Do you feel the need to remedy this injustice, when, as you claim, the difference between you and a poor person is luck?
And I do that by simply doing the same things which were done for me. When I can afford to, I will freely give money to someone who is down on their luck (I've paid many a utility bill these past few years). I recommend people for jobs and guide them on getting the skills which will pay. I open my house to people who need it, letting them stay as long as necessary to get back on their feet.
It's not much, but it's something (and more importantly, it's something I actually have the power to do). And in my limited experience, it's helped.
It's not just about personal stories.
Falcolas might not have been able to borrow $100, and would likely have ended up somewhere very different.
And the startup economy would have been down by one potential developer.
You might think 'There are others' - and you'd be right.
But the effects scale. If enough people don't get a break, opportunities shrink across the landscape.
Not only the startup economy.
Brief thought experiment:
Imagine two people. Person A is a car mechanic. Person B is a software developer. Neither are employed but both are more skilled and likely more efficient than each other in their respective fields.
Despite the fact that A needs a website and B needs an oil change, A and B will likely end up performing the work themselves, not because they enjoy it, but because they can't afford to pay each other.
This is a vast oversimplification (in this case, they could just directly barter and exchange no funds, or even if they did exchange funds $50 would flow one way and right back the other).
But the economy dies with the middle class. When no-one can afford to partake in services, we all suffer.
If they don't have dollars, they can pay each other in IOUs (which aren't divisible, but otherwise would work fine).
Affordability is about more than simply having some means to pay, though.
I often struggle to find a word that fits well here.
The dictionary defines afford to mean: 'to be able to do, manage, or bear without serious consequence or adverse effect'.
By that standard, some people who can't afford to go to college actually do. The means are available via loans, but there are serious consequences and they will be saddled with large amounts of debt. So what's the term for that?
I don't think 'afford' as a proxy for 'strictly possible' is very useful and I'd be glad to hear of an alternative.
This description of it by P.J. O'Rourke in "Eat the Rich" uses the respective talents of John Grisham and Courtney Love to explain it.
http://appliedabstractions.com/2004/11/30/ricardo-explained-...
Do others feel that no injustice exists in a situation where comfortable living and hopeless suffering are deemed products by luck?
Is it a disagreement that the GP's situation is based on luck (I never made that claim, GP did)?
Is it disagreement that people living comfortably based on self-admitted luck should concern themselves with those who perpetually suffer because they weren't as lucky?
Something else I'm oblivious to?
But then again, I'm terrible at sensing the subtext of other people's written words, so I ended up simply taking the question at its face value.
I'm glad that you found an excuse not to violate the laws of nature, but that doesn't mean you don't need a reason. It means you already have one.
Not everything in life is under our control.
>Not everything in life is under our control.
Who cares!? Are you going to spend your time repeating trivially useless facts? You have said nothing at all that allows you to distinguish between what can and can't be controlled. 'Naturalness' isn't it, for what should be obvious reasons.
You do not know what is under your control until you try to control it.
I disagree. Man-made phenomena can all be fought and reversed (so it's worth trying), but not all natural ones can (so it can be worth trying to fight them, but one must also know when to give up).
This started with the statement "Social inequality without serving a conscious purpose", which implies (or at least that's how I interpreted it) that social inequality is some man-made phenomenon, and we'd all be equal if not for some evil overlords "keeping us down". I disagree with this theory.