Comment by jfengel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jfengel | Hacker News Reader

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Because a lot of people believe that if you're hungry, it's because you're stupid, lazy, or morally deficient, and thus deserve to be hungry.

I suspect you think I'm joking. I'm not. "Work is better than welfare" is a common refrain. Here it is on a state government web site:

https://www.dshs.wa.gov/esa/chapter-1-engaging-parents-workf...

It's widely considered that if you feed people for free, they will have no incentive to work. They will live off of your effort, have more children who will learn from their parents that work isn't required, and possibly commit crimes to obtain more. There is a genuine fear that they will literally lead more comfortable lives than you do by working.

Again, I suspect you think I'm exaggerating, or that this is an extreme minority opinion. This is a very common opinion among Americans -- effectively universal among conservatives, and significant among progressives.

We don't choose better because the things that you think of as "better" are supported by only a minority of Americans. Most Americans think it will make us lazy, weak, and stupid.

This is like the ultimate example of this, coincidentally at the very beginning of the pandemic (before anyone could know how bad it would be) the previous administration proposed to cut SNAP, or what is commonly called food stamps by ~30%: https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/presidents-202...

It would also make work requirements for adults to be eligible.

I believe. You can ask them what's their plan for a moment when their job position gets replaced by a robot or an AWS Lambda function: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYUuWWnfRsk

You don't think work is better than welfare (at least for anybody that's capable of work)?

I find that weird, and a little sad.

I think the point is that people want to be useful, especially if they're good at something. If people can't work (for whatever reason), we really shouldn't be trying to make them. That just burdens their coworkers/peers with their lack of productivity and/or bad attitudes.

We need to abandon these protestant values because they're not doing anyone any good.

I don't want to speak for the other poster, but school lunch programs are a pretty stupid place to exercise this preference.

Kids do better in school when they aren't hungry, there, we don't need to discuss what incentives their parents should have because there is a good reason to feed them.

That's a biiiiig caveat you added there.

I think that a guarantee of having enough money to feed yourself is better than just about any other option. I think people individually and collectively benefit from others holding jobs, but they can also benefit from unpaid activities like family caregiving. I think the idea that having jobs is good but nobody would do it if they didn't have to, and therefore it is good to threaten people with hunger until they are motivated enough to get one, is absolutely terrible.

they can also benefit from unpaid activities like family caregiving

And creating art, and starting new software companies, and volunteering. There are lots of things that are worth doing but that nobody will pay for (or won't pay enough to live on). And people want to do them, but instead get pushed into literally any kind of work -- even work that we'd be better off automating or simply doing without.

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