainers burn out left and right.

> You ruled out everything we know/have tried, though. What is your idea?

I am not sure I understand. I ruled out only desperate random acts of charity. Surely other tried-and-tested working alternatives are well-known?

In other developed countries we do not consider starving children normal because we have a stronger and enforced minimum wage and people out of work get dependable welfare. We do not have thousands people dying from disease because they can't afford treatment, because it's handled by the government.

> fucked dry by the government

Do you expect that same government to help or what other option is there?

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