minimum wage

[tattuchu]

What's the cost of living in Australia? Fuck, minimum wage there is more than I was making at my shitty job of twenty-five years

[JimC]

What's the cost of living in Australia? Fuck, minimum wage there is more than I was making at my shitty job of twenty-five years

As Hermit indicated earlier, somewhat higher than the US, on average, but not by the same amount as the difference in minimum wage. Our minimum wage recipients would have a higher standard of living than yours.

[pErvinalia]

Sooo basically I think we're all in agreement here. Kill rich people and buy boats.

Works for me!

[Drewish]

Why, what standard of living do you have? And how are you defining standard of living anyway? As I mentioned before, by any sensible measure, high levels of consumption do not equal a high standard of living.

And even if it is true, why do you think it's acceptable to make other people suffer more just so you can be better off? In a more equal world, where we were able to cooperate rather than compete, we would all be better off in the long run.

I don't make them suffer. Suffering in poverty is the standard (hunter gatherer societies where people rarely lived past 40). Through technology and progress we've enabled ourselves to live more comfortably. To benefit from this one needs to give society back something through productive labor. If you're unwilling or unable to do so, then go die already. If you see those who suffer because they're worthless to society as being victims of those who are capable of meaningful labor, then you're a dipshit communist who lifts up the leaches as if their pathetic needs and lack of value were a virtue. The world really is that simple. Work for your living or die.

[pErvinalia]

Society also should engender a sense of compassion and community spirit. You seemed to miss out on that part.

[Hermit]

The world really is that simple.

If Rationalia's resident libertarians are representative of libertarians generally, this is quite revealing. They seem to have an extremely simplistic view of the world.

[pErvinalia]

It's social darwinism. Just like Seth espouses. "Adapt or Die". It belongs in medieval times.

[Drewish]

It's the truth of all times. Evolution is true and still shaping the world. Deny its application to humanity because it offends your political beliefs, but that will not change reality.

[pErvinalia]

We are able to consciously alter our evolutionary development, and that's what we do by adopting various social theories/practices. And that's a good thing. A raw tooth and claw world is not what most people want, and for good reason. Why is caring about others so anathema to some of you libbos?

[FBM]

It's easy even for non-Victorian age people to fall into the string of fallacies of social darwinism. It's practically impossible to convince someone that natural selection has nothing to do with the vast majority of human behavior. Nor is "survival of the fittest" equivalent to natural selection.

The Origins Of Morality

Problems With Social Darwinism.

The problems with Social Darwinism, especially in the form that Spencer proposed, were numerous. Darwinism, characterized by the theory of evolution, is an almost irrefutable scientific treatise. Social Darwinism, however, is an entirely different matter. Darwinian ideas are distinctly different from the pseudo-philosophical, pseudo-scientific ideology of Social Darwinism.

The basic idea behind Social Darwinism is that the “advancement” of the human species is a moral imperative, and as such, things that aid in this “advancement” are by nature, good. Thusly, eugenics, capital punishment, enslavement, etc are all not only acceptable, but desirable as they “promote the strong” and “weed out the weak.”

The first key fallacy at hand is the basic terminology and pretenses. Advancement of the human species may be *a* moral imperative, but many would argue that it most certainly not *the* moral imperative. And even if it were, what, exactly, is the “advancement” of the human species? Greater population? Greater overall happiness? Greater power over nature? Defining these terms is absolutely necessary, as if the basis of a philosophy is that it would aid in “advancing” something, the desired direction of advancement must be known.

Even if a relatively ethical overall goal was considered- “Greater overall happiness,” or “The common good,” the implications are still suspect. Firstly, the advancement of the currently “strong” does not lead necessarily to a decrease in the number of “weak.” Strong is a relative term. Not only that, but even if a philosophy of Social Darwinism could be shown definitely to be beneficial for future society, is the happiness of the present population less important than the happiness of the future’s population? Should the personal rights and freedoms, not to mention livelihoods or even lives be forfeit for the sake of future people? Happiness is happiness, and sacrificing the happiness of some for the happiness of others is not solid moral ground.

Social Darwinism claims to employ the force of natural selection to propel society forward. By promoting the “fit” and demoting the “unfit,” Social Darwinism proposes that culture as a whole will tend to become more “fit.” The fallacy here lies within a misconception regarding natural selection. Natural selection cannot be forced. For that matter, it cannot be impeded, either. Insofar as the earth is the realm of nature, human beings are also a natural force. The basic trend of natural selection is not some semi-sentient force of nature that consciously “chooses” the “best” organism. Natural selection is a short term for a rather self-evident phenomenon. Organisms that perpetuate their genes successfully displace those that are less successful reproductively. If a species is “fit,” it means that that species is reproductively successful. Natural selection is simply a term for that basic concept. Attempting to induce “natural selection” in a non-reproductive system (i.e., society) is misguided at best.

The lure is there, though, because culture does behave somewhat evolutionarily. However, the propagation of cultural phenomena is based on much more subtle ground, as the adoption of societal norms is not something as simple as survival and reproduction. Cultural artifacts get passed on for a variety of interconnecting reasons, much more complex than biological reproduction. While indeed, social traits have a self-promoting aspect, those aspects are by nature much harder to understand.

http://hs.riverdale.k12.or.us/~dthompso ... hw/Pro.htm

[Drewish]

You want to help the poor? Go for it. I've done more to actually help people in my own personal life than the vast majority of you pretentious dipshits. But you want to use some bullshit guilt to justify dumb fucks getting a free ride managed by corrupt bureaucracies. Then you want to force other's, who work harder than you do, to pay for it all. Then you tell yourselves that you're oh so smart and that anyone who doesn't buy into this blatant bullshit is a heartless monster. I'm a better person than you are by your own asinine moral codes, with all the community service I've done and people I've helped. But there is no advantage to sacrificing for people I'll never meet. And I'll kill before I let the likes of you turn me into your slave, and in the end, since threat of force is the only thing communist thugs understand, I imagine that's the only part of this that will stick.

[Hermit]

I've done more to actually help people in my own personal life than the vast majority of you pretentious dipshits. ... I'm a better person than you are...

Your modesty, your civility and your omniscience know no bounds.

[FBM]

Powerful rhetoric, Drew. Got any logic to go with it?

[FBM]

Biological Altruism
First published Tue Jun 3, 2003; substantive revision Sun Jul 21, 2013

In evolutionary biology, an organism is said to behave altruistically when its behaviour benefits other organisms, at a cost to itself. The costs and benefits are measured in terms of reproductive fitness, or expected number of offspring. So by behaving altruistically, an organism reduces the number of offspring it is likely to produce itself, but boosts the number that other organisms are likely to produce. This biological notion of altruism is not identical to the everyday concept. In everyday parlance, an action would only be called ‘altruistic’ if it was done with the conscious intention of helping another. But in the biological sense there is no such requirement. Indeed, some of the most interesting examples of biological altruism are found among creatures that are (presumably) not capable of conscious thought at all, e.g. insects. For the biologist, it is the consequences of an action for reproductive fitness that determine whether the action counts as altruistic, not the intentions, if any, with which the action is performed.

Altruistic behaviour is common throughout the animal kingdom, particularly in species with complex social structures. For example, vampire bats regularly regurgitate blood and donate it to other members of their group who have failed to feed that night, ensuring they do not starve. In numerous bird species, a breeding pair receives help in raising its young from other ‘helper’ birds, who protect the nest from predators and help to feed the fledglings. Vervet monkeys give alarm calls to warn fellow monkeys of the presence of predators, even though in doing so they attract attention to themselves, increasing their personal chance of being attacked. In social insect colonies (ants, wasps, bees and termites), sterile workers devote their whole lives to caring for the queen, constructing and protecting the nest, foraging for food, and tending the larvae. Such behaviour is maximally altruistic: sterile workers obviously do not leave any offspring of their own—so have personal fitness of zero—but their actions greatly assist the reproductive efforts of the queen.

From a Darwinian viewpoint, the existence of altruism in nature is at first sight puzzling, as Darwin himself realized. Natural selection leads us to expect animals to behave in ways that increase their own chances of survival and reproduction, not those of others. But by behaving altruistically an animal reduces its own fitness, so should be at a selective disadvantage vis-à-vis one which behaves selfishly. To see this, imagine that some members of a group of Vervet monkeys give alarm calls when they see predators, but others do not. Other things being equal, the latter will have an advantage. By selfishly refusing to give an alarm call, a monkey can reduce the chance that it will itself be attacked, while at the same time benefiting from the alarm calls of others. So we should expect natural selection to favour those monkeys that do not give alarm calls over those that do. But this raises an immediate puzzle. How did the alarm-calling behaviour evolve in the first place, and why has it not been eliminated by natural selection? How can the existence of altruism be reconciled with basic Darwinian principles?

...

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/

[pErvinalia]

You want to help the poor? Go for it. I've done more to actually help people in my own personal life than the vast majority of you pretentious dipshits. But you want to use some bullshit guilt to justify dumb fucks getting a free ride managed by corrupt bureaucracies. Then you want to force other's, who work harder than you do, to pay for it all. Then you tell yourselves that you're oh so smart and that anyone who doesn't buy into this blatant bullshit is a heartless monster. I'm a better person than you are by your own asinine moral codes, with all the community service I've done and people I've helped. But there is no advantage to sacrificing for people I'll never meet. And I'll kill before I let the likes of you turn me into your slave, and in the end, since threat of force is the only thing communist thugs understand, I imagine that's the only part of this that will stick.

Nice rhetoric. You're entitled to your own beliefs and opinions. Thankfully, the wit with which you give them is pretty unlikely to sway anyone other than the usual 16 yr old angry teenagers. And most of them grow out of it, in time.