Are there any other leftists here? 👀

[ilumairen]

From someone without cred, and not soo much caring about cred... what the hell guys?

 

: makes a confused face and considers the use of panhandler as an insult used by a socialist :

 

I'm completely lost here, and feel this to be appropriate.. 

 

I've never even lived in a big city - felt a city of 50,000 draining the vitality from me. Rewilding? Yes, please. 

 

: looks around, realises I don't belong here, and crawls back out of the rabbit hole:

Edited August 17, 2019 by ilumairen

[Earl Grey]

3 minutes ago, ilumairen said:

: makes a confused face and considers the use of panhandler as an insult used by a socialist :

 

Anarchist, not socialist. I advocate for people to find what it is they can offer (go see what Burning Man was like before Silicon Valley Bros took over), but if they're just sitting on the corner shooting up, then what? 

 

"If people acted the way that they should then there wouldn't be any need for government" but we are too damned optimistic about human nature.

 

Rewilding is a wonderful idea, but in practice, tell that to people in the rural areas that their desire to have a "modernized" place is a bad idea. 

 

Am I saying that I wouldn't like people to go back to nature? No, what I'm saying is that convincing people what is good for the planet when it conflicts with human desires and preferences is damned challenging.

 

Check these out: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/slum-tourism-brazil-india-south-africa_n_3237489 and https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/shanty-town/index.html

[ilumairen]

 

Quote

Rewilding is a wonderful idea, but in practice, tell that to people in the rural areas that their desire to have a "modernized" place is a bad idea. 

 

I grew up as a person in rural area with well water.. and still prefer it.

 

[Earl Grey]

Just now, ilumairen said:

 

 

I grew up as a person in rural area with well water.. and still prefer it.

 

 

Their desire. I'm talking about people in Eastern Indonesia and Northern Sri Lanka for example, people who we once marveled at how they could live well, and they said they wanted modern plumbing, electricity, roads that lead them to a hospital with medicine that is available when needed, and Internet. 

 

My experience with rural in the Global South is that they didn't have clean water or had to take 2 buses and a boat for 14 hours just to get to a provincial hospital, which is a problem when diseases run rampant and many people tough it out just to avoid the long trip to town. 

 

But what do I knoweth, fer Faulke's sick...

[ilumairen]

Yes, I certainly don't belong here, where any personal experience of mine will be so easily dismissed and/or trampled.

 

Yea, you know more; you're the font of wisdom, and I'm just a happy idiot...

 

Good luck to all of you on your paths, and warm regards.

 

Peace out..

[Wu Ming Jen]

The happiest people I have ever met have no hospitals, no roads, no police, no fire department, no indoor plumbing, no electricity and no phones among other things developed countries are all about. Some would consider these people very poor but on the contrary they are very rich in spirit and the community is beautiful and happy with no crime.

 

I have lived in a closed society not damaged by capitalist mentality and consumerism. The people have no use for what is for sale instead they provide for themselves, food, tools, clothes and shelter.  Governments hate this ability of the people and need to make people dependent on a government for survival. Nature provides us with everything we need. 

 

[Nungali]

4 hours ago, ilumairen said:

From someone without cred, and not soo much caring about cred... what the hell guys?

 

: makes a confused face and considers the use of panhandler as an insult used by a socialist :

 

I'm completely lost here, and feel this to be appropriate.. 

 

I've never even lived in a big city - felt a city of 50,000 draining the vitality from me. Rewilding? Yes, please. 

 

: looks around, realises I don't belong here, and crawls back out of the rabbit hole:

 

 

Grabs her by the ankle ...

 

" Oh no ya dont !  "

 

 

ya gotta help me hold down Earl Grey while i give him something else other than tranquil tea

 

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

5 hours ago, ilumairen said:

 

 

I grew up as a person in rural area with well water.. and still prefer it.

 

 

I grew up in  suburbia next to a hospital, card yard and busy intersection ( later, when i get older and was allowed to roam, fortunately nature was not too far afield .

 

But then I moved  to a  rural area  ( and river and rain water )    ... and still prefer that .

 

My God, going back for a visit  .... how did I do it ?  How do they still do it  ? ? ?  

 

 

.

Edited August 17, 2019 by Nungali

[manitou]

1 hour ago, Wu Ming Jen said:

The happiest people I have ever met have no hospitals, no roads, no police, no fire department, no indoor plumbing, no electricity and no phones among other things developed countries are all about. Some would consider these people very poor but on the contrary they are very rich in spirit and the community is beautiful and happy with no crime.

 

 

 

 

I believe this too.  I don't see that as poor at all.

[Nungali]

4 hours ago, ilumairen said:

Yes, I certainly don't belong here, where any personal experience of mine will be so easily dismissed and/or trampled.

 

Yea, you know more; you're the font of wisdom, and I'm just a happy idiot...

 

Good luck to all of you on your paths, and warm regards.

 

Peace out..

 

 

Illi  .......   !  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

1 hour ago, Wu Ming Jen said:

The happiest people I have ever met have no hospitals, no roads, no police, no fire department, no indoor plumbing, no electricity and no phones among other things developed countries are all about. Some would consider these people very poor but on the contrary they are very rich in spirit and the community is beautiful and happy with no crime.

 

I have lived in a closed society not damaged by capitalist mentality and consumerism. The people have no use for what is for sale instead they provide for themselves, food, tools, clothes and shelter.  Governments hate this ability of the people and need to make people dependent on a government for survival. Nature provides us with everything we need. 

 

 

 I am very lucky, I can live as I do, yet if I need its a quick road trip to hospital or doctor .

 

But in recent years I avoid that more and more . I have found several main very good bush remedies .  They work better than going to hospital  ( I am talking serious stuff ;   huge gashes, bad burns, kidney stone pain, ulcers ) .     Other stuff - broken bones etc . I will go there.

 

Most sickness here with the indigenous is from their remedies and  traditional diet being denied to them.  And also the introduction  of modern  things ( foods and habits).  So, a lot of the time,  bad things come with the new and then they require treatment from the new that they never needed in the first place .  And this is often  then denied to them .

 

And people say ; look how they live, they are not healthy , just as well we  can offer some of them  modern services .

 

[gendao]

16 hours ago, Earl Grey said:

Here's a good place to start: https://www.idealist.org and https://www.devex.com/jobs if you actually have anything of value to offer to people who could use it. 

People, people, people!   Lol, more humancentric, Christian colonialist, global development?  Yea, because that's really what this planet needs more of right now in the midst of its 6th mass extinction - sacrificing the last remnants of the natural world to satiate more colonialist-engineered "human desires" for 7.5 BILLION of us!

Wanna do some real good?  There's tons of organizations you can join...and/or just DIY whatever you can on your own.
Center For Biological Diversity
WildEarth Guardians
Western Watersheds Project

Quote

Judge blocks killing of wolf pack’s last surviving member in NE Washington

A judge on Friday temporarily blocked the killing of the sole surviving member of the Old Profanity Territory wolf pack.

The ruling by King County Superior Court Judge John McHale comes after the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has already killed four of the five wolves in the pack, following repeated cattle attacks and killings.

The lawsuit was filed in King County Superior Court by two Seattle residents and supported by the Center for a Humane Economy, a newly formed animal welfare group based in Washington, D.C.
The lethal removal order followed repeated wolf attacks on cattle owned by a single producer grazing on Colville National Forest land.
The most recent lawsuit against Fish and Wildlife is similar to one the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups filed last year. That suit challenged the killing of Old Profanity Territory pack members in 2018.

And even for us humans:

13 hours ago, Earl Grey said:

people who we once marveled at how they could live well, and they said they wanted modern plumbing, electricity, roads that lead them to a hospital with medicine that is available when needed, and Internet.
My experience with rural in the Global South is that they didn't have clean water or had to take 2 buses and a boat for 14 hours just to get to a provincial hospital, which is a problem when diseases run rampant and many people tough it out just to avoid the long trip to town.

Quote

Shahar thinks the spike explosion is down to modern technology, particularly our recent obsession with smartphones and tablets. As we hunch over them, we crane our necks and hold our heads forward. This is problematic
And from the discovery of a curious spiky growth on the back of many people’s skulls to the realisation that our jaws are getting smaller, to the enigmatic finding that German youths currently have narrower elbows than ever before, it’s clear that modern life is having an impact on our bones.
She found that the children’s skeletons were becoming more and more fragile every year.
The team found a strong link between how robust the children’s skeletons were and the amount of walking they were doing.
The children’s shrinking skeletons look like a straightforward adaptation to modern life, since it doesn’t make sense to grow bone that you don’t need.
it’s not enough to simply hit the gym a couple of times a week without also walking long distances. “Because our evolution tells us that we can walk for almost 30km (19 miles) per day.”

 

Edited August 18, 2019 by gendao

[voidisyinyang]

22 hours ago, gendao said:

People, people, people!   Lol, more humancentric, Christian colonialist, global development?  Yea, because that's really what this planet needs more of right now in the midst of its 6th mass extinction - sacrificing the last remnants of the natural world to satiate more colonialist-engineered "human desires" for 7.5 BILLION of us!

Wanna do some real good?  There's tons of organizations you can join...and/or just DIY whatever you can on your own.
Center For Biological Diversity
WildEarth Guardians
Western Watersheds Project

And even for us humans:

 

 

Quote

 

How many Amur leopards are left in 2019?

Scientists estimate there are only 84 remaining highly endangered Amur leopards (Panthera pardus orientalis) remaining in the wild across its current range along the southernmost border of Primorskii Province in Russia and Jilin Province of China.

 

these "indicator species" are rapidly vanishing - and humans will go with it.

over 400 nuclear power plants will be melting down and thousands of nuclear weapons. Depleted uranium is already spreading worldwide.

People don't want to face what we've done. Instead Rambo and Baywatch are spread around the world - of course everyone wants  a piece of that action!! haha.

 

Is that really "development" to want to be like Rambo and Baywatch? I guess so.

 

 

Bactrian Camels on the Brink | Financial Tribune

 

https://financialtribune.com/articles/.../40702/bactrian-camels-on-the-brink

May 2, 2016 - The first animal that pops to mind when people talk about endangered species in Iran is the Asiatic cheetah, followed by the Persian fallow deer, caracal, Siberian crane and maybe Pallas’s cat. However, Iran is home to another threatened species: the Bactrian camel, a large, two ...

 

Just today - announced -

species that have been around for over 200 million years! We are wiping out in 200 years.

 

Quote

Many species are classified as threatened or endangered with noticeable declines in sturgeon populations as the demand for caviar increases. IUCN data indicates that over 85% of sturgeon species are at risk of extinction, making them more critically endangered than any other group of animal species.

 

 

[Earl Grey]

On 8/18/2019 at 4:52 AM, Wu Ming Jen said:

The happiest people I have ever met have no hospitals, no roads, no police, no fire department, no indoor plumbing, no electricity and no phones among other things developed countries are all about. Some would consider these people very poor but on the contrary they are very rich in spirit and the community is beautiful and happy with no crime.

 

There was no doubt that the people I worked with were happy, but that doesn't rule out that people wanted access to these things--because they specifically requested cooperation. This also does not account for the fact that this access is critical to sanitation (soap), healthcare (people live far away from any hospital and when at risk for malaria or dengue among other things, this is crucial), and participation in their provincial government. And little or no incidents of reported crime is a very different thing than what I've worked on when people have sold their own children to syndicates or trafficked them for income.  

 

Happiness is a state of being and great, but when someone is hungry or someone has to walk 5km each way for water daily (if it's even available at all--see the crisis in India now), to them, it's a platitude. 

 

A Chinese-Thai woman once told me that money can't buy love and happiness, but money at times sure makes falling in love and being happy easier. I didn't agree with her because she seemed to think everything revolved around money and was a product of the capitalist society that fueled her business in Bangkok, but it illustrates the attitude of survival and scarcity, which, sadly the capitalistic system has produced far more than wealth and prosperity opportunities that it promises. 

 

On 8/18/2019 at 6:14 AM, Nungali said:

I grew up in  suburbia next to a hospital, card yard and busy intersection ( later, when i get older and was allowed to roam, fortunately nature was not too far afield .

 

But then I moved  to a  rural area  ( and river and rain water )    ... and still prefer that .

 

My God, going back for a visit  .... how did I do it ?  How do they still do it  ? ? ?  

 

Sometimes I wonder if it's worth showing pictures of the places we worked in and how they are a lot different than how Westerners define "rural", because Barstow, California is a lot different than living in the middle of Eastern Indonesia or Cambodia. 

 

The definition of "poverty" in development is better explained at this link: https://www.concernusa.org/story/top-9-causes-global-poverty/

 

Quote

THE TOP 9 CAUSES OF GLOBAL POVERTY

February 4, 2019

 

More than 10% of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty — but do you know why? We look at 9 of the top drivers of global poverty.

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Picture it: you need to feed your family, travel to and from work, and get your child school supplies. But you only have $1.90 in your pocket. It seems like an impossible scenario. But for approximately 800 million people in the world, it’s their reality. 11% of the world’s population is living in extreme poverty, which is defined as surviving on only $1.90 a day.

 

DONATE NOW

 

As dire as those figures are, there is some good news: In 1990, 35% of the world (1.8 billion people) was living in extreme poverty — so we’ve made some huge strides. While many argue that we will never be able to truly get rid of poverty, extreme poverty can be eradicated. Unfortunately, there is no “magic bullet” solution, but if we want to get rid of extreme poverty, we must first understand its causes. Here, we look at some of the top causes of poverty around the world.

1. INADEQUATE ACCESS TO CLEAN WATER AND NUTRITIOUS FOOD

Currently, more than 2 billion people don’t have access to clean water at home, while over 800 million suffer from hunger. You might think that poverty causes hunger and prevents people from accessing clean water (and you would be right!), but hunger and water insecurity are also big reasons why people struggle to escape extreme poverty.

If a person doesn’t get enough food, they simply don’t have the strength and energy needed to work, while lack of access to food and clean water can also lead to preventable illnesses like diarrhea. And when people must travel far distances to clinics or spend what little money remains on medicine, it drains already vulnerable populations of money and assets, and can knock a family from poverty into extreme poverty.

Even if clean water sources are available, they’re often located far from poor, rural communities. This means that women and girls collectively spend some 200 million hours every day walking long distances to fetch water. That’s precious time that could be used working, or getting an education to help secure a job later in life.

Help families facing poverty »

A girl collects water from a spring near a gold mine in Gaga village, Central African Republic. When conflict erupted in October 2013, wells were contaminated with dead bodies and are now unusable, leaving some 8,000 local people who with far fewer places collection points. Photo: Crystal Wells

2. LITTLE OR NO ACCESS TO LIVELIHOODS OR JOBS

This might seem a bit like a “no brainer.” Without a job or a way to make money, people will face poverty. But it’s easy to assume that if someone wants a job, they could have one. That just isn’t true, particularly in developing and rural parts of the world. Dwindling access to productive land (often due to conflict, overpopulation, or climate change), and overexploitation of resources like fish or minerals is putting increasing pressure on many traditional livelihoods. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for example, most of the population lives in rural communities where natural resources have been plundered over centuries of colonialism — while conflict over land disputes has forced people from the land they relied upon for food and money. Now, more than half of the country lives in extreme poverty. While inconsistent work and low paying jobs can land a family in poverty, absolutely no work means that a family can’t get by without assistance.

3. CONFLICT

Conflict can cause poverty in several ways. Large scale, protracted violence that we see in places like Syria can grind society to a halt, destroy infrastructure, and cause people to flee, forcing families to sell or leave behind all their assets. In Syria, around 70% of the entire population now lives below the poverty line — this in a country where extreme poverty was once very rare. Women often bear the brunt of conflict: during periods of violence, female-headed households become very common. And because women often have difficulty getting well-paying work and are typically excluded from community decision-making, their families are particularly vulnerable.

But even small bouts of violence can have huge impacts on communities that are already struggling. For example, if farmers are worried about their crops being stolen, they won’t invest in planting. Women are particularly vulnerable in these kinds of conflicts, too, as they often become the targets of sexual violence while fetching water or working alone in the fields.

A woman walks through fields in Malawi. Photo: Alexia Webster

4. INEQUALITY

There are many different types of inequality in the world, from economic to social inequalities like gender, caste systems, or tribal affiliations. But no matter the inequality, it generally means the same thing: unequal or no access to the resources needed to keep or lift a family out of poverty.

Sometimes inequalities are obvious, but in other situations, it can be subtle — for example, the voices of certain people or groups might not be heard in community meetings, meaning they don’t get a say in important decisions. Regardless, these inequalities mean that the people affected don’t have the tools they desperately need to get ahead, and for already vulnerable families, this can mean the difference between being poor or living in extreme poverty.

5. POOR EDUCATION

Not every person without an education is living in extreme poverty. But most of the extremely poor don’t have an education. And why is that? There’s a lot of barriers stopping children from going to school. Many families can’t afford to send their children to school and need them to work. More still don’t see a benefit in educating girls. Education is often referred to as the great equalizer, and that’s because education can open the door to jobs and other resources and skills that a family needs to not just survive, but thrive. UNESCO estimates that 171 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty if they left school with basic reading skills. And, with even more education, world poverty could be cut in half. 

Provide access to education, and help build stronger tomorrows »

 

Children in the Dynamic Community School in the Lunga Lunga slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Photo: Ben Rosser/Concern Worldwide

6. CLIMATE CHANGE

You might be stunned to learn that the World Bank estimates that climate change has the power to push more than 100 million people into poverty over the next ten years. As it is, climate events like drought, flooding, and severe storms disproportionately impact communities already living in poverty. Why? Because many of the world’s poorest populations rely on farming or hunting and gathering to eat and earn a living. They often have only just enough food and assets to last through the next season, and not enough reserves to fall back on in the event of a poor harvest. So when natural disasters (including the widespread droughts caused by El Niño) leave millions of people without food, it pushes them further into poverty, and can make recovery even more difficult.

See how we’re helping communities build resilience to changing climates »

7. LACK OF INFRASTRUCTURE

Imagine that you have to go to work, or to the store, but there are no roads to get you there. Or heavy rains have flooded your route and made it impassable. What would you do then? A lack of infrastructure — from roads, bridges, and wells to cables for light, cell phones, and internet — can isolate communities living in rural areas. Living “off the grid” means the inability to go to school, work, or market to buy and sell goods. Traveling farther distances to access basic services not only takes time, it costs money, keeping families in poverty. Isolation limits opportunity, and without opportunity, many find it difficult, if not impossible, to escape extreme poverty.

Crossing a makeshift bridge at the refugee camp for Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Photo: Kieran McConville

8. LIMITED CAPACITY OF THE GOVERNMENT

Many people living in the United States are familiar with social welfare programs that people can access if they need healthcare or food assistance. But not every government can provide this type of help to its citizens — and without that safety net, there’s nothing to stop vulnerable families from backsliding further into extreme poverty if something goes wrong. Ineffective governments also contribute to several of the other causes of extreme poverty mentioned above, as they are unable to provide necessary infrastructure or ensure the safety and security of their citizens in the event of conflict.

9. LACK OF RESERVES

People living in poverty don’t have the means to weather the storms of life. So when there is a drought, or conflict, or illness, there is little money saved or assets on hand to help. In Ethiopia for example, repeated cycles of drought have caused harvest after harvest to fail, causing a widespread hunger crisis. To cope, families will pull their children from school, and sell off everything they own to eat. That can help a family make it through one bad season, but not another. For communities constantly facing climate extremes or prolonged conflict, the repeated shocks can send a family reeling into extreme poverty and prevent them from ever recovering.

 

On 8/18/2019 at 6:16 AM, manitou said:

I believe this too.  I don't see that as poor at all.

 

You may believe in what is not "poor" but development work likes to focus on access to basic human amenities as described in the link above. There's also a big difference between someone who was a Wall Street-type who lost his money and goes around snorting coke in the alley versus someone in the Philippines who is being pushed down by the global power structures that encourage deceit. 

 

 

On 8/18/2019 at 2:46 PM, gendao said:

People, people, people!   Lol, more humancentric, Christian colonialist, global development?

 

While I applaud the organizations you have posted that appear predominantly focused on Americans, I will note that many of the organizations listed in the sites I have posted are locally-founded, locally-managed, and local stakeholder focused--so I'm not sure how recruiting people who are of foreign nationality suddenly makes this colonialist.

 

For example, the children's hospital in Cambodia where I worked in: is it colonialism to want specialists in fields such as oncology, when many healthcare professionals there do not have the training to identify early stages of retinoblastoma? Without requesting either volunteers or full-time staff as we have had from Australia, Canada, the US, New Zealand, and UK, we would neither have the ability to train local staff or even the 2 individuals available in the whole country who could treat this, when retinoblastoma is easily preventable in developed countries. Due to lack of ability to recognize it or lack of resources to treat it if identified early enough, it was about 75% more common in 2014. 

 

All: as I've said before, development work tends to unintentionally parallel and confirm Marxian theory, there is a big difference in that much of the development work done is not core and periphery or trickle-down economics. 

 

Social enterprise in particular by nature is often small and occasionally medium size because once it gets too large, the focus on the community is harder since the mission trying to expand treads a fine line between capitalist growth for wealth rather than trying to work within the existing paradigm in order to ensure the people who are left out get the things that they want.

 

Here's an example from Sri Lanka of a social enterprise project: when the Civil War destroyed many people's homes and businesses, many of the victims were women who lost their husbands and sons, their limbs and became the sole providers. What was opened was a resource center with several members who received formal training in the capital for counseling and trauma, returned with some local citizens in both professional and volunteer capacities to help manage and monitor and evaluate the project. In addition to providing grief counseling and helping form women's support groups, they were offered training in things from weaving to coconut refinery and small agriculture. 

 

I have so far not seen anyone with formal training in international development work (aside from Drew whose research at a macro level is actually quite good) and for a forum that focuses on Taoist principles and nature, it is easy to see that there is an idealized kind of view of nature and rural living. I myself enjoy rural living and simplicity. However, for the globally marginalized, it's a totally different thing when you have to raise multiple children and provide for your family with limited resources that states are theoretically supposed to guarantee their constituents as outlined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

 

Let us return to Thailand to the north with the Isarn/Esarn minority, otherwise known as ethnic Lao in regards to development: they do not speak or identify as Thai, the government even before the military junta often gave less funding for education, electricity, textbooks, and healthcare, and educational professionals often asked for bribes on top of tuition fees. People from Isarn are disengaged from the country, systematically neglected, and the dropout rate and community health remains poor. The result is alarming as people turn to drugs, crime, prostitution, and can even end up trafficked--not too dissimilar from inner city living in North America. Add a few lazy westerners seeking what they believe is easy money teaching English there, and then you find things get worse as the quality of education is equal to the level of training, which many of these teachers have no more than a month or two of online TESOL or TEFL training.

 

NGOs come in where the government fails and seeks to alleviate these issues while holding the government accountable. Granted, there are many dubious NGOs who have been outed as scammers, but to say the concept itself is bad is akin to saying that a doctor is bad because the medication you were given gave you diarrhea so all doctors and hospitals are bad when really it's that one individual. 

 

Let me discuss again the town of Siem Reap where I worked and the begging syndicate. Many of the beggars you see during the morning in Angkor Wat or around Pub Street are actually children who are pulled out of school to beg, children who have been given extra care and training from multiple organizations to oversee critical early childhood development. That money does not even go to their families, it goes to the syndicates that recruit them and give them a small cut since they believe they can earn more begging from tourists, and in the long run for development, you will have a large swathe of society that resorts to begging rather than people who have education, professional skills, and life skills that help them make choices that are healthier and safer rather than focusing on money and gratification. 

 

The milk scam is a common example: some child will go to an Australian tourist and ask not for money, but for milk for them and the baby they are carrying, and lead them to a store to buy milk. Later on, the child will return the milk and get a cut of the money with the vendor there as they divide it amongst themselves and return it to their pimp. I will add that the baby they are carrying is not even their own, but another "rented" child for sympathy. NGOs and social enterprises along with other groups come in to educate people about this and get them away from this desperate measure for easy income so that they can decide their own fates without resorting to dishonest and deceitful means that in the long run will create a generation of people who know nothing but begging and petty crime, and institutionalize it through syndicates. 

 

Social enterprises come in when locals and even a few partners from the outside come in with ideas, resources, and labor to create opportunities that were otherwise denied access to them before.

 

For this next example, I will use an American domestic social enterprise to illustrate how society failed this marginalized group and how some enterprising individuals gave hope to these people who have fallen between the cracks: Crossroads Cafe, a San Francisco-based social enterprise, not only hires former convicts, but gives them life skills in their training, counseling, and support for further reintegration into society. How many times is someone just put on a bus in the middle of the night with no formal exit training after being freed from incarceration? This same thing happens to people who come out of the military. How hard is it for someone to get a job with a criminal record in America? Next to impossible some may feel. It then reinforces the cycle that pushes them to desperate measures and back into prison. Desperation and poverty, lack of community or sense of self, a home and a means to support themselves, this is not helpful to anyone, especially the society that shits on these former convicts. 

 

Long story short: the capitalist power structure shits on people. There are efforts from NGOs locally and internationally trying to help come in, and there are efforts from social entrepreneurs evolving society bottom-up. 

 

It is not perfect by any means, but we're doing our goddamned best to serve the marginalized and the forgotten through the concept of social enterprise and development without having to argue about platitudes that most people have little time to laugh about with rewilding or being happy free of clean water and electricity and adequate representation and governance, especially when they struggle to feed their families and give them opportunities to escape the poverty cycle.

Edited August 24, 2019 by Earl Grey

[liminal_luke]

I think we´re talking about two different things here.

 

From my perspective as a hyper-connected city-dwelling dude, it´s illuminating to consider how the supposed advantages of technology may in fact be impoverishing my life.  Do I get a warm feeling of social connection from, say, Facebook?  How connected do I feel to the rhythms of nature buying processed foodstuffs at large megastores?  What does it do to my brain to be constantly bombarded by advertising?  What happens to my body when I get everywhere by car?  I once traveled to the mountains above Oaxaca, Mexico where I met a woman with a powerful smile.  She lived in a hut and had few of the advantages of modern life.  I didn´t talk with her much; we´re not friends.  So perhaps my assessment of her life is totally wrong but in the moment when we met she sure seemed happy.  Was it wrong then for me to consider her life and come to the astonished realization that many of the modern trappings of my life may inhibit rather than facilitate wellbeing?  I don´t think so.

 

At the same time there´s no denying a different kind of poverty.  The kind where people go hungry and don´t have access to medical care.  Not every poor person lives in an idyllic mountain village like the Oaxacan woman I met.  Some people live without clean water and nourishing food.  It´s very difficult (perhaps impossible?) to be happy while chronically hungry and it´s important not to whitewash the very real suffering of people who lack modern amenities in a hipster dream of back-to-nature bliss.

[Earl Grey]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

I think we´re talking about two different things here.

 

From my perspective as a hyper-connected city-dwelling dude, it´s illuminating to consider how the supposed advantages of technology may in fact be impoverishing my life.  Do I get a warm feeling of social connection from, say, Facebook?  How connected do I feel to the rhythms of nature buying processed foodstuffs at large megastores?  What does it do to my brain to be constantly bombarded by advertising?  What happens to my body when I get everywhere by car?  I once traveled to the mountains above Oaxaca, Mexico where I met a woman with a powerful smile.  She lived in a hut and had few of the advantages of modern life.  I didn´t talk with her much; we´re not friends.  So perhaps my assessment of her life is totally wrong but in the moment when we met she sure seemed happy.  Was it wrong then for me to consider her life and come to the astonished realization that many of the modern trappings of my life may inhibit rather than facilitate wellbeing?  I don´t think so.

 

At the same time there´s no denying a different kind of poverty.  The kind where people go hungry and don´t have access to medical care.  Not every poor person lives in an idyllic mountain village like the Oaxacan woman I met.  Some people live without clean water and nourishing food.  It´s very difficult (perhaps impossible?) to be happy while chronically hungry and it´s important not to whitewash the very real suffering of people who lack modern amenities in a hipster dream of back-to-nature bliss.

 

Yes, thank you, Luke.

 

A little reference I like to use is this:

 

https://blog.udemy.com/types-of-poverty/

 

Quote

Poverty can hit anyone at any time. While some instances of poverty are created by situations, others are trapped in poverty because of the generation before them. Poverty of this nature can just continue the vicious cycle and bring the entire family down into a deep hole. This can affect children in school, and as a teacher, it’s important to know the types of poverty and the effects poverty can have on students. Study the main causes of low academic achievement for Hispanic students.

 

Types of Poverty

There are six main types of poverty according to Eric Jensen’s study from Teaching with Poverty in Mind (2009). He lists these six types as situational, generational, absolute, relative, urban, and rural. Here’s a brief description of each type of poverty:

• Situational: This particular type of poverty is usually temporary as it involves a crisis or loss occurring. Events connected with situational poverty include environmental disasters, divorce, or severe health problems. A good example of situational poverty caused by an environmental disaster would be the destruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Many people were homeless, lost their jobs, and had nothing to their name. The fall of the economy can also be considered an event that could cause situational poverty. Learn economics to have a better understanding of how the economy affects everyone.
• Generational: This type of poverty involves the birth of two generations into poverty. Because they were born into this situation, they usually don’t have the tools to help get themselves out of it.
• Absolute: This particular type of poverty is actually rare in the United States. People in absolute poverty don’t even have basic necessities like a roof over their head, food, and water. Their only focus is on surviving each day as it comes.
• Relative: This type of poverty is known as relative because it is relative to the average standard of living in that person’s society. What is considered high income in one country could be considered middle or low income in another. If a family’s income isn’t enough to meet the average standard of living, they are considered to be in relative poverty.
• Urban: This particular type of poverty is only for metropolitan areas with populations over 50,000. Overcrowding, violence, noise, and poor community help programs make it even more difficult for people suffering of this type of poverty to get out of it.
• Rural: Like urban poverty above, rural poverty occurs only in specific area types. These areas are nonmetropolitan with populations below 50,000. The low population limits services available for people struggling financially, and a lack of job opportunities only compounds the problem.

Poverty’s Effect on a Person

With the amount of stress and anxiety that poverty places on a person, it shouldn’t be too shocking that poverty can cause a great multitude of issues. This can include challenges with emotions or in social interactions, and it can also cause health problems and safety concerns. Often, a person suffering from poverty will be struck with one bad thing that will only compound as that bad event causes another event and that other bad event causes yet another bad event.

 

A good example of this would be credit cards. Families living from paycheck to paycheck might turn to credit cards to help them through tough financial spots. Unfortunately, with high interest rates and fees involved, a small tough spot like running out of toilet paper soon turns into a massive bill as other needs are put before paying that credit card.

 

Many families in poverty have both parents working multiple jobs, and this can leave the children to fend for themselves. They end up finding ways to survive in their world instead of spending time learning about it. These children will often have high tardiness and absences, poor grades, and lack the focus and concentration to pay attention in class.

 

Because both parents are working, children growing up in low income areas tend to feel unloved and lonely. This low self-esteem and longing for attention and love will have them turning to all the wrong places. Many of these children perform poorly in school, have behavioral problems (bad attention is better than no attention), drop out of school, and begin abusing drugs and alcohol far earlier than their higher-income peers.

 

A lack of transportation or health care can lead to frequent tardiness or absences for children in low income areas. Poor grades can be attributed to the parents’ attitudes toward school too. Many of the parents that make up low income areas had to drop out of school early themselves to find a job and help their parents support the younger children. Because of this, they might discourage their children to do well in school and instead suggest that the child get a job to help support the family.

How Schools Can Help

In the past, teachers have not been very understanding of children from low income areas. They simply see them as an issue in their class that needs to be addressed. A child will recognize this in their teacher and give up on academics. When raised in poverty, these children are looking for someone that will care and be dependable. If a teacher shows dislike or talks to them as if they are less important than their peers, this can teach them to resent school.

 

Teachers need to be retrained regarding their attitude toward “problem students.” Joe Smith might crack jokes during class and not have turned in a single assignment, but that doesn’t mean he’s a hopeless case. It may very well be that he’s trying to get the attention from his peers or even bad attention from the teacher that he doesn’t get at home. Each child should be approached with empathy and understanding, no matter how badly they might act. Teach a child that it’s up to them to either stay in the low income they grew up in or reach for higher standards with information offered in this online course.

 

Again, children should be approached with empathy, not pity. Approaching a child from a low income home with pity instead of empathy can lead to that teacher subconsciously lowering their standards. While Jack Bennet from a high income family is expected to learn his multiplication tables from zero to twelve by third grade, a teacher approaching a child with pity will simply nod understandingly if Joe Smith only reaches from zero to eight by the third grade. Each child should be expected to achieve the same, no matter their family life or attitude about school. Consider positive psychology to reach children from low income households and show them that they can succeed too.

 

Edited August 24, 2019 by Earl Grey

[sean]

Technologically advanced cities that thrive in harmony with nature, act as denser companions to proximate rural lives and are not existentially alienating to their denizens? 🤔 I think it takes effort to even imagine such a thing. But I think it's possible (and worthwhile! 🙃) and I think it's hard mostly because of how often capitalism and industrialization have been historically conjoined.

 

Also, seems related: Society of the Spectacle.

Quote

In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.

...

The spectacle grasped in its totality is both the result and the project of the existing mode of production. It is not a supplement to the real world, an additional decoration. It is the heart of the unrealism of the real society.

 

[Taomeow]

2 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

I think we´re talking about two different things here.

 

From my perspective as a hyper-connected city-dwelling dude, it´s illuminating to consider how the supposed advantages of technology may in fact be impoverishing my life.  Do I get a warm feeling of social connection from, say, Facebook?  How connected do I feel to the rhythms of nature buying processed foodstuffs at large megastores?  What does it do to my brain to be constantly bombarded by advertising?  What happens to my body when I get everywhere by car?  I once traveled to the mountains above Oaxaca, Mexico where I met a woman with a powerful smile.  She lived in a hut and had few of the advantages of modern life.  I didn´t talk with her much; we´re not friends.  So perhaps my assessment of her life is totally wrong but in the moment when we met she sure seemed happy.  Was it wrong then for me to consider her life and come to the astonished realization that many of the modern trappings of my life may inhibit rather than facilitate wellbeing?  I don´t think so.

 

At the same time there´s no denying a different kind of poverty.  The kind where people go hungry and don´t have access to medical care.  Not every poor person lives in an idyllic mountain village like the Oaxacan woman I met.  Some people live without clean water and nourishing food.  It´s very difficult (perhaps impossible?) to be happy while chronically hungry and it´s important not to whitewash the very real suffering of people who lack modern amenities in a hipster dream of back-to-nature bliss.

 

So why are our alternatives only these two -- the reality of poverty for those without modern amenities and the "hipster dream" ? What's so hipster about Native Americans before the advent of "modern amenities?"  Or about the Miao tribe in China living in caves for 6,000 years, their amazing culture an exquisite example of what you can do when you have enough and don't strive to have more than enough, now being forced by the government to apply blanket amnesia to who they are like all good little constituents do and move to cities and join the ranks of the poor in the name of modernization and progress?  Or even the Amish, not that they would be a prime example of the "dream" society but they are neither technological nor poor and neither unhappy nor unhealthy? 

 

The kind of poverty that generates all other kinds is not a lack of modern technological capabilities.  It's the destruction of all alternatives to these capabilities, meticulous and relentless.  Sometimes good-hearted, by people who come to "really help" after the fact -- and the extent, the very nature of this help, is always help to "fit in" but never help to "opt out."  For that, they aren't equipped -- nor allowed to be even considering this kind of help (that would step on some very important toes) -- nor educated in how to go about it even if by some miracle of god the lands destroyed and the resources put to the service of "modern amenities" returned.  More often, however, it's not good-hearted and not altruistic in the least.  It's ruthless and unstoppable and violent -- and because of that we accept it as though "development" is a force of nature, death itself, and celebrate the global death cult as our "modern amenities" lifestyle.  And whoever fails to rejoice is automatically a hipster dreamer.  Hipster my ass...      

[Apech]

I think you can be happy and poor (in the sense of having few possessions) but you only have to look around to see that most poor people are miserable.  In fact most people rich and poor are miserable.  TM said in the human world the Dao is destroyed (paraphrased) and I guess this is the cause.  You can call it capitalism (boo hiss) if you want - but I think its really the human world.  We conspire for misery in the pursuit of happiness - something like that.  We make misery and turn the world to shit because we don't make in accordance with the Dao.

Edited August 24, 2019 by Apech

[liminal_luke]

1 hour ago, Taomeow said:

 

The kind of poverty that generates all other kinds is not a lack of modern technological capabilities.  It's the destruction of all alternatives to these capabilities, meticulous and relentless.    

 

I hope you´ll allow me to backtrack a little, to clarify and refine my thinking.  The implication you picked up from my previous post isn´t one that I meant to convey.

 

I think you´ve hit here on the crux of the matter here.  "Native Americans before the advent of ´modern amenities´"  and similar groups were not impoverished in any real sense, even if they lacked technology and infrastructure that most of us would deem essential today.  Perhaps the happy Oaxacan woman I met belonged to such a community.  I like to think so. Her village was at about 10,000 feet and when I got sick from the altitude the people I was renting a cabin from gave me an herbal tea to drink that calmed my system right down.  It seems likely to me that the people living in the community enjoyed close social ties and a comforting sense of rootedness to a relatively unbroken traditional way of life.  To say they were living in poverty because there was no wi-fi or cable TV seems, umm, inaccurate.  The homing instinct to return to such a way of life is not a "hipster dream"; it´s the beginning of sanity.

 

I do, however, want to reserve the title of "hipster dreamer" for people who strip away the traditional ways that serve as alternative capabilities to technology and then romanticize the ensuing impoverishment.  There´s nothing romantic or inspiring about alcoholism or suicide or diabetes among modern Native Americans who´ve been alienated from their heritage.  If we´re going to deprive people of technology we´d better not also deprive them of the traditional alternatives to technology.  As odd as it sounds, I think there are people who do exactly this and then wax poetic about the resulting suffering.  These are the people I´d call hipster dreamers.

 

 

Edited August 24, 2019 by liminal_luke

[Wu Ming Jen]

Being spiritually bankrupt we will seek to buy happiness.

 

It is interesting for those that fall for the trap of education, hospitals and modern convenience as to make other peoples lives better. This is exactly what government does to make people dependent on a system. BUT look at all the information on how miserable these people are, in poverty, ripped apart by disease, starving to death, Why because of money and sanctions of governments... join or die.

 

If we hike 5 miles to get water do you know how precious that water is and how gratifying it is to have water...fulfillment.

 

Grow and eat your own food, do you know how gratifying it is to have food....fulfillment. If we buy food from a grocery store we are discontented from nature. If we buy clothes in a store we are disconnected and DEPENDENT. It is a great system just not for the humans.

 

If I grow food and you make clothes and Mr Smith is a great builder there is no need for money we exchange and are one.

 

Money represents population and natural resources of a country. This determines a countries wealth with the world banking system.

 

If we do not need money to grow our food, make clothes, tools and shelters living of the land the new world system fails.

 

Modern education is a system for conditioning future workers that will gather the resources or do specific task for the owners.

 

Native Indians found it confusing that a western school was sitting in a room to learn, that is a  very bizarre notion that we take as normal.

 

Removing people from nature is another excellent example of how to mis direct and mis inform the people to fall for the system. They have no other alternative for survival except to accept it.

 

Third world country actually means traditional culture that does not rely on the new world system for survival.

 

[Nungali]

3 hours ago, Apech said:

I think you can be happy and poor (in the sense of having few possessions) but you only have to look around to see that most poor people are miserable.  In fact most people rich and poor are miserable.  TM said in the human world the Dao is destroyed (paraphrased) and I guess this is the cause.  You can call it capitalism (boo hiss) if you want - but I think its really the human world.  We conspire for misery in the pursuit of happiness - something like that.  We make misery and turn the world to shit because we don't make in accordance with the Dao.

 

Well, I was going to refute this, as in my experience, a lot of indigenous that seem 'poor'  have an internal 'happiness', satisfaction and completeness that is lacking in many others .

 

But then again, that is when they are living in 'harmony with nature'     and that might equate to  'accordance to Dao ' .

 

And then again again .... most people do not live like that , so 'unhappy'  unsatisfied and incomplete.

 

Real lasting and internal happiness comes from other things than what those  NOT in accordance  pursue .   I found it an interesting area of anthropological study .... and came to some interesting conclusions  .

[Earl Grey]

5 hours ago, Wu Ming Jen said:

Being spiritually bankrupt we will seek to buy happiness.

 

It is interesting for those that fall for the trap of education, hospitals and modern convenience as to make other peoples lives better. This is exactly what government does to make people dependent on a system. BUT look at all the information on how miserable these people are, in poverty, ripped apart by disease, starving to death, Why because of money and sanctions of governments... join or die.

 

If we hike 5 miles to get water do you know how precious that water is and how gratifying it is to have water...fulfillment.

 

Grow and eat your own food, do you know how gratifying it is to have food....fulfillment. If we buy food from a grocery store we are discontented from nature. If we buy clothes in a store we are disconnected and DEPENDENT. It is a great system just not for the humans.

 

If I grow food and you make clothes and Mr Smith is a great builder there is no need for money we exchange and are one.

 

Money represents population and natural resources of a country. This determines a countries wealth with the world banking system.

 

If we do not need money to grow our food, make clothes, tools and shelters living of the land the new world system fails.

 

Modern education is a system for conditioning future workers that will gather the resources or do specific task for the owners.

 

Native Indians found it confusing that a western school was sitting in a room to learn, that is a  very bizarre notion that we take as normal.

 

Removing people from nature is another excellent example of how to mis direct and mis inform the people to fall for the system. They have no other alternative for survival except to accept it.

 

Third world country actually means traditional culture that does not rely on the new world system for survival.

 

 

This is nice, but it’s still not what a lot of people are thinking of when trying to provide for their families. We can talk about this as idealism and we can mention some cultural groups who are thriving as Taomeow mentioned above. But for every Miao tribe I think of other cultural minority groups like the Lumad, https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/178181-infographic-lumad-indigenous-peoples.

 

Leave them alone? Not as simple as it sounds because the local government is systematically oppressing them under the Duterte regime, not to mention Canadian mining companies displacing them.

 

People are deprived of access to their own way of living on one hand, and this is mutually exclusive on those who want to participate in that ugly thing we call “modernization”. 

 

Now in terms of development which in the language of this field actually no longer uses “Third World” officially but more often Global North and Global South due to the baggage behind the terminology spells out the great divide between (mostly) urban industrial economies of the Global North and their opposites. However for sake of reference within development context, it does not actually mean countries with traditional culture(s) that do not  rely on the new world system for survival. To clarify with more cynicism, they are underdeveloped. When we speak of underdeveloped, we mean that not only are their education, infrastructure, healthcare, or human rights indices far below global standards as outlined by the UN, it also means that they are vulnerable to systematic exploitation in their broader attempts to catch up. And strictly speaking, we actually  use the Human Development Index rather than first world or second world or third world or fourth world.

 

I will again refer to both the macro level and micro level, the macro level being the one people commonly associate with colonialism like the Chinese BRI that has caused problems in Sri Lanka through debt diplomacy, and the micro level where people historically connected to their lands such as the Rohingya or those in the Crimea who are deprived of their land through displacement from external forces like government oppression to mining companies that also completely destroy the lives and the land of the people until they’re stripped dry like in the Philippines or Latin America.

 

A capitalistic abomination like mining companies drain the respective resources in an area and create an economy based off of service to the mining group, deal permanent environmental damage and irreparable social damage, and the community is left without anything to do to reclaim their old life. In a development context, this is not development, this is an abuse of rights and in a country with a weak level of development in that its representation and state power should theoretically be representing minority group interests—meaning that mining contracts would never have been awarded had their been full consideration of the groups who would be potentially affected by that activity because it would cause externalities and problems for them. Where the field of development sees this hypothetical scenario is that it’s a case of capitalism over community.

 

The indigenous cultural groups could be left to their own devices, yes, but the development context is that there needs to be guaranteed protections for them in any kind of context whether it is access to resources they have historically held or that activity must have them as key players in decision making as primary stakeholders. Instead, however, we have seen capitalist interests completely disregard development context and focus on shareholders and pretend these cultural minority groups within a state don’t exist, whether it is mining or other other natural resources.

 

Near the area between the Philippines of Sulu and Sabah with Malaysia, one source of contention is the tens of thousands of dollars made off of natural resources there by the Malaysian government whereas the original deal made to the sultan earns roughly what is only a few thousand dollars dollars while the Malaysian government earns hundreds of thousands. He has little sovereignty in his view compared to what the state earns and even then this is not the whole picture.

 

Long story short, we can talk about how nice some groups have survived historically without infrastructure or development and access to healthcare, but they often do not actually have adequate access to support themselves and they often try to send children to the cities so that they can send money home if that’s even attainable as they get stuck in service work and if left totally alone and disengaged they won’t even understand their rights that allow them to speak up and make their claims and interests known as stakeholders over both their community and their country as a whole.

 

 I think the key problem in our discussion now is we are confusing the difference between idealism and historical self-sufficiency rather than the economic and systematic context, so the overlapping terms such as poverty actually have different definitions rather than the idealized “living in nature and self-sufficient” romantic view. Oversimplification with that romantic view thus ignores the fact that people and their homes aren’t protected or the structures meant to protect them are ignored in favor of capitalist interests rather than development indices that respect them.

 

Addendum: development does not mean more capitalism, capitalism actually runs contrary to development.

Edited August 25, 2019 by Earl Grey

[Taomeow]

That's the thing about an "intervention."   Once it's unleashed on a population, there's no leaving it alone -- typically there's nothing left to be left alone that is viable.  The term "romantic" originates from the word "Rome" and it's actually pretty ironic that we have come to use it to mean something like "free of Rome."  How can anything "romantic" be free of "Rome?.."  

 

  "Leaving a population alone" post factum, after a comprehensive assault on all its survival/thriving paradigms, is like running someone over by a car and then "leaving them alone" bleeding by the curb "so as not to keep interfering."  Yet the only alternative currently being offered to the victims of this assault is to either bleed to death -- or to hop in that car, get patched up with band-aids and continue on the joy ride to run over someone else.  If you can't beat them, join them.  If you can't join them, be left on the side of the highway to die.  The cars will keep whooshing by with or without you.

 

There's got to be a third way?  But for it to have a chance, people would have to start by actually noticing and acknowledging the sheer existence of the other two.  Of the inescapable "you can't beat them so join them" trap the only alternative to which is comprehensive existential misery -- so "joining" in whatever seems to be its opposite, not because it is but because that flip-over mirror world we all believe in (if this is so bad, its opposite must be amazing) is the only solution being proposed by even the best.  And it's not the best who call the shots in an intervention and post-intervention world we all know and love as civilized.   

[Earl Grey]

3 hours ago, Taomeow said:

That's the thing about an "intervention."   Once it's unleashed on a population, there's no leaving it alone -- typically there's nothing left to be left alone that is viable.  The term "romantic" originates from the word "Rome" and it's actually pretty ironic that we have come to use it to mean something like "free of Rome."  How can anything "romantic" be free of "Rome?.."  

 

  "Leaving a population alone" post factum, after a comprehensive assault on all its survival/thriving paradigms, is like running someone over by a car and then "leaving them alone" bleeding by the curb "so as not to keep interfering."  Yet the only alternative currently being offered to the victims of this assault is to either bleed to death -- or to hop in that car, get patched up with band-aids and continue on the joy ride to run over someone else.  If you can't beat them, join them.  If you can't join them, be left on the side of the highway to die.  The cars will keep whooshing by with or without you.

 

There's got to be a third way?  But for it to have a chance, people would have to start by actually noticing and acknowledging the sheer existence of the other two.  Of the inescapable "you can't beat them so join them" trap the only alternative to which is comprehensive existential misery -- so "joining" in whatever seems to be its opposite, not because it is but because that flip-over mirror world we all believe in (if this is so bad, its opposite must be amazing) is the only solution being proposed by even the best.  And it's not the best who call the shots in an intervention and post-intervention world we all know and love as civilized.   

 

Quite correct especially in that capitalist interests either reached those groups long before development indices and protections were in place or that those indices and protections were and are and continue to be not just ignored but completely disregarded.

 

Much of the development context is arguably seen by many in the small and medium organizations as the foundation for the third way, but the challenge is that it’s the long game towards self-determination for all that is routinely undermined by the global capitalistic structure. As a result, many people either live like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hills and Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders, or grow old and resign themselves to what little progress they have made may end up undone by change in government like Duterte and more contracts with China for biodiesel at the expense of groups like the Badjao or Trump undoing a lot of climate change action.

 

https://www.rappler.com/nation/114975-badjao-nameless-forgotten-faceless

Edited August 25, 2019 by Earl Grey