People get all huffy when you suggest criminal activity isn't an innate trait of a person but due to life circumstances and desperation, as if they would never steal to eat/survive.
It's an attack on a person's identity to insinuate that the only difference between them and a 'criminal' is one of circumstance. For some, such is too much to even consider. This is the real barrier to fixing the problem: a lack of imagination and empathy.
> Not innate
These two thoughts seem to be in conflict. You are describing an innate difference.
I agree there is nuance. We are a product of our environment and innate nature. I suspect the environment is (far: by orders of magnitude) easier to change. I don't think we only need to change the environment, but I would venture the 80/20 estimation here...
This says nothing for 'truly evil' people, which - I suspect - is a vanishingly small number of people. I also think that such people require a degraded environment to operate effectively (according to their goals) and by focusing on improving the conditions people are in: we remove a lot of leverage for those people to act as they wish (maliciously).
I think the trade offs are all sensible here.
1. It doesn't depend on politics, it already works today
2. You have to plan for and show up to a place to get the money and ensure your blood remains valuable, all of which promote a basic semblance of order in your life, especially when you're on the ropes.
3. You save lives and are compensated for it
4. In the area between having no money vs having a job, pretty much anything I can think of to make money is worse than selling plasma.
It's a lucky quirk that you can sell your plasma, because you usually can't sell your blood even though countries, industry, hospitals, and insurance companies pay each other good money for it, just not to the person who created it.
Like yeah, I give (double red) blood as often as I am able because, well civic duty and all but it's still real fucked.
But what I mean is that cash handouts are a constant contentious political battleground that feels like a pipe dream where I live while selling plasma was a political decision made before we arrived and probably not something most people feel quite as strongly about.
The danger as I see it is that we can let perfect be the enemy of good, though I suppose you aren't suggesting that it's bad that people have the option to sell their plasma as everything currently stands. I do see it better than the alternative of prohibiting it.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/30/why-blood-makes-up-over-2poi...
Which, at least on the highly regulated coasts and comparable midwest areas, are the areas that are/were depressed by manufacturing pulling out.
In rural America you do have some poor people selling their plasma to afford gas. Drug screening means they avoid doing drugs. Not being on drugs lowers propensity to engage in petty crime. I knew a couple like this.
On a related note, I find that making elementary grammatical errors, like using the wrong "its" or "there", can detract from the impact of an argument.
0: https://old.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/199e6mc/...
Next to the plasma donation center in my town, there's a children's trampoline and activity center. I take my son there at least once a month, sometimes more often if the weather’s bad.
While he plays, I sit near the front windows and keep an eye on him while also looking outside and seeing the various individuals who go and sell their plasma at the donation center.
There are people from all different walks of life. You've got people walking in from god knows where (my town and this area in particular are not very walking friendly), people driving up in trash cars about to fall apart, people driving up in $60k+ cars, folks with multiple children in tow, etc.
It seems that many people other than the folks we'd normally consider poor need to sell their plasma to get that bit of extra cash.
AMaybe some of them are doing it for altruistic reasons.
It takes about 3 hours on a gurney.
I donate blood every 2 months. It takes about 30 minutes. I was doing it for altruistic reasons but it turns out that I have an iron deficiency and everyone is tested for an adequate hemoglobin level before they can donate. I have been turned away because my level was too low. Because I donate blood, I get a nice chart that I can show my doctor of what the levels are.
A while ago, the Red Cross was testing for COVID-19 antibodies so that blood with those could be given to immuno-compromised people.
My thought is that the Red Cross should find some tests that are relatively inexpensive to do but would be popular with certain people. Like testosterone or Vitamin D levels. That'd be a much bigger incentive than a $10 gift card.