Plight of older people

[HFWR]

Lazy is a root of evil, just like the love of money. Lazy usually goes hand-in-hand with crime; too lazy to work, just steal it and rationalize the action because life isn't fair and eventually, rich-guy owes it to me, would have been mine if I was given the same unfair advantage... yada, yada, yada. Same old excuses for just poor moral compass. Self discipline is becoming a lost art. Folks here practiced self discipline and make it a life-style. Even in retirement, we still do by following forums like this one to stay informed.

I know lots of folks who could work your lazy ass into the dirt. They maybe aren’t blessed with the intellect or demeanor or whatever to be a CEO, but they sure aren’t lazy...

 

[ls99]

All this beating on the lazy, hmmm, just remember:
If necessity is the mother of invention, then lazyness is the father.

 

[RobbieB]

Yup, I enjoy being lazy. That's why I retired -

 

[candrew]

I'm not lazy. I'm just great at looking busy and making a lot of noise.

 

[ls99]

In my time in the Army, carrying a clipboard with a bunch of papers and occasionally making notes avoided a lot of "detail" work.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Hehe, yeah. I can think of far more serious expressions of evil than lazy. Lazy seems a minor at best.

Ya hey. That's a good post.

In a lot of ways laziness produces progress. Why else would people invent labor-saving devices?

 

[HFWR]

In my time in the Army, carrying a clipboard with a bunch of papers and occasionally making notes avoided a lot of "detail" work.

Worked for some in the corporate world as well, though frankly that’s often the least harmful thing they could be doing...

 

[timo2]

All this beating on the lazy, hmmm, just remember:
If necessity is the mother of invention, then lazyness is the father.

Before I retired, I was a big fan of the guy who wrote the book 'The lazy project manager'. It is a style of management that suited me just fine. https://www.amazon.com/Lazy-Project-Manager-productive-office/dp/1906821674

 

[RobbieB]

When I was young I worked hard. Tried to get ahead. Worked overtime, took classes and got promotions.

Then I gave it all up and did the absolute minimum to get by. That was much better and I made the same amount of dough.

 

[dirtbiker]

Starting my adult life with nothing more then a high school education. I found books at the library to help with my financial education. If one needs information plenty is available. Its much easier to go have a "good time" then to invest in ones self. Today its way more convenient with the internet. To say I had no "roll model" or I didn't know is pretty weak excuse.

There is a big difference between being uneducated and unintelligent. There are many uneducated people who are highly intelligent. These are not the people I'm talking about. I'm talking about those who are unintelligent, regardless of their educational attainment. These are the people who can't attain information from reading a book, and then apply it to their lives. Their only chance is to have a role model, and even then many can't make it work due to their low level of intelligence. This is hardly their fault.

 

[timo2]

There is a big difference between being uneducated and unintelligent. There are many uneducated people who are highly intelligent. These are not the people I'm talking about. I'm talking about those who are unintelligent, regardless of their educational attainment. These are the people who can't attain information from reading a book, and then apply it to their lives. Their only chance is to have a role model, and even then many can't make it work due to their low level of intelligence. This is hardly their fault.

+1

Some of the biggest idiots I've ever known had lots certificates of this or that propping them up. When a former boss of mine ran across one of them he would call them the 'smartest idiot I've ever known'.

The two most intelligent people I have ever known were high school grads who used their brilliance to have a oversized impact on those around them. They were the people who were brilliant in math and technology, but had real world practicality also. One was also a blacksmith. I used them as role models.

 

[ls99]

+1

Some of the biggest idiots I've ever known had lots certificates of this or that propping them up. When a former boss of mine ran across one of them he would call them the 'smartest idiot I've ever known'.

I call them over educated yet underinformed.

 

[dtbach]

There is a big difference between being uneducated and unintelligent. There are many uneducated people who are highly intelligent. These are not the people I'm talking about. I'm talking about those who are unintelligent, regardless of their educational attainment. These are the people who can't attain information from reading a book, and then apply it to their lives. Their only chance is to have a role model, and even then many can't make it work due to their low level of intelligence. This is hardly their fault.

It's not my fault either. So what am I supposed to do? What is society supposed to do?

 

[Amethyst]

Many ideas have been floated. All are likely to draw Porky, I'm afraid.

It's not my fault either. So what am I supposed to do? What is society supposed to do?

 

[travelover]

It's not my fault either. So what am I supposed to do? What is society supposed to do?

You can ignore them and leave them to their own devices. When you turn on the news tonight, you'll see smoke rising over those countries that take this path.

 

[dtbach]

You can ignore them and leave them to their own devices. When you turn on the news tonight, you'll see smoke rising over those countries that take this path.

I tossed a couple of bucks into the Salvation bucket this morning. I pay my taxes, donate to Goodwill and church, volunteer at the local Senior Center. In the end I hope I made some difference but probably not.

 

[mpeirce]

I call them over educated yet underinformed.

Nassim Taleb (Black Swan and other great books) coined the term

Intellectual Yet Idiot (IYI)

for highly credentialed (usually Ph.D.s) yet stupid in some obvious ways people. Fits with my experience.

 

[dirtbiker]

It's not my fault either. So what am I supposed to do? What is society supposed to do?

Do you want to live in a society that leaves the helpless and unfortunate to fend for themselves?

 

[Amethyst]

Until well into the 20th century, we did. People literally starved in the street. A mother with several kids, whose husband died (as happened often, including in my family and husband's family) was in dire case, if her family didn't have enough money to take them in.

I'm glad we, as a society, do as much as we do, even if some people do take advantage by gaming the system. I think we need to do more, especially with regard to malnutrition.

Do you want to live in a society that leaves the helpless and unfortunate to fend for themselves?

 

[Mdlerth]

Society is the sum of all the individuals within in

It's not my fault either. So what am I supposed to do? What is society supposed to do?

You are right. It's not your fault. But perhaps we should distinguish between "fault" and "responsibility". For our purposes, how about we leave dealing with "fault" to the realms of theology and morality, and examine "responsibility" instead.

From one purely practical standpoint, consider that, in the aggregate, accepting mutual responsibility for others benefits a wide slice of humanity, including ourselves. I strongly believe this to be true; one need only drive a car in traffic to understand.

Then consider from another purely practical standpoint what you can do in alignment with the principle of shared responsibility. In this arena, you can only count on what means you possess. You do not have unlimited resources or super powers or God's cell phone number, so you can't save the world.

In a lot of cases - perhaps most cases - you probably can't do anything. In some other cases, anything you do might cause more harm than good. In still other cases, any involvement could put you at risk of being harmed; certainly that would violate the "mutual" part of mutual responsibility. Don't lose any sleep over these situations.

When it is your turn to carry an extra load, you'll know it. And it won't be your turn all the time (even though it may feel like it!) Act responsibly and that will be more than satisfactory.

 

[Silver]

The Hollies had some thoughts about this in 1970. Always a good listen....

 

[Sunset]

There really is a bad side to lazy, my cousin was so lazy he was unemployable as much as he wanted, It's hard to employ someone when they don't want to show up for work, let alone do it.
He had his hand out and considered it smart when he would get gov't benefits for doing nothing, it's free money.
He also mooched off his parents, free cars, house, etc... lucky for him they were rich.

I noticed all this stuff, because my parents were not well off, then got poor. I recall the summer we would get free cow bones and scraps (best was chicken wings) from the local butcher, that is what we ate most suppers. Ironically chicken wings are now a very expensive part of the chicken !!

Certainly only some poor people are lazy, some work incredibly hard and are poor for other reasons.

Sometimes people do get crushed by life. I was homeless, needed to use the food bank for while. I worked my way out of that horrible situation, and made sure I worked long and hard and saved like crazy.

My charities are mostly local as in I give money to a relative who has no savings, has poor health, I know where all her money goes, and otherwise would suffer a lot.
I also help out much older relatives, as they are not internet savvy and even making sure to get reasonable medicare coverage is awkward for them.

 

[armor99]

Do you want to live in a society that leaves the helpless and unfortunate to fend for themselves?

No.... I want to live in a society where people have a sense of shame in allowing themselves to become helpless to the point where they must seek help from others. There are many who gleefully run away from any and all responsibilities whatsoever.

I want to live in a society where it is considered a moral duty to be able to take care of yourself, and your family. Because only once you have done those things, are you strong enough to help others that truly need it.

I do not think you will find anyone that does not want to help people that got a bad roll of the dice. That can, and does happen to many people. But at the same time I am very much against the idea of “we must help everyone no matter how selfish, shortsighted, self indulgent, or idle they were to have gotten there”.

There is a reason for that, and it is not to be mean spirited. When you reward a negative behavior, it will only encourage more of that behavior. In some ways of people really truly knew... like with absolute certainty. That if NO ONE was comming to “save” them... then I doubt so many would blissfully walk to the edge of the cliff. If people own nothing else, their lives are still pretty important to them...

 

[timo2]

No.... I want to live in a society where people have a sense of shame in allowing themselves to become helpless to the point where they must seek help from others. There are many who gleefully run away from any and all responsibilities whatsoever.

I want to live in a society where it is considered a moral duty to be able to take care of yourself, and your family. Because only once you have done those things, are you strong enough to help others that truly need it.

I do not think you will find anyone that does not want to help people that got a bad roll of the dice. That can, and does happen to many people. But at the same time I am very much against the idea of “we must help everyone no matter how selfish, shortsighted, self indulgent, or idle they were to have gotten there”.

There is a reason for that, and it is not to be mean spirited. When you reward a negative behavior, it will only encourage more of that behavior. In some ways of people really truly knew... like with absolute certainty. That if NO ONE was comming to “save” them... then I doubt so many would blissfully walk to the edge of the cliff. If people own nothing else, their lives are still pretty important to them...

When I was a teenager, just before Medicare was implemented, there were all these local news reports about local elderly people starving, eating cat food (although now fast food is cheaper than cat food), living in the seedy downtown tenements that would occasionally catch on fire, etc. All the charitable activity in the country didn't make a dent in the plight of the elderly back then. Medicare was a good addition to the social safety net and has helped elderly people have a humane subsistence. One of the reasons I was able to be retired now is since I witnessed all those pre-medicare goings on, I vowed to never be broke when I was old. Fear is a great motivator.

Also, the social safety nets were put in place to prevent civil unrest, not for morality. And the plan worked. IMO the Dickensian plan you espouse will lead to civil unrest. Because children, the disabled and older people are defenseless. People see that and expect better from their society. A revolt from the masses is already being anticipated by the 1%. Which is totally unnecessary if they just kept the policies the prevented civil unrest since WW2.

For example: " Silicon Valley’s elite are preparing for Armageddon by buying up property in New Zealand. Seven tech billionaires have so far made apocalyptic investments in the commonwealth country in case they need to flee California. Fear of nuclear war, violent revolution and pandemics have seen San Francisco’s finest start commissioning multimillion-dollar underground bunkers in New Zealand."

https://nypost.com/2018/09/06/apocalypse-fearing-billionaires-are-shipping-bunkers-to-new-zealand/

 

[armor99]

When I was a teenager, just before Medicare was implemented, there were all these local news reports about local elderly people starving, eating cat food (although now fast food is cheaper than cat food), living in the seedy downtown tenements that would occasionally catch on fire, etc. All the charitable activity in the country didn't make a dent in the plight of the elderly back then. Medicare was a good addition to the social safety net and has helped elderly people have a humane subsistence. One of the reasons I was able to be retired now is since I witnessed all those pre-medicare goings on, I vowed to never be broke when I was old. Fear is a great motivator.



Also, the social safety nets were put in place to prevent civil unrest, not for morality. And the plan worked. IMO the Dickensian plan you espouse will lead to civil unrest. Because children, the disabled and older people are defenseless. People see that and expect better from their society. A revolt from the masses is already being anticipated by the 1%. Which is totally unnecessary if they just kept the policies the prevented civil unrest since WW2.



For example: " Silicon Valley’s elite are preparing for Armageddon by buying up property in New Zealand. Seven tech billionaires have so far made apocalyptic investments in the commonwealth country in case they need to flee California. Fear of nuclear war, violent revolution and pandemics have seen San Francisco’s finest start commissioning multimillion-dollar underground bunkers in New Zealand."



https://nypost.com/2018/09/06/apocalypse-fearing-billionaires-are-shipping-bunkers-to-new-zealand/

You make some really good points. I think I am completely on board to help all of the “children, disabled, and the elderly who have problems”, if you can help me do something about all of the others that will come for that gravy train. And they will come... in ever greater numbers.